Dear Holidailies,

I’m hell bent on following through with you. Regardless of how sleepy I am (even though it’s only 8:54pm), despite all the disorganized ideas turning in my mind, even though I have no desire to say anything to the world-at-large in this very moment, I am posting today. Fifty words is all you require. This makes 60.

Goodnight.

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 24.

Last night we tucked ourselves into bed early and put on “Julie & Julia”. I proceeded to seethe with blog envy. I know, it’s ridiculous. I’m perfectly aware that there’s no limit to the amount of success & good fortune in the world; the accomplishments of others in no way prohibit me from doing the work it will take to fulfill my dreams. So there was no reason for me to wish a pox on Julie Powell’s house during that answering machine scene when – not only is she basking in the warm love of wedded bliss – she’s getting served with about 37 invitations to write for money.

The movie got me fantasizing about my own my blog project, modeled after my newest object of admiration and inspiration: Ruth & Snoop.

Inner City legend provides a frustrated unemployed office worker with a new blueprint for life in Ruth & Snoop, the true stories of how Felicia “Snoop” Pearson’s memoir and rap sheet inspired fledgling writer Ruth to whip up 97 capers in 365 days.

Andy made me promise I won’t really attempt it. I don’t have what it takes anyway. Unless I broke it down into smaller tasks. I guess the first step would be learning to fight. I could take some self defense, boxing and karate lessons. Hmmm; there is a martial arts academy down the street.

Okay, I just checked it out. Not appealing; I don’t want to dis management over at AMMS or anything, but let’s just say the aesthetic of the website did nothing to pull me in. My vibes are saying end of the line. Besides, fighting like Felicia Pearson is not a skill that can be taught. It’s more special than that. I better get a new fantasy.

Seriously though, how did Julie Powell avoid getting fat that year of mastering French cooking? She got a writing deal and kept her figure?

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 23.

The minute Felicia “Snoop” Pearson’s character, Snoop, appeared on The Wire, we couldn’t take our eyes off her. Chris and Snoop would enter a scene, something awful would happen (notice me not giving spoilers, you’re welcome) and hours later, away from the TV, Andy or I would say to each other, “God, I just love Chris and Snoop.” We had whole conversations about feeling warmly towards them. It seemed inexplicable but it wasn’t really. That’s the magic of The Wire. The Wire shows you how, if you look at people the right way, everyone has got a core that deserves love. Andy would articulate it differently but that’s how I see it.

Felicia “Snoop” Pearson describes the love thing well in her life (so-far) story when she talks about grace.

Yes, it’s true – I read a book! I read a whole book!

The embarrassing truth about my love of books is that for all the collecting and adoring I do of them, it’s a rare day when I actually finish reading one. I was that English minor in school who could write a decent paper about a book I hadn’t fully read. I once scored 100% on a quiz on Catch 22 in college; absolute dumb luck. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading, or that I never finished what I started but when I did read whole books, they weren’t war stories.

My problem these days is that I dabble. I’m usually in the middle of about five books at once. Recently, I’ve tried disciplining myself to only having one read-in-progress at a time and that has helped.

So today, I finished one of my Christmas gifts: Grace After Midnight by Felicia “Snoop” Pearson (with David Ritz). What an inspiring story. If you love memoir, if you love The Wire, if you love people telling difficult truths, if you’re interested in faith or survival or both – read this book.

Part of the reason why I love Snoop’s story is that at the heart of it, when she describes a particular moment of grace in her life, it reminds me of what I was trying to describe in my post about the surge of goodness that I feel sometimes. Reading her story inspires me to continue trying to talk and write about it – the magic, the grace, the love. Reading her story further validates my feeling that it’s real, that indescribable thing that a lot of people call God’s overwhelming love is really real.

Whether or not she ever graces my blog with her presence, I want to make this public: I wish Felicia “Snoop” Pearson all of the goodness the heavens and earth can offer up.

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 22.

Still taking a bit of vacation from writing of any sort, so I’m offering my Holidailies crew this awfully sweet photograph of Mary and Bob. New comers, yeah, this blog is named after these two.

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 21.

Another quickie to fulfill Holidailies. I was thoroughly spoiled yesterday. Among my delights, this sweet painting arrived.

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 20.

Are you ever afraid you’re going to reach your joy quota? The day before yesterday I started feeling flashes of heaven-like happiness. Then yesterday, the blocks of bliss just got longer and longer and started running together, until today, when I feel like my total minutes of gladness must exceed the limit that one person is allowed to have in any given lifetime.

