Tryptophantastic!

Well another Thanksgiving has rolled by and I am, as a good patriotic American, stuffed full of turkey (not to mention mashed potatoes, bacon apple sage dressing, brussel sprouts, and more gingerbread cookies than ought be legal.) John Luzar (now 100% Zorro-free!) came over to join me and Heidi and Daisy for a magnificent meal, prepared by Chef Mama, Sous Chef Daisy and garbage boy Baba. We cracked open the wine and fancy beer (Three Floyds Dark Lord for Mama, Baba & John, IBC Root Beer for Daisy), relaxed, ate, and enjoyed the improvisational oratory of Marguerite Booth Coleman.

I have spent a great deal of time worrying these past weeks. I've been anxious at work about layoffs, cut hours, and the slipping toke rate. I'm finding it harder and harder to even open the LSAT prep book, much less take a serious look at available schools and programs. But these are fundamentally solvable issues that are being compounded by anxiety. Tonight, in fact all day today, was a wonderful and much-needed break from stress and a chance to start putting things in perspective.

I haven't shared this with too many people, but my mom had a malignant tumor removed from her breast last month and had her first round of chemotherapy yesterday. So far, everything is going along smoothly - the operation was very successful and the chemo has yet to prove anything but time-consuming. I know it will get much worse for her, but I'm celebrating the good days as they happen to try and keep everyone's spirits high.

Anyway, I'm immensely thankful for my family, and that's Mom and Dad and Heidi and Daisy and John and Bee and my many, many friends. I'm a very lucky man to be loved so and to have to many people to love back.

Also, I am thankful that my mustache is so awesome.

Fat Jack & Co.

Pictured:

1. Fat Jack
2. Thin Lena
3. Tall Paul
4. Cricket Lance
5. Little Dorothy

Very useful information when applying gloves

For Mitch

Snidely Whiplash
(see the resemblance?)

Stalin!

Well apparently 'Bob' has opened the floodgates. Now everytime I go to work I seem to pick up a bare minimum of three new nicknames. The thing is, each and every one of them has been prompted by the same thing: the mustache (and to a lesser extent, the little beard.) Here is the current roll call of sobriquets de coiffure:

• Shakespeare
• Robin Hood
• Wyatt Earp
• Buffalo Bill
• Bill The Butcher
  
• D'artagnan
• Rollie Fingers
• Snidely Whiplash
• Jack Sparrow
• Johnny Depp
• Matthew Broderick (Apparently I look like his character from Glory)
• Col. Sanders
• Guy Fawkes
• Stalin (though I'm pretty sure he was thinking of Lenin)

D'artagnan is my favorite, only because I got it three times in the space of two days.

Bob

Of all the nicknames I have had over the years (Sean Sean, Seany, Seaners, Seanburger, Smuh, SMH, Big SMH, SMGdH, Shakespeare, Professor, Bean, Seen, Mean Bean Dinosaur Sean) and all the nicknames I have wished I had (Hap, Huck, Cap, Reb, Hank, The Kansas City Kid), never once did it cross my mind that someone would call me 'Bob'. Yet today, Daisy said to me, "My Mommy is also named Mom and my Baba is Bob." So there you have it. Hello, my name is Sean Michael Henry, but you may call me Bob.

The Manhattan Rhapsody

Hands down, my favorite cocktail is the Manhattan. Shall I tell you the many reasons I love this beverage so?

• It takes effort to make. Mixing a Manhattan takes me about twice as long as making a martini (splash vermouth, pour gin, pop in olive, done!). The more elaborate process of Manhattan mixing means more time for anticipation, plus more time to feel like a bartender.
• It's open to variations. Bourbon, rye or blended whiskey? 2:1 whiskey to vermouth, or vice versa? Angostura or orange bitters? Perfect or standard? My personal favorite recipe: 2 oz Baker's bourbon, .5 oz sweet vermouth, .5 oz dry vermouth, 3 dashes Angostura bitters, shaken gently. Prior to pour, rinse glass with a particularly peaty single malt Scotch (or as I did tonight, Suntory Yamazaki) 'Rinsing' is a delightfully extravagant technique I picked up in Esquire, probably the best source of preposterously indulgent cocktail development tips.
  
