Man Martin's Blog, page 141

Christmas Story

As I write this, the temperature in Bethlehem is 54 and clear.  Maybe the weather was like this a couple of thousand years ago, when Mary and Joseph had their first son.  I know, I know, Jesus being born on December has no historical evidence, but even atheists agree there was a Jesus.  Therefore he had to be born somewhere, so for the sake of convenience, we'll say December 25 in Bethlehem.  The wise men, the star, the angels and the rest we can leave out; I just want to think of this little scene.
The song says, "The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes."  I can't opine about the crying, but Jesus sure didn't do much squirming.  Luke says Jesus was wrapped in swaddling, which seems historically accurate.  Swaddling a baby basically means wrapping him like a cocoon with only his face sticking out.  These days swaddling would probably be considered child abuse, but if DFACS arrived on the scene they'd be more concerned about the manger thing.
Okay, okay, I know, I know.  There's no more reason to believe in the manger than to believe in the wise men, but everyone has at least one pet aspect of this scene they can't do without, and for me it's the manger.  So sue me.  Some people just can't be happy unless there's a star, and some people absolutely require an angel.  Some people can't do without the camels.  As far as they're concerned, the wise men are just there to give a pretext for some camels.  Camels I can take or leave alone, ditto for stars and angels.  But I insist on the manger, and I'm not budging.
When you imagine Jesus in a manger, forget Nativity Scenes, where there's a Jesus-sized manger that looks like the carpenter built it thinking it might need to double as baby furniture.  This manger would have been the size of a trough, way too big for any baby that wasn't going to be Abraham Lincoln.  Naturally Mary would have packed it with straw to keep the baby from rolling around, plus, there was the swaddling like I said.
Of course, most of the time, the baby wouldn't have been lying in a manger with Mary and Joseph (plus as many wise men, angels, shepherds, and camels as you care for) standing around admiring it; Mary would have been nursing him.  Luke and the others don't mention that part, but we can be pretty sure it happened.  You don't necessarily need to think Mary was a virgin; my understanding is, the Greek word may just have meant young woman.  Many young women are virgins, but not all of them.  If we'd seen Mary, we'd have probably thought she was a child.  Joseph may have been older.  He may have wondered whether the baby were his.  He probably didn't wonder whether his wife were a virgin.
So that's the scene.  A young woman, a girl really, nursing a baby she's too young and poor to have any business with.  Her husband has his doubts.  It's cold.  They aren't the best parents, maybe, but they're doing the best they can with the information they have.  
This is the moment God chose to turn the Great Wheel of History.
It seems to me the star and the angels and the wise men and probably even the camels were added later as window dressing.  People like something big and flashy.  Some people predict he'll come again, "this time in great glory."  The "this time" to me sounds like he needs to make up for his disappointing entrance the first time.  But maybe God's idea of glory is different than ours and doesn't require pyrotechnics or frankincense.  Maybe if Jesus comes again, it'll be the same deal.  Just a girl somewhere, making do, laying him in a makeshift cradle - an orange crate?  a cardboard box? - somewhere outside because no one will make room for them indoors, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for example, where the current temperature is 15.
To All the Readers of this Blog, I'd like to wish a Merry Christmas.

What I Really Want For Christmas

A pony?  No.  World peace.  Don't make me laugh.

What I want won't cost anyone anything, it will just take a little extra thought, maybe, a little extra concern, a little - dare I say it? - love.  I don't need fancy store-bought presents, or lots of tinsel and glitter.

What I want is for when my desk is a mess, I just want a co-worker to come in and say, "My bad.  Sorry I messed up your desk."  Or when I'm selfish or thoughtless, which is most of the time, I want the other person to say, "Please forgive me, I should be more appreciative of you just the way you are."  If I rear-end someone in traffic, I want him to leap out of his car and say, "This is entirely my fault!  I backed right into you!"

That's all I want.  Nothing expensive, nothing you can buy in a store, just for everyone else to take the blame for everything wrong with me.

Anyway, Merry Christmas, everyone.

