December 13th, 2009.

Christmas is coming, the rob is getting fat. Please put a penny in Heather’s hat, cause no-one else in the band ever wears one.

*Wally Dyer was the featured artist at Java Mammas on December 10th – he did a great job and once again I was blown away by his voice and his extremely talented (and unbearably young) bass player.*

*Okay – they DID enjoy his set alot, but this is just silly.*

Well – I’m not ACTUALLY getting fat. I actually need to put another hole in my belt because I seem to be doing a little bit of slimming. It doesn’t FEEL like I am, but embarrassing ass slippage just don’t lie.

I feel like I should get a road badge from I-95. I doubt there’s THAT many people who can claim quite as many miles on it without the profession of full-time trucker. Northbound out of DC, traffic is light and the ghostly night-time outlines of the ICC create their Maryland Stonehenge out past the headlights and taillights and whatever other beams happen to chance their way.

*Now that’s Christmas in Baltimore – Cafe Hon with their halls thoroughly decked.*

The 18 wheelers seem inclined to toe the lines between lanes tonight and I’m overly aware of just how close their tonnage comes to my shoulder, scant inches separating our two steel hides. I think it’s important to acknowledge how close we come to death each and every day.

RA
Miracle on 34th Street in the Hamden area of Baltimore, MD was every bit as packed as such a wonder of light ought to be. Children being dragged rather unwillingly by parents, and toddlers in bobble hats having their eyeballs pointed at the things around them. Santa on a motorcycle with a big red jacket with a big burning skull on the back with the words “SOB – Semites on Bikes” emblazoned on the back. I Love my city.

Floodlights are hovering above us in the mist, like someone or something threatening a landing.

There was something beautiful in the news this weekend. A spiral in the sky – a failed missile test of all things – viewed from just the right angle it became a Christmas miracle, or perhaps a threat from another world. It was an out of control rocket, beautiful and crazy. An unfortunate reminder that when / if we blow ourselves apart with ICBMs it might well be our own that hit us, because the damned things still don’t always work.

Good thing it happened out at sea, or we’d have another messiah on our hands.