• It's beautiful. I can't think of anything else I can put in a glass and hold up to the light that seems quite as warm, alluring, philosophical and sexy simultaneously as a Manhattan. It's not as sharp as the martini, not as airy as the cosmopolitan ... Every time I take a first sip of a Manhattan, there's a piano tinkling gently in the background. I slip into a kind of brief, comfortable solitude that is alone, but not at all lonely.
• It's intoxicating - literally moreso than figuratively, despite the previous bullet point. I don't think anything puts me in a 'happy drunk' mode more than a Manhattan.
• It comes with dessert. Like an inverse ice cream sundae, it has a cherry on the bottom.
  

Tigers & Strawberries

Well I am still employed. A noticeable number of my workplace colleagues, however, are not; though I only mostly have second-hand word right now, it looks like about twenty people from my department have been let go. I spent my whole shift yesterday trying to make the best of things while under a palpable cloud of dread. Halfway through the day someone asked me why I was still smiling and laughing and the only thing I could come up with was that zen fable about the strawberries. You know, the soldier is running from the enemy and the only escape is over a precipice. He jumps over and grabs a vine growing out of the side of the cliff. As he's about to start his descent, he hears a roar, and looks down to see a tiger. Clinging for life to the vine, he looks to his left and sees a strawberry on the vine next to him. With certain death above and below, the only thing to do is enjoy the strawberries.

Still not fired!

Here's some shocking news: when the big news is "Economy in crisis!", oddly, most people's first instinct is not to go running to the casino. I would've suspected otherwise, but if the election has taught us anything, it's that the American people are not as stupid as I generally believe them to be.

So business at work is down. A lot. And though we were expecting a drop off in attendance following our grand opening two months ago, I don't think anyone foresaw it plummeting this much. This has translated into a really tense air in the workplace - no one has been "laid off" yet technically, but people are being "repositioned" (ie, demoted), hours are being cut, the random drug tests are now a weekly event, and everyone is sweating bullets.

I got the news today that my hours are being cut by 25%. That's a hefty chunk of change. I'm not sure I can afford to keep the goatee.

I may be looking for some extra part time work, if anyone has any ideas. I can only sell so much blood.

But, in the plus column, I haven't been fired. My hours have not been cut 100%. And as they say ...

Z!

Just saw Lifeline Theatre's delightful production of The Mark Of Zorro at the Theatre Building. It's a remount production, but as part of it's remounting it has a significantly higher concentration of Luzar than any other show in Chicago at the moment. Since my best friend is in it, I'd have to recommend you go see it even if it weren't any good. Fortunately, it's a hell of a lot of fun, so I can recommend it without qualm. And Johnboy is as fabulously boisterous as I've gotten to see him, so that's an extra bonus.

If you enjoy romance, comedy, and a good swashbuckle as much as me, then this is a show for you.

Victory!

"Hot Damn Sam!"

Thus spake my mamacita, a proud resident of Nevada which I am delighted to say absolutely crushed for Obama. Missouri, my home state, whose state song the Missouri Waltz reminisces fondly about being a pickaninny, came within two-tenths of a percent of going for Obama.

It's felt really special to be even a tiny part of this event. I have plenty of friends who've actually done really intense campaigning (Jon Ryan Quinn, Nevada thanks you) while I've sat on my bum, but just living in Chicago, and even moreso Hyde Park, has made me feel really close to the whole thing. But I guess we all have our reasons to feel close to it. Last night it didn't really strike me just how momentous an event this is, but this morning, seeing his face in the paper, and the words "Mr President", it really sunk in.

