... Maes Hughes, you will be missed. Oh yes.

Is it wussy to say I was tearing up during the funeral? Ohmygod. Hughes. Wah! Poor Hughes. He was far, far too cool to die, and he was so cute with his family and god dammit, his daughter only just turned four. So not right. And it made Roy cry. That's how you know it's gotta be bad. Not fair, FMA writers! Why did you have to kill Hughes (that really wasn't fair on Maria Ross - and she's too cool to be used like that, damn you, Sloth...)? Must immediately use Hughes icon in respect. One minute's silence, please.

Okay, so I guess I lied when I promised myself I wouldn't rant about FullMetal Alchemist in this update. But I had to say something about poor Hughes. Life isn't fair!

Anyway, that wasn't what I wanted to talk about today, never mind that I obviously did or I wouldn't have mentioned it. Okay. Um, what i meant was that wasn't what I was going to talk about today. Guess the minute I sat down in front of the 'update' window a Pavlovian response took over and I immediately went into Fangirl Mode. Call it some kind of stimulus-response bond in which the stimulus of a LJ update window provokes a response in the form of fangirling wildly.

The point I was trying to make is this: why do Christmas decorations look so sad at this time of year?

It seems odd to start going about your business again, with the whole business of Christmas over and done with for another year, and still see the decorations up and running. Three days into 2006 and already it feels like business as usual out there, complete with gray skies and drizzle as the world (or this small part of it) drags itself back to work and braces itself for another round and in three hundred-odd days we'll be starting all over again... and we're doing it all under garish strings of lights and a hideously tasteless edifice covered in horribly misplaced reindeer wishing us all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Three days in and that already seems horribly optimistic. Here comes the new year, same as the old year to managle a well-known phrase or saying.

[Insert interruption for father to use the Internet Here.]

I know: tradition has it that the decorations stay until Twelfth Night (which, incidentally, is my parents' wedding anniversary). It's kind of nice they're still there, but what's the point to them? The party's over and all that's left is the tidying up. I don't quite see the point in delaying the clean-up. Not when the lights and decorations all look so sad, as if they know their job's done and they really shouldn't be there any more. As if they know there's really no point to it any more and they're just kidding themselves.

A street decked out for Christmas looks lovely in the run-up, but after the party it just looks as if we the public can't be bothered to clean up after ourselves. Christmas has been and gone, so seeing a town or city wish us it, picked out in lights, after the fact just seems kind of sad. It's like a belated birthday: a nice thought, but the moment's passed and the greeting seems not only misplaced, but pointless.

Thought for the Evening: It is very difficult to write Livejournal updates with a cat asleep on your lap.