To sit here and give you the specifics would pull me out of the action. So, in order fulfill my holidailies promise, I’ll leave you with a frame from the iChat I had with my family this morning. Mom was holding up her dancing dog and letting it perform for me. I added the bubble caption to kindly hide the folks who have not consented to appearing on the world wide web. You can see my pop’s little face in the backgound there; I don’t think he’ll mind.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 19.

I’m on the fence about telling you what I did yesterday.

Other Ruth: Do you want to edit out that cliche?

Ruth: I don’t know, this is the way I talk.

OR: You’re not talking, you’re writing. Perhaps, “I’m having trouble deciding whether or not to tell you what I did yesterday” would be better. You know, to avoid, being cliche.

R: It’s not the right voice, though.

OR: Whatever, it’s your post.

R: Where was I?  . . .

I’m on the fence about telling you what I did yesterday. One side of the fence is my Grandma’s camp. Total WASP humility. One should do good works, give generously and keep it on the down low – just like that Bible verse. I think it was a Bible verse, I’m not even really sure because it wasn’t quoted or anything around the house. I just know that the concept of maintaining all forms of modesty — at all costs — flowed hard from my maternal ancestry. Familial moral codes are weird, too, because I don’t even remember this value being pushed with the spoken word (except that one time; I’ll spare you today). Come to think of it, the ethic must have been modeled. I learned from what wasn’t done, from what wasn’t said.

The other side of the fence is my belief that when we let people know what we’re up to, we might actually encourage them to follow suit.

Other Ruth: Bridge cliche now?

Ruth: It’s a common figure of speech.

OR: If you want to be common.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do an okay job of beating out my heritage on this front. That is to say, I usually share openly about whatever it is that I’m up to. I just get so excited, I can’t resist sharing. So I’m going to tell you.

Other Ruth (eyes rolling): Surprise. Surprise.

I had an incredibly great day yesterday. You know how some days, you get it right? You budget your time to include enough of most important elements to be fulfilling? Well, short of getting some low impact cardio, yesterday was like that for me. I think it’s because rather that starting the day harvesting my imaginary artichoke crops at Farmville, I showered and drove to Common Ground (awesome place!) in Santa Monica where I helped bag groceries.

Now, I’m not saying this to be all self-congratulatory. I mean, I have a friend who has been quietly doing this for years. I have another friend who has spent Saturdays (for nearly a decade!) working at a food bank out in the valley. I bet half of you reading this probably do regular philanthropic activity. The reason why I’m broadcasting my one hour of unpaid labor is because I’m so grateful.

No, really. It’s such a privilege to be invited into new places and to be made welcome and to feel useful. If all I ever did in life was earn money, surf the net and spend money, I’d rot from the inside out.

Other Ruth (mid sigh): Cliche . . .

Yesterday reminded me that one key factor in my future happiness is going to be making regular service a priority. I’m not talking about fund raising and writing checks. I’m talking about going out into the world and working elbow to elbow with people. I’m not fooling myself into thinking this is selfless; no, it’s a selfish attempt at wholeness. And there’s no shame in that.

Because I’ll tell you something, while I was there counting out jars of peanut butter and bagging cans of pineapple, Other Ruth was silent.

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 18.

I started panicking on Monday. There was no sign of Christmas anywhere in our home except for the pile of unanswered greeting cards. This is only my second Christmas in Los Angeles. For fourteen of the last fifteen years, I’ve flown back to Maryland where all the staples & accoutrement of the holiday are waiting for me.

It occurred to me as a matter of urgency – maybe we should just scramble and make it happen: tree, lights, decadent food, stockings all hung by the chimney, etc.

So on my way to the store to gather all those things I try not to drink & eat regularly: egg nog and brie and candied nuts and the makings for blueberry pancakes and sugar cookies and champagne for mimosas, I stopped by a tree lot. This lot:

It was unusually warm at sunset. Windy. And, yeah, those are palm trees in the background. Palm. Trees. All my friends & family back east have just had an amazingly romantic winter wonderland of a snow storm. What do I have to get myself in the mood for the festivities? Warm weather and palm tress bending in the windy distance. It ought to be needless to say: I totally lost my urge to buy a tree.

Until today. When I encountered this:

Urban Outfitters, I love you.

So now I’ve got a tree (we’ll add the star or angel to the top tonight after dinner):

And it goes perfectly with my folk art nativity:

We’re ready.

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 17.

Our machines are telling us to be patient:

“Patience, please, the application is loading; this may take up to 20 seconds.”

