The Confabulator Cafe

Category: Politics

  • Winter is Here

    Ned-Stark-Game-of-Thrones
    Fortunately I don’t have to make the same kinds of hard decisions as Ned Stark, but Winter and the holidays don’t have to be grim.

    There are quite a few words that can describe the beginning of Winter and the year-end holidays: dread, lonely, cold, snowy, warm, happy. I’ve run through the gamut in my time on Earth, and in general I find this time of year to be pretty nice.

    That’s the most honest thing I can say about it. I like Thanksgiving and Christmas because there are good meals that go along with seeing family. (I like my family.) It’s not really about presents, or at least it hasn’t been for fifteen or twenty years. I like stuff, don’t get me wrong, stuff is good. It’s just that I’m in a position now where I can get almost any stuff I want when I want it. I don’t have to wait for the holiday or my birthday or Father’s Day.

    I’m fortunate that the business I work in is closed during the holiday season, too. That means I get an extended vacation of a week or sometimes a little more every year beyond any time I take off in spring or summer. Again it’s time to spend with my family and do things like read or go to a movie.

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  • All the Whos in Whoville

    The very first book I learned to read on my own was How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I still love that book— I even have “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” on my iPod.

    I have the reputation of being the family Grinch. Not because I’m trying to ruin anybody else’s holiday, but because I can never think of anything to put on my Christmas wish list. The truth of the matter is that I have everything I need and most of what I want, and bringing anything else into the house just adds to the clutter. Or else it would be a purchase so idiosyncratic that I want to pick it out myself.

    Quite frankly, my idea of the perfect holiday is Thanksgiving, or Memorial Day, or maybe even the Fourth of July. You hopefully get to take the day off of work, get together with friends and family, cook an elaborate meal, and eat leftovers for a week. Perhaps there’s a parade, or a concert in the park. (more…)

  • The Musician

    I love the holidays, and I’ve always been moved by the charity of people at this time of the year. Stories of generosity have a way of hitting me on an emotional level, and I always want to share them with others. My hope is that if a tale of giving can bring out the charitable side in even a single person, then it has done its job.

    When I was a kid growing up, I had an uncle who used to read us the same letter every Christmas.  Written by a distant cousin, it told the story of how one late night encounter with a musician changed the way their family celebrated the holidays. Here is his letter:

    Several years ago, my wife and I were traveling across the state with our first child through a snowy Wisconsin night. We had been visiting her parents for the holidays, and we were driving on a lonely stretch of highway. With an hour or more to go, we noticed a young man walking the side of the highway thumbing for a ride. My wife asked me to pull over and we offered him a ride. (more…)

  • Holiday Slippage

    a-charlie-brown-christmasI have a confession to make. For much of my life, I was a Christmas Eve shopper. Not because I procrastinated or because I was a Scrooge, but because money was paycheck-to-paycheck, and only that last check before the holiday allowed me to buy presents. Christmas isn’t cheap, and other extra things had to come out of those prior checks—extra food supplies like flour and chocolate chips, a Christmas tree, gifts for work parties.

    Every spare penny was already earmarked for something.

    I was fast at it. By the time I got to the mall on Christmas Eve, I knew what I needed to buy. I’d get it done in record time, then be up until midnight or two in the morning wrapping everything. (more…)

  • Looking for a Christmas Drinking Buddy

    Merry Christmas? Why the hell are you reading this? Go spend time with your family!

    Unless you’re like me and alone for the holidays. Wow. That was depressing. Sorry. But then, if you’re sneaking on the internet when you should be having Christmas brunch with your parents, you deserve it. If you’re sitting by yourself, I’ve got a couple of bottles of wine in the fridge, come on over and we can split them.

    Ever since my parents’ divorce, scheduling holidays has been tricky. When I was still living at home, it was easier, because they lived about forty-five minutes away from each other, so I could feasibly see both of them for the day. Then I went off to college, and I purposefully chose a college that wasn’t close by to either of my family members. Suddenly I had to decide which parent to spend which holiday with. (more…)

  • A Bright Spot in the Darkness

    Photo belongs to Digital Blasphemy
    Photo belongs to Digital Blasphemy

    I am something of a holiday junky: I enthusiastically celebrate them all.

    But I really love Christmas. I am one of those people that everyone hates who starts listening to Christmas music the second Thanksgiving is over. I fight with myself every year to wait until the first day of December to put up lights and decorations.

