DSC_0498_e, originally uploaded by jason.bennion.

Here’s what it looked like today at the old Bennion Domicile, gateway to the fabulous Bennion Compound, following three days and nights of more-or-less continuous snowfall. Thankfully, I haven’t had to be out in it much at all until now. I don’t do Black Friday, and I didn’t have to go back to work this morning, either. I’ve got a lot of unused vacation time that I’m trying to burn up before the end of the year. It’s use-it-or-lose-it, a deeply silly policy that’s supposed to encourage workaholic ad-men and -women to actually take vacations, but considering that the warm, vacation-y months are usually our busiest times, what happens is that everybody puts it off until they can’t any longer, and then tries to figure a way to take it all at the end of the year. And thus the office ends up looking like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie during November and December. That is, the place becomes very quiet, very cold from the lack of heat-generating lifeforms, and more than a little spooky. But no less hectic for the poor slobs who are present.

And I get to go back to that tomorrow… Sigh.

Okay, that last entry was a major drag. I apologize for getting carried away like that. As I said, I have a difficult time with the holidays, and I do tend to get overwhelmed with anxiety and ennui as they approach. I really would like to just run away from them. I guess I’ve turned into my father after all.

That said, however, I do try to enjoy them. inasmuch as my particular form of social retardation allows. So in that spirit, I’m now going to do what I’ve seen so many other bloggers and Facebookers doing today and list off a few of the things for which I’m thankful on Thanksgiving. Well, maybe not actually on Thanksgiving, which is of course just another stressful damn holiday, but in general. You know what I mean…

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Ah, Thanksgiving again, the portal to the madness and melancholy of the holiday season, the signpost warning that another year’s end is coming up fast and you’re going too fast to make the turn.

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DSC_0495_crop, originally uploaded by jason.bennion.

Ah, Utah… a land of eccentricity no matter which way you look… in the people, certainly; in the landscape, unquestionably; but perhaps no place more than in the weather.

Last week, people were walking around in light jackets, and even shirtsleeves during the warmest part of the day. Then came a couple days of unnervingly strong and temperate winds, followed by torrential rains on Saturday night and then, with a temperature drop so abrupt it almost makes The Day After Tomorrow seem plausible — well, okay, not really; nothing could actually do that — the first big snowstorm of the year. I woke up yesterday morning to nine inches of the white stuff on my deck. There were good-sized tree branches down all over the valley, shattered by the weight of sodden snow caught in unshed autumnal leaves. The Girlfriend had an entire tree come down just outside her apartment, narrowly missing her bedroom window.

The state’s official slogan is “Life Elevated” — no, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean either — but I think it really ought to be “Like Drama?”