I Want To Appear On A TV News Show With That As My Caption

Those of you who also read Brian’s blog may have noticed that in his most recent entry, in which he seeks to understand the meaning of the song Red Rain by Peter Gabriel, he makes a reference to me as being “pretty much an expert on most things 80’s.”
(I can just see myself on some show on like CNN or in some documentary with an on-screen identification of “Pretty Much an Expert on Most Things 80’s” just below my name)
Now I can’t help but think that this is his sly way of saying that I’m old, but I suppose there is some truth to it (both the statement about my expertise and the implication about my age).
After all, most of my formative years took place during the 80s, and of all of the decades I’ve lived in that’s the one I probably remember best.
My memories of the 70s don’t even really start until sometime around 1976 or so, and as for the 90s, I spent the first half in college trying to cram information, most of which I’ve since forgotten, into my head, and I spent most of the second half in a drunken stupor, so that decade tends to kind of blur together.
Which leaves the 80s.
Unfortunately my “expertise” doesn’t really cover Peter Gabriel as I was never really a fan.
For the first half of the 80s I had no particular musical tastes to speak of, listening to whatever happened to get played on the radio, and by the second half I had become a hardcore metalhead, eschewing anything that carried even a hint of mainstream popularity.
During this stage if I heard popular music I tended to view it as something that was being inflicted upon me.
So no, apart from having seen the groundbreaking videos, my Peter Gabriel experience wasn’t exactly what you’d call extensive.
Speaking of Brian, though, in celebration of the fact that one week before Christmas the temperature actually got up into the 70s, he and Kathleen had a barbecue last night.
Given that it meant free food and not having to feed myself, I naturally accepted their invitation.
If I hadn’t already known that I was at the right place, I might have gotten a hint from the entire crew of firefighters getting off of a fire engine and walking to their door.
Naturally once I was there in the thick of things I transformed into my usual social butterfly self.
That is to say, a “social” butterfly that’s dead and pinned to the wall.
Still, as mentioned, it was free food that I didn’t have to make for myself, and, as always, my anti-social issues are strictly my own, so on that note, I’ll say thanks for inviting me B&K.
Owing to the fact that you never know who’s going to be around when during the holidays, last Thursday I opted to give Brian, Scott, and Simon their gifts at work.
I’d gotten them each a 1 GB flash drive.
Because I can’t wrap a present to save my life – and if anyone could somehow stumble into a situation in which his life would depend on his ability to wrap a gift it would be me – I decided that the best presentation would be the whole tiny gift bag with tissue paper approach.
Let me say that as I stood in that little gift wrap aisle at Super Target looking at the multi-colored frilly offerings, I could not have looked more out of place. I mean, we’re talking Dr. Joel Fleischman in Cicely, Alaska, levels of fish-out-of-water-ness.
Still, the end result of my efforts looked rather festive:



(As an aside, the filename I gave to this image had me Ho-Ho-Ho-ing my ass off. That should be a new IM abbreviation for the season: HHHMAO!)
I gave Kathleen her gift, which was in a larger bag with two kinds of pink tissue paper, which I neglected to take a photo of, yesterday. I got her a desk calendar (featuring The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said) and some kind of aromatherapy relaxation pillow thingamajob.
On the gift receiving front, so far I’ve received a gift card for Chipotle from Scott and Stacy, which will be put to good use.
Scott will be off in Utah this weekend, so I’m sure that work will go by exceedingly slowly as we make our way to Christmas.
Yesterday the chiropractor asked me the standard question: are you ready for Christmas?
I responded, “Inasmuch as I’ve finished all of my shopping, yes.”
He said that I sounded like an engineer. I added, “Well, if you’re asking, ‘Are you ready for what’s essentially going to be just another Monday?’ again, the answer is yes.”
My lack of Christmas spirit didn’t dissuade him, though, and he went on to ask if I had any plans, which, of course, I don’t. My main plan is to do enough grocery shopping this week so that I can get through Sunday without having to go anywhere and am prepared for nothing being open on Monday.
And that’s about as close as I’m going to get to having any Christmas spirit. God bless us everyone.