Great Tweets of History

"4 Scr & 7 Yrs Ago..." @ALincoln #Gettysburg4scr&7 years ago R 4fathers brought 4th new nation: librty, equalty. Can it endure?  Brave men died so it might. Back to work.
@Jesus #BeatitudePOORnSPIRT? Hvn. MOURN? Cheer up. MEEK? Erth. HNGR/THRST? Satsfctn. MRCFL? Mrcy. PUR HRT? C Gd! PEACEMKR? Chld o’Gd. PERSCUTD? C POORnSPIRT.

@Henry #AgincourtTomorrow is St Crispins Day. French outnumber British six to one. Battle tomorrow. Wouldn’t miss it.
@Antony #RomeTime to bury Caesar, my friend. Your friend too. Seen body? Ugh. Brutus & Cassius stabbed it. Honorable. LOL.

Sage Advice from a Condescending Old Fart

It's great to have a dream, but this band of yours.  Mudd Flapp?  Maybe it's time to be realistic about your chances of landing the big record deal, and do something practical.  Air Conditioning Repair, for example.  You can always play music on the weekends. I'm not trying to run your life for you, I'm just saying.  I know "your passion" is music, but but people always need Air Conditioners repaired, and that way you'll have something to fall back on if the music thing doesn't work out.
I used to be where you are now.
I'm sure it's very gratifying to your ego having such a hot girlfriend, but remember there's more to a woman than how she looks.  Loyalty, for example.  And someone whose attractiveness is proportionate to your own instead of being, let's face it, out of your league.  When people see a really hot chick with a guy like you, it can pose a threat to the relationship.  Just be careful, is all I'm saying.  I don't want to see your heart broken.  I've seen the way her ex-boyfriend looks at her.
I really wish you'd come to me before buying that expensive - what d'you call it? - gaming system?  You have to be careful with those kinds of purchases.  Your priorities right now should be saving money.  Like for health benefits.  You don't get health benefits from Mudd Flapp, do you?
This is one of those times I think you can benefit from my experience.
I didn't say anything when your girlfriend moved in with you, although I thought this was a bad idea at the time.  Let him make his own mistakes, is my philosophy.  Letting her ex-boyfriend move in, too, though is a very bad idea.  I cannot even tell you how bad an idea it is.
I just wish someone had told me this when I was your age.
You didn't listen to me about the gaming system, but please listen to me now: don't buy a motorbike.  I know you think they're "sexy," but don't buy a motorbike.  Don't buy a motorbike.  Don't buy a motorbike.  Sorry.  Motorcycle.
By the way, how long has it been since you went to the dentist?
Now that your motorcycle's totaled, maybe it's time to consider something more practical, like a Kia.  Kias are sexy too, in their way.  By the way, have you thought about how you'll pay all these bills when you get out of the hospital?  Supplemental health benefits are looking pretty good now, aren't they?
I'm not trying to get "all up in your business" like you kids say.  I'm just saying.
Sorry your girlfriend left you for her ex.  And he stole your new gaming system too?  Oh, well.  You know what women dig?  Health benefits.  You don't get health benefits with Mudd Flapp, I bet.  Air conditioning repairmen, they get health benefits.

Christmas Questions

Now begins my two-week Christmas break, politically correctly termed a "winter break."  Here is the strange thing I wish to report.  I am pleased to have time off, but I'm not turning cartwheels over the prospect.  Tomorrow will be Saturday, but I'm not looking forward to it any more than any other Saturday.  Is this maturity or apathy?

Does the prospect of holidays make us less giddy as we age because we're inoculated against the inevitable let down?  Is it that we've learned what's really important about life isn't the side-show of tinsel and gimcrack?  Is it that the day-to-day game we play against the universe is more engaging than waiting for Santa Claus?  Is it that we've seen so many Christmases already?

It always struck me silly that Cary Bradshaw, who was supposed to be this hot-shot writer in Sex in the City, wrote nothing but rhetorical questions.  Yet I seem to be doing the same thing.

Why is that?

The Best Part of a Trip

Some people say the best part of a trip is coming home again.  Those people are wrong.  The best part of a trip is looking forward to it.

