A very useable Christmas

Aside from candy, which always ends up in the stocking, I got three physical items for Christmas-- a beer-brewing kit, some gym shorts, and a bottle of Drakkar Noir. Everything else was in glorious gift-card form.

Okay, when I wrote the above, it was before Jonathan had called me. I have since received two more items;

a t-shirt with the name of my podcasting persona, Xenu, and
The Grey Knights Omnibus, a book.

Jon got Bill and I shirts because when he records with us, he forgets our fake names, and has to be edited. The Grey Knights thing is a part of this wargaming hobby, Warhammer 40,000. The book is a collection of stories and fictional history on the group, and it's huge.

I'm still not a fan of Christmas as a secular holiday, because consumerism is wasteful and things like the instances of people being trampled in the name of a good deal greatly disgusts me. The idea that millions of us are celebrating material wealth is abhorrent. Does it make me a hypocrite? Oh, absolutely! I try to justify my participation by spouting conscientious shit, but in the end, I still go and get what people ask me to buy for them. I always talk about what I receive. This year I feel slightly better because of the fact that I will use every bit of it, but it's still part and parcel of that black, gnawing Thirteenth Month. I want to break free of this crap.

But looking at it all, I do feel kinda good about the haul this year. Aside from those few things up there, I got a ton of gift cards, and I love gift cards. They're sort of like giving experiences, in the sense that I do such-and-such in my everyday life, but because I got a gift card, I can do it cheaper or more often. $55 to AMC? Hellllllll yeah. $25 to Outback? Yeeeeeaaaaah! Subway card, gas cards, and a straight-cash debit/gift cardthing? Perfect! Supplementing my regular lifestyle may not be the anti-imperial, anti-consumerist, anti-global whateverism that would be good for everyone, but helping me be me is good enough until I can be a Responsible Adult.

I have more theories about Adults, based on observations while hanging out with my friends. There's a friend of mine who would look like my best friend if written out on paper, but we barely talk to each other, and the difference in personality, I believe, comes from her being an Adult. I'm trying to codify it in my own less-scientific-and-more-so-I-can-remember-what-I-was-thinking kind of way. So far, all I can say is that it is a personality trait, and when I see someone as an Adult, it becomes the primary label. I'll have more eventually, I'm sure. It's just sort of hard to convey.

Sean