October 4: "Tension," Saint Marty's Day Eve, Suddenly

I'm not a big fan of things happening suddenly.  I prefer a more gradual pace, giving me plenty of time to adjust to any changes or revisions in my universe.  As I've said in many prior posts, I don't like anything that even smacks of the unexpected.

Billy Collins, on the other hand, is often taken by surprise . . . 

Tension

by: Billy Collins

Never use the word suddenly just to 

create tension.

— Writing Fiction

Suddenly, you were planting some yellow petunias
outside in the garden,
and suddenly I was in the study
looking up the word oligarchy for the thirty-seventh time.

When suddenly, without warning,
you planted the last petunia in the flat,
and I suddenly closed the dictionary
now that I was reminded of that vile form of governance.

A moment later, we found ourselves
standing suddenly in the kitchen
where you suddenly opened a can of cat food
and I just as suddenly watched you doing that.

I observed a window of leafy activity
and beyond that, a bird perched on the edge
of the stone birdbath
when suddenly you announced you were leaving

to pick up a few things at the market
and I stunned you by impulsively
pointing out that we were getting low on butter
and another case of wine would not be a bad idea.

Who could tell what the next moment would hold?
another drip from the faucet?
another little spasm of the second hand?
Would the painting of a bowl of pears continue

to hang on the wall from that nail?
Would the heavy anthologies remain on the shelves?
Would the stove hold its position?
Suddenly, it was anyone's guess.

The sun rose ever higher in the sky.
The state capitals remained motionless on the wall map
when suddenly I found myself lying on a couch
where I closed my eyes and without any warning

began to picture the Andes, of all places,
and a path that led over the mountains to another country
with strange customs and eye-catching hats,
each one suddenly fringed with colorful little tassels.

I took today off from my job at the library.  That doesn't mean I sat around contemplating the hairs on my toes.  I kept myself insanely busy, working on a book tour for November, shopping for ice cream cake, practicing music for church services, taking my puppy for a long walk.  None of those things, by the way, were surprises, in case you were wondering.

It is Saint Marty's Day Eve.  I hope you've all bought your Saint Marty's day presents, baked your Saint Marty's Day cookies, trimmed your Saint Marty's Day trees, and watched How the Grinch Stole Saint Marty's Day.  Maybe you even pulled up an album on iTunes of Bing Crosby singing some Saint Marty's Day carols like "White Saint Marty's Day" and "I Heard the Bells on Saint Marty's Day."  And don't forget to make a pot of the traditional Saint Marty's Day treat--tapioca pudding--for tomorrow's celebrations.

The sky blazed orange at dusk tonight.  No surprise there, though.  For the last week or so, the sunrises and sunsets have been stunning.  I've finished all my work for the day.  Now, mamma in her kerchief and I in my cap are just settling our brains for a long autumn nap.  Barring anything unforeseen, I will soon brush my teeth and get ready for bed, where visions of tapioca will dance in my head.

No suddenly this Saint Marty's Day, which exactly the way that Saint Marty likes it.

December 27: "Lead," Heartbroken, "Going My Way"

Mary Oliver lets the world break her heart . . . 

Lead

by:  Mary Oliver

Here is a story

to break your heart.

Are you willing?

This winter

the loons came to our harbor

and died, one by one,

of nothing we could see.

A friend told me

of one on the shore

that lifted its head and opened

the elegant beak and cried out

in the long, sweet savoring of its life

which, if you have heard it,

you know is a sacred thing,

and for which, if you have not heard it,

you had better hurry to where

they still sing.

And, believe me, tell no one

just where that is.

The next morning

this loon, speckled

and iridescent and with a plan

to fly home

to some hidden lake,

was dead on the shore.

I tell you this

to break your heart,

by which I mean only

that it break open and never close again

to the rest of the world.

For Oliver, having your heart broken is not necessarily a terrible thing.  It means that you have experienced love--for a person or place or animal or bird or tree or lake or comet or book or poem.  To be in a constant state of heartbreak, then, allows light to touch the dark corners of the soul, those places that every person keeps locked up and hidden from the rest of the universe.

