For all those who wish they had received a Christmas newsletter from me last year

Finally, a news letter about one person, not five, four of whom you’ve never met and who you resent for displacing you in the life of the first. This letter is a summary of all things me. For those of you only interested in who I married and how many kids my wife had last year and how my career is serving to nurture said persons, you may stop reading now.

In 2010 Joseph (conventional news letter structure dictates I write in third person, which really annoys me, but is nonetheless one of the most important indicators, along with the embedding of a family photograph, that the dispatch is indeed a formal news letter and not simply a letter relating news, the distinction of which is important this time of year when goodly neighbors everywhere are judging their own goodliness by how many official Christmas news letters they receive) finished graduate school (if you don’t know what I studied, you have received this letter in error—your address must have slipped into the lists of people I know), spent the summer in Tajikistan learning Tajiki (if you don’t know where that is, you may or may not have received this letter in error—many in my own family still ask me where I was this summer), went to China for kicks (really, for kicks—my “Michael Jackson Number One” Converse knock-offs are the best thing that happened to me that trip), moved back to Ohio and got a job working for Battelle for Kids (if you think this sounds like a company that builds weapon systems for kids, and that I took the job hoping for employee discounts on Nerf weaponry, you deserve this news letter—you know me well).

Now that formalities are complete, I would like to direct your attention to the left of the text where you will see this year’s three finalists in Oslo’s Nobel Face Prize competition. Most people are familiar with Norway’s Nobel Peace Prize, but many are unaware that among the several other international Nobel prizes awarded annually in Alfred Nobel’s honor, is the Nobel Face Prize. As it turns out, each of the finalists this year is me. Oslo, in a gesture to democracy and fairness, is offering each of you the opportunity to circle your favorite finalist and send the committee your vote, so that whoever wins this year, the world can rest assured, he is the peoples’ choice.

Oh, and Merry Christmas

Love, joe