Gifts That Keep On Giving

On Tuesday a package came in the mail at work and it was for me! I opened it up and it had the soundtrack of Spring Awakening and a copy of Sideways and it was from my dad! I wasn't expecting that at all.

Significance abounds.

At some point in dad's relationship to P he seems to have abdicated the present-giving to her. She chooses lovely gifts, I've always gotten things I like and that I wouldn't have bought for myself. But it's weird not to have your actual parent involved in the gifting process. In my capacity as advice giver to people bringing up kids with shared custody let this be a lesson. Give a couple of gifts if you want but make sure that one is always specifically from you to your kid. You know, if you're of the gift giving persuasion at all.

Sideways stars Paul Giamatti, to whom PapaKizz and I are tangentially related. So I've really wanted that and can't wait to delve into the special bonus features.

Great gifts, stuff I wanted and he knew that because he wasn't afraid to look at my wish list. I use the wish list as a place to move things I can't buy right now but want to remember that I want to buy/read/see them. Some people (Pony Express) think that using someone's wish list is cheating. I disagree. I do take some issue with registries for babies and weddings and stuff but over time I've actually come to a compromise that makes me happy. I buy something off the registry and then personalize it with something they won't expect. For me, you can almost always surprise me with something off the list (I'm not saying you should, I'm just trying to say that it's possible) because I put stuff on there but continue to cheap out and not buy it so I'm always surprised to get something from it.

Meanwhile, back at the cubicle, I e-mailed PapaKizz to thank him for the awesomesauce (tm KDiddy, I think).

He replied, "You're welcome. Just wait until tomorrow."

Say what?

The next day another box came and it had this awesome play that I wanted, a fabulous book on writing and grammar that I'm already almost 100 pages into and it's changing the way I'm writing right this very second and a brilliant coffee table book of Annie Liebowitz's photography. The writing book is so important since I'm writing more and making my writing a priority. It also fulfills a 108 in 2008 requirement since I wanted to make sure I read some non-fiction (turns out I actually read sort of a lot of non-fiction but I'd like my choices to be slightly less fluffy, memoirs count but I should branch out from those). Last year I saw the exhibit on which the Liebowitz book is based. It was so beautiful but so dense and overwhelming, especially because it was quite crowded, that I wanted to take it home and look at it over time to wring all the pleasure from it. Now I can! I'm almost afraid to take the cellophane off because my dog is klutzy and my cats are puky and I'm a crappy housekeeper and yet I can't wait to pore over it all. I predict that's how I will celebrate MLK, Jr. day this year, sitting in the chair I inherited from my dad and slobbering on the book he gave me.

Go get a wish list, folks, you won't regret it.