I spent my day at the library mapping out February programs and events.  That's my job--always thinking about and planning for the future.  The one bad thing about doing this is that I often don't enjoy a lot of what is happening in the present.  Thus, by the time the holidays roll around in December, I'm already at Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day or, sometimes, summer.

I have to make a conscious decision simply to focus on what is right in front of my face.  I got home this afternoon around 4 p.m. and took a walk because it was sunny and warm.  I wanted to enjoy the greenness of this December.  The sun was quickly descending, and, at one point, I stopped and watched it touch the trees and houses with gold.  And I felt my heart breaking open for all the people and things I hold dear.

When I got home, I decided to watch a movie, and I streamed Going My Way with Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald.  It was one of my parents' favorite movies.  Whenever it aired on TV, we watched it together.  It's a very Catholic film, with its two stars playing priests.  (SPOILER ALERT:  I'm going to talk about the ending of the film.)  At the conclusion, Barry Fitzgerald's character--an old man in the golden years of his vocation--is reunited for this first time in 46 years with his mother from Ireland.

I remember always crying a lot as a kid when I watched that scene.  This evening, I found myself again crying so hard that I couldn't even see the screen.  Time seemed to collapse around me.  I was a seven-year-old watching the movie with my parents.  I was a teenager watching the movie by myself after being dumped by a girlfriend.  I was an adult watching my father breathe his last breaths in the hospital.  I was an adult holding my mother's hand for the last time before she died.  I was so many heartbroken versions of myself.

And, for those two Going My Way hours today, I was reminded how important it is to love the here-and-now world.  To hold everything close.  To cherish this fragile life.

Saint Marty hopes that everyone reading these words have hearts that are broken open, that never close again to this beautiful, beautiful world.

November 15: "Mussels," Traditions, My Family Circle

Mary Oliver gathers some . . . 

Mussels

by:  Mary Oliver

In the riprap,

     in the cool caves,

          in the dim and salt-refreshed

               recesses, they cling

in dark clusters,

     in barnacled fistfuls,

          in the dampness that never 

               leaves, in the deeps

of high tide, in the slow

     washing away of the water

          in which they feed,

               in which the blue shells

open a little, and the orange bodies

     make a sound,

          not loud,

               not unmusical, as they take

nourishment, as the ocean

     enters their bodies.  At low tide

          I am on the riprap, clattering

               with boots and a pail,

rock over rock; I choose

     the crevice, I reach

          forward into the dampness,

               my hands feeling everywhere

for the best, the biggest.  Even before

     I decide which to take,

          which to twist from the wet rocks,

               which to devour,

they, who have no eyes to see with,

     see me, like a shadow,

          bending forward.  Together

               they make a sound,

not loud,

     not unmusical, as they lean

          into the rocks, away

               from my grasping fingers.

There's a certain part of this poem that rails against human intrusion.  The mussels exist in the cool caves of the riprap, clinging together in fistfuls as the tides roll in and out, their shelled bodies opening just enough to make a not unmusical sound.  Oliver, with her boots and pail, wades in, reaches down, and tears the mussels away from their salty beds.

Human beings excel at being human.  We have an uncanny knack of messing the universe up--oil spills, strip mining, droughts, dustbowls, and climate change.  We are gifted fuckups.  We are unkind to the world and each other.  It is who we are--fallible and clumsy and cruel at times.

I grew up in a tight-knit family.  We did everything together.  Vacations,  Holidays.  Birthdays.  Every Independence Day, we had barbecues.  Every Thanksgiving, while the turkey was filling the house with hunger, we put up the Christmas tree and decorations, including my mother's manger scene which was elaborate and beautiful.  New Year's Eve, we decorated with streamers and balloons, played board games, and ate and ate and ate.  These are the celebrations and traditions that defined our lives.

Now, my family is much diminished and scattered.  My sister, Sally, who was the true guardian of our traditions, has been gone for eight years.  My sister, Rose, who believed in Santa Claus until her last breath, walked into eternity almost two years ago.  Between the deaths of Sally and Rose, both of my parents passed on, as well.  

Believe it or not, I'm a pretty sentimental person.  When I hear Bing Crosby singing, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know," I think of my mom playing that on her record player, one of those huge, wooden monstrosities that could double as a casket if you emptied out its guts.  As the holidays approach this year, I do find myself dreaming of the ones I used to know, and I'm grieving.

