Farewell To 2019

I wish I had more time to ruminate on this, but I endeavor to publish this before the clock strikes midnight.

All in all, an uneventful year.  Well, the continuing dread by the leadership installed to run this nation casts a palpable pall over the entire world and, I've got to say, my general mood.  But beyond the direction of our country, I have no complaints.  I'm getting into a groove at my full-time job (mix-up today in the filing department notwithstanding, and I assume things will just blow over).  My entire family remains healthy.  I think that my parents and I are having fewer fights, which is a good thing.  And my sex life, while expensive, remains healthy.  My erect penis is trying to find back Father Time with every stripper party.

When it comes to momentous occasions, I will point out two.  The first is the week I worked for the Final Four.  Nothing really beats working the Super Bowl, a more important sporting event.  But for six days I worked at a hobby job that I still pine can become something akin to a full-time job in the vocation I still dream of working in.  Oh, and I got paid handsomely for those six days, too.

But come to think of it, the most momentous thing of 2019 is a bad thing ... and it happened just eight days ago.  The closing of My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) is something that I still have not processed.  In fact, right now I am actively avoiding even driving around the area lest I look up and see its lights off or, worse, parts of the building already torn off.  I'm not sure if I can wait that long, but I'm not sure if, after a sufficient amount of time, I do drive past the area and see an entire vacant lot, or the thing that's supposed to come after it, whether it be condominiums or a gym.  It truly was My Home Away From Home.  It was a tradition for me to go there after working Vikings Games, but after Sunday, I had to remind myself not to instinctively drive back there because it's closed.  I have no home away from home to go to.  Now, that may save me money.  But, first of all, the stripper diaspora has told me where they now work, and if I make it a habit of visiting all of them at these clubs that do charge cover fees and exorbitant prices on drinks, I could lose even more money.  And second of all ... well, of course it's not the same.  One of my most cherished establishments is now a memory.  And even though I'm so grateful for all the stripper girlfriends who'll give me handjobs and blowjobs for a certain price, dammit, I'll miss that place.

So, so long, 2019.  And so long, BJ's.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Note: This is, obviously, the last WMNSS of 2019.  As convention, the surveys for the next year will fall on whichever day of the week January 8 is.  (That's because, when I began Wailing And Failing, The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey captured the results of the, well, week, which was January 1 to January 7.  I didn't want to get set over publishing the WMNSS the same day every week on WAF, so I decided to shift the day every year upon the New Year.)  So if you read the survey religiously, just know that in 2020, you'll have to wait an extra day.  Thank you.

#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!).  So the Mariucci Classic was this past weekend.  I remember the name "Mariucci Classic" as the non-conference tournament the Gophers hosted every year.  Well, they didn't the past two years, but they did this year.  This year, and I presume from here on out, the Mariucci Classic will feature the U. and three of the other four top-flight men's hockey programs from the state of Minnesota.

Are you familiar with the North Star College Cup?  It was supposed to be The State Of Hockey's answer to the Beanpot: An annual tournament featuring the schools from the state fighting for Minnesota college hockey supremacy.  It's a great idea.  And after two years, I think, they scrapped it.  It was played at the X both years, but there just wasn't enough interest and ticket sales to make it financially viable.  The weekend the North Star College Cup took up -- I think it was late January -- was seen by the five schools as a valuable weekend to schedule in-conference or for their own non-conference matchups.  I thought the North Star College Cup was a great idea, and I think they should have stuck with it.  The meaning of hosting such a tournament in the state where this sport is so revered has to mean something.  And maybe, if you give it several more years -- especially around now, where the big-school Minnesota actually may be the worst of the schools in-state -- interest would finally come around and pack the Fusebox.

Well, maybe the five schools didn't so much scrap the idea as try to create a lower-scale version of it.  And so maybe that's why they retrofitted the Mariucci Classic into a semi-NSCC.  If so, I can accept it.  And also if so, the Golden Gophers may also accept it, because they defeated both Bemidji St. and St. Cloud St. to capture the title.  I can't remember the last time Minnesota won one of these mini-tournaments, so for that, I'll give them the top spot for the final WMNSS of 2019.

