The dictionary says zenith is, “the point of culmination, the peak.” And here we are, at the culmination of alphabet-blogging. On the appointed day and everything. I think yesterday’s post (y for yesterday!) ended up being the this-is-what-I’m-taking-away-from-this-challenge post. So…go take a gander at that if you wanna know how I’ve evolved in these 30 whole days. I wanna get three things done with this final post:

1. The thank you’s: to all you who’ve kept up with the reading. Who’ve commented in print or in person. I had a super secret hope of how many blog views I’d get this month (please, I know, it shouldn’t be about the numbers. It’s just the competitor in me…the person who needs a grade), and I’m so happy to say that you guys exceeded it. And then some! It’s just the loveliest to have the sorts of friends who shower you with presents and/or get behind your silly internet-related challenges. So, thanks. Seriously.
2. The obligatory flashback montage: You may remember that I started this alphablog challenge with 3 of my pals. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that three more girls joined in over the course of the month. So, there’s been a veritable feast of alphabet goodness around us this month! I’ve had as much fun reading as writing. Here’s the roll call of the others, with links to my personal favorites of their lettered posts: Maike, Whitney G, Sarah, Megan, Whitney M, Aimee. I’m not going to pick a favorite of my own. That seems weird. Do you have one? (Feel free to not indulge the need-to-achieve-er in me.)
3. The sneak peek at what’s to come: I need a little break from the daily blogging (don’t you? Whew!), but I’m gonna try to not disappear completely. Look for some once-a-week-style Christmas-themed posts in December. Then, there’s been a bit of blogger talk about a new collaborative challenge for January, so we’ll see what comes of that. But for sure, I’m gonna get to work on that getting some life in my life thing. Leonard Cohen says, “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” I’m ready to make some ashes y’all.

This is one of my favorite words. I’ve been looking forward to it since m or n. I love it because it does double duty to mean both “a story” and “that wonderfully soft, colorful stuff that you can buy by the armload at Hobby Lobby.”

Yarn as story calls to mind a tale that is fun and funny and a bit unpredictable. One of my favorite yarn-tellers is my friend Edith (I mentioned her in t too). And, in a bit of y kismet, Edith is also the person who taught me to knit. For a whole year I went to her house once a month or so…in her mind it was for me to learn to bake (knitting was a bonus…something to do during the oven’s part), in mine it was to hear her stories.

She taught me to knit in the European style…which for some reason is something I’m really proud of. Just one of those things I like the sound of I think. But also, she is German, so it makes me feel like I have acquired some exotic skill. (Even if it’s a skill mostly used by little old ladies and hipsters.) Our lessons ended before I’d learned to do much more than knit and purl – so I’m pretty much limited to scarves and other straight-edged things, but I’m still happy doing it. There’s something very soothing about the click of the needles and the line-by-line progression of knitting. It’s a very wintry sort of therapy – and my fingers are itching to get to it again.

I love most making things with no pattern…no great picture of where I’ll end up. Just the colors and textures I want to spend some time with. This is as true for story as it is for knitting. I’ve been reading snatches from a book that says this strategy might work for life too. Decide on some story elements I’d like to include in my own narrative and just get them going. Start working toward them. I’m not great at that usually – or at least I don’t think of myself as great at that. Goals get quickly stifling to me…make me feel like life is mired in molasses. A rut of molasses. And tar. With rain clouds constantly overhead. And my feet in the world’s heaviest shoes. You get the idea.

I think some of that is because I think goals have to mean a pattern – a day-to-day list of prescriptions. And I wonder if maybe it doesn’t have to be quite that way. I mean, I know I want to end up making a scarf…but there’s still loads of changes I can make along the way. Once upon a time I decided I wanted to hear the stories of a fascinating friend, and so I asked her if I could start coming to visit. Who knew that along that way I’d learn to bake shortbread and carrot cake and learn to knit? I need some life in my life you guys. That’s an oft-recurring refrain in my history.

