Pre-Christmas

What do you do when you have a ton of work to do and you just can't motivate yourself to do it? Hey, it's a wind-chill of 16-below outside--the wind is ridiculous. And it's Sunday, and I've got Christmas lights and decorations and flickering candles and Christmas music in here. Is it right that I should have to sit at the computer and not enjoy all that?

Well, part of the joy of working at home is the ability to work at strange hours like 4 am if you want. And I did accomplish a lot of personal chores today, so at least I don't feel lazy. That means I will plan on one of those incredibly productive Monday mornings tomorrow. I can usually get more work done in 4 hours in the early hours--providing I keep the email program closed--than I do in a whole typical day with distractions.

Are you planning a love-filled Christmas this year? I am so glad to be alive and well and blessed with a 17-month-old little pistol of a granddaughter that this Christmas feels especially joyful and emotional to me. I hope you are feeling much love for family and for the whole human race.

Play review: The Seafarer - Dark humor and soulful considerations

I was blessed to be able to attend this wonderful play at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago last weekend. I can't recommend it enough--a totally engaging and moving story, beautifully set and acted. Congrats to Steppenwolf and the cast, author and director of this masterpiece.

Christmas Eve morning dawns dark and dreary in a little town in Ireland. We become eavesdroppers on a story of brotherhood, devotion, failure, loss, and shame playing out between several men in a dingy flat's basement room. We see brother Sharky taking rough but loving care of his blind brother, Richard (played with great verve by John Mahoney, the actor who played down-to-earth dad to his radio psychologist sons in the TV series Frasier). And gradually a few other men drift in.

The play’s author Conor McPherson brings quiet poignance to the matter-of-fact stories of drinking and disasters the five men have been through. The men decide to play cards that Christmas eve night. And while the others are out fighting the back-alley winos (who have the nerve to be drunk and disorderly but, unlike these men, are doing it on the street instead of in their living room), the visiting stranger who’s joined them makes ominous pronouncements to Sharky about a deal he made one day many years ago for his soul. The drinking gets heavier; the betting intensifies. Dark humor graces this tale of life's demons, and a surprise reveals the grace of ultimate redemption.

If you can only see one play this season (and you don't mind serious content), see this one. But there's also a second play by the same author running in the upstairs room. Good for the folks at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago.

A voice for single women of UK

Ran across this great blog today called "the F-word" and she writes a smoking article about the way society thinks of single women. Thank you editor Jess McCabe and founder Catherine Redfern for your passion and persistence in the important mission of transforming this state of affairs and letting single women come fully into their own.

May it happen in our time!

Early holiday thoughts

Got my fresh pine greens delivered with the groceries today. Brought up the little fake Christmas tree from storage and cleaned up the last of the plant stuff from the deck.

i'm ready now, both for winter and for the Christmas season. But being ready is more about emotional grounding in gratitude than about physical stuff. Yet tradition and symbols can be powerful incentives to having the right frame of mind.

Seems like Thanksgiving is a great groundbreaker for the rest of the holiday season. Just celebrating our bounty, welcoming those who don't have formal plans but want to share, preparing our hearts for feeling and expressing the love in our hearts perhaps a bit more openly than usual.

What do you do for Thanksgiving? Do you share with friends? Or are most of your friends busy with family? What about a single working woman (or anyone for that matter) who doesn't have family?

Having had a very challenging year this 2008, I found myself crying deeply the first few times I heard Christmas songs on the radio. Seems my heart is pretty grateful to be here and celebrating this beautiful time of year. I hope yours is, too.