The downside is that this appears to be the last non-conference opportunity to goose up the PairWise.  It probably did not do much; last I checked, Minnesota ranks 30th.  And they are just 7-9-4 overall.  So they have massive catching up to do.  And they will do it in two weeks' time, for they visit Michigan St. Jan. 10-1.

#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -2).  This club returns to the AP Top 25 after opening up their non-conference slate Saturday defeating Penn St. at Happy Valley, 81-74.  After starting the season with a loss, they have won 11 in a row.  They ring out 2019 with a home date tonight (Tuesday night) versus Ohio St., then visit Nebraska Saturday.

#-3: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!).  OK, so these grapplers were in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., for the South Beach Duals.  And unbeknownst to me, the tourney is a bunch of schools squaring off against one another.  In that sense, these guys had a good week, going 3-1.  They lost to Lehigh, 29-10 (!!!), but they dominated Old Dominion and Cornell, and yesterday (Monday) afternoon they wiped out Duke, 53-0 (!!!).  Not bad.

Off until the 10th, when they host Wisconsin to begin conference play.

#-4: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -1).  Finish their non-con clubbing Florida International -- the school Richard Pitino coached for one year before jumping ship for Minnesota; either Pitino is trying to make it up to FIU or his release from the school was predicated upon him playing FIU -- at Williams Arena Saturday afternoon, 89-62.  In that tilt, Daniel Oturu scored 21 Points and brought down 20 Rebounds.  It was the first 20-20 Double-Double by a Gopher player since Tom Kondla did it in 1966.  For that, Oturu was named B1G Player Of The Week, the second straight week a Golden Gopher was bestowed that honor.

The conference schedule picks up after the New Year -- at Purdue Thursday, home to Northwestern Sunday evening.

#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -6).  Looks Can Be Deceiving, Part I.  The Woofie Dogs sit at 12-20.  Andrew Wiggins has been absent the past few Games because of, maybe, the flu.  Karl-Anthony Towns has been unavailable the past several Games because of a knee -- and in the past half-day, leaks have been springing about The Big Meow being unhappy with Minnesota.

And yet I'm putting the Wolves above the Wild for this screening week.  Why?  Well, it's mostly prosaic; I usually go by weekly record, and believe it or not, these guys went 2-1.  They had to scratch and claw Thursday to defeat the Kings in Sacramento in Double Overtime, but they finally broke an 11-Game losing streak and won for the first time in almost a month.  A bad slip-up to Cleveland at Target Center followed on Saturday, extending their home losing streak to nine.  But in single Overtime, the undermanned Wolves pushed ahead of the similarly-undermanned Brooklyn Nets last/Monday night to break that home drought.  (I was going to go to this Game, but a snowstorm came through.  It wasn't that bad, I didn't think, but just in case I checked on Twitter, and Minneapolis declared a snow emergency.  Parking at a meter was going to be kind of tricky as it was, and even though I got this ticket for free, I didn't really feel like paying through the nose to park at a lot.  So I didn't go.)  And such as it is worth, they are only 1 1/2 Games behind Portland for the eighth and final playoff spot in the West.  This team is not good, but it's not like they're the Golden State Warriors, either.

Speaking of the Warriors, they are the foe for the only home Game the Timberwolves have this week.  It comes on the back end of a back-to-back that begins Wednesday/New Year's Day in Milwaukee.  Road contests versus the same Cavaliers and Memphis beckon afterward.

#-6: Wild (Last Week: -5).  Looks Can Be Deceving, Part II.  The Wild have racked up the most Points in the NHL since November 14.  They have scored the second-most Goals Per Game in that time frame.  (Oh, and Eric Staal was named to the NHL All-Star Game, so congrats to him.)  But they still are out of the playoff picture; they are two points behind Winnipeg and Calgary for the last spot in the West ... and they have Edmonton a Point ahead of them.  And despite winning a wild win in Colorado Friday, 6-4, they blew a lead at home to the Islanders Sunday evening and lost, 3-1.  They dug a huge hole early in the season, and now they are taking inexplicable losses at the X.  So I don't know which Twin Cities pro winter team has the bigger upside now.

Host Toronto tonight/New Year's Eve.  Then they have a back-to-back-homestand this weekend where they face ... well, wouldn't you know it -- Winnipeg and Calgary!!

