Testing The Waters

 ...and so far, so good. Nobody at Google's peeing in the pool, even if it did take a lot of confused clicking for me to reach the new post editor.

Today's post may feel a tad rushed. I leave for a caroling gig on Michigan Avenue in about an hour. If you see a handsome man in Dickensian clothing on the red line, give him all your money. Chances are he's me, and if he isn't, he deserves a reward for looking like me.

Christmas gigs are wonderful. Well, don't get me wrong, any gig is wonderful, but when your usual crowd is either tiny, drunk, or teetering between jubilation and belligerence, it's just delightful to have a gig with a built-in, guaranteed rapturous audience. Takes a bit of the pressure off. Plus, every one of these I've ever done, I've realized something midway through:

"My god. I'm getting paid to sing Christmas music in public. I'm getting paid to do what I constantly do anyway."

Santa gigs are still fun, but loads more intimidating. Children are picky little creatures. Shrewd, too, like goblins. Make a verbal misstep, and here comes a barrage of questions. Do something Santa didn't do last year, and you're tasked with explaining why that Santa had an English accent and you don't. And while kids sit on your lap, asking for hamsters and dogs (and in three cases, ponies), you try to assure them their dreams will come true while the parents shake their heads "NO" just out of the tykes' view.

All this going on around you, a yuletide cacophony, and if you screw up or break character, you don't just ruin the gig. You ruin Christmas.

Pay's good, though.

Heyyyy, wait a minute. I know this handwriting. Jess is back! Between the texas jaunt and a recent void in email communication, I wondered if she'd either vanished on the Silk Road to live in banditry or disappeared upon reentering the country due to subversive attempts to visit Blogger.

"Shut up," Jess? That implies I disagree with your assessment of the Forbidden Kitty. I like to think he's one of a long line of Forbidden Kitties, licking themselves throughout history. Sauntering in and out of the palace at will back when doing so meant death by a hail of arrows (even if you looked like Jet Li).