Holiday Briefing: Logic- The Destroyer

Does it seem odd to anyone else that the winter is when we have our Must See Them Holidays in our very, very scattered culture?

We seem so surprised when actual Winter gets in our way.

It's also odd that we put the first semester finals right smack dab inside the cluster of holidays. It pretty much presumes the traditional dependent student; as opposed to say the parent of children or head of household who is expected to create the feelings and events that are supposed to inform all of those fond associations with the season.

And thus the Holidays came.

The Taunting was impacted ( but not stopped - you cannot stop The Taunting). Unlike previous years the presents needed to be hidden only to be revealed on the day of. Part of that was practical - the theme this year was Chocolate. All Chocolate, all the time. Godiva, Hershey's Nestle's, Lindt, Mars, a little boutique outfit that made World Peace bars . . . every night a different chocolate ending with specialized chocolates for each of the Children ( who are not so Childish Anymore - as proven by the eighth candle's Bailey's infused chocolate bar for The Girl).

The secondary Taunting gifts involved clothing. Things delayed due to recession but needed anyway were made fun. Sales were shopped. Artisans were traded with. But we kept the holiday ridiculously low key, lower key even than the Cheapass Taunting of 2009. Last year it was because I was closing down my projects, and knew that things were ending. This year it is because I returned to school to create new beginnings, however the semester was ending.

Here is the catch - I thought I had taken a relatively balanced load but they were all production classes that had final projects before final exams. Although I sort of knew that, in practical terms it escaped me. There were 4 tests in rapid succession in Logic and in order to combat my LD it takes about two days to prep for a test, having done it in a very intense way this last month I discovered what I'm really doing is rewiring my brain temporarily; but so completely that after working on a logic test I was unable to use language properly for two to three days afterwards, creating amusing malapropisms for friends and family and actual Conduction Aphasia for me.

When I first took the Logic and Object Oriented programming classes I had this idea that I would develop strategies that would help other people with symbol processing disorders be able to take and pass the class, however about 2/3 of the way through I realized NO ONE with my disability is going to take these classes to this level - they'd have to be masochists and have unlimited time ( or a psychotic need to prove that they are able to pass the class anyway - at least that's what my mirror tells me) Instead I've developed a series of strategies that can help any number of other people with different LDs, or people who are not naturally adept at the structured thinking these classes require, but if you have a hard core symbol processing disorder, as my programming professor says: "There's nothing wrong with being a poet".

Everything was going well, although I was sleep deprived and then I thought - "I can modify this technique and maybe get some rest."

This was a huge mistake causing me to get a truly dismal grade on the one test I couldn't drop as the lowest score. How bad? 25. There's an average killer.

I found a scoring error and got an extra 13 points but it pretty much meant that I had to really, really invest in the final - 4 days of drills and prep. 4 hours of actual test.

But I did survive, and the Holidays happened without me speaking properly. The last final was on the 21. The trip to Grandma's House was determined to be an Xmas Day Trip. My Perfectly Normal Mother-in-Law was pronounced healthy enough to leave her house for Xmas Eve.

There was much rejoicing.

So really, everything was as good as it could be. And then finally my grades were posted - I'd gotten a 100 on the final and because of weighting managed to get an A for the class. Had I scored lower it would have been a scholarship affecting C.

Huzzah! But I was exhausted.

Anti Claus however had no patience for that sort of nonsense and broke in to make copies of our keys, and deliver a sonic screwdriver that actually is a screwdriver, kick ass motorcycle boots and small bombs of pixie dust to the Children. I think I was Found Boring this year.

I think I found myself a bit boring this year.

But I was not the only person in the family and some of the other had been waiting for Xmas day for some time. They had plans.

We travelled out to Grandma's house, where Grandma's Gingerbread Poppet had found the perfect tree, and the Perfectly Normal Husband brought all of his Holiday up with us. It is obvious that the family would like a return to things being arty.

New Poppets have joined the house - Aunti Claus brought some for the Children ( apparently she didn't approve of a Poppet-free holiday. They are Candy Cane Poppets but they look a little blood spattered - one wonders where they accompanied her first before landing in the stockings)

My parents gave me a photobox. My Perfectly Normal Husband gave me a vampire, a wizard, a literary Death and a Tinker. Someone got me a Magic Trackpad.

I just like saying I have a Magic Trackpad.

Now here's the thing about Grandma's House. It's pretty much the test model for "lake effect" snow. So before leaving, pretty much the only non syllogistic thing I understood was the weather report for Grandma's House. And the report was "There might be some snow" and no one thought it would be much, but we warned all of our fellow travelers to inform loved ones and offices that there was a chance we would be snowed in at Grandma's House.

Then we got all pre-occupied with The Boy getting sick and my amusing attempts to communicate. And so we went over the river and through the woods, as we do yearly and played with dancing trees and had yummy food and shared a few bottles of wine and sort of showed the youngsters what "keeping a weather eye out" looks like it in the digital age.

Things were moving along nicely but we were starting to go - "Hmmn . . . Gee. Might need to stay an extra day or two, " when all of a sudden the word "Blizzard" started popping up on our weather eye screens.

Well they weren't kidding. We played it hour by hour but had to leave Grandma's House in a flurry all of our own because they were calling for a Blizzard at the House too.

