Dear Diary . . . day by day

Saturday December 30th - Journey to a White Xmas
My new PO Box is:
Heather Shaw
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222
Ah, well, I suppose you're well aware by now that I didn't get around to updating while I was gone. Hopefully you were all busy with your own holiday festivities and did not resent my silence.
I went to Indiana during one of the coldest winters in recent memory. As I shivered in my sister's heated bedroom (she's taken up residence in my room, which is probably for the best, as it brings back fewer childhood fears this way), dreading the dash down the unheated hall to the unheated bathroom, I vowed never to call 40 degrees "cold" again.
I got used to it though. When the temperature rose from the single (or negative) digits up to the low 20's, I stood legs (in tights, long underwear and jeans) apart, arms (three shirts, a sweater and a heavy winter coat) akimbo and delcared, "We're having a heat wave!" I'd even ventured out before this, while it was still very cold, to visit some friends. I have discovered that gin and tonics are a very satisfactory way to make one's body tolerant of the cold.
The midwest is such a funny place after you've been living in the "love bubble" of the San Francisco Bay Area. I am not a Christian, but I have developed the following thinking on the Christmas phenomenon in the midwest: I pretend I am travelling, and I am going to this place where they really know how to do up this ancient religious holiday called Christmas. The snow on the ground is a lucky chance, but I don't correct the locals when they thank baby Jesus for our White Christmas (a more apropos name for Xmas in the Midwest, with or without snow, I can't think of). The religious/holiday songs and chants make copious use of this ancient Messiah's name and alleged miraculous birth (which I suspect was made so glorious well after the fact - I'd hate to give birth in December in a stable, and I have my suspicions about where those three "wise" men came from) but when I sing (and I love to sing) those carols, I don't edit out the religious bits, but sing them with a pure and false piety, letting the love seep into my eyes. I can make the locals smile with a song! (It doesn't hurt that Holly and I both have nice voices that blend together well, that we know harmony on almost every Xmas tune and madrigal because we had the same choir teacher in highschool, and that we have an unstoppable stage presence when together.) I enjoy giving gifts in any circumstance, so the mandatory gift-giving is simply my excuse instead of a burden. It's all a beautiful, quaint and outdated ritual that I travel back for every December, and with this firmly in mind, I can enjoy the holiday to its fullest.
Hopefully I will be able to update again soon and give you particulars of what I did/gave/got over this Xmas, but just in case I don't: have a safe, happy and Pagan new year, ok?
Exercise log:
Worked out once at the Greenwood YMCA with Holly over Xmas break: shoulders, sides and calves, plus 30 minutes on the precor machine and about 100 various situps.
Writing log:
An article on Octavia Butler over at Strange Horizons
I'm currently reading:
Reading now:
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher's Guide by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
The Writer - Janurary 2001 (magazine)
Read over Xmas break:
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Still reading, off and on:
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier

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