It's a Festivus Miracle!

Yes indeed, in one of my own most noteworthy "Feats of Strength," I actually made a blog post on December 23rd, and only eight days later than I had originally promised! Such is the magic of Festivus.

I'm very pleased with how that last story came out, in terms of expressing the kind of feelings that I meant to express. I wrote The Modern Spirit, in part, to explore what I jokingly call my own childhood insanity. That is to say that when I was a child (and, admittedly, often to this day) I would hold conversations imaginary conversations with people who were not actually there. Sometimes they were "real" people, and sometimes they weren't, but in any case it was always one of my principle methods of thinking. The "imaginary" character in this story is sort of an ageless doppelganger of the main character, which is not the kind of person I would deliberately conjure up for my own imaginary conversations, but I think it made sense for the story I was trying to tell.

I purposefully did a couple of weird things, such as writing a long stretch of dialogue without expressly attributing any of the lines to any particular character. I think it works, though I may have oversold the emphasis by immediately commenting on it afterward, but I think the dialogue, as strange as it is to read, is one of the most essential parts of the story. Whether such gimmicks are in line with anyone else's idea of good writing is of course an open question, but I like it, so there.

Another miracle of sorts happened today, the 24th, so it's not quite a Festivus miracle (though you could certainly call it a feat of strength). I am referring to the passage of a health reform bill in the Senate. It would have been truly miraculous if it had passed with a public insurance option, but it seems that America, as always, is an unrepentant tease. Barring a string of shinobi-style assassinations of Democratic lawmakers, or a military coup, or perhaps a giant asteroid impact, health reform is very probably going to happen, and that makes me a happy guy, especially since no ninja have been sighted in the DC area since at least 1901*.

America will likely reward the Democrats for their Christmas present with some painful losses in the Congressional elections next year. Such is the way of things, so let us be happy we've accomplished what we have, and look forward to improvements down the road, even if we don't know just how far down the road they are.

*Yes, Leon Czolgosz was a ninja. A Polish ninja.