But what if? Just what if? What if it maybe just starts with a trip to some existential Hobby Lobby to pick out some colors and textures I like – and there’s still plenty of room for whim? And what if I’m not quite as awful at seeing things through as I think of myself? I am, after all, ready for z.

X is a tough one y’all. It’s probably the bane of every alphabet-themed project out there. No good x animals if you’re doing an alphabet zoo – no good x foods or flavors or flowers. Not many famous x people.

In a completely-unrelated-to-the-alphablog manner I came across a movie called PiGS (their caps, not mine). I was IMBD-ing an actor I thought I recognized on a FaLaLaLaLifetime Christmas movie (we already covered my low standards in this regard. Let’s try to move past it), and found PiGS on his filmography. It’s about a college guy who tries to sleep with a girl for every letter of the alphabet (by last names). The x girl turns out to be the Holy Grail…and the one he falls in love with (naturally). “You can’t be serious,” you’re probably thinking. Me too. But also, “I HEAR YA ABOUT THE X, FELLA.”

If PiGS is my least-favorite alphabetty work of art (not that I watched it, I SWEAR), my most favorite is one of Edward Lear’s “Nonsense Poems” about the alphabet called “A Was Once an Apple Pie.” I had it in an old old book of my dad’s – a Better Homes & Gardens collection of poems and stories. I loved that book. It was giant and kind of smelled weird, but reading it always felt like a special occasion. It also included “The Owl and the Pussycat,” a story about an old lady and her escaping pig (that included the word “stile” which I’d never known) and an incredibly ethnically-insensitive story called “Little Black Sambo” about tigers that turn into butter. The alphabet was my favorite though – especially the x – but I’ll copy u-z for you here…because they’re all pretty hard letters to negotiate (except for w, wonderfully wide w):

U was once a little urn,

Urny, 
Burny, 
Turny, 
Urny

Bubbly-burny
 Little Urn!

 

V was once a little vine,

Viny, 
Winy
, Twiny, 
Viny

Twisty-twiny
 Little Vine!

 

W was once a whale,

Whaly, 
Scaly, 
Shaly, 
Whaly

Tumbly-taily 
Mighty Whale!

 

X was once a great king Xerxes,

Xerxy, 
Perxy, 
Turxy, 
Xerxy

Linxy Lurxy
 Great King Xerxes!

 

Y was once a little yew,

Yewdy
 Fewdy 
Crudy 
Yewdy

Growdy, grewdy, 
Little Yew!

 

Z was once a piece of zinc,

Tinky
, Winky, 
Blinky, 
Tinky

Tinkly Minky 
Piece of Zinc!

It was even illustrated, this poem…and through the wonders of the internet, here’s a peek at old Xerxes himself:

So scary! And nothing at all to indicate anything about who Xerxes was…but still. Such a way better selection than xylophone or x-ray. I want to start trying to fit “Linxy Lurxy” into my vocabulary RIGHT NOW. Also, “bubbly-burny little urn” is so deliciously sinister right there in the middle of all this nonsense, isn’t it?

I’m so one of THOSE PEOPLE who, when she saw the You’ve Got Mail scene where Kathleen Kelly tells Joe Fox, “When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does,” I was all OH MY GOSH YOU ARE SO RIGHT. And thus: X will always be great king Xerxes…whoever he is.

For this is what the story says: that the Lord made a baby ball of himself and dropped into our hard, material world. God with us. But that is also what the story does: makes a palpable person of the high transcendent Diety, a living and intimate being who strides into the child’s world to love her where she is, just as she had crept into his story to meet him where he was, in infancy incarnate. The Lord and the story, they establish relationship. W. Wangerin “The Christmas Story”

This is a Dutch letter. A transcendently delicious treat all the way from Jaarsma bakery on the square in Pella, IA. I got to have one for breakfast this morning and I wanted to share it with you. So, thank you Fastsigns for “verbiage”. (And also “squeegee”, “PVC” and “coro weasel”.) And thanks to Mom and Dad (and the world’s least-cheerful collection of bakers) for the VERY yummy breakfast.