The world changes all the time.  I know this.  Human beings discover new and improved methods of intruding. messing things up.  Families change all the time, too.  People enter, people exit.  Decades-old practices are forgotten. or they're swept up and thrown away.

In the past, I've fought like a cornered wolverine to continue my family traditions.  However, I'm tired of being a one-person army.  I won't be pulling on my boots, grabbing a pail, and heading out into the riprap to pry those mussels out of the dim, salty caves of people's hearts this year.  

Last night, I hosted a concert by a Native American band called Waawiyeyaa.  The name is an Anishinaabe term meaning "it is a circle."  The leader of the band, a friend of mine named Marty, talked about the importance of community and family and traditions.  Belonging, honoring, and continuing that circle.  The Indigenous community gets it.

This holiday season, it seems, my circle will be much smaller.  Traditions, at one point or another, weren't traditions.  They were simply events that were repeated over and over until they became traditions.  I intend to keep my family traditions burning bright.  Next Thursday, I will sit down with my wife and son for a dinner with all the traditional foods--turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, rolls, and pie.  I will invite the spirits of all my absent family members who were a part of and loved those traditions:  my mother and father, my sisters Sally and Rose.  I will keep them alive.

Saint Marty isn't going to be the one who breaks the circle.

December 26, 27, 28: Rationalize Their Thoughts, Emergen-C, I Did It

As the ship's [Heart of Gold's] artificial night closed in they were each grateful to retire to separate cabins and try to rationalize their thoughts.

Another description of life on the Heart of Gold that could describe a science fiction Dickens scene.  Everyone lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, while visions of the relationships between atoms and molecules dance in their heads.

Yes, I have been absent from posting for a while.  It seems that all of my late-night/all-night grading and Christmas writing and Christmas present wrapping has finally caught up with me.  The day after Christmas, as I was walking into work at 5:45 a.m., I began to sneeze and wheeze.  By about mid-morning, I was in full-blown post-Christmas sickness mode.  For two days now, I've been battling a monster cold.  At night, I've been walking through the door at around 7:30, changing into my pajamas, and collapsing into bed.  In the past two days, I've slept more than I've slept in the past month.  Nine hours one night.  About nine-and-a-half hours the next night.  I've also been dosing myself with DayQuil and Emergen-C.  Finally, this morning, I'm feeling almost human again.  Ready to rejoin the living.

Now, in order to make up for my prolonged hiatuses this month from blogging, I'm going to do something a little different for these last few days of 2019 (a year which has not been one of my favorites), I am going to be doing an extra post each day, containing past Christmas essays and poems that I've written.  Think of it as my version of the twelve days of Christmas, except I don't think I have twelve essays, so it might end up being the ten or eleven days of Saint Marty-mas.

I had a really wonderful Christmas day.  Relaxing.  The highlight of the morning was my son finding out that he and my daughter are getting a puppy for Christmas.  A miniature Australian shepherd.  His face, when he realized a puppy was in his future, will be something that I'll never forget.  Pure surprise and joy.  In the days since Christmas, he will stop what he's doing every once in a while, look up, and say, "I'm getting a flippin' puppy!"

After playing the pipe organ for Mass Christmas morning, I spent the rest of the day opening up presents and eating.  Literally.  That's all I did.  Ham and eggs and toast and cookies and cookies and cookies.  Did I mention cookies?  Of course, there was the normal kind of family dysfunction that goes along with the holiday.  That cannot be avoided.  However, it was a really good day.

When I got home at night, I sort of felt like Clark Griswold at the end of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  He looks up at the sky, smiles and says, "I did it."

Saint Marty did it.  He gave his kids the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye.

November 17: Where Phases, Born in the Wrong Time, Jack Benny

. . . "The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases . . ."

I am in the Where phase for the moment, as in "Where did this weekend go?"  I haven't accomplished half the things on my to-do lists for the last two days.  I didn't get a chance to . . .

1. Clean my house.
2. Work on my Christmas essay.
3. Work on my Christmas poem.
4. Grade student work.
5. Lesson plan.  

Per usual, I feel like a complete failure.