#-7: Vikings (Last Week: -4).  The last team to end its season, the Gopher women volleyball team, went from Positive Numbers to -Infinity.  I set up the criteria for the WMNSS for such super-high falls from grace to happen constantly.  Say, you make a run in the playoffs, but you're eliminated, so you go from the penthouse to the outhouse.

Well, I don't think I'll need to do that with the ViQueens this year.  Sure, they made the playoffs.  But they limp in at 10-6.  They rested their starters Sunday in the regular season final vs. Chicago Sunday at Das Bank v.2.0 and lost, 21-19.  Now, these guys aren't a juggernaut.  But I really did think they had enough talent to beat the Bears.  Instead, they got swept by them (got swept by the Packers, too -- they finished 2-4 in-division) and showed that they have very shaky depth.

Worst of all, they draw New Orleans in the Wild Card Round.  Seattle I would've taken; the Vikes played them tough in Seattle earlier in the year, and both sides of the ball don't seem to be clicking as they were in years past.  Green Bay, despite them sweeping the Vikings, aren't all that great, in my estimation; Aaron Rodgers still doesn't have that telekinesis with his Wide Receivers.  And although San Francisco was good enough to claim home-field advantage, they are susceptible to play-action, of which Minnesota employs a ton.  I don't know if I would favor the Vikes over any of them, but of the squads they could be facing next week, the Saints would probably be the worst match-up.  And they got 'em, and on the road, and with both The Minneapolis Miracle and the PI no-call motivating their fanbase.

Vikings lose by 30 Sunday.  Book it.

Working Saturday, Working Monday

Saturday was great.  Had the department all to myself.  The work did not last the day for most, but I, thankfully, am not most.  Other people were let go while I was asked to switch departments and do clean-up work.  With that, I barely got done with everything I had to do at my first department, actually.  So while it was unusual, I liked how that day worked out.

Monday was ... eh.  Work was also slow today.  We were reaching down to find stuff to do.  I was fortunate enough to be moved to another department where there was work, and that made the morning fly by.  Later, I moved back to where I was supposed to be, and while waiting for the work we had to do, we were making boxes.  Yep, making boxes.  What I was not looking forward to the most on Mondays, going to the lab, was something that I actually did at the tail end of my workday (it is projected to be the thing I do the first half of the day).  That made the day palatable, but I once again I stumbled trying to gear up that I literally processed only one form before I had to leave.  Maybe it's better to end my day like that than to spend 3-4 hours there working till I die of boredom, but like I said before, if I'm going to be there, I might as well learn how to do the work in there.

I was told by everyone there today that my Monday-Friday schedule is something to be coveted.  OK, I'll tough it out.

Will I Make A Mountain Out Of A Molehill? Will I Normalize?

OK, so my alma mater go their asses kicked Friday night.  We were all frustrated.  But there was one guy in our membership -- who I know has a temper -- started cutting open a vein on our Facebook.  But, I think, it went over the line.  Many of us are upset at the head coach, athletic director and new president.  But this guy, for no reason, started going after us, the membership.  He didn't name names, but he said, "If you still believe this is the right guy for the job, you're stupid."

I don't know really know what to do.  My first instinct was to, actually, like his post.  But then I thought to myself, "Wait a second ... who's 'you'?"  Is he referring to ... me?  That's when I started to believe he made it personal.

But I haven't made a post yet.  Because I'm afraid there are downsides no matter what I do, or don't do.  I could just let this slide.  But maybe the membership is actually insulted by what he said, and is hoping I step up.  And if I don't step up, I'll be seen as feckless and they'll turn away from the group because it'll feel mean and unwelcoming.  However, if I do say something, what do I say?  I'm ruling out trying to be conciliatory and compromising because that's so worthless I would be better off not saying anything.  But what is too forceful?  I do not want to add to the anger that this guy injected into our Facebook.  And I could, theoretically, be accused of thinking he is angrier than he actually is, and then he'll start accusing me of, well, being accusatory.  It is just one guy, but this is one guy who has been active in the membership, especially relative to others.  If I piss this guy off, it's over.  Or -- and I wish I weren't so scared of this -- he might come after me.

