The Christmas Letter

My mother is sending out a Christmas letter (or holdiay letter for the Jews reading this), and she asked me to submit a paragraph summarizing my last year. Just ONE paragraph! No seriously....one! How can I possibly write just one. I mean I once wrote three pages about getting my junk waxed, but now I am forced to sum everything up into four or five sentances. I am afraid the outcome would be:

"Hello, I am still living in New York City. I have not gotten knocked up or tied down yet. I eat, sleep, work, and drink my ass off (of course she would edit the 'drink my ass off' to 'play checkers with orphans'). I yell a lot at stupid people that I call tourists. I still rock. The end."

I am sitting here at lunch trying to gather my thoughts. Here is what I have written sofar for the epic "paragraph":

In the spirit of Christmas, I have been trying to think of creative uses for my Christmas lights. I ask myself, how do you end up with four strands of lights when you do not even have a tree? It is alright that I do not have a tree because they are not readily found in New York City. Oh sure, I can go to Central Park to visit them, but I don’t think they will let me chop one down and haul it down 8th Avenue….in a cab.

Yes I am still in the Big Apple, and calling it the Big Apple makes me even lamer. I have lived here a total of 16th months sofar which is just long enough for me to give accurate directions and swear at the slow moving tourists. In my tenure here, I have learned the three rules of survival for the city. First, garbage is on the streets, so just deal with it. Yes it is true (as my Mom probably has said), every day is garbage day, and the lack of alleys forces shops to pile heaping bags on the street. Second, check your manners at the door. You may think New Yorkers are rude, but it is just because the rest of the world is polite. If someone bumps into you on the sidewalk, you normally will say excuse me. Well if a New Yorker bumps into you, don’t expect any reaction because they have places to go and you are just not worth their time. And the final rule in NYC….saying F-you pretty much works for every situation even in any language!

I am still working for the same architectural engineering company. My most recent major achievement includes passing the PE exam. All have to validate the last ten years of hard work and study is a little rubber stamp with my name on it. I really wish the stamp was bigger to demonstrate the effort behind achieving it, you know, like the size of Iowa.