Shopping Time

Well, it's Christmas shopping time. And I guess the other holidays too. Whatever.

Funny sidebar story . . .my friends and I, in high school, saw "Kwanzaa" listed on the big calendar in the front office. It's a calendar made elsewhere, obviously, because at the time Ashland was about as racially diverse as a kung fu movie. So we, educated, top of what that school had to offer academically, had never heard of this strange holiday. We wondered what it could be.

We eventually decided it was when all the Brians and Bryans of the world got together and made more Brians and Bryans. Safe to say, we knew a lot of guys with that name. It was a sacred time.

Anyway.

I love holiday shopping. I love it. I love finding the pefect gift. It has to be perfectly FOR the receiver and perfectly FROM me. Every year I try to have one out-of-the-ballpark gift. One year I got my mom a set of bagpipes. Last year I got my dad an Atari 5200 (pure awesomeness). This year . . .dunno. Lisa gave me the idea for a certificate for a personally tailored shirt at a nice Manhattan place for dad. That could be cool.

The thing I hate most is when people ask me what I want. For whatever reason, my particular brand of uberleftist Christianity gives me a huge helping of class guilt. It's not helped by the fact that I have all these darling children I teach who are among the poorest inhabitants of NY. So I have a hard time wanting things, you know? It rarely feels right. (Of course some things are always right, cough cough, Frank Quitely Marvel Family sketch, cough cough.)

So I was working on my amazon wish list and basically started adding a bunch of stuff for my class. I guess that's a good compromise.

I also hate telling people what I want because I get off on being surprised. Surprise is hot. Opening the package you know is whatever is not.

Unless it's a Frank Quitely Marvel Family sketch. Or painting.

That is perfect at any point in time.