Breathlessnesses

[kiya]

tnh at makinglight has a note about groups putting together resources for the tsunami victims. I make meaningful gestures and blither a bit.



Notes to me: add to quickie travel ritual set matches. There exist people who don't have them around, weirdly and mindbogglingly enough.

Also, remember to write the journal thing about polyvalent logic, chaos magic, and Sri Syadasti and the other journal thing about models of energy, self, and the water pumps and reservoirs.

In other news, I'm really quite fond of oneironaut.

In general crankiness, "Happy Solstice" as a nasty-intentioned comeback to "Merry Christmas" irritates me even more when people continue doing it well after the astronomical use-by date. I want to strap these people to an orrery and spin them around until they suffer from an understanding of astronomical geometry.

Comments

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

I don't have matches around. I think Robert does, but I don't. I'm slightly phobic of fire, or at least being very *close* to it, so all I use are the big long clicky lighters (for which I regularly thank the Gods for their invention, as before them I couldn't have candles at all.)

As for that last paragraph... I really wish all of the "holidays as weapons" people need to STFU before I use Things that Go Boom upon them. (This year needs to end. Now.)

[kiya]

I'm a firebug. One of the best things about visiting my father this time of year is that he's got the giant fireplace and often has a fire going in it and I can poke at it.

My model of the universe is one in which people have matches. And books. I get confused easily when these subconscious axioms are shaken. :}


I don't have a problem with "Happy [my holiday]" as a response to "Happy [other person's holiday]"; what's good for the goose, y'know? But I run into folks who respond to "Happy [other holiday]" with a deliberately pointed "Happy [different holiday]" and it drives me bugfuck insane. Not just because it feeds into the "All December holidays are cheap Christmas knockoffs" presumptions by making a one-to-one substitution again, though that's bad enough.

But damnit, I was a fucking astronomy major. I flunked out of college, but when I was in it, I was a fucking astronomy major. And even when the solstice is late, it is over by the twenty-sixth of December. Damnit.

(Have I mentioned that I've been having suspicions that I actually hang out with Hethert-Nut? :P )

Preaching to the choir, I know. Or at least preaching to the agreeably cranky . . .

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

Rob is also a firebug. Which is good, for then I can have fire during group rituals and I don't have to make it. I'm Water Girl. I don't mess with fire. (Besides, matches smell horrid. :P)

That's what I meant by "holidays as weapons"-- not wishing someone a Merry (Whatever) because you mean it, but as a "take this holiday and shove it!" thing. All of y'all SHUT UP already.

(But isn't there a "Yuletide Period" type thing? I can't remember a single year when I actually celebrated the solstice *on* the solstice. Or pretty much any other Neo-Pagany holiday on the day. I'm happy if I can get "close enough." I mean, it's not like Light Returns overnight, after all. But then, I'm notoriously bad with date-based things in general. If I celebrate the birthday within a week or my anniversary sometime in October, that's good enough for me. :)

[kiya]

I'm coming at this from a funny place, slightly:

Specifically, I'm starting from a place where I'm cranky at the whole mushing together of various holy days into some sort of Christmas-flavored mishmash celebrated on 25 December. I see a lot of stringing-together-holidays without any apparent knowledge or awareness of them. (There are people including Ramadan in their generic-holiday-well-wish-list this year. Ramadan! Which cycles on a lunar calendar. What will they do in a couple of years when it's cycled somewhere else in the solar calendar in order to make empty gestures to inclusiveness at Islam?)

So take that crankiness and include in it the fact that the solstice is an astronomical term. There are holidays that are keyed off the solstice, but they are not the solstice itself; the solstice is a fact of orbital geometry. The holiday mush is infuriating enough without having science treated as malleable mush.

Personal quirk thing, y'know? I'd still be cranky if they were wishing a happy Yule in the same way, but the crankiness wouldn't be manifesting as impulses to using orreries as torture devices.

Damnit, now I want an orrery again. Heh. A big one. (Shiny brass and stuff! Shiny shiny!) But I got given a sundial! And a book on the ancient Egyptian calendar system to go with it. Expect geeking out in the future sometime.

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

Uhh... I was one of those people. Wasn't aware I was making "empty gestures." Also wasn't aware I was limiting my greetings to 25 December. As I said, dates are pretty meaningless to me. I greet for the "sometime in December" season. That's close enough for me. I guess I'm just mushy. ;) (But then, I'm reminded yet again that while I hang around geeky people, I'm not a geek. I also have no clue what an orrery is. Heck, the only reason I pay much attention to the clock is to know when programs are on TV or know when work's server is going to go down. Otherwise it's all one big mushy dark.)