Here is what I did accomplish this weekend:

1. I put up my Christmas tree and decorations.
2. I played the pipe organ for Saturday evening Mass.
3. I sang in the choir this morning.
4. I went grocery shopping.
5. I spent three hours on my It's a Wonderful Life lecture notes for my film classes.
6. I posted my weekly announcements online for my film classes.
7. I uploaded my It's a Wonderful Life lecture notes.
8. I packed my lunch for work tomorrow.
9. I picked out my outfit for work tomorrow.

And now, I'm typing my daily blog post, which I was supposed to do this afternoon.

Seeing those lopsided lists in black-and-white on my laptop screen, I guess I did accomplish quite a bit these last 48 hours.  I don't understand why I always feel as though I am never ahead of the game.  I am starting a new work week, and, in my mind, I'm already behind.

We live in a very goal-oriented world.  The more accomplishments you can notch on your belt, the better of a person you are.  At least, that's the prevailing attitude in most work environments.  Having spent a good portion of my day studying It's a Wonderful Life and its historical contexts, I've come to realize that I may have been born in the wrong time.

I love the music of the 1940s--Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin.  I love the simplicity of the time--no cell phones or computers, no cable TV or Netflix, no Facebook.  Now, I know that there were a lot of things wrong with this time period for a lot of people.  It wasn't all sitting on the living room sofa, listening to Jack Benny on the radio.  Some groups of people didn't have it all that good.  Women.  African Americans.  Members of the LGBTQIA+ community.  Basically, anyone with a skin pigment other than white.  That's not what I'm being nostalgic for.  

I'm nostalgic for the days when people who wanted to stay in touch with one another sent handwritten letters.  For Christmas trees that were fire hazards.  For when "being social" meant going out for a burger with friends instead of scrolling through Tinder.  For when love wasn't disposable, when saying "I love you" was a promise and pledge, something that lasted longer than a Snapchat.

Maybe I'm being naive.  Every era has its issues.  I know that.  However, I wouldn't mind going back to 1946 for a little while.  Not forever.  Just long enough to calm my unquiet life down a little bit.  To soak in the unbridled hope for a future without world wars and stock market crashes.  To dance to Doris Day with my gal, because that's what girlfriends were back then.  Gals.

Does anyone have a time machine they're willing to loan Saint Marty?

November 27: Billy Collins, "Winter," Irving Berlin

Winter

by:  Billy Collins

A little heat in the iron radiator,
the dog breathing at the foot of the bed,

and the windows shut tight,
encrusted with hexagons of frost.

I can barely hear the geese
complaining in the vast sky,

flying over the living and the dead,
schools and prisons, and the whitened fields.

_________________________

A cold winter night.

After I'm done typing this post, I'm going to make myself something warm.  Hot chocolate.  Bailey's Irish Cream.  White Christmas on the TV.  Bing Crosby.  Danny Kaye.  Irving Berlin.

Saint Marty is dreaming of . . . alcohol.

November 25: Hard Work, Miller Williams, "If Ever There Was One"

The holidays are hard work, starting with the cooking of Thanksgiving dinner.  I am not complaining.  I'm always the first person in my neighborhood to have my Christmas tree up (the day after Halloween, usually).  I listen to Christmas music all year long.  It calms me down, makes me happy.

But the holidays require a lot of energy and effort.  Sort of like a marriage.  There's good days and bad days.  There's happiness and sadness.  Tonight, after two days of cooking and family, I am beat.  I have a feeling that I will be in bed pretty early, right after I watch the fiftieth anniversary broadcast of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Miller Williams talks about the great effort of happiness and love in tonight's poem.  It's a depressing little narrative, but it makes sense.  No matter how hard you try, you can't be a perfect husband or wife.  And no matter what present you buy, what cookie you bake, what carol you sing, you can't have a perfect holiday season.  There will be disappointment, no matter how much effort you've expended.

