Magic Jewball

That is to say, “Happy Holiday, Gentiles!”

You’ll probably be reading this tomorrow, long after you’ve overeaten and oohed and aaahed over your presents (hopefully) but let it be stated: JBall wished you a good day in a timely fashion. But maybe, once your thoughts drift away from how you got a sweater and not an iPod, you will wonder, “Gee, what do non Christmas-celebrators do on this magical day?” I mean, besides blogging, which I am clearly doing.

Let me step back a moment and reminisce about my friend Kim, with whom I worked at Sam Goody’s at The Gallery in Baltimore many years ago. She was terribly concerned that I would be alone for Christmas. She begged me to join her and her family. “But Kim,” I said. “All the machines will be free – I have laundry to do!” She never really got that.

There is a stereotype that Jews eat Chinese food and go to the movies on Christmas, which are two things that seem to be open that day. In fact, I did have Chinese food for dinner (I’m writing this at 1am so I suppose it now qualifies as last night) and the place was packed, but I swear, it was only because an errand took me close to my favorite Chinese place. I don’t plan to be at the movie theatre, though, as far as I know. I mean, there are so many great Christmas movies on TV, how could I? (I’m actually serious about that; I love holiday movies) Except MSNBC which inexplicably is having a marathon of crime documentaries. Cheery!

I once saw a calendar from a Jewish school which had December 25th marked as “Jewish Family Day.” Bwah! But in some ways it is, as the whole family is indeed off, usually, which is why I have such fond memories of watching Miracle on 34th Street as a child.

Another excellent way to utilize the day is to travel, because Christmas is one of the cheapest days to fly ever and the security lines are refreshingly short as well. That’s been an especial habit of mine as the entire music industry shuts down the week between Christmas and New Year’s; radio stations don’t change their playlists, labels don’t ship CD’s, Billboard doesn’t publish charts, etc. And so you can go away and not even worry about work piling up on your desk. It’s heavenly. I was supposed to go away this week, in fact, but maybe that’s a story for some other day. But that’s OK, I managed to have plans every single day, I’m not sure how that happened to my leisurely week of chill, but it did.

And, in similarity with children everywhere, I am currently playing with my new toy, that is, my shiny MacBook Pro. Here’s the interactive part of the post where Mac using JBall readers get to help me out. I do love the way this thing boots up in 17 seconds and never crashes, but I can’t stand the way the screen looks, in particular the fonts. Everything is soft and fuzzy and round, like you’re actually dreaming of computing rather than doing it. Oh, and let me apologize to you because you Mac people have been seeing my site in Lucida, which I think was designed by a blind person. Or maybe he went blind from using Lucida for several days. I mean, everything in OS X seems to be in Lucida so maybe you like it, but I hate it. And if you switch to something else it comes out so soft and blurry that it may as well be Lucida. I am actually considering returning it. Someone tell me why I shouldn’t…please!

Anyway, hope you all are enjoying your holiday week as much as I am and that Fred Gwynn brought you everything you your heart desired and didn’t want to return.

Gang of Four – Return the Gift