Ho ho. In NC with the folks and having a generally fine time being off the grid, out of the loop, nuked on cookies, and otherwise resting and recovering from the last three months. My parents' machine is quite possibly the most frustrating computer I've ever used and, if it's possible, it seems their dial-up connection has actually gotten slower over the years. So I've accepted the disconnect and have been having a pretty good time with it thusfar.

It's odd, almost beyond words, being here and seeing what the town has transformed itself into. What once was the sticks has been terraformed by McMansions and minimalls, superhighways and big bank money. It's unrecognizable-- what were once dense woods are now gated swimming pool communities. When I left, there was a ton of talk that Charlotte was on track to become the next Atlanta; it came true, even here on the far north side, beyond the city limits you can see the touch of transformation.

(That I'm typing all this from a wi-fi cafe three minutes from my house speaks volumes. Thick NC accents debating the merits of Soy Chai over just a straight up Latte at the counter. Git-r-done, Southern Man. Git-r-done.)

Last night we get a call from Gina, who's been housesitting while we we've been gone, and we've been burgled. Someone tried kicking in the back door, failed, shattered the backdoor window, crawled in, and made a quick pilfering run through the house.

We were lucky for a long, long time. Xtop's car has been busted into like three times now. A ring of car-thieves used to run out of our parking lot. This fall, when Kel was in H-ville and the car got broken into we knew our luck was up.

They got two 40-dollar Costco dvd players and an xbox; that's the easy dumb shit not worth caring about.

Upstairs, they ransacked the bedroom and made off with some of Kel's heirloom jewelry-- mostly costume, but a great-grandmother's costume bracelet tends towards invaluable.

They made off with Gina's laptop, too-- a backup and data storage machine, largely, as her primary is in the shop but still. I dunno the status of her data backups.

So we start getting calls from Gina and Timmy and Xtop who are trying to assess the situation as Kel and I are melting down on the other end of the line-- they're as panicked as we are, certainly (is there a more terrifying thought other than "is HE still in the house?"). Receiving it all over the phone just amplified the freakout, I think-- no visuals, no sense of space. They can't tell what's a genuine mess (Xtop says "It looks like they really turned the spare room over upstairs." Me: "I think it was probably like that when we left, actually...") and what's actually been looted.

Apparently empty shopping bags are arranged around the base of the xmas tree (present-less, as we opened that stuff and put it away before coming to NC so the tree was barren underneath.). The image strikes me as funny. Wildly inappropriate, yes, but funny.

There's the head-count and room-check of keys. How many copies do we have for which doors and where are they? He finds the one in-house spare we have and lets himself out through the front door. We had to talk Gina down a bit, as I think she was wondering if someone already had the key.

One of the cats isn't immediately visible. The cops have said go outside and wait for us and don't touch anything. I want to scream into the phone for someone to go look under the fucking bed, but, you know. Uncouth. Everyone's doing the best they can to process a battery of highly spooky antixmas data. Cops say wait outside. Kel and I start trying to figure out a strategy. Are we going home? Fly or drive? What can we afford? Where ARE we now? What's happening?

Here's what I mean: there's the bank. Checks and statements and bills were floating around. Even though Kel's office looked largely untouched (Way to ignore that Powerbook that was just sitting there, guy) who knows if they grabbed a checkbook or the wrong piece of mail? Who but me and Kel would recognize it? So we freeze the account and are now functionally cashless until we get back and open a new account. Happy Holidays! You've got the cash in your pocket now. Good luck wrapping up those bills you needed to pay.

And the cops show up and everyone's trying to keep it together and how do you not just lose it? Dad keeps talking about Ham's ability to turn invisible. He’s trying to be sweet but it takes everything I have not to start screaming. I mean-- look, Ham's a retard, but he's my retard, you know? It's hard to keep perspective when it's all coming down.

(There's a new year's resolution, right there. When things go shithouse I tend towards bark-y and I hate it.)

He's under the bed. Xtop finds him. Still-- just enough time for the blood to boil and things to go molten in your gut. It's maddening. If we were there we'd know; we'd be able to study every inch of our place. We're getting it all akimbo between cop questions and cell reception glitches.

The cops come and go. Timmy gets Beniah to come drill the door shut. Keys are all accounted for, doors are all locked.

With the cats found and the place locked down the boil turns into a simmer and we start to relax a bit. Do we let them ruin the holiday? How fucking creepy would it be to loiter around there on Xmas eve, the scent of robbery still in the air?

(The Writer Bit notices, ho ho, you’re writing a book about a thief. Remember how this feels. Write about it.

I hate the Writer Bit.)

Our home turns a shutdown house. That’s the only thing that stems the lack of control and panic-- clinging to the belief that locking it up and shutting it down translates into keeping them out. And until we’re there it’s all we can do.

It’s hard to accept.

The brute touch of horror-- that mixture of terror and stupidity, rage and hopelessness, the No-Control-Having.

Some stupid motherfucker was in your bedroom. Some stupid motherfucker went through your wife's things. Some stupid motherfucker invaded your space, touched it and stained it with unworthy hands and impure thoughts. Some stupid motherfucker looked at a bunch of fancy bits of glass that meant the world to a depression-era girl and today means the world to her great-granddaughter and he thought it was real, thought it was worth more than five fucking bucks and is, as we speak, trying to pawn it and getting laughed at. Some stupid motherfucker is trying to pawn your memories right now, your family right now, the dumb but shiny little bits of your life right now that insurance won't ever buy back.

Maybe he'll get a new ringtone out of it.

There's fingerprint dust everywhere now. I wish you could dust the space itself, the air in the room. We could trace the stupid motherfucker's path through our space, through our home, and disinfect and exorcise every inch. Draw salt and chalk circles around the house and burn strawmen in his image. It’s overwhelming-- I snapped at Kel when really I wanted to strangle this stupid motherfucker for so overly-complicating our peace of mind.

It's not much of a secret that I get into the holiday spirit pretty easily-- or try to, anyway. I have a Santa hat that's unbearably warm and I wear it with only the slightest whiff of irony. I love getting the tree up as close the day after Thanksgiving as possible and help decorate and watch the dumb kids shows (this year we actually bought YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS on DVD-- I wonder if any of the DVDs are gone? Again, who would know but me or Kel?). I smile and nod when people rant and rage against the holiday and against every contrivance and mandated Corporate Celebration and I smile as they revel in that Oh So Edgy Hipster Holiday Backlash and let them go on. But me? I'm Not Like That.

It takes absolutely everything I have not to crumble this time of year. It takes every single gimmick, every trick of focus and every bit of concentration not to shut down and fade away. The five-week run from Thanksgiving to New Year's kills me if I let it. My birthday and the New Year being a month apart have always made it impossible to avoid Reviewing Everything this time of year. My personal and your global reset clock get hit a month apart.

So this time of year comes up and it's impossible not to size up. And I don't know about you but I always see the failures more than the successes. If I let it.

If I let it, everything about this time of year points back at what I fucked up, what I haven't done, what I've lost and what I’ve ruined.

So. So I dive in every year hoping I'll connect back into whatever that good vibration used to be, hoping that I'll tap into some reservoir of Millennium Falcon goodwill and hope to keep the shadows away, at least for a little while.

This year has been pretty good so far. Even with the fuckups and failures, in spite of them in fact.

I'm happy and smiling and feel my life has almost approached the hubristic. I have an amazing wife and an amazing life and if you’d shown me a photo of today, five years ago, I’d have called it science fiction.

Merry Christmas. Next time bring Kryptonite.