You know, I think the thing I need to not do is be afraid of people who might want to bully me.  If that's my guiding light, I'll have to say something, and I'll need to err on the side of overreacting.  I can understand anger.  But as President, I need to do what's best for the group, and I think it's fairly simple to understand that you don't turn your guns on the group, especially when they have little influence on the hiring or firing of the heads of a football team.

Man, I just wish grown-ups would know how to behave.  That's not too much to ask.

Will I Miss Working Saturdays?

Today, Saturday, will be my last regular Saturday at work.  (I might work other Saturdays, but only if I'm asked, and only in exchange of time off another day or overtime.  In fact, this might be a not uncommon occurrence.)  Through a series of staff switches precipitated by one woman living her post because she wanted to live with her father in New England, a couple weeks ago I became the next-to-last domino to fall.  In short, I am moving not jobs, but shifts: I used to be Tuesday-Saturday, but as of Monday I will be on a, well, Monday-Friday schedule.

And I don't know if I like it.

I jumped at the chance because of what happened to me in the fall.  Well, football happens in the fall. Saturdays are when my alma mater plays Games (or, seeing their performance in the Holiday Bowl, "plays"), and I have had to take paid time off on several occasions to be there to run the event on time ... or, if it was too late for me to beg to take the day off, I would have to forgo the event until my shift was over and I would get there, usually, late in the Third Quarter.  That seems to wrong for the president of the club, and shifting to a normal workweek would obviously obviate that issue.

The pros take over Sundays.  I had worked at my day job on Sundays when the department was underemployed, but otherwise I was free to do the day work for Vikings telecasts I have done for the past 15 years.  However, there were opportunities, especially when the coordinator over the summer e-mailed me, to get work in as a runner on set days, aka the day before Game day.  I literally was offered the chance to work the day before seven of the eight Vikings home Games.  And I couldn't because my schedule at work had me penciled (more like "penned") in as an indispensable part of this or that department.  I couldn't take paid time off at my main job to maximize my hobby job, even if I have been at that hobby job for a decade and a half.  There was one exception: When I was sent this e-mail, the calendar only extended a few months, and I had the day before the Game against Detroit earlier this month open, so I did use paid time off for that Saturday before my boss would put me in a spot where I would feel I'm letting my team down if I said I wouldn't come in to work.  (This also allows me to get money from one job while actually earning money on another -- the "double dipping" I'm so fond of doing.)  That headache is gone now that I have my Saturdays ostensibly free.

And yet ... and yet I have to admit I've gotten used to working on Saturdays.  I might be used to it because, back when my brother and I were young, my parents forced us to help them at The Store.  So unusual work time frames are something I'm used to.  And this Tuesday-Saturday work schedule is something that I have gotten accustomed to.  The bulk of my duties at my job are data entry, and that's dependent on the forms that are delivered to us, and those depend on people coming and giving urine samples ... which are usually done in a normal, Monday-Friday schedule.  It takes a day for those samples to get here, so that is why most of the people in my main department work Tuesday-Saturday.

Data entry is boring, but at least I can listen to the radio while I do it.  Mondays are dependent on forms filled out on Sundays, and since most businesses aren't open on Sundays, there is relatively little data entry on Mondays.  So, as confirmed by my boss yesterday/Saturday, what usually happens is we go into the lab (the same lab I refused to go into to pad out the rest of my workday yesterday/Saturday) to process these other forms that ... well, I don't know when they come in, but my boss says that there is usually these types of forms to enter into the system in the lab on Mondays.  The rest of the day we go back out to the data entry department to enter the rest of the information from these "special" applications.

So the way he describes it, I'm sort-of terrified of what my Mondays will be like.  It's boring as hell in the lab; you cannot wear earphones while in there, although you can bring in a radio and blast it.  I have a satellite radio device, but I don't know if I can bring it in the lab.  If I can't, I have to rely on terrestrial radio, which is stultifying to listen to for four hours, or use my data and listen to Sirius XM over the phone, and that might drive me to my limit in no time flat.  I'm in a no-win situation there.

Also, I'm slow to do these forms, mostly because no one calls me out on it and I'm allowed to daydream.  I don't know if there is space for my pace to be scrutinized by higher-ups, but if so, I'll have to step to it, and I don't want to step to it.