A term for an unspecified but reasonably large number, used in humorous fashion or to imply that it is not worth the effort to pin down the actual figure. Despite the -teen ending, which would seem to indicate that it lies between 12 and 20, umpteen can be used in ways implying it is much larger than that, if it ever could be pinned down.

Oh Wikipedia, so unselfconsciously earnest. Here’s a list of things I would say I have done umpteen times:
•misspelled the word equipment. Seriously. I can never get it right. It might not have been a huge deal in life except that I used to work as a sign-maker. It’s weird how many signs there are out there in the world that say something about equipment.
•forgotten to pay my trash bill. I don’t know why. Mental block. So much so that just the sound of a garbage truck driving by will make me feel panicky.
•driven I-44 from Springfield to Lebanon (or vice versa). This is actually how the word umpteen occurred to me…driving that road tonight and realizing I didn’t remember anything from Sampson/Sparkle Brook Road (what a magical-sounding exit, right?) to Strafford. Not even the mysterious split in the road that two friends and I once explored (a story for another time. Maybe next month since it’s Christmas-themed).
•flossed
•made plans to learn to drive a stick/play the ukulele (another u!)/manage my eyebrows. Will 2012 be the year? Like umpteen, I refuse to be pinned down.

(…and of course, also Thanksgiving and turkey.) One of my favorite things about this holiday and others is being at my parents’ dining room table. We’ve had the same one for as long as I can remember. Rich dark wood (which we never, ever see) and special leaves that come out of hiding (where do they live? I don’t even know) when the company’s especially numerous.

My parents are both only children too, so our table settings should be fairly small. But my not-so-typical-onlies folks have always liked having a crowd around. And they don’t want anyone to be lonely at holiday time, so they’ve developed a penchant for collecting dinner guests. Some of the guests have been here once and gone…and then some have become long-term repeaters. They’ve become family to me even though the only time I ever see them is at holiday mealtimes. Crazy.

I remember one year at Thanksgiving Mom and Dad assembled a particularly eclectic guest list. This was during the time that I was going to seminary and my parents were not so much into the church. My mom would occasionally say to people (in that hushed tone most reserve for words like “cancer” or “divorce”), “Heather’s very religious.” She would even look proud about it – because even when they thought I was nuts, the ‘rents have always been proud of me. Anyway, eclectic Thanksgiving involved some Jewish guests, a couple Catholics, an ardent atheist and a handful of don’t-really-cares. That’s a lot of belief systems to straddle at one semi-religious event. As we all got settled for dinner, my mom stopped everyone (forks mid-air) to ask me to pray over the meal. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to her to be worried about what I might say – but it certainly occurred to me. I wonder if it seemed like my mouth was running a 10 second delay – you know, sorta like they do for the Superbowl now…or live awards shows. Because between each word my brain was racing, “Dear…” (oh, what do I say here? Whose name do I use?) “God…” (What’s safe to say next? Can I just resort to “God is great, God is good”? But I’m 27!) “Thank you…” (Please just hurry up and finish, Heather! And for the love of God (literally) NO WARDROBE MALFUNCTIONS OR FOUR-LETTER WORDS) “Amen…s.” That might not be verbatim, but it’s awfully close.

I wish we’d kept some sort of record of our holiday guests. An autographed napkin, a portrait on the wall, something. Because even though there are a couple I’d like to forget, the vast majority of them have been wonderful and festive and fun. Even tolerant of the years when Mom would get a creative bee in her bonnet and have us draw turkeys, or share a grateful sentiment. There have been some stories told that have made my sides ache from laughing (mostly from our friend Edith who lived all over the world and had a whole encyclopedia-sized repertoire of mis-adventures…like one time when she was trying to tell a taxi driver that she was hot (in Spanish maybe?) but instead told him she was horny…and one about a trunkful of chickens), and stories that have made me tear up (Mom and Dad are big question-askers…no small talk around here), and EVERY year the same Heather-centric tales of my youthful hijinks (proud, proud parents. Maniacs).