I’ve often wondered what type of human beings are being shaped from our current array of technological tools. I mean, what kind of person has to be told to “have patience” for 20 seconds?

I know it’s all relative — under certain circumstances, 20 seconds can seem like a lifetime. But I’m talking about the internet here — the time it takes for an application to load so I can play a game on my computer. In fact, I’m sitting in my pajamas and fuzzy slippers; I’m warm and dry, drinking my toasty herbal tea which, incidentally, is always the perfect temperature because I’ve got a magical box that will heat any liquid in just 20 seconds. I’ll add that I don’t have to walk anywhere to pick up the water and haul it back home; I don’t have to grow the herbs and dry them out to make the tea. No, I basically have hot tea available whenever I want.

When we (yeah, I’m dragging you into this now) see the message “the application is loading” it’s not as if we’re undergoing a medical procedure that involves 20 seconds of pain or even strong discomfort. It’s not as if we’re being forced to endure an earthquake for 20 seconds. No, we’re hanging out enjoying a luxurious existence that includes comforts unavailable to 99.9999% of all other beings that came before us.

Yet, invariably, I find myself wondering, “20 seconds!? What is wrong with the connection today?” It’s so easy to forget that a rapidly growing catalogue of information, music and video is available at a previously thought of as magical rate. I feel like seeing Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver one of the most meaningful speeches in all of history. What??!  20 seconds to download?!

Since when did dissatisfaction at miracles become the norm?

In researching this post, I came across a fascinating educational site that offers the following exercise:

1. Draw a diagram showing how the water you drink gets to you.
2. Examine a one-litre container. List the things you could do with this amount of water.
3. Estimate and time how long it takes to fill a bucket with water using the one-litre container filled from a tap.
4. Try carrying the bucket 100 metres (328 feet).
5. Calculate how long it would take to carry the bucket 1 kilometre.
6. Calculate how many buckets it would take to carry the amount of water you use each day.

I’m going to step away from this computer, close my eyes and breathe deeply for at least 20 seconds.

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 16.

If I had my very own personal Ghost of Christmas Past, there is one night I would love to revisit: the night my family helped two men from across the world settle into their new home in the U.S.. Nearly all of the pertinent details have escaped me. How old was I? 10? 11? I can’t even remember, for sure, what country they were from – Vietnam? Cambodia? I’m particularly sad that I’ve lost their names. It seems to me that they were one syllable each–Sa’ng? Thu?

I do recall vague images of the newly rented, nearly empty apartment. It was so cold that night that I waited inside and tried to stay out of the way while the adults from my mom and dad’s church committee brought boxes up from their cars. Only essentials had been donated – beds, canned goods, cooking supplies, linens, toiletries.

I knew somehow – perhaps from the pot luck dinner the night before – that Sa’ng and Thu liked the Bee Gees. They spoke hardly any English, so I’m not sure how I got this information, but I did. One of the American adults had joked (I don’t think he meant any harm) that our new neighbors probably didn’t really know the Bee Gees’ music as much as they felt able to pronounce the name correctly. That didn’t fly with me. Surely, every one in the world knew Saturday Night Fever. Besides, I could tell by the look in Sa’ng’s eyes when he said, “Yes, Bee Gees, I like,” that he was being sincere.

That night, when there was a pause in the flurry of activity, I brought out my offering for the apartment. It was used – taken right off my bedroom wall that afternoon. My Bee Gees poster. It wasn’t really a sacrifice; the truth is I probably needed to make room for David Lee Roth.

I wish I could say that I remember the moment when we put scotch tape on the four corners and Thu hung the Gibb brothers high up on his new dining room wall. I wish I could say we had a turn table and that we all danced to “Stayin’ Alive” – the whole song. But if I told you any of that I’d be inventing.

What I can say, for sure, is that it snowed that night. We were walking through the parking lot to our car when it started. As soon as we noticed the flakes, someone must have run back up the stairs and knocked on the door asking Sa’ng and Thu to hurry, “Come outside”. They had never seen snow before.

At that moment, I didn’t have any idea, really, what a wonderful thing my parents and their church friends were doing. I didn’t know that there was ever such a thing as the Vietnam War or the Khmer Rouge. I had barely just learned the word refugee.

But I did know that something special was happening. We stood there in the darkness looking up at the white coming down. I remember trying to imagine what it would be like to be seeing it for the first time. “Snow?” “Yes. Snow. This is snow!”

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“Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 7 to Jan. 6. . . . “ Day 15.