Non-Fiction Version Of Christmas
Dec. 26th, 2008 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exhilarationI had a fabulous Christmas. I really did.
I don't hate Christmas for the same reasons as the girls in my story - Kat hates Christmas because she isn't Christian and doesn't like Christianity, and finds Christmas hypocritical and fake, and Anna hates Christmas because she was raised Christian but her family has all passed away and she's drifted far away from her religion, and it depresses her to remember.
I hate how everyone expects things to somehow be different, just for that one day, how people who are horrible are finally civil to each other and it's such a nice illusion, but that's all it turns out to be. I hate the stress of knowing that the holiday is coming and that it has to be wonderful, because it's Christmas and Christmas has to be just so. I hate how it's turned into an entire retail season and people everywhere spend more than they should because they feel like they have to.
I did spend several years not celebrating, either because I was alone, or because I simply chose not to. I lived with my best friend for years, and refused to go home for Christmas because, all my adult life, I've always clashed with my parents, and my house was never a happy place during the holidays. My best friend, Daniel, is Jewish, and has never celebrated Christmas in his life, and we would have the most wonderful relaxed days of ordering Chinese food and watching anime and getting drunk. I've also spent a few Christmases "bouncing," like when I was out of the country I spent one Christmas in Florence between two different families, and it was really lovely.
Last year I was all by myself and did nothing. This year was a "bounce" year.
Christmas Eve morning I worked out at the Pier in AC, and it was absolutely mobbed. I don't think I'm ever going to try another holiday retail job - as far as a job goes, it isn't really all that bad, it's just that the whole focus on material things makes me feel kind of disgusted. Christmas is a Christian holiday, and Christians are notoriously cheap, so I don't know how it turned into an entire retail scam. The traffic into AC wasn't bad but the traffic going out, at three in the afternoon, was terrible and I was late to my other job, but it wasn't a big deal because the restaurant wasn't busy. I was on phone duty, too, which is the easiest way to spent a shift - sitting at the bar answering the phone and taking carry-out orders. A surprising number of the population of New Jersey is serving buffalo wings and ribs for Christmas this year :P
B was waiting tables, which was just odd, because he almost always bartends when we work together, and he looks about five years younger wearing a server uniform. I dunno, the bartenders all wear black button down shirts and look very classy and professional, and the rest of us wear ugly scrubby polo shirts and khakis. The bar got a shipment of (cheap) champagne to make champagne mixed drinks for the holidays, and we all got to taste them, so I experienced, for the first time, working a shift half-buzzed. Sorry, my tolerance is pathetic, I know it.
It was a really easy, smooth shift, and the restaurant closed early and we all were out of the building by nine, and me and B went to a bar (different from the usual one) to meet up with my cousins - ALL my cousins except the youngest one, who isn't twenty one anyway. I've never been one to consider Christmas Eve to be a big "going out" holiday - that's New Year's, isn't it? - but the entire world was out at the bars Wednesday, and everyone was drinking and living it up and there was a general mood of excitement in the air. My cousin Marla, who I haven't seen in over five years now, came home for Christmas to tell all the family she's engaged to her boyfriend, and since everyone knows everyone around here, the entire bar congratulated them and her and her brothers got free drinks. I saw Ryan's friend Will, who I also haven't seen for ages, and we talked for a while. Will and I (and Will and Ryan, I guess) are veeeerrry distantly related, and I've always thought he was really easy to talk to, and he is still, and that was nice. It's always cool to catch up with people I've known for most of my life.
Me and B and Ryan and Justin stayed late, until the bar closed (Marla and her bf left early), just talking and goofing around and enjoying each other's company, and then I went home with B.
We pulled the bed out and lit candles and stayed up most of the night, talking and messing around - I guess I am pretty open about my sex life on this journal, I mean, this is just the internet and I'm confident I'm completely anonymous - and maybe it doesn't seem all that different from any other night I've spent with B, but usually I come home and write out my entry saying "yep, we did it again, naughty us!" or something like that.
It was an awesome night. It wasn't just that we had awesome sex. It's not awesome every time, but mostly it is, being that it's sex and everyone loves sex, right? - We did, and there's no way I'm just some random convenient girl anymore. Maybe that's how it started out - hell, that is absolutely the way it started out - but that's not what it is now because he's not some random convenient guy to me. He's not even just my favorite person here, someone who's easygoing and makes a good friend.
