Claire Hopple

It’s not that you don’t love the people calling you (unless you’re solely receiving spam calls), it’s just that you’d rather be with them. You think that the phone can’t replace seeing their faces, experiencing their presence in all the dimensions currently available to humans. And sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) you just need time to recharge by yourself. Why does that feel so wrong sometimes?

California tooks its post-election protests to a very intense, very new level recently.

Perhaps the following scenario describes you. You’re at a party and you remember that you detest small talk. You have a tinge of social anxiety.

Hey, the holidays are coming up, and you’re gonna see some relatives.

The year’s not over yet and already its bizarre occurrences and oddities are innumerable.

Some weeks are longer than others.

Strange, that bad mood of yours won’t disintegrate with someone shaking you and shouting “Snap out of it!” That alllllways does the trick.

Sure, happiness is too abstract a concept to measure perfectly, and it’s safe to say that a serious case of the Mondays can find you no matter what poorly drawn boundaries you’ve planted yourself within. Still, an environment can make a significant impact on your overall mood.

Just don’t do it. In fact, reading this is in direct opposition to the titular admonition above.

Though most associate this blessed occasion with Frank Costanza boisterously shouting “A Festivus for the rest of us!” and attempting to wrestle his own son to the ground, Festivus has an even richer history than you might imagine. The list of Festivus supporters is continually growing and the event’s practices are evolving at a rapid clip.