X-MESS

I began mailing out holiday greeting cards nine years ago. It's what one does when one's mother dies and one wants to keep in touch with the people who knew her.

But it's become a drag -- in no small part because I design the stupid thing myself and always enclose a Urine Review, a tongue-in-cheek chronicle of the minor accomplishments and many misadventures of Kirby and I.

This year's listed included some 70 people.




It's become a project not unlike doing taxes, with just about as many steps: buying the Glu-Stik, glitter glue, envelopes and stamps; updating the mailing list, printing it out, cutting it up, Glu-Stiking the labels onto the envelopes, drawing the cover art, brainstorming, writing and editing the stupid insert, bringing the stuff to the print shop, looking at the proof, approving the proof, picking it up, bringing it home, adding glitter glue to all 70 cards, waiting for the glue to dry, writing some sort of mildly personal message inside, sealing the envelopes, adding the stamps and return address labels, schlepping it all to the post office in time....

This year I got thru it with the help of local community radio station WLUW and Turner Classic Movies.

And a call from my friend Bo, who was in the midst of the same task ("f*cking Christmas cards" is how she put it) and as far from completing it as I was.

One can't help but wonder how people with offspring and hosting obligations cope with it all.

No wonder the yoga classes are full -- and the liquor store shelves have been picked clean.