All-totaled though…goods and bads figuring in alike…every holiday meal around that table has been a happy occasion for me. Always full to the brim with my favorite foods – and with the most generous kind of love that make everyone family. Because of this table (and/or the parents behind it) inviting and including are part of my soul. And for that, I am extraordinarily thankful.

Our book club is reading “Holidays on Ice” for December. I’ve only started reading it a little bit because I try to maintain a no-Christmas-before-Thanksgiving policy. The book is pretty short, so I could have managed it, but I got a little nervous – so I went ahead and jumped in. The first chapter is all about his time working as a department store elf in NYC – at the age of 33. It’s funny – very backstage-at-the-commercialized-Christmas – but I’ve realized already that I kinda prefer my Christmas snark free.

I’m not a big fan of snark at any season any more. Which is weird maybe, because I’ve always been a sarcasm girl. Facebook makes for snark overload though. I’m not going to say much about it – lest I fall into that weird Bermuda triangle of using the internet to complain about the way other people use the internet to complain. So, suffice it to say that the enormous amount of amateur cynics in the world lower my tolerance for even the most brilliant versions of snark. Fortunately David Sedaris normally includes just enough genuine sentiment to keep me engaged. Elf-town, though, was apparently void of any redeeming holiday moments. I hope that trend will change as the book progresses. But for now I’ve put it down. Because I have a no-exceptions policy about mocking-Christmas-before-Thanksgiving. Me no likey.

This might be because all my experiences with Christmas are pretty darned idyllic. Lots of snow and surprises and trips to cut the tree. I’m a sucker for every half hour special – The Night Before Christmas (I had this on a record – an actual record), A Garfield Christmas (best gift EVER from Odie), and A Wish for Wings that Work (EVERY TIME Opus loses his bottom it makes me laugh – are you familiar with it? YOU SO SHOULD BE) are my favorites. I love Christmas movies too. I come by it honestly. When I was home (sick sick sick) for my birthday, my mom was already Hallmark Christmas movie-ing it up. White Christmas is on my list of favorite movies period, nevermind Christmas. And I’ve seen Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life at least 25 times apiece. (Dylan McDermott as hunky Christmas-saving lawyer? Yes please.)

But. You guys. Don’t judge me. Hold on to something. My favorite piece of Christmas-related entertainment ever. EVER. Seriously, EV-ER…is A Smoky Mountain Christmas. It’s so bad. No, even worse than whatever you’re imagining. But I love it so much. Dolly Parton as yuletide-version Snow White. Dolly Parton singing the most sugary, schmaltzy not-even-Christmas-related songs…but here’s the thing: I BELIEVE EVERY SECOND OF IT. Because I want to. Because Christmas is the time where you don’t have to be realistic. Where Santa should never smell like beef and cheese or sit on a throne of lies (yes, I love that one too…and Christmas Vacation). I know that a big reason I can’t take Christmas mocking is that it threatens the delicate gingerbread house of sap that I’ve bought into. But I am so okay with that.

I do also understand that Christmas is not such a happy time for everyone – so I don’t begrudge Sedaris (or any of you) his chance to snark. But. It is a happy time for me. Deliriously. Unrealistically. Naively. Whatever. And I will wish the same for you – and then some.

Here are a few of the things I’ve been chewing on lately. Sometimes because I agree wholeheartedly, sometimes because I disagree, sometimes because I don’t know what I think, sometimes because the words are lovely (or various combinations of these).

In a happy family you don’t receive in proportion to your input. You receive in relation to your needs. If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another’s, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family. We can be human only together. -Archbishop McDreamy (Desmond Tutu)

I think about this all the time as partisan politics get louder and more entrenched and meaner and more determinedly far apart. Could it be that we need BOTH parties to come up with the best ideas? I doesn’t matter. That’s heartbreaking to me. We’re gonna stay broken so somebody can be right.