Finally, my trepidation on working Mondays has an opportunity cost: What I lose by working Saturdays.  Take this Saturday, for example.  I am in ... let's just say I will be in the department where I am the only one.  I am left alone, no one is looking over my shoulder, I can work at my own pace, I can take breaks when I want, I can take my lunch nap whenever I want, and I can blast my satellite radio in there.  (Oh, and in that part of the building, my Sirius XM receiver has just about perfect reception; can't say that completely in data entry, and who knows if I can even get a signal if I'm stuck in the lab.)  If I'm working a Saturday there, it is just about bliss.  I usually am working in data entry, and it'll get mind-numbing to keep myself entertained (moreso when I get to the spring and summer when I can only listen to baseball), but even then, I don't truly mind it.  Plus, there's no traffic to fight on Saturdays, when there's all kinds of traffic to confront on Mondays.

The more I think about it, the more I am talking myself out of thinking this switch is a good idea.  Which brings me back to what I said about the "dominoes that fell."  See, that woman who left for New England had a filing job.  A supervisor in filing decided he no longer wanted to be a supervisor, so he took her job.  That left an opening for a supervisor, and a woman who has the same title as I finally decided that it was time to move up in rank, and she took that job.  Her job was Monday-Friday.  I'm taking over her schedule.  That naturally opened up my shift, Tuesday-Saturday.  And another guy who has the same job as I, who has a weird shift of 10-hour days from Saturday to Tuesday, is assuming my schedule.  (His four-day/ten-hours-per-day shift is probably going to be put in the classifieds.)

Do you see what I mean by dominoes falling?  It feels as though all of us are in an ordered chain, and so we all move up whenever a link is altered.  In other words, even though missing Saturdays this fall has been a pain in the ass, I felt kind of ... obligated to take this shift because it ... feels expected of me.  Otherwise, this four-day/ten-hours-per-day guy "leaps" over me to take Monday-Friday.  And he got hired after me.  (Well, he technically wasn't; he was laid off from this company even though he had spent many, many years there.)

So ... yeah, I don't know if this is the right decision.  I need to stay on these days for at least six months before I ask about doing something different.  Maybe this will grow on me.  Or maybe I will despise it so much that I'll ask the guy "behind" me if he wants to do Monday-Friday instead so I can re-take Tuesday-Saturday.  I hate the unknown and not knowing if I'm making the right decision.

Regret Leaving Work Early

Maybe I should've taken it more seriously, but I didn't think I would be cut early today like I was yesterday.  After all, yesterday technically was a workday, so businesses would be open, which means urine tests would be taken, and thus they'd be flown in and driven here for us to process.  There was stuff to process, but in fact, there was a little less to process today than yesterday.

I didn't want to use my paid time off for a second day in a row.  But, like yesterday, I was given the impression that there just wasn't anything else to do.  Well, at least initially; stuff was delivered for the lab, so I could go in there and process those applications.  This is something I will be doing on Mondays as I shift my schedule -- more on that tomorrow -- and so I thought that, well, boring as hell job would be my salvation.

But then I remembered there's a stripper party this afternoon!  I was invited by *****y, a woman whom I've known for years and just recently started to give me handjobs.  When she hosts, she usually does it Friday afternoons, and I am at work then, obviously, and I told her I couldn't come.  But, with the sudden cutting from work, I considered it a sign that in fact I should go.  Plus, it would be nice to dive back into seeing boobs four days after the closure of My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division), a place where I met *****y and where the other three girls scheduled to work worked previously or up until the bitter end.

I don't like this about myself: Once I remembered I could go to the party, I found other reasons around my workplace to leave early.  I gazed through the window into the rack where the applications are stored.  It looked as though they were all still in their envelopes.  Usually when I go in there to process those apps, they are already opened and pulled out and flattened.  Since the envelopes weren't open, I didn't feel like working the rest of the day back there.  Sad, really.  But I saw Parasite with my sister and brother-in-law last night, and there was a sex scene, and I got horny, and then I remembered the house party.

