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Well, stressful issues have been very distracting from the things I wanted to get done this week (i.e. writing).

Looking through the lens of my new secular viewpoint, I stopped to think about the meaning of the holidays -- why should I continue to celebrate them? What do they actually mean to me?
The winter holidays are a celebration of death and of life, of ending and of beginning, and ultimately, of hope.
Winter is a time when snow blankets the life of the land, when only pine and fir trees show the promise of spring in their enduring green. The end of the year is near, all is quiet. Winter is a time of waiting.
We wait for spring, for the earth to renew itself, for plants to bud, for the world to grow green with new life.

Okay. I didn't want to deal with hate mail, so I posted this anonymously over on Jeff's Gameblog as a comment to his "Political Meme."

Let me put this into gamer context:

REAL LIFE RPG (TM)

Character Creation:

In the Real Life RPG(TM), you roll your character's physical traits and choose the attitudinal ones.

PHYSICAL TRAITS
Attributes
There are six attributes in the RL-RPG: Strength, Dexterity, Health, Willpower, Intelligence, and Perception.

Roll 3d6 for each and assign as desired.

Race (1)
Roll percentage and consult table:
1-68 White
69-83 Hispanic
84-95 African American
96-100 Asian American

Gender (2)

So the wife asks if I want to go to Buffalo for the weekend to attend a party.

What kind of party? I asked.

A Schlepping Party, she says.

What's Schlepping? I asked.

Well, it's part of the big Graduation Party they're having for my brother Matt, who's graduating high school.

Well, says I, I'll miss Gaming Sunday™, but since it's a one-time thing, I'll go.

Well, we all know what schlepping is, now don't we?

My wife pointed me to this site:

It's a 20-minute video that talks about why we have so much stuff -- why there's so much to buy, why we buy it, and what it really costs us.

You should check it out. It's worth the time.