MR WRONG: Fretfully festive

COLUMN DEP’T.

MR WRONG: Enjoying The Holidays Is My Full-Time Job

TODAY IS DECEMBER 21, and I don’t wanna get all into a thing about which day is the Solstice and the Shortest Day of the Year and stuff, it’s fuckin’ close enough, and for the purposes of my Column, it’s today, so just relax and accept the premise, or stop reading and go look at a sundial or whatever, thank you.

Winter is upon us, which is my least fave Season because it’s as far away as you can get from Summer, my fave Season, and today is the least amount of daylight, but there’s the Consolation Prize of The Holidays right now, and I enjoy The Holidays! Food and Beverages, and Festive Gatherings and stuff, where you get together for Food and Beverages! Even though I am Underemployed and can’t buy and do all the stuff I want to, which is Buying and Doing, it’s still Good Times, and I hope that you have found a way to Be of Good Cheer, even though it requires Cognitive Dissonance and is arguably dangerous for one’s Mental Well-Being to be like “I am enjoying the Holiday Season” while The World exists and Shit Happens.

I don’t care! Goddammit, I am gonna Be of Good Cheer, I am A Being of Good Cheer! Even though I keep applying for a Day Job and not getting one, I’m Tiny Fuckin’ Tim over here, for reals, it’s The Holidays, G_d Bless Us Every One, goddamit! Ho Ho Etc.!

I obtained a nice Spiral-Cut Ham at the price club, on sale, so we’re gonna eat High on The Hog on Xmas Day (or maybe more exactly Back on The Hog), and Xmas Eve I’m gonna hang out with my bro and go see the new Ferrari movie, starring Adam Driver (get it?), and then stay up late to goof on the Pope’s televised Midnight Mass from the Vatican.

If you have never caught this show, it is worth a look, simply to marvel at the cathedral and you just wonder, wow, the overhead, jeez, where does the money come from, to cover the Electric Bill to keep the lights on at this indoor cavern, eh? Also, all the guys in the front row are Cardinals, and they’re in line to be Pope, so it’s entertaining to try and figure out who’s gonna move up. Maybe it’s too Inside Baseball for you, but it’s trippy, as a Lapsed Catholic, to look at that ceremony, which is global in reach, on regular Broadcast Television, and see all the Clergy and Familiars in one place, in their weird getups and styles, it’s like the David Lynch version of Dune, all these arcane weirdos, assembled within cavernous Opulence, built on the celebration of the Birthday of a baby god!

So look, things might be crappy for you right now, but just put one day in front of the other, and give yourself a break for a few days and be Cognitively Dissonant like me, seriously, Avoidance is a valid way to deal with a problem until you can get your shit together!

Really though, the other day I was at a nice party and I saw many Festive people, and there was the required amount of Holiday Cognitive Dissonance, and yeah, I have had a lotta disappointment this year, but I am steady on the Grind of looking for a new Grind, and the Action is the Juice, for now! Nobody’s gonna do any hiring for the stuff I applied for in the middle of The Holidays, so it’s a perfect time to relax and float in a cloud of Possibilities, and then when the New Year hits, I’ll get super-serious about finding a J-Oh-Bee-kinda Job, in terms of abandoning the Graphic Arts, the profession I spent decades earning dough in. Jeez, I wish there was a way to make money writing. Ho Ho Hoooooo!

The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly wherever it can appear. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.

WEATHER REVIEWS

New York City, December 20, 2023

★★★ Cornices and the unadorned other upper reaches of building lit up in the not-very-early early light, giving the eye something to savor on the chilly trudge to the trash cans. The sky was cloud-free but a slight hazy discoloration lay on the blue. Fingers got sore from the cold on the wait at the bus stop. Eventually it was time to dig the wool hat out of the parka pocket. The ride uptown was bright and easy, though, and so was the return. The Christmas trees lined up outside the corner store were still numerous and healthy-looking.

EASY LISTENING DEP’T.

INDIGNITY MORNING PODCAST

Indignity Morning Podcast No. 187: Bulldozed beachfront.

Tom Scocca • Dec 21, 2023

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BLUESKY DEPARTMENT

More Gentle Readers of Indignity (and also possibly the Mr. Wrong column) have sent us Bluesky codes, for people who want to try the still-beta Bluesky social networks. If you haven’t already gotten a code from us, email indignity@indignity.net and we will award Bluesky codes to those who respond, one per reader, first email, first served.

SANDWICH RECIPES DEP’T.

WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of select sandwiches from Woman's Club Cook Book of Southern Recipes, compiled by members of The Woman’s Club of Charlotte, North Carolina, Published in 1908. This book is in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.

TOMATO SANDWICHES.
Have light bread thinly sliced; have large red tomatoes thinly sliced; have mayonnaise dressing ready for use. Take a slice of bread, place a lettuce leaf on it, spread on a spoonful of mayonnaise dressing; cover this with a slice of tomato, then a little more mayonnaise, and again a lettuce leaf; last, the other slice of bread is added, making the sandwich complete. Trim any projecting edges of the lettuce.

NUT SANDWICHES.
Use mayonnaise dressing and pecan nuts; chop nuts fine, mix with dressing; lay on lettuce leaf between bread. Peanuts can be used in the same way by putting them through the meat grinder, or peanut butter.

PEPPER SANDWICHES.
Slice bell peppers into thin rings; spread thin slices of bread with mayonnaise and place 2 rings of pepper between 2 slices. Cut bread round.

PEPPER AND CHEESE SANDWICHES.
Mash 1/4 lb. plain cream cheese and soften with 1 tablespoon of cream and 1 teaspoon olive oil. Spread on thin slices of bread or on butter thins and stick whole blanched almonds in the cheese, then sprinkle lightly with red pepper. Do not double these slices.

If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.

MARKETING DEP'T.

The second printing of 19 FOLK TALES is now available for Holiday gift-giving and personal perusal!

U.S. Postal Service media mail delivery takes an estimated 4 to 8 business days, which means from here on out it will be a gamble against the calendar.

For adrenaline junkies and/or Eastern Orthodox shoppers, the author stands ready to hand-fulfill orders as they come in, even at the cost of dealing with that one clerk at the neighborhood post office whose whole thing is trying to start a fight with everyone who steps up to her window. Happy holidays!

HMM WEEKLY MINI-ZINE, Subject: GAME SHOW, Joe MacLeod’s account of his Total Experience of a Journey Into Television, expanded from the original published account found here at Hmm Daily. The special MINI ZINE features other viewpoints related to an appearance on, at, and inside the teevee game show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, available for purchase at SHOPULA.

FLAMING HYDRA will launch in January of 2024. The FLAMING HYDRA Holiday Preview Spectacular, a rich sampling of the writing and art you’ll enjoy as a subscriber to the forthcoming daily newsletter, is available now for your inspection. FLAMING HYDRA is the work of 60 world-class talents, but that’s just one reason to subscribe. FLAMING HYDRA is a 100% cooperatively owned, ad-free publication with no owners and no investors; just a bunch of writers and artists working together and splitting the proceeds equally.

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