Besides, 90% of people don't know to connect the word "Yule" with a Solstice celebration, they think it's another way of saying Christmas.

(Now *I'm* cranky, and I thought I was done being cranky about holiday stuff. I *really* want this year over.)

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

I also have no clue what an orrery is.

You've probably seen one and just didn't know the term; I think there's a rule about having one in every movie that involves an Alignment Of The Planets, which is about 20%% of SF movies. They're working models of the solar system (or a subset of it), like globes for people who don't know when enough is enough. Here's some art depicting one. God intended them to be all brass and glass and exposed clockwork and intricate incomprehensible diagrams and ... I'll be in my bunk.

[kiya]

You're probably not one of the people I'm cranky about, you know.

I mean, I bet you're aware that some of the wintersolsticeholidayseason stuff falls at different points in the month. If someone commented that they thought that wishing them a happy Chanukkah a week and a half after it was over struck them as PCness rather than genuine pluralism, I'd expect you to be able to figure out where they were coming from.


BTW, I think this site may have a better image of an orrery than the one Squid provided. It's a little clearer what it is, at least, though Squid's image is, as ever, pretty.

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

Well, I thought I might be, since I happened to do my Merry Whatevermas post on the 25th, I think, since it was the day when Rob gave me the TiVo. And we did Solstice on the 19th, I think. It's all one big blur to me right now.

As for the "Happy Hanukah" late... I'd probably blink for a minute and say "it's over? okay..." Quite honestly, people (and that includes me) get so offended about holiday greetings that next year I'm inclined not to offer any, to anyone. I begin to think my husband has the right of it when it comes to detesting this entire time of year.

And yeah, oneironaut's notion is right. I knew what an orrery was, just didn't know the term. Both are very pretty. :)

[kiya]

I tend to do some sort of mumbled generic "Have a good holiday", getting increasingly uncomfortable towards the end of the month as I note that Chanukkah is (usually) already over, Yule is past, etc., and thus the number of people who have an upcoming holiday is getting smaller and smaller . . . so I eventually just start mumbling. (I got a baleful look from a checkout clerk when I wished her a happy holiday just before we came down here; she was cranky about us getting a bag of cat litter that was ripped and thus getting litter on her conveyor belt, but I wonder if I missed her holiday too . . .)

I commented today when teinedreugan and I were leaving Borders that I was really happy to be able to wish the clerk "Have a happy new year!" and thus end all the angst. (And the clerk seemed delighted to be well-wished, too.)

Orrery shiny. I think it'd be really cool to have a big brass one with a motor in so it went around and around and around in all its mighty epicycles . . . Every mad scientist or evil genius needs an orrery!

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

But why can't greetings be retroactive? I seriously don't get that. Don't mind in the least if people are still wishing me "Happy Birthday" on Thanksgiving, or "Merry Yule" on the 30th. Maybe I'm just weird.

That snarky comment of rosefox below? I've *done* that. Not gone *shopping* shopping, but been absolutely astonished to find the supermarket closed on Christmas. This would be the 24/7 supermarket, which apparently "never closes!" except on Christmas. They got churlish with me the next day when I asked how they can claim to "never close" when they really *do* close-- "it's CHRISTMAS!" So? It's Bailey's Crossroads, home of the largest immigrant population in Northern Virginia. Pretty safe bet that there are *lots* of non-Christmas-celebrators who actually need things. I've also gone shopping-shopping on Easter Sunday and wondered why the stores were closed. Christmas the TV drums into your head, but I have no clue when the moving holidays that aren't mine are scheduled. Hard enough to remember to celebrate the ones that *are* mine.

[kiya]

I think a lot of it depends on the relationship one has with a person. Catching someone after their holiday and saying "Hey, I hope you had a good one" or something in that mode feels very different to me, y'know? But that's something that requires some level of personal contact; the holiday wishes from strangers get weirder and touchier, even though on a different level it's all bonus goodwill.

At home we have groceries shutting down early on Thanksgiving too, which is sort of aggravating for the last minute realisations. Clearly we need to have last minute realisations by noon.

I so need to sit down with the Egyptian calendar system book that my mother-in-law gave me and work out the calendar structure, speaking of figuring out where to put the movable holidays . . .