I recently became aware of the fact that I think Bevan's adorable, and he really is a good looking guy, in his own way. He has nice, dark, murky-hazel eyes and his hair is fine and soft (when it's not full of junk) and he's really strong, strong enough to pick me up, and we're just about the same size, so that counts extra, IMO. I think I've written enough about all the things I like about him - we have fun together, but there's a lot that goes in to that, I guess. We think the same things are fun. He's such a calm, low-key person, and I feel like I'm more that way when I'm around him too. I can be really high strung, freaking out over the tiniest little things, but somehow being around him makes it easier to take a step back and thing, hey, that's not such a big deal, relax.
I like that he puts so much importance on enjoying life than the ever-popular getting ahead that everyone our age seems to be trying to do. He works, and he works a lot, and he works hard, but he doesn't let anything take him away from the things he enjoys doing - to me, that's the sign of a very balanced person. And even if we don't enjoy all the same things - I mean, it's not like I think surfing is stupid or a waste of time or anything. I don't need to know where he is every minute of every day. I don't need to make big elaborate plans either, and I don't need to have complete control of his free time. We spend time together because he wants to, and I want to. There's no sense of obligation or of a fair exchange - we just do what we want, and sometimes what we want is to be around each other.
That's... healthy, right? My friendship with Daniel was really messed up. I didn't realize it at the time, really, but I know it now, but just because Daniel and I completely fucked up a good thing doesn't mean I can't have any other friendships, or that every guy I get close to will automatically turn out to be another version of Daniel. This is already nothing like me and Daniel - what happened between me and Daniel breaks my heart, it really does, but it doesn't have a single thing to do with what's going on in my life now. Part of me has always understood that, but I guess part of me hasn't really.
Just because I had a really unhealthy relationship doesn't mean I can't have a good one, right?
Cause I really think I already do.
Anyway, I met B's dad once before, and thought he was really strange. Well, I met him again on Christmas Day, and he remembered me - I suppose I'm kind of memorable, or something - cause I slept over, and B and I woke up on Christmas morning and went upstairs and B and his dad made a big breakfast. Whatever totally weird and awkward vibes I got from B's dad before I didn't really feel yesterday, but it was still pretty strange. They barely talk to each other, and when they do, they don't even look at each other, and yet, they cooked this amazing breakfast together, perfectly co-ordinated, like I guess they do it every year and it's just a routine or something. And I talk a lot, but I didn't really feel comfortable saying anything, because neither of them were saying anything, and it was Christmas.
No praying. No saying "Merry Christmas." Not even saying good morning, although I did get a "hello." No, "son, why is this girl here" or any such conversation, and really, as far as I know, me being there wasn't really part of any plan, it just kind of happened because we spent the night there. We could have just as easily spent the night at my place. I tried to ask questions about what they were making (they called it an egg in the hole) but B's dad just... I don't know what it is with him. The things he said weren't answers to my questions, or something.
It was two pieces of french toast with prosciutto in between (although they called it something else that I forget - maybe it's Jersey-talk) and an egg in the top piece of toast, so when you cut the whole thing open the yolk spills out, and it was very tasty, and B's dad drank a V8 and vodka with breakfast, and B didn't bat an eye and opened the fridge and offered me a "Christmas beer." I was utterly shocked, and I'm sure it showed on my face, and I don't know why I acted like such a snob to him because it's not like I've never had beer for breakfast before or beer on Christmas, but it just surprised me so much and I turned it down.
So there is a hole in B's front porch and he didn't want me to go out the front door, I think both because he didn't want me to have to dodge whatever was wrong with the floor of the wooden porch (and that's fine, I didn't want to either) and because he was embarrassed that the porch has clearly been like that for years. I think I made him a little embarrassed all morning, what with my expression at the beer and vodka, and, I don't know, I was kind of looking around the house a little, because although I'm over there all the time, I'm only in the basement, which has it's own entrance, and never in the rest of the house, and there was a little tree set up in the other room with really old fashioned ornaments on it - it was an old fashioned tree, too, my mom had one like it when I was very little. She's long since gotten rid of it and I'm sure she has a much nicer, much real-er looking tree now, although I remember the one from when I was a kid better than whatever she has now.
