Somehow, this prompted the statement, I don’t know if it was mine or my mother’s, that only Bad Santas shop at the Dollar Tree.

This has only escalated over the last few weeks into threats that Bad Santa is coming to visit, followed by plaintive cries of “NO BAD SANTA!!” Or alternatively “ONLY GOOD SANTA.”

As Bad Santa shaped into a figure of myth and legend at the Fougner Family Barn, he developed an origin story which involved him being Good Santa’s younger brother who was always overshadowed by his more successful older brother, Good Santa, and I think he was raised by his evil aunt and uncle in a cupboard under the stairs, because that’s not anyone else’s history. Anyway, Bad Santa’s job is to bring horrible presents to all the naughty boys and girls.

GUESS WHO CAME TO OUR HOUSE THIS YEAR? WE MUST HAVE BEEN VERY BAD.

Bad Santa comes on Christmas Eve before everyone goes to bed. He brings a dead tree and decorates it with old rags to make it look like snow. He brings gifts like gopher traps, fly paper, and paper towels:

I know lots of people are posting their exciting hauls of Christmas gifts, but I CHALLENGE ANY OF YOU TO TOP THIS:

1) Off-brand disposable dental floss pics.
2) A night light without a light bulb.
3) A pack of four fly catchers.
4) A 16 oz bottle of Ajax soap
5) Two disposable aluminum foil cake pans.

YEAH. BEAT THAT BAD SANTA LIST.

When we woke this morning, there was another Christmas Miracle! In the night, the Magical Bad Santa Hat had appeared atop Bad Santa’s tree!

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1) It appears that several new authors were added to the “I Write Like” meme. Confirmed: Margaret Mitchell, Mary Shelley, Stephenie Meyer, Ursula LeGuin, Agatha Christie, David Foster Wallace.

I have not seen or heard anything about any authors of color being added. Which is, as nojojojo said, making it worse, because at this point he’s knowingly being exclusionary, especially since I’ve seen multiple people suggest authors of color to him directly.

2) I have heard multiple reports that he is no longer approving comments from people who question this issue on his blog. However, he said that he will take suggestions with the hashtag #iwlvote on twitter, and he can’t really do anything about people who comment to @iwritelike on twitter.

3) Many people brought up questions about the original included list. Dmitry said to me yesterday in a private email that the list was gleaned from two sources: top bestsellers listed on Wikipedia, and the top downloads list on Project Gutenberg. While those lists are obviously skewed toward white men to begin with, there were female authors and authors of color on both lists who never appeared to be in the meme, which means that there was some editorial choice on his part about which authors on those lists to include– and which to exclude.

4) This is the first time I’ve posted a post of this nature since I started blogging more seriously off-livejournal. It’s interesting to note that while the vast majority of people who responded to this post on livejournal commented in agreement with the concerns I raised, and the people who didn’t approached the subject with honest questions, the majority of (far fewer) comments on my personal blog at Antagonia.net were criticizing my post, and not in a thoughtful or friendly manner, either. It was interesting to me to see the difference.

5) I just wanted to share the email my father sent to the meme’s creator after reading my blog. My father is a middle-aged white man, just in case anyone is curious.

My friends and I were excited to see this enjoyable “game”. However, it became clear that even though your idea is really good , your execution is lacking.

JVF

Of course, when a man wrote to him, Dmitry wrote back saying “thanks for your suggestions!” Although I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that that might be a result of critical mass at this point.

I hope that answers everybody I didn’t get around to replying to. Thanks for your comments and especially for passing on this discussion to others– I think a lot of people only saw one or two results from the meme and didn’t quite realize what was going on with it.

I am still disappointed that this thing is getting national news coverage, though. It’s sort of inspiring me to put some effort in to re-building my meme library once I move. We need a new OTP generator. That doesn’t exclude anybody on any basis apart from “Tea thinks that’s too hard to draw.”

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This happened this weekend! We were going hiking an I wanted to wear my old sneakers, which are Sauconies, and not my new sneakers, which were Merrells. I explained to my father that Sauconies are the sneakers with big Ses on the sides.

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My mother is already asleep, so I talked to my father about his vegan experiences this week. He said he continued to eat carrots and grapes while at work.

John:
I’m trying to think if there’s anything exotic I did.

I went to the store and bought Cheerios with sugar as a snack. Thursday, I had a diet soda at birthday party. I don’t recall eating anything. I was getting tired of it.