The trick is not to expect an Irving Berlin kind of Christmas.  It doesn't exist.  Never existed.  However, happiness is attainable.  It's just a matter of letting go.  Don't expect gingerbread and Bing Crosby all the time.  Find small moments to celebrate.  Take time to read the Christmas cards that come in the mail.  Treat yourself to a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows.  Watch A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Drop a few coins in the Salvation Army bucket.  Like I said, small moments of Christmas joy.

Saint Marty recommends adding some Bailey's Irish Cream to your hot chocolate.  It warms his chestnuts every time.

If Ever There Was One

by:  Miller Williams

She could tell he loved her. He wanted her there   

sitting in the front pew when he preached.   

He liked to watch her putting up her hair

and ate whatever she cooked and never broached

the subject of the years before they met.   

He was thoughtful always. He let her say   

whether or not they did anything in bed

and tried to learn the games she tried to play.

She could tell how deep his feeling ran.

He liked to say her name and bought her stuff   

for no good reason. He was a gentle man.   

How few there are she knew well enough.

He sometimes reached to flick away a speck   

of something on her clothes and didn’t drum   

his fingers on the table when she spoke.

What would he do if he knew she had a dream

sometimes, slipping out of her nightgown—

if ever God forbid he really knew her—

to slip once out of the house and across town   

and find someone to talk dirty to her.

May 28: Gene Autry, Claudia Emerson, "Animal Funerals, 1964"

As I sit here, typing this second post, I am listening to Christmas music,  Gene Autry singing "Up on the Housetop."  I am still at McDonald's, so I tend to get looks from people walking by, as if listening to Christmas music on Memorial Day weekend somehow makes me suspect.  I want to tell an old gentleman who just shuffled by, pushing a walker and staring at me, that I do not suffer from any form of serious mental illness.  That the music just helps me concentrate, makes me feel happy.  Of course, if I try to explain, I might seem even more unstable. 

I also just discovered, while looking for a Claudia Emerson poem to post, that Ms. Emerson passed away in 2014.  She was only 57.  As I read her New York Times obituary, it made me incredibly sad.  So young and talented. 

Now Bing Crosby is singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas."  It's such a melancholy little tune.  Wistful.  Nostalgic.  It sort of increases the feeling of loss over Claudia Emerson.  No, I didn't know her personally, but there's something incredibly intimate about reading a person's poems.  Like you're reading letters from a really close friend.  And now that close friend is gone.

This Memorial Day weekend, where the dead are honored, I am thinking about loss a little bit.  (Don't worry, I'm also thinking about barbecue and bratwurst.)  And now, I'm adding Claudia Emerson to the list of people I've lost this year.  Loss is a big part of living.  I know this.  I'm just not happy about it.

Maybe Saint Marty should do something to brighten his mood, like watch Terms of Endearment while thinking about the music he wants played at his funeral.  Planning ahead is always uplifting.

Animal Funerals, 1964

by:  Claudia Emerson

That summer, we did not simply walk through
the valley of the shadow of death; we set up camp there,

orchestrating funerals for the anonymous,
found dead: a drowned mole—its small, naked palms

still pink—a crushed box turtle, green snake, even
a lowly toad. The last and most elaborate

of the burials was for a common jay,
identifiable but light and dry,

its eyes vacant orbits. We built a delicate
lichgate of willow fronds, supple, green—laced

through with chains of clover. Straggling congregation,
we recited what we could of the psalm

about green pastures as we lowered the shoebox
and its wilted pall of dandelions into the shallow

grave one of us had dug with a serving spoon.
That afternoon, just before September and school,

when we would again become children, and blind
to all but the blackboard's chalky lessons, the back

of someone's head, and what was, for a while longer,
the rarer, human death—there, in the heat-shimmered

trees, in the matted grasses where we stood,
even in the slant of humid shade—

we heard wingbeat, slither, buzz, and birdsong—
a green racket rising to fall as though

in a joyous dirge that was real,
and not part of our many, necessary rehearsals

Couldn't find Emerson's gravestone, but this one makes me sad, too

February 19: A Little Outrageous, Classes Canceled, God's Love Number Two

"The thing about [The Man Who Died], which always amazes me," [Paul] went on, "is that Lawrence wrote about Christ as if he somehow knew him.  I mean it's a believable book, in that sense.  I figure that the only way he could do that, and pull it off, was by having some sense of God.  I mean Lawrence was no atheist, even if he was a little outrageous."

