JJ Abrams' Magic Boxes (made of ticky tacky)

(to the tune of Little Boxes)

Magic boxes in the story

Magic boxes made of mystery

Magic boxes in the story

Magic boxes all the same

There's a time one and a ghost one

and a search one and a conspiracy

and they're all completely empty

and they all serve just the same

And the people watching tv shows

all expect some answers

and they're all so disappointed

cause they all end just the same.

And the JJ yeah the Abrams

never answers any questions

cause they're all completely empty

and they all come out the same.

And they move on to the next one

and find out there's something else new

that they have to figure out now

that is a complete mystery

and the mystery never gets results

and it keeps on being unsolved

or just goes away, unresolved at all

cause they come out all the same

and a new box comes along now

and it's all so mysterious

it's a box that's completely empty

which is just so completely lame

There's a time one and a ghost one

and a search one and a conspiracy

and they're all completely empty

and they all serve just the same

All I Want for Christmas is you (to take precautions)

I don't want a lot for Christmas,

there is just one thing I need.

I don't care about the people, 

singing on and off of key.

I just want pre-cau-tions now

any that you will allow.

Make my wish come truuuuue

all I want for Christmaaaaas iiiiis yoooooouYeah

I don't want a lot for Christmas

just for you to wear a mask (and I)

won't visit other people,

who can't manage this one task.

It's just hard to und-ersta-and,

and I don't mean to be brisk,

Seeing smiles won't make me happy

if they come with added risk

I just want to see you safe

cer-tain-ly don't mean to chafe

help me to see you

and not risk catching cov-id or fluuuuu, oooh baby

I won't ask for much this Christmas

I won't even wish for snow 

I can wait a few more minutes 

open windows for air flow

Maybe add a HEP-A system

to help pur-i-fy the air

if it's not too much troub-ble

I think it is only fair

cause if you want me there tonight

I think it is only right

what more can I do

oh baby all I want for Christmas is you (and not sickness)

All the rates are rising, just like they did last year

and though with vac-cines there is not much that you fear

but ICUs are fill-ing

I know it is confusing

It's like we're repeating 

the same thing every year

and we just re-fuse to see-ee-ee

I don't want a lot for Christmas, this is all I'm asking for

I just want to see my family, test before I'm at the door

I just want you to be safe, 

never ever meant to chafe

Let me come see you

and not risk catching cov-id or fluuuuu (oooh baby)

all I want for Christmas is you, not illness

all I want for Christmas is you, not covid

all I want for Christmas is you, not the flu

Cruel Sumter (Cruel Summer part 2)

To the tune of "Cruel Summer" by Bananarama

COVID-19 and the people are continuing
to gather round
thinking it's safe cause we're not seeing highest of spread
meanwhile I'm saying (what do you say?)
that they're completely insane
Cases are higher than all of but worst of our months

It's a cruel, (cruel) cruel summer
spread as high as December
it's a cruel, (it's a cruel) cruel summer
like winter

Travel expanding, everyone's back to normal
I'm forced to be
the bad guy, not letting some things return again

It's a cruel, (cruel) cruel summer
heading toward January
it's a cruel, (it's a cruel) cruel summer
ignoring

just how high spread has become

It's a cruel, (cruel) cruel summer
(fully vaxed) not as severe illness still
it's a cruel, (it's a cruel) cruel summer
thousands die [in MA alone]

It's a cruel, cruel summer
coming together again
it's a cruel, cruel summer
now you're here
and I just want to run

It's a cruel, (cruel) cruel summer
(fully vaxed) not as severe illness still
it's a cruel, (it's a cruel) cruel summer
Long covid
and increasing variants

It's a cruel, (cruel) cruel summer
(fully vaxed) spread is still increasing
it's a cruel, (it's a cruel) cruel summer
like winter

oh and here's Monkeypox

It's a cruel...

It's Sunday Afternoon (A Casual Critter Song)

It's Sunday
It's Sunday afternoon
One by one we level up our characters
And collect our haul
Will we go where Matt expected us to go
or kill main plot points
How could you do this? [rips pages]
Casual critters, come join us
it's time to destroy this big rune
it's a big red button
press it
but one things for sure
we'll never be distract... oooh raccoon
It's Sunday afternoon
From sleeves are bullshit, to scritches with doggoes,
we all have the same goal
entertainment
and some therapy
make some jokes and role!
(you can certainly cry)
It's Sunday afternoon
(It's Sunday afternoon)
Casual critters, come join us
it's time to destroy this big rune
it's Sunday afternooooon
there is magic and mystery
from darkness our friendship will rise
but one things for sure
we'll never be distract... oooh raccoon
oooh get ready,
get ready
it's Sunday afternoon

You Miss, I Miss

You miss activities we used to engage in.  I miss not having to constantly hear how you miss them and constantly feeling gaslit for trying to be responsible and trying to take responsibility for the message I send and the activities I promote.  I miss the days when people remembered the things we accomplished the prior year instead of jumping to the need to go back to pre-pandemic behaviors.  I miss not feeling defeated at every step (and admit that this may be my white straight cis-male middle-class privilege shining through).  I miss seeing some sort of hope for the future (again, privilege).  I miss feeling good about anything I do.

