Hah!

OK, I Take It Back: This Got Me In The Christmas Spirit

So, first I was alone on Christmas because I had work. THAT'S RIGHT! The job of a college professor is never done.

Are ya shocked? I told you I was an iconoclast!

I had this feeling I was alone in the world. I decided to take a walk at dusk and had that lovely deserted street thing going on. I am whathisname. Legend! I was Legend.

But then holy crap is nothing sacred anymore?  All of the sudden I ran into all this open stuff.

Corporate America you are shameless. You better freaking pay those people overtime, that's all I'm saying. Starbucks, I'm talking to you.

I wanted it to be a special day and the only thing special about Starbucks being open was there was a kid there in his pajamas.

So of course I left my keys at Starbucks. And they closed.

And of course my husband is 2,000 miles away. And everyone is gone. And we never remembered to give our neighbors the keys like we said we would 10,000 times in the last year.

One of my friends had a key to the outer door. And he had on big boots. He kicked the door in for me. There's a crack in the wall. Of course, this was the one time I decided to take a walk without my laptop. That thing is usually glued to my body. But I was like "it's Christmas and I'm alone and I have something due on Wed. Hey, maybe I'll live a little! Wooh!"

But I had work to do so the door must be kicked in.

Then I went to drive him home and backed out of the driveway and hit my neighbor's car.

Holy fuck.

I think I hit someone's car today, actually. Another person's car. But I looked and there was no damage.

But you know what? This youtube video of a guy giving out Christmas cards to everyone in his neighborhood got me in the Christmas spirit.  No, watch it. It's totally for real. He really sounds so happy to make people happy and he really does make people happy.

So maybe that's what Christmas is/was all about.  Sniff.

Of course, I can think this now. It's December 26th.  I'm going with my tradition of celebrating all my holidays late. Actually, I think there is some kind of January 6th thing in the Netherlands where 6-8 black men come to give you presents.

This is what I've always liked about Chinese New Year and  Rosh Hashanah too.  You get another crack at the whole thing in case you were too busy the first time.

The guy's name is Mr. Chi-City and he talks really fast.

Scrooge McMe

When I get a chance (like now): No tree, no stocking, no presents, no carols.

Special circumstances! Christmas is canceled this year!

Am I wrong that there is a social taboo against being Christmas-disinterested in this way? And yet, I think I can't be the only one.  Maybe I just worry about Christmas making everyone lonely who doesn't have anyone to love them? It's like this day that is supposed to be so special, how can it even live up to its specialness?

As a child I used to cry on Christmas thinking about all the people alone on Christmas. Yes, the idea of shooting for happiness only makes me think of suffering.

Can someone explain to me about the magic of Christmas.

I did invite little children to come over to make gingerbread houses. I know I sound like the witch from Hansel and Gretel there but they were my daughter's friends and they all left alive and well. (But without any houses! They ATE THE HOUSES.)

I'd like to say I hate to shop but actually I like to shop. This is how I shop: I go online and put some things in the electronic shopping cart or bag or whatever they happen to call it. And then, I find I cannot check out. I go to click on 'checkout' and I'm like 'sheesh, that's a lot of money. Maybe I'll wait.'  Consumeris interuptus.

Once in a while, I actually pull the trigger and I get the things. I find I am able to do this if there is the possibility of taking the things back to a nearby branch of the store. I get the things and then I take them back.

Note: This does not apply to Goodwill, Ebay or Craigslist. So here's another taboo: My kid is getting used toys. Actually, one came not from Goodwill but from a used boutique. Boo-teek. Klassy.

I'm just as broke and in debt as everyone else though. $10,000 of that was probably just for sandwiches. I have trouble spending money on things but then I get hungry. That, the 10 years of grad school and my rent was most of my salary for about 5 years even though I had roommates.

One good thing about my Christmas laxity is that there is no inadvertent whipping my child up into a frenzy. She sort of knows that a day is coming and she will get presents at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We do Hanukkah here, Christmas there. The day sort of arises randomly. Surprise! Of course, this might be the last year that one will work. (Also, we can't celebrate her birthday a week late once she learns to read calendars.)

My cousin threatened her son: "If you do that one more time, Santa's getting a letter!" Unfortunately, that's not an option for me. Santa does not loom very large in my child's mind.

There is an actual anti-Santa movement but in spite of the above picture, I don't belong to it. I don't think very much about Santa but I'm not out to get Santa.

Part of my Christmas paralysis might be the result of a bad childhood. Part might be my own tendency to become whipped up into a frenzy as a child only to be horribly disappointed. Some of it might be the whole crying for the lonely, the lost, the social reject, the bereft on Christmas. 