This is not a segue into a cynical observation about how nothing ever lives up to our expectations, and things we look forward to usually end up disappointing us, just the opposite.  It's that expectation itself never disappoints.

Nancy and I just booked a June trip to Aruba.  I cannot tell you how this little thought transforms every object that falls upon my eye.  Driving 285 in the lowering sun makes me think of standing on the deck of a catamaran sharing a sunset cocktail with Nancy.  Heaving bags of recyclables to the curb, reminds me of snorkling amid colorful fish and bright coral.  The thought of Aruba cheers me in direct proportion to how mundane and dreary my surroundings are.  I have a little joke on the commonplace world.  Ha, ha!  Aruba, suckers!

Footloose types who say one day, "Heck, I'm going to Aruba," and book a flight for later that morning are missing months of potential delight they could have had anticipating.  Aruba will be a paradise, I know, but it can't help being a paradise.  It's Aruba.  The marvel is, just the thought of Aruba makes Georgia in December a paradise.

Paging Dr. Freud

The unconscious mind is a powerful force, but it only operates at full force when the conscious mind isn't in control, when you're on "autopilot."  For example, this morning I used up the last of the coffee; what I intended to do was do without coffee myself, but set up the coffee maker for Nancy, with a note asking her to buy more beans.  But when I set up the coffee maker, I unintentionally turned it on without noticing and ended up brewing myself a pot anyway.  So now I'm enjoying a fresh cup, and Nancy will be left to drink older coffee that's not nearly as good.  Sorry, darling.

Or another example of the unconscious mind at work is we'll buy a bunch of cookies, and what I intend to do is to put them all away in the cabinet, but what I end up doing is eating them all myself.  Pesky unconscious.

Or I'm going to register for a half-marathon in March, but instead I wind up browsing cute kitten videos online, all thanks to that darned old unconscious.

Or I'm dealing with some complete jerk, and I want to try to forgive him and be all Christian and everything, but instead, while I'm not even aware of what I'm doing, I kill him and dispose of his body out in the country, weighting him down with cinder blocks and throwing him in a lake.  But like I say, completely unaware of my actions, because of the unconscious.

That Dr. Freud was a genius.

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The End of the Universe and Why You Should Care

As Higgs Boson does its dirty work,
everything in the universe will grow heavier.I have reason to believe the universe will soon collapse into a tiny ball.  It's all due to the Higgs Boson, you know, the one that scientists dubbed the God Particle.  It seems Higgs Boson has started believing its own publicity; now, scientists are saying that "at any moment" one of these could become ultra dense and "bubble up" anywhere in the universe.  When that happens, it will expand outward at the speed of light, absorbing other particles, which would also become ultra-dense, and these would pull more particles into themselves, which would also become ultra-dense, and so forth until the whole shebang crushes down into a billiard ball that weighs about one trillion zillion tons.  This is concerning if, like me, you have dinner plans later this week.

Now here's the bad news.  It's already happening.  Things around the house, that I used to be able to pick up with ease, are growing heavier. Observational data confirms my entire body has been absorbed into a Higgs Boson field.  Also, my pants are definitely contracting.

The end is nigh.

Things I am Thankful For

I am thankful I am not Kim Jong-un's relativeI am thankful I don't have an Advent Calendar where instead of a little chocolate behind every door, there's like a scorpion or a stink bomb or something.  Do they even make Advent Calendars like that?  I hope not.

I am thankful I am not one of Kim Jong-un's relatives.  Can you imagine trying to get a Christmas present for that guy?  Not only does he already have everything, he has the authority to get you executed.  I bet no one ever gives him a fruitcake.

I am thankful I don't live next door to Megyn Kelly.  Sorry, Megyn, but Jesus was definitely not white.  At least not as white as you.  If Jesus tried to go through an airport, he'd for sure be profiled and strip-searched.

I am thankful that all the terrible things that have happened to other people haven't happened to me, at least not yet.  Sorry, Other People, just keepin' it real.

I am thankful I will not live forever.  I've been following trends of Global Warming, deforestation, and population growth, and I'm glad to say I won't be around for the worst of it.

Thanks.