Paul is the son of Ives' best friend.  Eventually, by the end of the book, Paul marries Ives' daughter, Caroline.  Ives is still struggling with the loss of his son.  Everything reminds him of Robert.  Ives goes to see a James Bond movie with his wife, and he remembers a Halloween Robert dressed up as Agent 007.  He watches Bing Crosby in Going My Way and imagines his son as a priest.  Paul can't replace Robert in Ives' heart.  But, like a son, Paul listens to Ives, shares his passions and dreams with Ives.

Usually, I'm teaching my poetry class at the university right now, but evening classes were canceled due to dangerously low temperatures.  Thirty below zero with the winds.  So, I got to come home early tonight.  I was able to read Harry Potter to my son before he went to sleep.  Kiss him goodnight.  Now, I get to sit and relax.  Maybe read a book or work on a new poem.

I rarely get a chance to have a normal evening like this one.  Most of the time, I'm working or teaching or sitting in my university office.   By Thursday night, I'm usually so tired I can barely keep my eyes open for the ten o'clock news.  I love what I do.  Love teaching film and poetry.  However, it drains my energy by the end of the week.

I needed this break.  Needed a normal, quiet night.  So, even though this polar express is wreaking havoc across the United States, I'm going to count it as a sign of God's love.  Even though penguins could mate comfortably in my front yard this evening, I'm home, enjoying the company of my wife and kids.  Relaxing.

That's God's Love Number Two for Saint Marty.

Thank God for the Polar Express tonight

October 10: Christmas Music, Madeleine L'Engle, "Bearer of Love"

I have been listening to Christmas music a lot in the last few weeks, especially on my computer at work.  It's been quite stressful in the medical office, and Christmas music calms me down.  Of course, my coworkers are not in the holiday spirit, so I'm annoying the crap out of them.  I don't care, though.  I love Christmas music.  It makes me happy.

I also have to work on a revision of a Christmas essay this weekend.  An editor has asked for a few revisions, and, when I get those revisions done, he'll publish it.  So, while I'm at my daughter's dance classes tomorrow and Sunday, I'll be rewriting like crazy.

Tomorrow, I will be spending most of the day in dance classes with my daughter.  We're at the Wisconsin Dells for a dance convention.  Hundreds of teenage girls and boys taking classes in ballet, tap, modern, jazz, and hip hop.  It's one of my favorite weekends of the year.  I love watching my daughter dance, even if she gets a little cranky after eight hours.

Tonight, I have a Christmas poem from Madeleine L'Engle for you guys.

Just put a little Bing Crosby on your iPod, and hum along with Saint Marty.

Bearer of Love

by:  Madeleine L'Engle

The great swan's wings were wild as he flew down;
Leda was almost smothered in his embrace. 
His crimson beak slashed fiercely at her gown--
lust deepened by the terror on her face.

Semele saw her lover as a god.
Her rash desire was blatant, undenied.
He showed himself, thunder and lightning shod.
Her human eyes were blasted and she died.

And Mary sat, unknowing, unaware.
The angel's wings were wilder than the swan
as God broke through the shining, waiting air,
gave her the lily's sword thrust and was gone.

The swans, the old gods fall in consternation
at the fierce coming of the wild wind's thrust
entering Mary in pure penetration.
The old gods die now, crumbled stone and rust.

Young Mary, moved by Gabriel, acquiesced,
asked nothing for herself in lowliness,
accepted, too, the pain, and then, most blest,
became the bearer of all holiness.

Fa la la la la, la la la la

March 14: Gratitude Number Ten

Today, I am grateful for Christmas music.

As I sit here typing this post, I have my Accuradio tuned to a station that plays only holiday music.  Classic holiday music.  Bing Crosby.  Burl Ives singing "Silver and Gold."  The Peanuts gang crooning "Christmas Time is Here."  I'm waiting for Judy Garland and Rosemary Clooney.  Suzy Snowflake and some chestnuts roasting.