Some of it that is more abstract. I hate being confined by time and dates. I have this odd habit of celebrating events weeks after they occur. My husband and I have actually done Valentine's Day in March. I don't care about my birthday and I'm happy just to go to the movies a couple of weeks later and call it my birthday present.

Also, it just seems like so much effort. Like making your bed. Why make it if you just have to do it again tomorrow? Why do all this Christmas stuff now when it will just start all over again?

But maybe if I were John Waters I would feel differently. 

John Waters: Why I Love Christmas (podcast)

John Waters: Why I Love Christmas

If you don’t have yourself a merry little Christmas, you might as well kill yourself.
Every waking second should be spent in Christmas compulsion: career, love
affairs, marriages, and all the other clutter of daily life must take a
backseat to this holiday of holidays. As December 25 fast approaches, the
anxiety and pressure to experience “happiness” are all part of the ritual.
If you can’t maintain the spirit, you’re either a rotten Communist or badly
in need of a psychiatrist. No wonder you don’t have any friends.

 

Wow, Energy Problem Solved

For a time, Beverly Hills doctor Craig Alan Bittner turned the fat he removed from patients into biodiesel that fueled his Ford SUV and his girlfriend's Lincoln Navigator.

Gawd, I love this. It's so innovative. And there is sooo much fat. I once wrote a post about seeing a botoxed person for the first time and how this made me want to get botox. I must admit I also have a yen for liposuction. Please don't ask me to explain. It's not just to be less fat. The idea simply appeals to me for some strange reason. I'm much too poor for that sort of thing and if I weren't poor I think I would still be too frugal. Even though getting liposuction could solve the world's energy problems.

We Should Retire the Term Bad Mother

But before we do...

There's this mother thing mothers do which is very hard not to do. It is also very hard to describe. I can't even do a good job so this is just a gesture at the phenomenon--It is where you project certain odd fears upon your child. I don't have good examples and so one example I would offer is the kind of fear that if  your child plays with a gun and likes it your child will grow up to shoot people.

This kind of constant fear about how your child will grow up lurks at the heart of this mother behavior--which I will try to explain...someday. My best stab at it is that is this inability to see your child as a child for a moment and to become mildly terrified at what they do, as if they are already an adult. So when they do a child thing--like refuse to share--we confusedly become convinced that they are selfish adults instead of acting exactly as children act.

Yet, this is all connected with good mother behavior--which is the transmission of values to your child. How does one transmit good values to your child? What are good values? How do they get the skills, the knowledge, the empathy, all of that?

I wonder if every parent is thinking they hope their child is better than they themselves are or whether parenthood creates a strange egotism where people assume they are utterly good and try to make their child in their image.

In any case, often I worry about the belief system that my child receives from our corporate overlords. There are so many incredible examples, one almost becomes exhausted keeping track of them. Of course, there is a great deal of anxiety around the princess industrial complex.

But you know what was bothering me? It's the way that children's movies always present predator and prey as friends. You know--the lion is best friends with the zebra, the spider hangs out with flies. The spider doesn't eat flies! The spider eats cakes!

I hate this. Finding Nemo is one of my favorite movies and they do this but at least the give the sharks a self-help group and acknowledge that they cannot fully overcome their shark nature. Of course, there is the pelican. But he also mentions that he's gotta eat.

I have no idea why I find it necessary to constantly remind my kid that it is not wrong for spiders to eat flies. That's what spiders eat! Thank God for Charlotte's Web there. I swear I wonder if I am afraid she will become morally confused. And then I also wonder: Why the hell isn't everyone in the entire world vegetarians? If it is bad for the lion to eat the zebra and the nice lion doesn't eat zebras then why the hell are we eating cows? (I say this, cow eater that I am. I am an aspiring vegetarian.)

Anyway, the spider thing: it's unnatural.

Attention

Attention U.S. Airways: Charging someone $15 to sit in an assigned seat when they already have an assigned seat the day before their plane takes off is basically picking your customer's pocket.

I'm sorry you are having trouble with your bottom line. You do not get to pick the pocket of those who fly you. As you do when you charge for each piece of luggage without notification so that people who are unaware of your absurd policy cannot compare the actual fare of their flight ahead of time.

It's unseemly. You are on notice.

Attention Airline Industry: Yes, we have been made powerless by the T.S.A. rules, as hopeless as they are in actually making us safer in any way. Yes, we are like sheep led to the slaughter. And yes, if you all collude to treat us like garbage we will perhaps have no choice but to submit.

And yet someday. Someday we may have options. Someday there will be a change. Don't know how, don't know when. But we will leave you and we will never look back.