So I made sure I heard my boss correctly and took him up on his offer to leave early.  And I got ready: I went to the gas station to get money, and then I went home to change and put on my porno pants.  And then, 47 minutes after I texted her about me going to her party, *****y told me she cancelled it because the host (it's not at her place but at some guy she knows, apparently) and one other stripper cancelled.  Shit.  I texted her just before I left in case she was able to get back to me immediately and tell me this party was cancelled.  But she didn't.  I wish she did, because although I had paid time off to spare, I didn't want to spare it.  What happens if there is no work tomorrow?  Or next week?  (One of my bosses noted that she didn't think we would be cut today, but the paucity of work is something she hasn't seen at this point of the year in a long time, if not ever.)  At my company, if you run out of paid time off, you leave without pay.  So obviously, if I had known that there is no party to go to, I would have stayed at work, bit the bullet, went into the lab and ripped open those envelopes, even if the boredom would have killed me.

I went home to change into my porno pants when *****y inconveniently told me the party was off.  It's in cases like this, where I take a chance and my plans are ruined on me, that I get into guilt mode and I have to do something productive.  I used the time I would have spent on work going to the bank and depositing a check for my parents, then ... well, blogging but I fell asleep for an hour before I finished.  Technically, I'm doing this at a time when I would be finished with work.  All in all, it wasn't a complete waste of time, but dammit, I should be making my way home now instead of 3 1/2 hours ago.

Roommates For 2 1/2 Days

So my sister and brother-in-law are here, right in this house, for a few days.  And things are weird now.  The house feels a lot more crowded.  Yes, I love that I can see them for a few days since they live so far away now.  Still, things are just ... not to my liking right now because two other people are living with me.

For example, I went to the bathroom and saw my sister's stuff everywhere.  And then breathed in through my nose and the smell was ... different.  Well, fragrant but different.  There are a lot of changes I'm just not used to.

Another thing: My sister insists on using the new car because she's afraid the old car will go kaput on her.  So today and tomorrow I'm using the old car to go to work while they fly all around the Twin Cities in the new one.  I don't mind; they're my guests, and the old car can take me 15 minutes away from home.  It's just that in cases like this, my bad luck will bite me, and the old car could, like overheat or something.  I wouldn't have to worry about such a thing if other people weren't living with me.

Regardless, about 60 hours from now it won't matter because they'll be flying away.

Christmas Dinner Thoughts

I pride myself on eating everything that's put on my plate.  When I was young I didn't do that at all, and so my parents beat me until I did.

So it wounded my pride when I was told by my sister-in-law to throw away the rest of my dinner even though I was showing visible signs I wouldn't make it.  And I didn't.  Sure, I finished the prime rib.  But there were still green beans, Brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes I wanted to finish, and I frantically picked at them until my sister started commenting, and then I threw it away.  Didn't want to do it because that's wasting food, but (shrug)

---

Another thing.  I was nursing several drinks during the course of the visit.  I had a few glasses of wine, a Cherry Coke, and some water.  Oh, and I had a cup of tea, too.

After dessert we walked over to a different room to play board games.  I had the cup of tea that I was able to drink, but I thought about all the other drinks I had, namely the water in the red Solo cup and the stemmed glass with the wine that I bought for about $35 that still had, oh, three sips in it.  But the game were going to play involved throwing dice, and I didn't want to spill the glass of wine.  That glass and cup were going to be just fine on the dining room table.

No, it wasn't.  I got up after the game to sip the wine ... and the glass, as well as the cup, was gone.  And I saw two glasses in the shape of the wine glass I was using all afternoon and evening next to the sink, empty.

My sister-in-law's mother -- which makes her my ... aunt-in-law? -- probably did the Asian thing and cleaned up even though no one asked her, and even though I wasn't done with that wine.

Dammit, there was, like, three bucks' worth of wine I still wanted to drink.

Oh, The Annual Christmas Song

Forgot about this tradition.

Frankly, I think I've gone through all the Christmas songs I love, so I'm going to start highlighting the ones I like, of which there are many.

As a tie-breaker, I go to the Billboard charts.  You may not know this, and I didn't until this week, but Billboard magazine has tweaked its formula for the Hot 100, aka The Singles Chart.  Christmas songs are everywhere, of course, but the mag usually did not count them because, well, radio stations change their format to Christmas every year, so the same songs crop up every year, and it's not fair for the same songs to dominate the chart every year around this time.  I actually think it's still a good idea.