Gratitude never radicalized anyone. -Gloria Steinem

I think this was her talking on the Today Show – about her not needing credit from young women today for the ways she furthered women’s rights. She kind of wants them to stay angry. I don’t know if I’m a feminist. I’m not sure if I want to be a radical. I think I might want to be one of each…but not at the cost of gratitude.

Fate has flung us onto a street of poor people (it does not matter that we were poor before; that was a different sort of poverty), and the only way to take this,as she sees it, is with dignity, with bitterness, with no reconciliation. No bathroom with a claw-footed tub and a flush toilet is going to comfort her, nor water on tap and sidewalks past the house and milk in bottles, not even two movie theaters and the Venus Restaurant and Woolworth’s so marvelous it has live birds singing in its fan-cooled corners and fish as tiny as fingernails, as bright as moons, swimming in its green tanks. My mother does not care. -Alice Munro, “Walker Brothers Cowboy”

This is just the loveliest bit of fiction I’ve read in ages. Lovely for the words, lovely for the images – and lovely for the truth it tells the way only fiction can: that we so often see only what we want to see. Instead of being open to what’s marvelous around us. Like tiny fish swimming in green tanks (tiny fish!) and live birds singing.

My brain is an expert at coming up with instantaneous explanations for mysterious circumstances around me. And when I say “mysterious circumstances” I mostly mean not-much-at-all happenings. It’s not like I’m Miss Marple or Temperance Brennan and people frequently drop dead or go missing in my vicinity.

Once my roommate’s car was parked out front, but I couldn’t find her anywhere in the house. Instead of suspecting she’d gone out for a bike ride, I created a whole scenario where her boyfriend had chopped her up and stashed her in my basement. So, even though I knew very well I was being nutty, I refused to go downstairs until she’d re-appeared. (Which she did. With all of her extremities.)

My doctor “friend” Tyler likes to remind me (frequently) that I once confessed to him (and my best pal Leslie) that I was a little bit worried that I might have Parkinson’s. I didn’t really believe it, I just needed to worry about it a little bit. I think my actual confession was that I’m a bit of a hypochondriac – and then they asked for evidence. Boy did I give it to them.

I remember inventing loads of episodes of fiery car crashes and parent-eating monsters to explain my mom and dad’s tardiness in coming home from a night out when I was a kid. My panic would eventually morph into guilt as I suspected that my horrific flights of fancy had visited the tragedies upon them. So then I would imagine that parents of kids who slept with their elbows touching would be immune to carnivorous monsters. (Or with their legs sticking straight up in the air. Or with their tongues flipped over. It was a different kind of secret action every time.)

I’m bringing this up because for more than 24 hours there’s been a guy sitting in a car on the street across from my house. See?

Not just one guy. Not just one car. Sometimes it’s this car. Sometimes it’s a white truck. Sometimes it’s a black car. Sometimes it’s a silver truck. Last night there were two cars parked with men watching. ALL NIGHT LONG. (I know because my stupid stomach is still being uncooperative.) I know it’s not paranoid to imagine that they’re up to something…because my street isn’t exactly the sort of place where you’d park just for entertainment. But, my problem is the degree of extreme possibilities I can come up with for why they’re there. I do feel confident that they’re not there for me, but I did stand on my porch for a moment before leaving today and think, “Where will I dive when the gunplay begins?”

The thing is, nobody else seems to care at all. I watched both of my neighbors pass by the cars without so much as a glance. HOW CAN THAT BE? The suspense is killing me. Of course, I’ve mostly been ignoring them too. I do give them each a good dose of the squinch eye when I can. As I was leaving tonight I noticed that the  guy in the truck had his window down, so I almost got my courage screwed up to go ask what the hell is going on. I chickened out, but I might be getting there. So, Internets, if I disappear overnight, you can bear witness to where the investigation should begin.

Under my bed. That’s where I’ll be hiding.