A New Blog and a New Post

Hello all! I have started a new blog for several reasons. I have another one on blogger, but I hardly use it, preferring my MySpace blog feature. Now that most of my friends have left MySpace, and the rest visit it infrequently, I thought it best to start again with a fresh blog and new domain name, which if you noticed is grburbank.blogspot.com. The reason I never use my other blog here, which I will soon be deleting, is that I have no idea how to use this site and customize my blog. I am, after all, not the most techno-literate person. However, I hope to have friends teach me how make the most out of my blogger bloggy blogthing.

Today is Christmas Eve, and I wish everyone a Happy Christmas. (I love affecting British-isms.) I wanted to go to Midnight Mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine, but alas all the seat passes are already gone. I remarked to my friend Kristyn that all the Catholics (and others such as myself) do come out of the woodwork for Christmas. I hope they have a lovely time.

Today does not feel like Christmas Eve, nor does it seem possible that tomorrow is Christmas day--and then it will all be over and a long winter will be upon us. The older we get the quicker time flies by, and Christmas feels less and less magical with each passing year. This is not to say I have not celebrated Christmas--and by celebrate I mean the Americanized festivity of giving gifts to friends and family and not the religious holiday marking Christ's birth--even though I wanted to go the mass tonight. I went to see the lights at Temple Square with my friends, and I also celebrated Apartment Christmas with them, even though we no longer live in the same complexes, in fact only Justin and Ellen live in an apartment at all. I received Watchmen by Alan Moore from Valerie and the complete sixth season of The West Wing from Melissa. Even Dixy gave me a BN gift card, and I felt really bad because I didn't get anything for her. Ellen is also making me a scarf. We also went caroling which was a failed endeavor. I went to a Christmas-themed concert by Voice Male--which is a Utah-based, male, a cappella group--with my family. Not exactly my cup of tea, but whatever. I saw my friend Elise in her play It's a Wondrous Life which is a spoof on It's a Wonderful Life which I also caught part of when it was broadcast on television. In addition, I attended Dain's annual Christmas party, complete with booze and all! Due to the major snowstorm that day, attendance was sparse compared to previous years. And instead of chatting up Megan (who was a no show) and Elise (who arrived very late) and other friends, we played Rock Band and then watched Arrested Development. It was fun, but not the same. So I feel I've participated in my share of yuletide festivities, and yet it doesn't feel like Christmas.

As I've gotten older, my anxious sleep on Christmas Eve has more or less subsided, though there has always been one or two gifts I desperately want that I'm not sure I'll get. This year I really want The Absolute Sandman vol. 1, but I've come to terms that I probably won't get it. I also want Into the Woods on DVD, and I'm pretty sure I'll get that. I would also like some dress boots and a new supply of Green Tea HP, but as neither were on my wish list, I probably won't get either of those. Everything else on my wish list is an assortment of books, movies, and CDs.

I'm fighting off a cold currently, so that isn't exactly inspiring Christmas joy. I woke up last Wednesday night with a tickle in my throat and knew I was getting sick. I woke up and took some Airborne and NyQuil and stole the humidifier from my brother's room. All in all, it hasn't been terrible, and I've been functioning just fine. Yay for my cocktail of drugs! I have woken up every morning with a cough, and it is that very cough that is still lingering--otherwise I feel perfectly well again. But I just started on some Mucinex--so hopefully that takes care of that.

I'm spending the rest of the day working on chores. We have family coming starting tomorrow and on Friday we're hosting the family party. It's the first time in a long time that every single member of our large and growing extended family will be together--so we're taking a group picture that day. It'll also be the last time too. My grandparents are getting old and while they still get around just fine, they're not exactly in the best of health. Three grandchildren got married this year, including my sister, making four total grandchildren with spouses. The first couple already has a daughter and the rest will get pregnant soon enough, I'm sure. And I'm sure in the next few years, we'll see a couple more marriages. So anyway, it'll be good to all be together again. But in the meantime I must finish my chores. This includes laundry and cleaning my room. With all this family, I'm being unceremoniously kicked out of my bedroom which will be given to one set of my aunts and uncles. My room exists in a continuous state of über entropy, so cleaning it is quite a task. When I (hopefully) move to grad school in the fall, moving is going to be a gargantuan pain. Anyway, I best be getting back to the room--it really is a disaster. I'm just glad I'm not rushing around buying last minute Christmas gifts as has been my wont in Christmases past. Once I finish, I should really start reading The Maltese Falcon as we're discussing it for book group on Tuesday. Anyway, I hope you really didn't read this whole blog as it's long and aimless and dull. I have great hope that future posts will be more focused and engaging. Oscar season is upon us and I am quite prepared to see a fleet of movies and discuss them here. If you did finish this blog, I hope life is treating you well. Have a Happy Christmas and may 2009 be a new and exciting chapter in all of our lives. Shalom.