However, with the advent of new ways songs are listened to, the very concept of popularity had to be reckoned with.  And, eventually, Billboard had to face the fact that the Hot 100 has to reflect the songs most popular that week, regardless of whether or not they've been heard every year around this time of year for the past half-century.  So they've built in formulae for streaming as well as radio play (and, to a much lesser extent, sales) and have, for a while now, given us a new formula to tabulate most popular singles.

As of press time, the #1 song in the Singles Chart is, you guessed it, "All I Want For Christmas Is You," by Mariah Carey.  But I spoke about this earworm to end all earworms before on WAF.  I'll go to the next most-popular Christmas song and at #2, by golly, it's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," by Brenda Lee.  A worthy song at #2:

Christmas Fucking Overwhelmed

Yesterday/Christmas Eve I did my customary solitary traditions, things that may seem superfluous or even trite to you but mean a lot to me.  I hit Southdale (after work) to go around every store, even though I don't buy anything.  I finish at the Cheesecake Factory where I buy cheesecake, then go home.  Sort-of watched It's A Wonderful Life, even though I took a nap later, waking up just to see the end title and "The End" splashed across the screen.  I finally went back out, in the above-freezing temperatures, totally drivable roads and fog in the air to Merlins Rest, where I had time to myself to think and to sort through my receipts.

Except for that latter thing ... well, I kind of didn't have time to myself.  When getting a second half-dram of whiskey, I met up with a friend, who was hanging out with someone he's dating.  I then was introduced to the date's sister, who cajoled me into giving a friend she was with a drink because it was his 21st birthday.  I wound up buying him two half-drams of whiskey.  I was able to sort my receipts in chronological order, but I was unable to write them down like I wanted to because, well, I got sidetracked.  (Oh, and the sister's friend?  Not so much; this friend lived a half-block away and came in because he worked at the bar before, and this woman just started chatting him up because she was drunk.  Still a good dude, though.)

Getting sidetracked/overwhelmed is happening now and won't abate anytime soon, dammit.  I loved doing what I did yesterday, but once I got home I was so wiped out that I felt that if I went to bed without setting an alarm, I'd sleep so long that I would miss Merlins Rest -- and I was right that the alarm I set at 9:55 was the only thing that woke me up.

But beyond feeling tired, there are other circumstances that make this holiday season a lot more stressful than years past.  Most notable among them -- and I love them -- my sister and brother-in-law is fucking up a lot of my plans of easing through this holiday season.  They're going to be staying here for a few days beginning on Boxing Day, although they're living with my brother and sister-in-law now, and I have no idea how they're going to get up here.  I have to entertain them, of course, so my Saturday will be full.  (Can't do anything with them Friday because that's my alma mater's bowl game.)  And then they leave early Sunday morning, so I have to get up and take them to the airport ... hours before I work the Vikings Game.  They might leave so early I'll have time to come back home and rest before going back downtown.  Or not.  (That also means I need to find a good time to get my credential since Saturday night might not be possible.)  And on top of all that, there might be a snowstorm Saturday night/Sunday morning.  I'm already fucking freaking out over doing all this shit under inclement weather.

On top of that, unlike in dinners past, my sister-in-law has invited her entire family over for Christmas Dinner today.  So, she asked me to bring wine, dessert (that's what I bought Cheesecake Factory for) and, because I want to appear sociable, a gift for the exchange the family is doing.  That, the gift in particular, took so long this past week that I was wiped out from doing much of anything else.

After they leave it still won't get better for a while.  I have to readjust my schedule because I work Mondays from now on; I'll blog about that.  New Year's Eve comes the next day, and I need to reconnoiter back with my friend to see if he'll have me over again.  And, back to my own tradition, I want to stay at home on New Year's Day -- not even cracking open the door -- and instead will try to make spaghetti for myself.  That'll be, hopefully, a good busy.  So it'll be, I reckon, Thursday the 2nd before I can just go to work and then go home to sleep.

Shit, I just remembered I need to buy glasses before the year is out.  Oh, and I've had to clean and pick up my stuff so the house looks presentable.  Goddamn, all of this is just so fucking stressful!!!