My brain: downs and ups

I was in Dayton's at Roseville on my way to the car, having bought my aunt a teakettle and timprov a Peach Julius, and all of a sudden I smelled lydy. I knew it wasn't Lydy, but I wanted it to be, so I looked around to see if the person who smelled like Lydy also looked anything like Lydy.

There was no one there. In another minute or so, the smell disappeared abruptly: dysosmia event.

It is absolutely not fair to have dysosmia events that come out like someone. I mean, I would rather have the store smell like Lydy than have Lydy smell like Store, but -- notfairnotfairnotfairstupidbrain.

Announcing that I want this to go away has not been all that effective, historically speaking. But it doesn't change the basic fact.

I have so thoroughly trained my brain to think stories that a license plate and the logo above it, combined, were enough to add an entire character and subplot to the space opera thing I'm picking at around the edges. The license plate said my cousin's name (approximately -- a compressed form) and a cube. It was not even a vanity plate. Just three letters, three numbers. And there she was. Kind of a mathematician space opera Musketeer. I would call her Mathos, but she's really more of a math-Aramis, and anyway her name is Ann.

Because of a license plate. Because that is what I have taught my brain to do. Some of it was natural. Most of it was not.

So I guess I won't trade it in -- my brain, I mean -- for the time being. Even if it is from Abby somebody.

White dress, red sash, and candles.

Today on Making Light there's a bit about St. Nicholas and his day. It was interesting to me in an outsider sort of way: we don't do anything for the feast of St. Nicholas here. Our near-Christmas saint-based holiday is coming a week from today with Santa Lucia Day, and I'm hoping to have time to bake the lussekatter in time. There will be no early morning singing, just lovely little saffron buns with dried blueberries (ought to be raisins, but we like dried blueberries). I won't ever wear the candle wreath and the red sash again. This was one of the most definite signs that I was a grown woman, and it was a bittersweet sign.

Sometimes people from other ethnic backgrounds are politely confused: we are the Prottiest Prots that ever you would wish to see. Why on earth are we celebrating a saint day? An Italian saint day, in a pack of Nordic types? But listen: we need it here. We need the fire in the darkness, the maidens of light and the costly golden bread. We can't do without it. This is how we manage January at this latitude: because we've had the songs and the bread and the candles. Because while the air is getting colder, the days are getting longer. Christmas has become a fairly theological light-in-darkness, at a remove, somewhat intellectual if the light-in-darkness theme comes up at all. Lucia Day is visceral for us. Sometimes, yes, in the visceral urge to kill the damned singers because it is five in the morning. But even that kind of visceral urge is alive. It keeps going in the ice and the darkness. I need this Lucia Day. I need this holiday from people who just wouldn't quit, or at least tried their hardest not to. I need this holiday of perseverance.

All the people who are on about not saying, "Happy holidays" because "Christ is the reason for the season" annoy the shit out of me. (She said politely.) Heaven forbid my house should smell of saffron and Mr. Macdonald over at Making Light should get to put his shoes out: we all get one holiday, lest someone else have a happy Hanukkah by mistake, lest someone's Solstice turn out to be joyous.

Well, bah and humbug upon them. Happy holidays. Any of 'em you want. If you're not a proper Christian or not a Christian at all, so what? You can have my holidays anyway. Try a saffron bun. Try a cardamom roll. They're tasty. They make me happy. They keep us going just a little bit longer. Sometimes we need our symbols to be direct and tangible, and I promise: it's okay.

And another thing.

Axial tilt is the reason for the season.

Christ may or may not be the reason for the celebration; that part is your call.