You don't like the fact that I'm still masking.  I don't like the fact that I have a higher risk of long covid.  I don't like the fact that I have a couple comorbidities. I don't like the fact that the city I live in didn't reach moderate transmission rate or even high transmission rate when we had nearly stalled out our progress prior to the removal of mask mandates and saw the rates increase again.  I don't like that masking has been made out to be some significant hinderance.

You're tired of precautions.  I'm tired of people not taking precautions for more than a month or two at a time.  I'm tired of the media, government, and individuals not learning from 2 years' experience.  I'm tired of people not going past an initial statement, like "this other country has re-opened in-person schools" to get to the rest of the story, such as "along with having constant testing of all students and are also seeing another wave so they're doing a lock down the likes of which have not been even considered in the US."  

You wish we could just go back to life the way we lived pre-covid.  I wish I didn't have diabetes and could go back to not watching what I eat and not exercising.  I wish I weren't getting older.  I wish global warming weren't a thing and that war and genocide and discrimination didn't exist.

Who Took Herod Out of Christmas, A Story Missed

This is the second year in my memory that I have not listened to a family member read a pair of newspaper articles my grandfather had clipped about Christmas.  If you don't know this about me, I'm agnostic bordering on atheist, but my grandfather was a Methodist minister.  He grappled with ethics and lessons of good and evil both in his role as a religious leader as well as in his job at BU as a professor who taught society and ethics.  I'd like to share the essence of one of articles that he would read to my family throughout my childhood and which someone in my family has read at the annual gathering each year since his passing:

"Who Took Herod Out of Christmas" is an article about how the story of Christmas is not just about the baby Jesus, not just about a miracle, not just about a manger, not just about Mary and Joseph. The article starts by saying that perhaps those that lament the loss of the story to the consumerism we see that has taken over the holiday for so many may be looking in the wrong place. Those that lament the loss of their soap box have long been neglecting a key component of the story: Herod. The story is also about evil, selfish evil, powerful evil, a nearly inconceivable evil. It is about a king who, concerned only with his own power, sent an order to kill all the babies. The article points out that this evil has been glossed over far too often in the telling of the story and the figure made out to be just a boogeyman, if mentioned at all. Perhaps this glossing over is because, in the darkest days of the year, days that are depressing enough already, it can be just a little too much for us to handle. But let the thought of the story sink in. It is a story of a king who sent his army out to kill massive numbers of babies. The story of Christmas is one of an earthly power seeking to destroy for no other reason than to maintain its hold on power. It is dark and troubling.

And yet this is not something that we only see in religious stories or in fables or in the movies, we have seen this story played out in our recent history. We've seen atrocities the world wide, with children being separated from their parents and detained in hostile conditions. We've seen genocides. We've seen the powerful of our world demand that we sacrifice the welfare of our children for some other "good", a "good" which is almost always entirely to the benefit of the powerful and not to the benefit of the meek.

The story of Christmas should be told in its entirety and not watered down to make it more easier to take, for it is in recognizing the darkness within the story, it is in understanding the presence of evil and thinking about what drives that evil, that we can more fully appreciate the story and learn from it. And it is in recognizing this evil that there is even greater impact in the other power of the story choosing to be born into this world in such meek and understated terms... but the meek/understated terms is the focus of the other clipping, so I'll leave us there.

Thank you for letting me share with you what has been an important part, and a missing part, of my Christmas these last two years.  One more thing that has been missing from my Christmas is the sharing of a particular song which I'd like to share with you now:  May the Light of Love by David Roth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVBYERSwc2E

Often it's the Opposite of What you Might Expect, COVID edition

(to the tune of "Often it's the Opposite" from Psych: The Musical)

Often it's the opposite of what you might expect.

Try to think to logical, you're usually incorrect.

Think with so many deaths the public won't re-elect?

It's the opposite of that,

the opposite of that

(public)                        But we're open

(me)                             Immaterial

(public)                        But we're safe now

(me)                             Inexact

(Senator Murkowski)  You don't think the governor has learned to quickly act

Try to be irrationale, you’ll free your head from pains

Pretending that we’re better now, will free the commerce lanes

Think the public sees that it's not all just candy canes

It’s the opposite that 

Yes, we’ll re-elect the rat

Often it’s the opposite of what you might assume

Think that you’re safe from spreading, I’ll explain things over zoom

Bet without precautions, increased cases won’t resume

It’s the opposite of that, 

My faith has gone kasplat

It’s the opposite of that,

it’s the opposite of that