They were the glass metallic painted kind with the faceted indents in them - I've seen ones like that now that are plastic, or are sort of like that and glass, but not the same paper thin metallic glass that shatters evilly if you ever drop it (yes I have, my mom's, no, she wasn't mad, I was just a kid) and there were only like six, and the lights were the old fashioned kind too, and there was stuff - I forget what it's called - on the branches, like really wispy snow that shimmered, only not really. It has a name, and there's something poisonous about it and you can't get it anymore, and it's also really old-fashioned.
There were also stockings sitting out with "B Sr" and "B Jr" and a few other names on them - I guess his brothers - and I made some comment about how none of those people were going to be there, him and his dad included. B went to NYC for the rest of the day to have dinner with his mom, and his dad went to work later in the day, his brother is in China, and his other brother - I think, I'm not totally sure about this - I'm pretty sure there was another brother who is no longer living - and then, I guess the other stocking was for his mom, cause it was a woman's name and his dad doesn't have a girlfriend or wife or anything, and obviously his mom is in New York and has been for most of B's life.
I don't know. I just felt uncomfortable, cause B's dad just doesn't talk, and neither of them talk to each other, and then I think I made B feel uncomfortable too, with being kind of a snob about the drinking and then saying how the tree must be older than he is (which I meant in a good way, I really, really did!) because we had one like it when I was a kid and it was old then too, and then what I said about the stockings came out really awkward too.
But then again, it was nice too. Christmas can be kind of stressful, you know, and B and I just slept in as late as we wanted downstairs. I always wake up around four-ish, but I made myself go back to sleep and we both got up around nine, which is late for both of us and it was nice laying around just half awake knowing that we were free to sleep the day away if that's what we wanted. Breakfast was really good - I'd love to make something like that at home, and I do, actually, like to drink V8, and that was kinda nice too (although no vodka!) and considering how weird meeting B's dad for the first time was, it could have all been much more bizarre than it was.
B dropped me off at the Ps and came in to say hello to everyone before he left for NYC, and he'll be there until Sunday night I think, and the P's house was really warm because they had the wood stove on, and I did have a beer with Ryan, and it was a warm day and I sat out on the front porch and talked to Marla's fiance/bf about sci-fi stuff while all the cousins and some other neighborhood stragglers played hockey in the paved part down the road. I saw a lot of relatives - I have another aunt who came over, and she gave me a Christmas present, a little book of handmade paper, only like four by four or so, just a little thing but it's very cute. I'm sure she got it as a trade from a craftsperson - I mentioned that there are artists everywhere in my life, right? My aunt is an artist. I have an aunt and uncle who live just down the road from the Ps who don't have children, and they came over too, and I hadn't seen them since my grandparents were alive. Then... there was also my grandmother's brother - I guess my great-uncle? Who I talked to for quite a while, he was really, really nice to me, asking me where I've been and what I've been doing. I guess no one told him what was going on with me all this time, cause, I don't know, he's old, so he really must think of me as just a grown-up version of the little girl he used to take to the docks to see the boats.
And! I got my picture! Marla heard me reminiscing with Ryan about running wild on some farm property our grandparents used to own and how we climbed up this old, broken down, rusted tractor and thought we were going to build a clubhouse out of it or something totally nonsensical, and came home covered in rust and dirt, and Ryan remembered there being an old shed that wasn't part of the property but was on the other side of the creek that we used to dare each other to sneak in to - Marla went and found a picture in my aunt's photo boxes, it's a polaroid of me and Ryan and Bevan and Justin and my sister, and I think I'm somewhere around nine years old in the picture, but we're all sitting on the tractor. Someone arranged us all nicely like a real portrait or something. I love it. It's on my fridge with a beer cap magnet right now. I'm so excited to have it!
We had ham and manicotti with spinach and black olives (my cousins are vegetarians...) and some kind of chocolate cranberry bread for dinner and OH YEAH MY DAD. So, I was kind of nervous about seeing my dad, but it was really fine. He's just my dad, same as he ever has been. He came kind of late, brought wine and cookies and a cheese log, and his daughter... who I've never met and in fact, who's existence has been denied several times by my mother - It's not a suspicion or conspiracy theory of mine, it is a concrete fact that my dad has another family. I've just never met any of them. Well - I met her. She's in her mid thirties, so, I mean, really, it's not like I've had this long-lost sibling all this time that could have been my best friend or something. She's more than ten years older than I am and it was just interesting to finally see and meet her. I don't really think of her as a sister - she's just a person. But she looks a whole lot like me and even more like Ryan, because she has dark blue eyes like my dad does. She's got a kind of odd way of speaking, really fast, and an accent that I can't really place.