I was immensely disheartened that night in 2000, mostly just the fact that it was even close, that half the country could even consider such a wretched imbecile a better candidate for the job than Al Gore really, really brought me down. Then I kept holding out hope during the recount ... I remember seeing in the paper that it had been halted and I just couldn't believe it. I felt really crushed then, and I've been pretty apathetic ever since.

But this is really getting to me, and I think it's really getting to everyone. At work today there were a whole lot of people with extra spring in their steps - and given the pall that's been cast over my workplace lately, I think a little extra spring is a pretty impressive feat (note to Mom: The link between "spring in step" and "feat" was not an intentional pun, though if it works for you, rock on.)

I'm really happy to be raising a little girl in this country right now, and honestly, I'm really proud to be American today, probably for the first time in my lifetime.

Also, I'm really enjoying getting to talk about My Neighbor The President.

Suitable for Twirling

Did I mention that I grew facial hair?

I hate waiting.

"I'm like a ten-year-old at Christmas. Only there's a possibility that instead of presents, I'll get waterboarded. For four years." - John Luzar, on tomorrow

At least 538 has dropped McCain's win probability to 1.9% ... still, I can't relax. Argh.

Holiday Redistribution

This year's Halloween had exceptionally pleasant weather, and with daylight savings not hitting till November, there was daylight for most of the trick or treating period. However, in times past this has not been so - it's dark and rainy and cold (kids have to wear coats over costumes and girls can't prance about it just lingerie.) So despite this year's pleasantness, I am reminded of one of my favorite rants: Sean's Great Plan For Holiday Redistribution*. In the event that I become Emperor Of These Great United States, I will restructure the calendar thusly:

• April 1st - New Year's Day: That's right, I'm moving the start of the New Year. Wouldn't you much rather think of the new year beginning in the spring than in the middle of winter? The pagans had it right; as the rains fall and the flowers bloom, so shall we begin anew.
• March/April - Easter: The good old moveable feast is hard to pin down. Under the Seanhenrian calendar, then, it gets to be either the first important holiday of the new year or the last important holiday of the previous year. Depending on how things fall, there may be years with two Easters and years with none. Won't that be fun? I think so.
• July 4 - Independence Day: This one's hard to move ("September 12 - 4th of July"?), and early July is a great time for a barbecue and fireworks, so it can stay.
• August 25 - Halloween: If there's any down side to moving Halloween to the summer, it's that pumpkins won't quite be in season. I think it's worth it for the sexy vampire costumes. We can still make jack-o-lanterns for Dia De Los Muertos.
• September 1 - Labor Day: Again, good time for barbecue, plus we need to know when to stop wearing white.
• Last Thursday In October - Thanksgiving: Bumping up Thanksgiving keeps it in the fall (where we all really expect to to be, every year) and out of the winter (where it always ends up being, much to everyone's dismay). Thanksgiving under my plan also gets significant breathing room from Christmas, thus making the idea of getting together with family much more palatable (you won't have to see them again for four months!)
• November 1 - El Dia De Los Muertos: In case you have left over Halloween decorations.
  
• December 25 - Valentines Day: The early portion of the winter is far more romantic than the end. By February, everyone is stir crazy and sick of slush and gray skies - who's up for love? But in December, snow is just starting to fall, fireplaces are getting lit, and everyone has new blankets. This is the time for Valentines.
• January 1 - April Fool's Day: And yes, we're still calling it April Fool's Day.
  
• February 28 - Christmas Day: Now, at the tail end of winter, when you can't stand it anymore, now is the time for Santa Claus and presents. Now is the time to haul out the holly and put up the tree before our spirits fall so far they need one of those junkyard car magnets to pull them up again. And now, spaced out from Thanksgiving, family will be a warm comfort in the cold times. BONUS: Every four years, February 29 gets to be part of DOUBLE CHRISTMAS. I don't know what kind of new traditions will spring from this, but I think it's worth giving it a shot.

So that's the plan. A realigned year. Clearly I know better than the generations of others who've come before me, so let's get on this. I hate to end the year on St Patrick's Day, so let's move it to, I don't know, September 12. That seems like a good day for drinking.