I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I prefer to look at each morning like a fresh start, a blank slate — helpful when you make as many mistakes as I do.

I don’t believe in sin, but I believe in grace. And, oh, I believe in forgiveness. From others, from myself, but always to others.

I started the year here in Chicago with a weird cyst on my sternum, and I’m ending it here in Chicago with a weird cyst on my sternum. But it’s snowing this year — it started just an hour or so ago — and Frank is at the ledge looking out at it. I can see the lights from the Christmas trees through the windows from the building across from me. It’s a nice effect.

I’m resolving to keep moving — the same resolution I make every morning.

This evening I’ll brave the Red Line with my impossibly large Beetlejuice-inspired scarf Devon knitted for me, steeled in my resolve that yes, this evening someone’s going be kissing me to ring in the new year whether they approve of it or not.

Filed by Trevor at 4:14 pm under General
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We’ll start with the shoes.

I don’t really have that much to say about my shoes, other than it had been over a year since I had my own (functioning) pair of Converse All-Stars, but thanks to a Christmas miracle, I am once again strapped in canvas and rubber, burning down highways and ready to kick ass at a moment’s notice. Life is a thousand times better. These shoes will make 2008 SO much better. This pair especially, the first after a dark age in my life, will not only get me around, they will serve as a symbol that my spirit is running strong. When there is a roadblock, they will make a brief squeak on the floor and we’ll all just pick right up again, fast as before. In fact, these shoes will probably help me fly. Literally.

And speaking of Christmas miracles, several orphans in Chicago had a VERY merry Christmas this year thanks to my place of work and a little bit of war – penny wars, to be exact. Much of the credit of the success goes to my team, I might add.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 9:53 pm under Fightin' Words, Love, Humanism
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“Sure, I know I sound like a reincarnation of a flower child, but really, do we have to be so crass during the Christmas season?” — Roland Martin

I’ve kept silent up until now regarding the apparent controversy of preferring “Happy Holidays” to wishing “Merry Christmas” to the odd passerby, choosing instead to grab a front-row seat to Bill O’Reilly’s yearly frothing about the “War on Christmas” and other such nonsense. Frankly, I find the phrase useful since I encounter many people from varied religious backgrounds on a daily basis, as we all do. For example, if I know someone is an observant pagan, Jew, Muslim, or Christian, I will tailor my greeting accordingly, but one can hardly feign such intimate knowledge of the random strangers we encounter; “Happy Holidays” both conveys the spirit of “Merry Christmas” while acknowledging the existence (and validity) of a great many other religious holidays occurring around the same time. Thus, I find that those who take issue with this greeting are themselves going out of their way to be offended — not the opposite.
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Filed by Trevor at 6:24 am under Religion, Atheism, UU, Social Issues, Pop Culture, Fightin' Words
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Apparently, topping the list of most memorable quotes of 2007 (and thus defining this year in history) is the phrase, “Don’t tase me, bro!”

This angers me, because I never even heard it before today. The fact that the most popular, most year-defining moment came while I wasn’t even looking, and the fact that I completely missed its fifteen minutes of fame, makes me think that all that other stuff I paid attention to was all for naught.

Anyway, the year isn’t over yet. That list doesn’t even include anything (or everything) that George W. Bush said this year.
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Filed by Bil at 1:28 pm under Pop Culture, Damn Hippies, Politics
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Snowfall –
Blanket of silence and cold descending
On the world, destroying, preserving,
Beautiful and terrible.

In the darkness and drought
Of life and love that is Winter
We search for a flicker
Of Why in each other
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Filed by Stephen at 8:06 am under Religion, The Arts, Humanism
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Is Love,
as we’ve been taught —
suspending all Logic and Reason
for Its sake.

While Forgiveness
seeps into the voids:
blanket amnesty
for all manner of Truth.

So now I appeal
to a Higher Power —
that which can suspend Love
for the sake of Reason.

Filed by Trevor at 2:18 am under Love
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The biggest problem with the presidential primaries, I think, is the fact that parties fight with each other and whoever wins gets to fight with the other party. It’s more about getting the nomination over your opponents than about which candidate is best suited to lead the campaign.

I saw a headline that read, “Clinton aims to halt Obama’s momentum,” or something along those lines. I didn’t read it.

I understand that each candidate really really really wants the presidency and will do anything to get it. I feel the same way about burritos. But the most vicious, conniving, mud-slinging individual winning the race doesn’t necessarily help me as an American citizen. What I would like to see is not a bunch of candidates from one party trying to stop the momentum of other candidates in their own party, but rather each candidate trying to build their own momentum, and if they don’t win the nomination, use their energy to continue to boost the candidate that did win the nomination, and carry it all the way to seeing that candidate win the presidency. That would be something worth paying attention to. Right now, it’s like a bunch of squabbling hippopotamuses. No, they’re like tribbles…Yes, exactly like tribbles. Nobody from the Democrats will take a firm, decisive position on anything worthwhile, and nobody from the Republicans will take the right stance on anything good and moral. It’s not as though if Hillary lost the nomination she would then get behind the Republican candidate. She’ll get behind whatever Democrat wins it. Same with Obama. Same with Richardson. So why not just worry about finding the best candidate instead of only worrying about getting yourself the nomination? I mean, I get it, I’m not some idiot kid. I just wish it could be that way.

Stupid system.

Filed by Bil at 1:35 pm under Politics
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“Hark, the herald angels sing — but as for us, my dear, I can’t recall a single thing we’re celebrating this year.” Jenny Owen Youngs, “Things We Don’t Need Anymore”

I was walking home through the park adjacent to my apartment at about midnight last night, trying (and failing) not to look like a total goofball as I tried to keep myself from slipping, and I noticed a woman about my age sitting on a bench. I thought that was a little strange, given the hour and the temperature, but I didn’t think anything of it. Initially I flashed her a non-threatening grin, but as I kept walking, I noticed that she was crying. I stopped and turned around, asking her if she was all right. She popped her headphones out and turned her head.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked.
I repeated my question, “Are you all right?”
She laughed a little. “Yeah, I’m OK.”
I smiled sympathetically and turned to continue on my way.
“You’re a good person for stopping. Happy holidays,” she said.
I turned back around. “Of course, sweetheart.”

But I’m not a good person. My first instinct was to reach for my cell phone, like I do whenever I’m in the Loop and have to pass through the gauntlet of Greenpeace activists, or with those religious nutcases handing out pamphlets on Belmont. And now I feel like a total shit. I’m genuinely concerned; I want to go back.

I wish God existed so she could forgive me.
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Trevor at 1:11 pm under Social Issues, Love, Depression
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For the second time in my life, my Massachusetts driver’s license was questioned by an overly-cautious clerk. This one has a happy ending, though, and I got what I was after. The shades of green and blue wavy lines on my driver’s license are for security, and are of course mathematically complex. But they make my ID look like a passport to Dreamland.

And I think it’s pretty cool. It’s one reason I’ve been such a slacker about getting myself an Illinois license. Illinois still has the boring white background. Also, I paid $90 for my Mass ID and I’m not so quick to dump it just because I don’t live there anymore. But mostly I just like the colorful wavy lines.

Filed by Bil at 10:49 pm under The Arts, The Science
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