Friday, finished all the carrots and all the grapes. More cereal. had dinner but forget what it was already. We had zucchini strips and something else and hummus and chips, which was fine. It was good.

Breakfast I had orange juice and we went shopping. I got a diet Dr. Pepper. I tried to sneak pretzels at Kitchen Connection but they moved to a different outlet and then it’s all a blur.

Today I came to see my parents. As a gift for their last day on this assignment, I brought them a vegan cookbook, The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick Goudreau. We made variations on two pizzas in the book, a beet pizza and a southwestern pizza. We also bought some prepared frozen vegan egg rolls as an appetizer, but they were incredibly bland and I thought kind of inedible. As I told my mom, I felt like they were vegan food cooked by people who had never eaten vegan food. There were no seasonings in them at all. Or, at least, it tasted like there weren’t.

The pizzas we made had the following toppings (there will be pics tomorrow):

Beets
Turnips
Potatoes
Arugula tapenade
Tempeh

Pinto beans
Vegan soy bacon strips
Vegan cashew “sour cream” (which I made from scratch based on a recipe in the book)
Avocado
Homemade salsa
Dried chipotle

So that was dinner. Yum! Now back to our regularly scheduled comments from my father.

John: Dinner tonight was pretty good. The pizza was dry. I’m getting tired of– there are certain things I like in my diet that I’m not getting. Butter, cheese, and milk being some of them.

(He is not really, but he said that that way he can eat the vegan ice cream I bought him tomorrow)

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When I called, they were eating dinner, which was Vegan pulled pork from “It’s All Good,” a company that makes ready-made vegan products. I have had their beef skewers and thought they were delicious.

Sharon: This wouldn’t be my favorite meal. Daddy likes it more than I do. I don’t like the texture. It’s kind of rubbery.

John: Pork is rubbery!

Sharon: I’m counting down. I’ve kind of had enough. It was fine. But I’m basically eating the same things every day. I would be more adventurous, but I don’t have time to be more adventurous.

John My food today was similar to my food yesterday, but I’m saving the world and doing greater things for everybody so I feel good.

Mary (a family friend) asked us to go to dinner tomorrow and have birthday cake for their son tomorrow night and I said, “we are so screwed.” I explained to her that I was vegan for the week. I told her that I would come over, but I just wouldn’t eat any cake, and she said, “but we’re getting Baskin Robbins ice cream cake, are you sure you don’t want any?” And I told her I couldn’t eat it.

I think it’s good. I think it’s delicious. It’s got pulled pork sauce, so it’s nice and tangy. I think your mother is turning religious, she says this is like Lent.

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To start out, my mom sent me a beautiful photo of her dinner from last night:

Orecchiette with olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, broccoli rabe, and ceci beans

My dad sent me an email again today!

John: OK- so on the third day it seems like any other diet I have been on. However, i can’t just eat anything, I have to comply or my superpowers will be stripped away by animal gods.

I am looking forward to mounds of popcorn for dinner- Remember that book? Not even close to how much I will be eating!

The comment about “that book” is a reference to a book I used to love when I was a little kid, Popcorn, by Frank Asch. It was about this little bear who accidentally popped so much popcorn that it filled up his whole house!

I talked to my mom when she got home from work. She ate rice cakes, fruits, and veggies for lunch, and was going to eat her leftover pasta for dinner. This is what she had to say about her day:

Sharon: Eating sucks. So I had to go to a meeting this afternoon and they served food at the meeting. So, and everything had either cheese or meat. So, you know, that’s– that becomes interesting because then you realize how difficult it is for people in public social settings. I told the people I was with at the meeting, I said, I became vegan for a week. They all laughed at me, said what are you, crazy, vegetarian’s one thing, but vegan’s impossible.

I asked her if she had considered taking anything and removing the cheese or meat, and she said it just didn’t seem worth it. She said this is harder than she thought it would be.

My dad does not seem to think it is as hard, but he also has a different perspective on it.

John: Today was pretty much as expected. Looking forward to popcorn feast, with lemonade it will be divine. Tomorrow morning I work out again. I will be Mr. Trim, Slim, and my body will have nothing bad in it.

Some guy in Florida opened a pizza parlor. This guy went to Gold’s Gym and wanted to offer free pizza to all the customers. The people at Gold’s Gym said, you’re welcome to try to give them free pizza, but no one’s going to eat free pizza if they’re trying to lose weight. So this guy ate only pizza for a month. He lost weight, his cholesterol went down, and his heart rate was better.

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