Why, you may ask, am I listening to Christmas music in the middle of March?  Because it lifts my spirits for some reason.  Makes me happy.  It's an easy, cheap way to make my day a little lighter.  Since I don't have a prescription for Valium, I depend on "Frosty the Snowman" to take the edge off stressful days.

It's legal, doesn't show up in urine tests, and has a good beat.

Now, if Saint Marty could lay his hands on some eggnog, the day would be perfect.

A good substitute for crystal meth

October 28: Grading Midterms, Writing Christmas

I'm sitting in my university office this evening, grading midterms and writing about Christmas.  I have two classes worth of exams sitting on my desk, roughly 70 papers.  Not fun.  And I'm currently stuck in the writing of my Christmas essay.  Basically, I've gotten George Bailey to the bridge, but I can't get him to jump.

I grade a midterm.  I try to write.  I grade a midterm.  I try to write.  That's the rhythm of my night.  Pretty soon, I'm going to break out my iPod to try to drum up some yuletide musical inspiration.  I can almost see where I need to go with my essay, but I simply can't find the words to get there.  Perhaps Bing Crosby will make the tumblers in my brain click into place.

Time to grade another midterm.

Anybody out there have a cup of eggnog to share with Saint Marty?

Jump, George!

October 22: White Halloween

I'm sitting in my living room right now, watching the end of the movie White Christmas.  Bing Crosby.  Rosemary Clooney.  Snow.  Irving Berlin.  There's nothing better.

I haven't gone out of my head.  I watch Christmas movies all year long.  I chose this film because it snowed this morning.  A lot.  It's still freezing outside.  The last time I checked, it was still raining white.  It looks like we're headed for another White Halloween in the Upper Peninsula.  That's not unusual.  Last year, we got a full-on storm on All Hallow's Eve.  Several inches.

Since my daughter was born, there has been exactly one Halloween that was warm and beautiful.  The rest have been Bing Crosby holidays.

Saint Marty's pretty sure Bing is going to be caroling in the Great Pumpkin this year.

Hot chocolate anyone?  It goes great with pumpkin carving.

December 27: We Need a Little Christmas, Joy to the World, Have Yourself a Merry...

This morning, we take down the Christmas decorations at work.  It’s one of my least favorite days of the holiday season.  It’s too early to do it, but, as I explained last night, I have to stow away the holly and ivy before I go on vacation next week.  Officially, Christmas doesn’t end for me until after New Year’s Day.  I understand the impulse to pull down the garland.  I don’t like it, but I understand it.  Pretty soon, Christmas trees will start appearing on snow banks up and down my street.  They will have scraps of tinsel clinging to their needles and will look like cast-offs from A Charlie Brown Christmas.  

Some people are ready to tear down their Christmas finery on December 26.  My coworker in the medical office was going home last night to do just that, even though she has three children under the age of five who were dead set against the plan.  I’m still playing carols on my desk computer and have presents to deliver to some friends.  Christmas is alive in my heart.  (Remember, I’m the guy who just spent a year writing about A Christmas Carol.  I can’t get Ebenezer Scrooge et al. out of my bloodstream that quickly.)  So, for the humbuggers out there, I apologize if my sustained holiday spirit annoys you.

Today is Blessing Thursday, the day where I reflect upon some person or thing that brings joy into my life.  The blessing I’m going to speak about is the Christmas music I listen to at work.  I’ve had AccuRadio going 24-7 since before Thanksgiving.  (I know you’re thinking, “His poor coworkers.”  They don’t mind.  At least, I don’t think they do.  They know I’m the insane Carol fanatic, so they give me a lot of space.)  I leave it on when I leave at the end of the day because I like being greeted with a Christmas song when I arrive in the morning.  It’s comforting, like a glass of hot chocolate spiked with Bailey’s Irish Cream.  Since I can’t have the latter at the office, I will take the former.

It’s not like I play the same songs over and over and over and over.  I switch up the stations.  Sometimes, I play classical Christmas music.  Other times, it’s Broadway Christmas.  (By the way, the musical version of A Christmas Story has some killer numbers.)  Yesterday, I was feeling a little nostalgic, so it was An Old Fashioned Christmas all day.  Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Andy Williams, and Rosemary Clooney.  The stuff my mother played while I was growing up.