Grandma's got about 20 inches, we got about 10. We raced the storm home and won by an inch. The other 9 fell after we were settled back in, but it wasn't much of a visit. The poppets didn't even get to come out and play with Grandma's holiday decor.

But we did spend it together and the food was wonderful.

Here is the thing I learned last week. If I were not inherently logical, I would not have been able to succeed, but to immerse myself to much in logic damages me and everything around me. There is a reckoning. The Art part came easier to me, but there was no balance in that either. The two need to be combined instead of in opposition. There was not enough time with family and just being. 6 Days - but a microcosm of the year.

And on the 7th day the Poppets came out and said - "Wake up sleepyhead! You need to play with your toys."

Well. I suppose I'm not back into right thinking for Poppets yet, I just started playing with my toys today. However I am very grateful for my friends and my family and my project teammates at school, because I am thinking about things as though they might be fun again.

That's a pretty good way to mark the solstice I think.

No one makes graphic novels about the adventures of getting the family together for a photo, but there are all sorts of stories when you do. This year I'll bet there were all sorts of adventures behind all of the holiday photos. Stories that will be told each time the album opens.

A fictional version of ourselves for the Dreamtime:

New Year's coming . . . .

Found Interesting

 Once upon a time , there was a little girl who lived in Brooklyn, because all of the really interesting stories start in Brooklyn. She had no magic at all, but none of the things that were magical really believed that, because when their world broke apart she would hold enough pieces of it together that they thought it was magic. But it wasn't magic, it was work.

The little girl grew up knowing she had no magic , and she was pretty sure that no one else did either. Which meant that when she grew up and got married she didn't realize that sometimes legends are true, and the fae could bend and steal time.  She would have made sure to have a rule against marrying such creatures had she known. She went there unknowing and when she left that realm, everything was different.  Her own world had broken apart and she worked very, very hard to put enough pieces of it back together again. 

There are no Jewish Faeries, so she was pretty sure that if her children had any relationships with Jolly Old Elves it would have to be through her mother, who kept regular correspondence with magical things, or their father when they visited that realm where magic was real.  And for years that was so, until the year it wasn't, and the poor confused Elf paid a call to a house with a fireplace and a tree that lived in it. But the tree had a vulture, and the lights were all candles. He was invited in, although hesitantly, because she was holding together her children's broken world and it was still having it's glue set. 

That was the year they learned. 

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, 

surprised, since there had been no stockings planned there,

While Santa has stopped by for good girls and boys, 

There were hints of something else in the toys. . . . 

That year there were signs of happy snarkiness, and counterculture items that could not possibly be Santa approved. Black leather cuffs and Bunnys telling people to throw rocks. And thus they discovered that the Stockings had been infiltrated by Aunti Claus,  Santa's cooler rebellious younger sister, who hangs with dwarves that work at West Coast.

Santa Claus visits all the good little boys and girls, 

Aunti Claus visits all the interesting ones.

 (Yes, it is prounounced "Anti". That's because she spends a lot of time in NYC and because she likes it that way)

The next year Santa came again with mysterious stockings and behavior based rewards, but Aunti broke in too, and rearranged The Taunting - putting the 8th night presents in the stockings and breaking the house rules giving the children matching Ipods. That was when they learned the other part of Aunti's MO:

Aunti Claus gives you the presents that your parents don't approve of. 

On the third year the broken world was set, the woman who had no magic wanted to celebrate with her mother, the children's grandmother, who was the family's connection to the Tooth Fairy and Santa, and House Brownies. The youngest child was concerned . . . . Would Aunti Claus be able to find them at Grandma's house where everything was good and properly Christmassy? Could Grandma ban Aunti from coming in like all of the other questionable magic types? Grandma was very powerful.

That was the year they learned their third truth about Aunti:

Aunti Claus is a Ninja 

She comes in through the front door, you just don't know it. 

Not even Grandma.

That chimney stuff might mess up her outfit. Santa covered the living room in Christmas splendor - Aunti found a cool little blue and silver tree in the dining room,hung out her stockings filled with in-jokes and sarcasm, and left two working light sabers underneath the understated yet diva-like tree. The light side of the force was for the boy, and the dark side of the force for the girl because after all, the girl had the T-Shirt "Come to the Dark Side, we have Cookies"

The Children are older, the world is slightly more brittle, and if the young boy is asked the immortal question, "Do you believe in Santa Claus," he looks at you with Faerie Ninja eyes and smiles a secret holding smile. He answers, " I believe in Aunti Claus"

And Aunti Claus believes in him, because this year, there was no sign of Santa at the home of the Woman with No Magic, but there were Poppets in the Trees for her, Diseases in Petri Dishes and Extra Brain Cells for the children, Sharp and Unsafe Objects for everyone, Devil Ducks and Tiny Power Tools to be shared by the child and his mother. The daughter was was gifted with Software the Mother Did Not Approve Of and the ability to draw pictures with air and electrons. Everyone in the family was Found Interesting this year. Even the Perfectly Normal Stepfather, who got a collectors edition Red Swingline Stapler.

It is clear that Aunti Claus supports the Embarrassed Embassy Project.

They reveled in the binary of it all, then  packed up to travel over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house, where Santa still behaved as expected. Just because her children were Interesting, didn't mean they weren't Good.