Anyway. Last time I talked to my dad (on the phone a little while ago) I told him how I have no car insurance because I can't afford it, and he's basically told me that he's adding me to his insurance and he needed to know my license plate number and the milage on my car and stuff, so after dinner he drove me to my house and we looked at my car so he could get all the information he needed, and he came and saw my house and came and saw how the other house is coming along, and he seemed really impressed. He said they were always really nice properties but no one ever had the time or the money to keep them up, and he came in and saw the pink and green couch that was in the house when I got it, and immediately laid down on it and put his feet up on the arm, and said that he used to sleep on it when he was a teenager driving to the island to go surfing early in the mornings.
I think he was expecting me to think him paying my insurance was this grand gesture or something, and to be oh so grateful, but I'm sorry, I just can't see it that way, and I told him so. I was just kind of like, ok, well, now that you're paying my insurance, I'll take the rest of the money too. You know, since you and mom called me your dependent on your taxes and all, and now I guess you'll do it again this year too. My dad gave me four hundred dollars then, right out of his pocket, and I didn't really even want it, I was just being me, just being nasty instead of nice and instead of saying thank you bringing up old shit, and now I feel really awful about taking it, but at the same time - I bet you they declare me again.
Then we went back to the Ps for the rest of the night, and I ended up sleeping over there - ah, and I met Ryan's girlfriend, who came over while I was at my house with my dad - and we watched Mama Mia on DVD, which I had never seen because Meryl Streep kinda scares me when she goes all out like that, and I still found it frighteningly trippy and probably will never watch it again, but I do know every single word to every single ABBA song, and I mentioned how I like to sing ABBA at karaoke, and Ryan was like, karaoke in Cape May? I go there! And I was like, I go there too! We should go together! (I have this feeling Ryan's girlfriend has something to do with him being home so much - she must have like responsibilities or something and can't just take off for New England to snowboard at the drop of a hat - but I know he's definitely leaving by February because he's got some kind of ski resort job then)
So... yep. That was my Christmas. It was pretty fabulous. I have no complaints whatsoever. Well, except that my Doctor Who hasn't downloaded yet. STILL!
I don't hate Christmas for the same reasons as the girls in my story - Kat hates Christmas because she isn't Christian and doesn't like Christianity, and finds Christmas hypocritical and fake, and Anna hates Christmas because she was raised Christian but her family has all passed away and she's drifted far away from her religion, and it depresses her to remember.
I hate how everyone expects things to somehow be different, just for that one day, how people who are horrible are finally civil to each other and it's such a nice illusion, but that's all it turns out to be. I hate the stress of knowing that the holiday is coming and that it has to be wonderful, because it's Christmas and Christmas has to be just so. I hate how it's turned into an entire retail season and people everywhere spend more than they should because they feel like they have to.
I did spend several years not celebrating, either because I was alone, or because I simply chose not to. I lived with my best friend for years, and refused to go home for Christmas because, all my adult life, I've always clashed with my parents, and my house was never a happy place during the holidays. My best friend, Daniel, is Jewish, and has never celebrated Christmas in his life, and we would have the most wonderful relaxed days of ordering Chinese food and watching anime and getting drunk. I've also spent a few Christmases "bouncing," like when I was out of the country I spent one Christmas in Florence between two different families, and it was really lovely.
Last year I was all by myself and did nothing. This year was a "bounce" year.
Christmas Eve morning I worked out at the Pier in AC, and it was absolutely mobbed. I don't think I'm ever going to try another holiday retail job - as far as a job goes, it isn't really all that bad, it's just that the whole focus on material things makes me feel kind of disgusted. Christmas is a Christian holiday, and Christians are notoriously cheap, so I don't know how it turned into an entire retail scam. The traffic into AC wasn't bad but the traffic going out, at three in the afternoon, was terrible and I was late to my other job, but it wasn't a big deal because the restaurant wasn't busy. I was on phone duty, too, which is the easiest way to spent a shift - sitting at the bar answering the phone and taking carry-out orders. A surprising number of the population of New Jersey is serving buffalo wings and ribs for Christmas this year :P
B was waiting tables, which was just odd, because he almost always bartends when we work together, and he looks about five years younger wearing a server uniform. I dunno, the bartenders all wear black button down shirts and look very classy and professional, and the rest of us wear ugly scrubby polo shirts and khakis. The bar got a shipment of (cheap) champagne to make champagne mixed drinks for the holidays, and we all got to taste them, so I experienced, for the first time, working a shift half-buzzed. Sorry, my tolerance is pathetic, I know it.
