Merry freakin' Christmas
This has been, so far, a fascinating Christmas season.
It started for me with Santarchy on December 8, driven by Morley. For general overview, go to santacon.com -- for specifics, wish you could turn back time and be on the South Side on December 8, as one of my students was. In class the Monday after, I casually said, "Was anyone on the South Side this Saturday?" She straightened out of her stretch and pointed her finger at me, grinning. "I saw you!" she said. "That was the best thing ever!"
My friend Tess, who I met at Burning Man this past year and lives in North Carolina, was vending at an event called Bazaar Bizarre in Cleveland the first weekend in December and she stayed with me. We took pictures of the two of us jumping in my living room, stayed up late talking about boys, and spooned in my bed. Then Morley and I laid on the peer pressure to get her to come back the next weekend for Santacon. And she did!
She had an extremely adorable elf costume: striped socks, suspenders, everything that would make you want to either feed her peppermints or drop-kick her into a pile of teddy bears. Me, I was dressed as Mrs. Clause (with an "e"): Santa's disgruntled first wife with a prenuptual agreement. Morley and I decided my maiden name was Phyllis Berkovitz, and the kids weren't getting too many toys this year since I was going to take the bastard for all his worldly assets; what do you expect, with one ho after another?
Highlights of the day include: rushing into the Scientology office and shouting "We all need personality tests", making out on the hoods of cars with various girls dressed as reindeer, stampeding silently through the South Side library branch, and calling the hook and ladder crew of Firehouse 27 to climb into the second floor window of some sad Santa's girlfriend's locked-out apartment. We did elf-jousting outside the PPG Place skating rink, and sack races outside the DoubleWide Grill. We crammed everyone into the incline, and flirted with a police officer. One naughty little Santa started up the climbing wall at REI and was hastily called down by store management when they noticed she wasn't wearing underwear under her short skirt and fishnets, something that would shortly have been noticed by the small children gaping up at her from below. As the evening wore on, more Santas dropped out; also, it started to rain. And so, to bed.
I was kind of bummed, actually; Justin texted me in the middle of the evening to say that not only were their three school buses full of Santas being followed by a police chopper, but someone got arrested. Why can't we get hauled off by the po-po? It's what Jesus would do.
It started for me with Santarchy on December 8, driven by Morley. For general overview, go to santacon.com -- for specifics, wish you could turn back time and be on the South Side on December 8, as one of my students was. In class the Monday after, I casually said, "Was anyone on the South Side this Saturday?" She straightened out of her stretch and pointed her finger at me, grinning. "I saw you!" she said. "That was the best thing ever!"
My friend Tess, who I met at Burning Man this past year and lives in North Carolina, was vending at an event called Bazaar Bizarre in Cleveland the first weekend in December and she stayed with me. We took pictures of the two of us jumping in my living room, stayed up late talking about boys, and spooned in my bed. Then Morley and I laid on the peer pressure to get her to come back the next weekend for Santacon. And she did!
She had an extremely adorable elf costume: striped socks, suspenders, everything that would make you want to either feed her peppermints or drop-kick her into a pile of teddy bears. Me, I was dressed as Mrs. Clause (with an "e"): Santa's disgruntled first wife with a prenuptual agreement. Morley and I decided my maiden name was Phyllis Berkovitz, and the kids weren't getting too many toys this year since I was going to take the bastard for all his worldly assets; what do you expect, with one ho after another?
Highlights of the day include: rushing into the Scientology office and shouting "We all need personality tests", making out on the hoods of cars with various girls dressed as reindeer, stampeding silently through the South Side library branch, and calling the hook and ladder crew of Firehouse 27 to climb into the second floor window of some sad Santa's girlfriend's locked-out apartment. We did elf-jousting outside the PPG Place skating rink, and sack races outside the DoubleWide Grill. We crammed everyone into the incline, and flirted with a police officer. One naughty little Santa started up the climbing wall at REI and was hastily called down by store management when they noticed she wasn't wearing underwear under her short skirt and fishnets, something that would shortly have been noticed by the small children gaping up at her from below. As the evening wore on, more Santas dropped out; also, it started to rain. And so, to bed.
I was kind of bummed, actually; Justin texted me in the middle of the evening to say that not only were their three school buses full of Santas being followed by a police chopper, but someone got arrested. Why can't we get hauled off by the po-po? It's what Jesus would do.