Professor Plumb, in the Lateshift With a Candlestick.

03:11 / 16.12.04

Night, n t b nsh (that's a real bitch to type now, you realise...)

Goodness Gracious Meme

21:45 / 16.12.04

allo?

Post work do, home and have just caught the end of Sarah Jones' 'your revolution'.

Me happy. You?

21:51 / 16.12.04

Hello everybody!

Somebody please tell me to stop eating chocolate covered cashew nuts that my friend brought into wotk - I love them but if I eat too many I'll be ill. Nuts disagree with me.

21:53 / 16.12.04

OK.

Stop eating chocolate covered cashew nuts that your friend brought into work, fucknuts!

How was that?

21:55 / 16.12.04

Perfect. Now I shall refrain for fear of Stoatie abusing me verbally. As opposed to the way he usually does it ...

Elegant Mess

21:56 / 16.12.04

Surely everyone knows that chocolate covered raisins is where the real action is, anyway?

21:57 / 16.12.04

I'll tell her to bring those in next time, EM.

Mmm ... chocolate covered raisins ... so it is Christmas then?

Tragically, yes.

Just try and ignore it, EM, that's what I do. And it works, until I go into any high street shop after December 1st. Then it's bloody Geldof and Ure's greatest fucking hits all over again.

But to take your mind off that, imagine this - somebody you work with has the overture to The Marriage Of Figaro on their walkman. You can just about make out the bits of the Philadelphia montage from the start of Trading Places with every passing bar.

Elegant Mess

22:04 / 16.12.04

*tries hard to imagine*

Nope. It's still sodding bastard Christmas.

22:09 / 16.12.04

Evenin' all.

Maybe this is what happens with people who don't have kids, but with every Christmas over the last decade, I've felt increasingly un-Christmassy. Each year, it's taken me longer to get into it, and sometimes it hasn't happened at all. Right now, it's leaving me utterly cold: never mind present-buying; I can't summon the enthusiasm even to write cards. It just becomes one more hassle.

Of course, this could well be a consequence of being with Xoc, who gets grumpy if I hang a bauble or two from the houseplants...

22:10 / 16.12.04

Hey everyone.

22:10 / 16.12.04

I misread that as "housePANTS".

With hilarious consequences.

22:12 / 16.12.04

Luckily, Stoatie, I see the funny side.

22:13 / 16.12.04

I can't summon the enthusiasm even to write cards.

Dude. I gave up writing cards a decade ago. You should really hang out with some goths to give you some perspective on the whole ennui thing. (This is the part where we compete to see who is most indifferent about christmas).

22:15 / 16.12.04

I feel all left out. I love Christmas.

22:16 / 16.12.04

Fuck presents. Fuck cards. If people complain that you don't celebrate Christmas tell them you show your affection for the people you love all year round, not just when the government tells you to.

Or just tell them you're Jewish. God, I actually did that once, very naughty of me ...

22:17 / 16.12.04

(This is the part where we compete to see who is most indifferent about christmas).

I'm not so much indifferent as frazzled: there's loads of moderately stressful stuff converging at the moment, and Christmas just seems another stressor to add to the pile. It pains me to not feel like writing Christmas cards, though; I can see the point of those. It's a way of maintaining tenuous contact with people who've drifted but not terminally so. Sending nothing feels like brutally cutting already-fragile ties.

Elegant Mess

22:17 / 16.12.04

Exactly, "Nesh.

I made that very point earlier today. If you have kids, as the cliche goes, you get to experience Christmas through their eyes. Young kids like Christmas. Adults without kids, for the most part, don't. Stoatie apparently being the exception...

So it seems like a simple answer: I figure if I get procreating now, I could have a little Elegant Mess of my very own by Christmas 2005 (um, so to speak), and then Christmas will be fun again for maybe twelve or thirteen years after that.

The problem, of course, is what the hell I'm going to do with a sprog for the other 364 days of the year... Sweatshop labour?

22:19 / 16.12.04

It pains me to not feel like writing Christmas cards, though; I can see the point of those. It's a way of maintaining tenuous contact with people who've drifted but not terminally so. Sending nothing feels like brutally cutting already-fragile ties.

Curse you Ganesh, you just reminded me why I send Christmas cards and made me feel like a hypocrite for my last post. Oh well, me own stoopid fault. Um ... what's your address again?

22:19 / 16.12.04

I think I probably count as a 33-year-old young kid, somehow...

22:23 / 16.12.04

Well, I used to get seriously into Christmas well into my twenties, and in the first few years of Xocness, used to insist on a massive (real) tree. I think it's the moving-to-London thing that's particularly disrupted that lately: partly because not having your own flat diminishes the urge to decorate; partly because it feels too warm for snow...

22:25 / 16.12.04

Isn't xmas a really stressful time for most people? Its full of obligaions and enforced cheer, isn't it? Apart from the youthful kinderstoat, of course.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

22:27 / 16.12.04

Hello!

22:29 / 16.12.04

Isn't xmas a really stressful time for most people? Its full of obligaions and enforced cheer, isn't it?

Well, yes. I guess I'm alluding to some heavy-duty career/moving house stuff that's taking a lot of organising. I feel like just 'working through' Christmas this year, trying to catch up with everything.

As it is, we're going out to a rather nice restaurant - which'll probably fill me with cheer after all.

22:29 / 16.12.04

Cheer, beer... what's the difference?

22:30 / 16.12.04

Cheer, beer, a festive queer...

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:31 / 16.12.04

Well, I'm really looking forward to it this year (though that may be the wonderful hardcore playing care of R1 right now)

as, i'm spending the actual days with friends, we're going to catch up and chill and be NonFamial and then I'm doing family stuff later..

■

22:31 / 16.12.04

Confusing the two can lead to choking and bar-sprayage. Or inopportune throwing of booze during speeches.

22:33 / 16.12.04

Cheer, beer...

Oh god. I've been trying really hard to cut back. I even went a couple of weeks without drinking and yet, somehow, xmas is going to give the excuse to really go for it.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

22:35 / 16.12.04

Say hello to me! I am good. Also: I have wine.