Good morning (friend), barely. 11:30. Greetings once again from Somerville, MA. I hope you are doing all right. I hope you had a lovely Christmas holiday.

Last night I dreamed that I was head of the CIA’s clandestine operations, and my old Babarian coworker Stephanie was the Director of National Intelligence, and the United States had suffered a dvestating, fatal blow through a combination of attacks coordinated by all our enemies at once — cyber and biological and financial and guerilla. No nuclear, though. But they got us good, and got us in a way that seems utterly plausible given the absolute idiocy running our country right now.

So the entire Presidential Line of Succession was wiped out in the attack. It is striking me right now that it’s weird that the DNI is not in the line of succession. Seems like they might be reasonably needed if we’re down, like, 10 people in the line. But whatever. I thought Stephanie was gone too.

But I, and most of the clandestine operations division survived only because we were off at a conference, very clandestinely called CLANDESTINECON, which took place at that big brutalist hotel on Market St in SF, and Stephanie was our keynote speaker. We retreated to our secret farm base in Vacaville and started plotting our response. There was this brilliant scene with the farmer, who was in reality farmer and Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis not sure what was up with that. But the secret CIA farm base had been an off-books handshake deal between Michael Eavis and my predecessor, and he did not know me, so… well, shit got tense.

There was also a whiteboard involved. I gave a hell of a whiteboard presentation.

This dream took place because I idly watched as our president tweeted truthed 200+ times on Christmas day, and bombed Nigeria for good measure. I read about how he maybe drowned a baby (?!), wondered at a world where it was even plausible to think that might be true, and it occurred to me that he was so reviled even by his family and friends that he was probably alone on Christmas. He criminally sanctioned some nice Europeans for trying to get Twitter fined in Europe.

He clearly and unambiguously told me that me, my family, and most of my friends (most of you!) would not see another Christmas.

I’m just tryin to fuckin’ check out a blonde Zoey Deschenel sing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” here, buddy. Jesus.

And for the first time I thought god, you know, this country, it’s not gonna make it. Today I believe we’ll make it again, but… Jesus.

But a topic for another day.

I am sitting on the couch in our Somerville apartment with my daughter snuggled up next to me. She is playing Nintendo Switch. I believe she is playing Stardew Valley. She has been very into cozy games lately.

We are just returned from the local breakfast place. I was introduced to everything bagles this week. Always thought that “everything” was different at different places. Didn’t realize it was a consitent, specific combination of delicious things. I am now a fan. Delicious. Also learned that mincemeat is not meat. Fifty three years old, still learning basic-ass shit. We had bagels. Jane had a babka. She loves their babkas. This is not new information to long-time readers. We are on a good babka run this week. And they were open for Christmas. My wife Emma and our friends Nick, Megan, Henry and Jared all went with us to the breakfast place on Christmas day. It was lovely.

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I am… well, I am not listening to anything.

Silence. I can dimly hear the music to Stardust Valley through Jane’s headphones. I did finish my To Investigate playlist, though, in time for the new year, and keeping my migration from Spotify (finally!) mostly on track. Got a lot to do about it this week, but I am on it.

Tuesday… well, Tuesday mostly sucked. I had a very rough time at the Somerville Parking Office who really didn’t want to give me a visitor’s parking permit because I am a “resident” becausde I rent, even though I don’t live here and they straight-facedly insisted that I should change my registration from NC to MA three-to-four times a year. It was a real mess. They did eventually consent to give me the parking pass, but only till 12/31 for some reason, it was real weird. They didn’t explain themselves.

And all the while when we were having these discussions, there was a mentally ill sixty-five year-old man next to me at the next window rambling on very loudly about how he has had this hat for twenty-five years, and it took twenty years for his head sweat to mold the hat to his head’s shape. It was a civil war hat of indeterminate belligerent. I think it was Yankee but I cannot say for sure. So I am having this pretty intense conversation about how I really just want to follow the law here, what can we do to make this work, while this dude is yelling next to me about head sweat. Lovely.

Then I messed up Emma’s car – the plastic rear bumper cover — because I accidentally drove over one of those bike lane pole things that was invisible to my backup cam and utterly illogically placed. I could draw you a diagram to defend my attention and skills, but just trust me: NOT MY FAULT.

Ugh and also that night Jane got in a big crazy manic episode and she wouldn’t go to bed and she was hitting Emma and trying to hurt me so I held her on the bed for a second to restrain her from hurting us and now suddenly I’m the bad guy. It sucked. Rough day, the 23rd.

I did however, on that day, find way up in the rafters, seriously the guy had to use a ladder to get it, a new-in-box, vintage 1980’s Care Bear, Tugs, the baby boy Care Bear. That really helped with my mood. A Christmas Miracle.

Oh and also we did go to Mr. Music in Allston on the 23rd. The crusty old guitar shop where I used to buy my strings and picks and bought my second guitar ever, it’s still there, unchanged. Talked to the manager. The store is 50. he is only the second manager ever. The owner started it when he was 21. Still owns it. Place rules. I bought a rubber-stringed bass ukelele for $270. Fantastic.

So, you know. Good and bad on Tuesday.

Christmas Eve was lovely. Our friends Nick, Meghan and Henry were staying here in our duplex with Sean and Jussi, so there were eight of us. Nick et al headed off to Reykjavik this morning, weren’t in town as long, so they had a brunch for friends and it was great. Nick made breakfast burritos and I sat on the couch with a youtube playlist of all the music I meant to check out this year, and friends came in and out and I got to talk to loads of people while curled up under a blanket listening to lots of KEXP and Tiny Desk concerts and it was just lovely.

Then Sean and Jussi’s parents and family came and they had their Christmas upstairs, and I popped in for a bit. Just lovely.

And then in the evening we had our twenty-fifth ish annual Orphans, Jews, Atheists and Curmudgeons Christmas Eve party and it was very well attended this year and I actually met one or two amazing people and I saw an old friend I hadn’t seen in twenty+ years which was just fantastic. What a night. I was losing my voice from so much socializing and had to hide in a corner for a bit but still, just the best. Amazing Christmas Eve.

Back home for Sean’s Christmas tradition of watching the 1951 A Christmas Carol, with them movie synced so the bell tolls 1 AM exactly at 1AM. Great film. Probably the second best adaptation. Amazing black and white photography. Might be number one if Scrooge didn’t talk so dang fast.

And Christmas was just great. After the breakfast place, We watched Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, the new one-minute long Blue minisode, the much-maligned-but-still-mostly-good Love, Actually, the best adaptation of A Christmas Carol, the Muppets one, and, after the kids went to bed, Trading Places. Lotta people say Die Hard is not really a Christmas movie because the plot works just as well on any other day. This is not true, of course, because Nakatomi Plaza is completely deserted, John has the time off, those line up, etc. But I digress. Trading Places? Legitimate fake Christmas movie. Yes, it takes place at Christmas, and there is that amazing scene with Dan Akroyd in the Santa outfit, but other than that? Complete coincidence the events of the movie take place at Christmas.

Forgot to send it to you this year, so here it is a day late, the great Christmas rap I wrote twenty-five years ago now. Really should be a Christmas number one. Some day.

Happy holidays and god bless us, every one.

The actors who played Tiny Tim in the 1935 and 1938 versions of A Christmas Carol are both still alive.