I’m going to need a lot of Christmas music to get through this day of undecorating.  A couple of the ladies in the office are going to help me, but I can feel the Spirit of Christmas Put-This-Crap-Away breathing down my neck.  It’s not going to be pretty.

Saint Marty might be hitting the chocolate drawer a lot today. 

My favorite display this Christmas

December 13: Christmas Carol, Musical Blessing, Spirits

“What is the matter?” asked the Spirit.

“Nothing,” said Scrooge.  “Nothing.  There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night.  I should like to have given him something:  that’s all.”

The Spirit in question is the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Scrooge has just seen himself as a lonely schoolboy on Christmas, abandoned by his family, spending the day with his only companions:  Ali Baba, Robin Crusoe, the Sultan’s Groom, and Friday.  The characters from the books he reads.  Scrooge has been moved by his younger self.  He’s feeling pity and remorse, probably for the first time in the entire book.

I think it’s significant that one of the first people for which Scrooge feels empathy is a boy singing a Christmas carol.  There’s something powerful about Christmas music.  It has the ability to raise spirits, lift people out of their tiny universes of problems and worries.  Scrooge experiences that power in the passage above.  He wants to help the boy who was singing at his office door on Christmas Eve.

At my office, I have my computer tuned to an online radio station that plays Christmas music.  It’s been serenading me for a few weeks now.  When I found out my wife had lost her job a couple weeks ago, I sat at my desk the next work day and listened to Jackie Evancho sing “Pie Jesu.”  It was gorgeous, moving, transcendent.  It parted the dark clouds hanging over my head at that moment.  My throat got thick, my eyes got soggy, and my spirits lifted.

For me, Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” or Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” reminds me of simpler times.  Easier times.  Times when happiness was watching The Wizard of Oz on TV with my brothers and sisters, eating bowls and bowls of popcorn.  My mother baking a ham on Christmas Eve, and the whole house smelling of citrus and clove.  I didn’t need a Kindle Fire HD or an iPod touch to experience Christmas joy.  I needed Burl Ives telling me to “have a holly, jolly Christmas…”

I am blessed at work by that Christmas music, because it reminds me to think like a child.

It is Saint Marty’s Ghost of Christmas Past.

Sing with me, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..."

October 10: Halloween Decorations, Christmas Carols, Desert Monk

I'm sitting at my computer, before all of the craziness of the day begins.  I'm the only person here right now.  In about fifteen minutes, people will start arriving.  I really enjoy these quiet moments before humanity invades.  I sit and, basically, meditate.  It's the only quiet time I have during the day.  I pray, read some devotions, prepare myself for the upcoming hours.  It's really the closest I get to doing anything sacred or holy during my work week.  If I'd been born a few hundred years ago, I think I could easily have been one of those desert monks who lived alone and prayed and meditated all day long.  My only problem would have been eating locusts with honey and wearing sackcloth.  Not a big fan of eating creatures with antenna; honey makes me sick; and I chafe very easily.  Other than that, I'd have made a great monk.

While I work at my desk during the morning, I listen to Christmas carols on my iPod, mainly to drown out or discourage any person who may want to communicate with me.  Christmas carols lift my spirits, no matter the time of year, and the iPod is a polite way of ignoring people.  For some reason, nobody gets offended if you have buds stuck in your ears and act as if you're oblivious to the world.  This may sound slightly misanthropic, but I just don't care.  I can be more productive by simply turning my back on the world.

Last night, my daughter and I decorated our front porch for Halloween.  I spent a good twenty minutes going through the light bulbs on a burned-out string, trying to find the defective culprit.  I was finally successful, but, by that time, my daughter had lost interest and gone back inside the house to watch Extreme Home Makeover.  However, the skulls and pumpkins are blazing, and our porch is suitably spookafied.  We'll see how long it takes my three-year-old son to tear down the jack-o-lanterns or rip the hat off the scarecrow.  I give him about ten minutes.

Well, the first of the human invaders just appeared.  My time of peace on earth is over.  It was great while it lasted.

Saint Marty has to start ignoring what's going on around him now.  Bring on Bing Crosby and Perry Como.

Desert monk home--Wonder if I could get cable?