It was a really easy, smooth shift, and the restaurant closed early and we all were out of the building by nine, and me and B went to a bar (different from the usual one) to meet up with my cousins - ALL my cousins except the youngest one, who isn't twenty one anyway. I've never been one to consider Christmas Eve to be a big "going out" holiday - that's New Year's, isn't it? - but the entire world was out at the bars Wednesday, and everyone was drinking and living it up and there was a general mood of excitement in the air. My cousin Marla, who I haven't seen in over five years now, came home for Christmas to tell all the family she's engaged to her boyfriend, and since everyone knows everyone around here, the entire bar congratulated them and her and her brothers got free drinks. I saw Ryan's friend Will, who I also haven't seen for ages, and we talked for a while. Will and I (and Will and Ryan, I guess) are veeeerrry distantly related, and I've always thought he was really easy to talk to, and he is still, and that was nice. It's always cool to catch up with people I've known for most of my life.
Me and B and Ryan and Justin stayed late, until the bar closed (Marla and her bf left early), just talking and goofing around and enjoying each other's company, and then I went home with B.
We pulled the bed out and lit candles and stayed up most of the night, talking and messing around - I guess I am pretty open about my sex life on this journal, I mean, this is just the internet and I'm confident I'm completely anonymous - and maybe it doesn't seem all that different from any other night I've spent with B, but usually I come home and write out my entry saying "yep, we did it again, naughty us!" or something like that.
It was an awesome night. It wasn't just that we had awesome sex. It's not awesome every time, but mostly it is, being that it's sex and everyone loves sex, right? - We did, and there's no way I'm just some random convenient girl anymore. Maybe that's how it started out - hell, that is absolutely the way it started out - but that's not what it is now because he's not some random convenient guy to me. He's not even just my favorite person here, someone who's easygoing and makes a good friend.
I recently became aware of the fact that I think Bevan's adorable, and he really is a good looking guy, in his own way. He has nice, dark, murky-hazel eyes and his hair is fine and soft (when it's not full of junk) and he's really strong, strong enough to pick me up, and we're just about the same size, so that counts extra, IMO. I think I've written enough about all the things I like about him - we have fun together, but there's a lot that goes in to that, I guess. We think the same things are fun. He's such a calm, low-key person, and I feel like I'm more that way when I'm around him too. I can be really high strung, freaking out over the tiniest little things, but somehow being around him makes it easier to take a step back and thing, hey, that's not such a big deal, relax.
I like that he puts so much importance on enjoying life than the ever-popular getting ahead that everyone our age seems to be trying to do. He works, and he works a lot, and he works hard, but he doesn't let anything take him away from the things he enjoys doing - to me, that's the sign of a very balanced person. And even if we don't enjoy all the same things - I mean, it's not like I think surfing is stupid or a waste of time or anything. I don't need to know where he is every minute of every day. I don't need to make big elaborate plans either, and I don't need to have complete control of his free time. We spend time together because he wants to, and I want to. There's no sense of obligation or of a fair exchange - we just do what we want, and sometimes what we want is to be around each other.
That's... healthy, right? My friendship with Daniel was really messed up. I didn't realize it at the time, really, but I know it now, but just because Daniel and I completely fucked up a good thing doesn't mean I can't have any other friendships, or that every guy I get close to will automatically turn out to be another version of Daniel. This is already nothing like me and Daniel - what happened between me and Daniel breaks my heart, it really does, but it doesn't have a single thing to do with what's going on in my life now. Part of me has always understood that, but I guess part of me hasn't really.
Just because I had a really unhealthy relationship doesn't mean I can't have a good one, right?
Cause I really think I already do.
Anyway, I met B's dad once before, and thought he was really strange. Well, I met him again on Christmas Day, and he remembered me - I suppose I'm kind of memorable, or something - cause I slept over, and B and I woke up on Christmas morning and went upstairs and B and his dad made a big breakfast. Whatever totally weird and awkward vibes I got from B's dad before I didn't really feel yesterday, but it was still pretty strange. They barely talk to each other, and when they do, they don't even look at each other, and yet, they cooked this amazing breakfast together, perfectly co-ordinated, like I guess they do it every year and it's just a routine or something. And I talk a lot, but I didn't really feel comfortable saying anything, because neither of them were saying anything, and it was Christmas.