Attention people who think lesbian sex between a hetero woman and another woman is not cheating: That's from when the man owned the woman (at least culturally, up until recently that is) and only men could own women so lesbian sex was not sex. This is the oh-ohs. In the oh-ohs, lesbian sex is cheating. Because men can't own women.

Attention Americans: We have to stop bombing places indiscriminately. I am sorry, I know that some of you only care when American soldiers die but all this bombing kills people who are innocent. We have to demand this.

Damn, there' s so much we have to do. Torture?  We can't pretend that didn't happen. We need a reckoning. Oh, how there needs to be some reckoning here. And not just in some &%$#ing movies designed to make us feel guilty, like with Vietnam.

Although that did kind of work, except not on the right people.

Attention Me: Your plan to become more egoless and zen as a way to psych out other people is totally not going to work. Wrong motive for becoming egoless and zen.

Attention Me Again: You might want to reconsider this all-bean diet. I'm just saying.

Attention Humanity: We have everything we need. There is enough for everyone's needs at this point, not for wants.  This world could be a paradise if we would all stop being such selfish assholes. We could actually do this if we could stop being such selfish assholes. Does that mean we can't do it? I'm not sure some of us can stop being assholes but I think quite a few of us could.

Semi-Sordid Thing I Wrote Some Years Ago When Trying to Quit Smoking

Yes, I know that lots of people have sexual fantasies. I have those too. But there's this one fantasy that really gets me HOT. I call it the 'smoking fantasy.' See, we're in this room. No, we're in a warehouse. It's filled with soft couches, velvet ones. And very tasteful decor...like chandeliers and what-not.

This is maybe why my fantasies are not of great interest to my husband. I get sort of hung up on the details:  "There was this really hot girl! And she was wearing brown thigh high boots (well, that part's OK maybe) and she had on a cream colored cashmere sweater, a dark brown tailored mid-length leather coat, and a light brown suede skirt...We are in this room with a red accent wall..." Due to this narrative problem, husband has lost interest in my fantasies. Those women's magazines always tell you to share your fantasies but for some reason his eyes glaze over.

Anyway, back to the warehouse...The thing is: Everyone in this warehouse is smoking. And everywhere you turn there are big glass bowls (really pretty ones) full of cigarettes. Not just any cigarettes but the really good kinds...like Drum and American Spirit and Gitanes and Third World Marlboros and Dunhill. And matches...sturdy wooden matches in boxes, matches that light crisply and burn long.

We just smoke and smoke and smoke and smoke. We lie on the couches and smoke. Smoke fills our hair, our lungs, every niche and cranny of our bodies. There is no thought of cancer. In fact, tobacco doesn't cause cancer. Or wrinkles. You just get more healthy and beautiful with every puff. You don't have to pay very much for cigarettes. They are the cheapest thing you can buy--costing less than a pack of gum.

Sometimes I leave out the warehouse part. We just get to smoke all the time, everywhere, as much as we want. And there are no reasons absolutely no reasons not to smoke. The smell of smoky clothes and hair? All people in the world find this utterly delicious.* They talk about how horrible it is to kiss someone who hasn't had a cigarette in the last few hours.

In fact, in this world there are even public service announcements telling us to smoke more..

Well, the fantasy just goes on and on. It gets me so hot!

You thought there was going to be sex in it? Oh. I'm sorry...I thought this was everyone's secret fantasy. Having sex...I mean--you can do that. Anytime you want. No one can stop you. It's as wholesome as apple pie and mom. But smoking...mmmmm...now that's forbidden and downright wrong.

*I have noticed something interesting where I still love that smoky smell on some people. On some people it smells of weakness and desperation and on others like surreal poetry, abstract art and sex. Against my better judgment, I still think smoking is cool and cheer the smoker as he furtively lurks on the loading dock, gripped by his pathetic addiction. I know, as an ex-smoker, I'm not supposed to do this but it seems extra cool to me now that it is horrifically socially unacceptable. Obviously, my status as an ex-smoker is extremely fragile and the only thing saving me from emphysema or worse is the fury of the village hordes with their anti-smoking pitchforks and the like. Thank you, intolerant villagers! Women have smoked for generations in my family, have died and are dying from it.  There's nothing non-awful about smoking and I'll never shake the urge as long as I live.

What Are Ya Anyway?

Now, I've just come to terms (not entirely) with the fact that I am a body.

I wrote about how helpful it is to realize human beings can be understood this way: As crazy monkeys.

When you realize that human beings are crazy monkeys, a lot of things that don't make sense make a whole lot more sense.

The way they make sense is that you suddenly realize they aren't supposed to make sense. Our freaky behavior is just primate behavior and trying to explain the crazy shit people do is a lost cause. When you look at monkeys, do you try to explain what they do by considering what their reasons are? Most of the time, the best reason are: They are monkeys and what they do, they do because they are monkeys. Their monkey needs determine what they do.