    However, Christmas means something a little different to me than a lot of people. I’m not religious. I don’t celebrate Christmas as a Christian celebration. I should probably call it something different, but I feel that the idea of Christmas has evolved to the point where it can mean whatever we want it to mean these days. (more…)

  • My Wife Still Believes (in Humanity)

    In my house, my wife is the Christmas lady. Everything this holiday entails: music, lights, decorations, presents. She’s all in, every year, and she loves it.

    I’m more of a Halloween man, myself. Give me rolling fog on a spooky night while you’re holed up in a creepy old house and I’m a happy camper. That probably makes me the darker half of our marriage, but for whatever reason it seems to work.

    That being said, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my wife’s enthusiasm always manages to rub off on me. I may start December in full-on Grinch mode, but by the end of the second week, I’m playing Christmas music and asking about this year’s family ornament.

    I think what makes my wife’s holiday spirit so infectious is the sheer joy she gets from shopping for others. She’s one of those weird people who spend more time thinking about the receiver of the gift than the gift itself.

    I don’t possess this trait. Nor do I fully understand it.

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  • Holiday Wishes

    From fatchicksings.com
    From fatchicksings.com

    Holidays are a strange time. For some, they are a joyous occasion involving  a celebration of gifts, family, and friendship. For others, they take a dark turn. Holidays can be a devastating time. You hear joyous music, you see bright lights, and you see the glow on children’s faces that can only be the prelude to material gluttony. Unfortunately, not everyone is in on the game. Some people don’t have families and friends, at least nearby. Some cannot afford to take part in the all-you-care-to-eat buyer’s buffet. For those people, the holidays are less about what they are about to get, and more about what they feel they will never have.

    I’ve been on multiple sides of the holiday season. My family celebrates all holidays pretty much the same way. We plug Crock Pots full of casseroles, baked beans, mashed potatoes, and turkey into overloaded networks of power strips. We praise each other’s culinary achievements and avoid that weird marshmallow salad that is inexplicably topped with cheese. In the glory days, there would be as many as sixty or seventy people at lunch. That number has fallen, via emigration from the rural area in which my parents live, and the inevitable overturn of generations. (more…)

  • Holiday Happenings (Week Ending Dec. 29)

    Christmas backgroundAs you are probably well aware (unless you’re reading this from some cave far removed from civilization), Christmas is celebrated in much of the world this week. Here in America, our holiday season begins with Thanksgiving in November and doesn’t end until the New Year next week.

    The holiday season means different things to different people. Where I work, it can mean a slow-down in business or a last-minute rush to get client work finished by the end of the year. For some it’s a time of excess, as we give in to our fondness for rich foods, candies, pies, and fine wines. I know that I spend the holidays enjoying as much hot chocolate with marshmallows as my body can stand.

    This week, we’ve asked our writers what the holiday season means to them. Do they love this time of year or hate it? Are the holidays a time of coming together or pulling apart?

    As always, remember to like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter — and tell your friends!

    Until Next Week,

    The Cafe Management

  • Writer’s Block-head

    There are two kinds of writer’s block that I know of, both with the same root. In one, I don’t know enough about my subject to be able to write coherently about it. In the other, I don’t want to write about my subject. The commonality is that I need to do more thinking before I start writing.

    For the first, I’ll start with pad and pencil, and begin free writing everything I know about my subject. What is the story I’m trying to tell? Where are the data gaps? Can I explain around the gaps or do I need to do more research? Does the logic flow smoothly from data to conclusion? If not, do I need to gather more or different data, or do I need to change my conclusion? Do I have the proper references for each fact I assert? My ignorance, once properly documented, is turned into a To Do list of questions to answer, niggling details to attend to, T’s to dot, and I’s to cross.

    If I’m just having a hard time sitting down to work on a piece, it’s often because the back of my brain, which is much smarter than the rest of me, hasn’t quite finished hatching the egg. I can push-start the process by writing the parts that I do know. Physical motion, such as taking a walk to get the blood pumped out of my ass and back into my brain, often helps to grease the cognitive cogs. I will stalk around, muttering darkly, explaining my thesis to myself as though I am a particularly stupid child. Once I am heartily sick of that, I can usually sit down and it’s as easy as taking dictation from myself.