And now, a brief seasonal message

I recently came across this piece, which beautifully sums up how I feel about Christmas, in the pages of Playboy magazine, of all things. I bought it because it had Marilyn Monroe on the cover. I have very little interest in the fake plastic women that populate the magazine’s pages these days, so after Marilyn I found myself reading the articles.

Anyway, it is entitled “A Christmas Sermon” and was written by the agnostic thinker and speaker Robert Ingersoll in 1891. I recommend that you print it out, put it in your wallet, and pull it out and read it whenever holiday stress starts to get you down.

The good part of Christmas is not always Christian; it is generally pagan—that is to say, human, natural.

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NaNoWriMo Wrapup

Even though I broke all of NaNoWriMo’s rules, and didn’t come anywhere near their desired word count, I’m going to go ahead and call November a success — because progress was made, and that’s all I care about.

I had forgotten how hard it is to write fiction (or semifiction, anyway); you have to like, make stuff up, and that takes time. When it goes poorly, it’s like pulling teeth; but when it goes well, it definitely improves the day.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in seeing the story continued, I’d like to hear from you. And be honest, because at this rate it’ll probably take me five more years to finish, and I’d just as soon not be bothered. Muchos gracias, anyway, if you’ve been reading.