| We are on an island. We are trapped inside a warm vacancy. We have been this way for days. We have been talking about Ken coming back as though adding one more person will help. And I'm sure it would. We are waiting for the New Year. You may get that job, and of course Ted will be here soon. It seems we are both waiting for the arrival of new faces. There's just all this time in between.
They sent me home early today from work. We've watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch already and now it's Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street, just to finish Phyllis_Stein's tape off. I remember the day when I met him at Caravan of Dreams in New York more than a year ago, which was the first gathering and would begin the evolution that complements my placement here, virtually alone for Christmas.
I had been invited to share Christmas with the gang from my church, but I see it best fit to hang with Bryan, since we are both somewhat displaced and disenchanted for the holiday, it being wedged in as simply one day off this year. I think we're both wanting the season to mean more, but this year it's a matter of emotional clean up, tidying away. Yesterday, Bryan tidied up the dormer where he keeps his things, did laundry, and that's been about it.
I have talked to some noders, and listened to tales of bringing together the loose ends of their lives, the people we are linked to, if not by genetics alone, than by love and mutual needfulness. This is a time of year to hate the holidays, love them, or be tied to them simply by time. So many changes, and change being on the tips of everyone's tongues. The year at its close, and all these changes. Yet we are still the same people.
Christmas means different things to different people. But when you are, and feel, genuinely indifferent, it means something else. It's not a time of dark or light contemplation.
It is simply a time of waiting. Time you are not normally given, and perhaps on no budget, in a city that isn't quite so festive, as we are.
I am with the wine. Forgive. There is no petition for pity here. I am just saying that we are all on different islands tonight. Some of us are waiting for the mystic creature bearing gifts, or celebrating the emergence of a miraculous birth (which those who care can note did not likely occur in December but was placed here in time to combat other {pagan, perhaps} celebrations). Some of us are simply hanging in there for when our lives regain their purpose, the work to which fills our time until better purposes provide themselves a place.
Merry Christmas, nonetheless. Happy Holidays. Seasons Greetings, and all the things the greeting cards have taught us to say. We have multiple reasons to possess joy, and hope, for tomorrow. | 