I'm sure some scientists would not approve.

With humans, just add: They are crazy. Christmas shopping can even be explained by this theory. It's not all that different from grooming. They groom, we gift.

See how easy that is?

Anyway, breaking it all down to some kind of primitive level of explanation makes it so much easier (for me).

Monkeys kiss, right? I ask this because the other day we were in the kitchen cooking and I was kissing my husband in a place that is easy to reach--his neck. A friend of ours came in the room and she commented on this and I realized that it seemed like I was kissing my husband in a passionate way. But it wasn't passionate. I am always kissing my husband and in this case, it was because I thought he would be annoyed at me. But then, when I started kissing him I couldn't stop because it was so soothing.

It's not that kissing him is never passion-inducing but a lot of time I realize I kiss him because kissing him is basically like valium. Hugging my daughter is similar.

When I hug my daughter after a long day, it is like a drink of water in the desert. My brain waves probably alter, my blood pressure probably goes down. If I spend lots and lots of time with her I become bizarrely calm. And she does as well. The less work I have to do, the more time I spend with her, the more placid and happy she becomes. As do I. We have some kind of almost physical need to be with one another as much as possible.

This is so obvious. If we remember we are supposed to be in little bands of primates and not in our offices working until 5 a.m., it all makes sense.

With my husband, I was doing conflict avoidance kissing. Just like a monkey.

I get freaked out, in my body not just in my mind. Physical contact with them has this strange calming effect that I feel immediately, like a glass of bourbon.

This also happens with what I eat. If I eat certain foods, I become sort of bipolar. Maybe I am bipolar. Certain doctors have hypothesized this. But if I do not eat these foods, I stay sort of my usual crazy self, which I manage relatively well simply by kissing my husband and going to the gym.  Except in the winter and when I'm taking the crazy fertility treatments.

Damn, that sounds crazy.

Just take my word for this: I had an actual point here.

 

Retail Ghostown

We went to Macy's on one of those shopping days where many people shop. Men's shoes were 65% off and I wanted my man to buy shoes.

The store was swarming with humanity. People searching, searching, searching for something, they know not what until they find it. They are wanting to find the thing that they want.

I wanted a 3/4 sleeve shirt with color in it. Something with buttons, lightweight. Something not white, grey, black or brown as are all my other shirts. With a retro pattern. Red, grey, black or purple, green blue. I know that when you overimagine a nonexistent shirt that shirt is never to be found but there is always the hope that the approximate thing exists, or something even better than one can imagine. And yet, it never does.

There was hubbub, murmurs, a conflagration.  I wondered away from the crowds and suddenly it was as if I had stepped into a parallel universe, a quiet universe. The store went on and on with rack after rack of untouched clothing, clothing I could not wear, would not wear. It was unimaginable to me that all this clothing would be bought and worn ever. That it had even been made and that more was being made right now to replace it. Where? Why? Whose idea was all this clothing, anyway?

At one point I was entirely, utterly alone. Somehow, even though there were hundreds of teeming masses at one place in the store there was this strange corner of the store devoid of all humanity.Some sub-section of the women's section where no one ever ventured, a lost and forgotten world. Even the checkout counter was empty. No one was there. It was how I imagine the world would be after some kind of virus wipes out everyone. Me, alone, Macy's my only haven.

Out of all those thousands of shirts there was not a single shirt I wanted. Or could imagine wanting. I was overcome with something, a weariness, overwhelmed by abundance. I desperately wanted out.  The problem was that I had to go to the bathroom. Naively, I thought I should find one, there in the store. It was five more hours before I extricated myself.

I found dozens of shirts for my husband though and he bought some of these and two pairs of shoes. And then I wanted to cry and cry. Later, I did cry, although I didn't tell him that. There was something so sad about all those things I bought him. When I buy things for myself I get nervous and guilty but buying things for him made me feel like we were sharing some sad illusion, that we weren't desperately poor, that we weren't desperate at all, that there was abundance, that we will not die.

As if we bought the shirts then things would not be so bad because we could buy the shirts. Some tragic American retail prayer, like Gogol's overcoat.

it reminded me of the time when we were first married, before we'd lost our life savings buying a house that is worth half of what we paid and we thought things would be good, later on. Before I was facing unemployment and bankruptcy and complete and utter failure. We were starting something and thought that we would go somewhere better. Middle class adulthood, an ordinary life.

I took a million dollars of life insurance out on myself a couple of years ago but my husband says he doesn't want it without me. I have hopes, though, that he'll get it soon.

The sale was great. The shirts and shoes are groovy. It was fun to pick them out.

I think I'm going to do my shopping online from now on.