XVI: Perfection's too easy

I'd rather have things messy. Besides, life ain't about perfection. It ain't about always being right crisp and clean. It's about choices, and chances, and mistakes, and a half-dozen billion people doing whatever they feel like and affecting other peoples' lives in ways they can't imagine. Dig it?

Christmas is always chaotic.

"Merry Boxing Day Eve," my brother says. He's come up with a number of amusing ways to say merry christmas, including my personal favourite, a plea to "Keep the 'X' in X-Mas."

It was a nice day. No snow, which is a shame, because I always say snow's only place is during the time between early December and mid-January, so you get that great Christmas/New Year's snow.

It was a nice enough Christmas. I was maybe a bit withdrawn, which is a shame because there were kids to entertain. But whenever the kids come over, there's some drama with the dog, and only recently has Cameron been tolerant of the poor guy. But even so, with all the activity they get up to, the dog gets a bit rattled and is prone to nipping and barking. He's pretty unpredictable, let's not kid ourselves. But I have never believed he would actually harm the kids. Scare them, sure, but harm? I strongly doubt. But inevitably, certain people... my mom, mostly, and Eric... get jittery and seek to lock Max in the basement. I find that odd, as Eric knows Max better than anyone, so it's just odd that Eric would overestimate the risk he poses.

As much as I love my family, during gatherings I occasionally break and go to the basement. It's not to get away from my family or anything, just more along the lines of "Okay, I've spent enough time in one place, what's over here?" I'm easily restless, perhaps. So when I'm down there, I see Max whimpering, breathing heavily, gripping balls of socks in his teeth, with that look of despair in his eyes. So if things look calm enough, I let him out. And Eric, he criticizes me for "disliking the safety of children." Now, this is just Eric being a douche, but he's attempting to make a point: that Max is dangerous, which is an erroneous assumption. I'd rather have Max upstairs looking like he may bite children, than downstairs, not biting children but nervous and scared.

It was not a Christmas for the memory books, not fully being in the spirit myself I just went along with the gifts, the cards, the general merriment, it was fine but not all that exciting. I hate to sound unenthusiastic -- hell, I had a lengthy conversation with Aunt Lori on the subject -- but that's sorta the truth. But I was glad to see our gifts went over well . Aunt Karen in particular seemed excited about the Chilean Merlot I'd picked out for her, which is good news. To find it, I wandered the LCBO until I spotted a bottle that really seemed to have character.

As for what I got? Well, certainly things I asked for, and I'm glad for it. After all, I'm no longer the last person in the world without an iPod. And I won't have to buy beer for quite a long while.

Turning my attention to the future.... hrrm. Ecch. Let's not. Let's deal with it when it gets here. The present's enough trouble.

When I write, I think it may come from a different place from many writers. I don't overcontemplate my words, not in newswriting, blogging, poetry of prose. All Guthrie's talk of the neverending search for perfect words, of Coloridge and Byron, was undone the minute he had me studying Kerouac and Ginsberg. First word, best word.

And maybe that's not always the best way to go about it, if I'm writing to acheive a certain end, illustrate a specific point in my writing, but life ain't about perfection. It's all a mess.

Now that I've given you something to think about, keep on rockin'
-Scott