No praying. No saying "Merry Christmas." Not even saying good morning, although I did get a "hello." No, "son, why is this girl here" or any such conversation, and really, as far as I know, me being there wasn't really part of any plan, it just kind of happened because we spent the night there. We could have just as easily spent the night at my place. I tried to ask questions about what they were making (they called it an egg in the hole) but B's dad just... I don't know what it is with him. The things he said weren't answers to my questions, or something.
It was two pieces of french toast with prosciutto in between (although they called it something else that I forget - maybe it's Jersey-talk) and an egg in the top piece of toast, so when you cut the whole thing open the yolk spills out, and it was very tasty, and B's dad drank a V8 and vodka with breakfast, and B didn't bat an eye and opened the fridge and offered me a "Christmas beer." I was utterly shocked, and I'm sure it showed on my face, and I don't know why I acted like such a snob to him because it's not like I've never had beer for breakfast before or beer on Christmas, but it just surprised me so much and I turned it down.
So there is a hole in B's front porch and he didn't want me to go out the front door, I think both because he didn't want me to have to dodge whatever was wrong with the floor of the wooden porch (and that's fine, I didn't want to either) and because he was embarrassed that the porch has clearly been like that for years. I think I made him a little embarrassed all morning, what with my expression at the beer and vodka, and, I don't know, I was kind of looking around the house a little, because although I'm over there all the time, I'm only in the basement, which has it's own entrance, and never in the rest of the house, and there was a little tree set up in the other room with really old fashioned ornaments on it - it was an old fashioned tree, too, my mom had one like it when I was very little. She's long since gotten rid of it and I'm sure she has a much nicer, much real-er looking tree now, although I remember the one from when I was a kid better than whatever she has now.
They were the glass metallic painted kind with the faceted indents in them - I've seen ones like that now that are plastic, or are sort of like that and glass, but not the same paper thin metallic glass that shatters evilly if you ever drop it (yes I have, my mom's, no, she wasn't mad, I was just a kid) and there were only like six, and the lights were the old fashioned kind too, and there was stuff - I forget what it's called - on the branches, like really wispy snow that shimmered, only not really. It has a name, and there's something poisonous about it and you can't get it anymore, and it's also really old-fashioned.
There were also stockings sitting out with "B Sr" and "B Jr" and a few other names on them - I guess his brothers - and I made some comment about how none of those people were going to be there, him and his dad included. B went to NYC for the rest of the day to have dinner with his mom, and his dad went to work later in the day, his brother is in China, and his other brother - I think, I'm not totally sure about this - I'm pretty sure there was another brother who is no longer living - and then, I guess the other stocking was for his mom, cause it was a woman's name and his dad doesn't have a girlfriend or wife or anything, and obviously his mom is in New York and has been for most of B's life.
I don't know. I just felt uncomfortable, cause B's dad just doesn't talk, and neither of them talk to each other, and then I think I made B feel uncomfortable too, with being kind of a snob about the drinking and then saying how the tree must be older than he is (which I meant in a good way, I really, really did!) because we had one like it when I was a kid and it was old then too, and then what I said about the stockings came out really awkward too.
But then again, it was nice too. Christmas can be kind of stressful, you know, and B and I just slept in as late as we wanted downstairs. I always wake up around four-ish, but I made myself go back to sleep and we both got up around nine, which is late for both of us and it was nice laying around just half awake knowing that we were free to sleep the day away if that's what we wanted. Breakfast was really good - I'd love to make something like that at home, and I do, actually, like to drink V8, and that was kinda nice too (although no vodka!) and considering how weird meeting B's dad for the first time was, it could have all been much more bizarre than it was.
B dropped me off at the Ps and came in to say hello to everyone before he left for NYC, and he'll be there until Sunday night I think, and the P's house was really warm because they had the wood stove on, and I did have a beer with Ryan, and it was a warm day and I sat out on the front porch and talked to Marla's fiance/bf about sci-fi stuff while all the cousins and some other neighborhood stragglers played hockey in the paved part down the road. I saw a lot of relatives - I have another aunt who came over, and she gave me a Christmas present, a little book of handmade paper, only like four by four or so, just a little thing but it's very cute. I'm sure she got it as a trade from a craftsperson - I mentioned that there are artists everywhere in my life, right? My aunt is an artist. I have an aunt and uncle who live just down the road from the Ps who don't have children, and they came over too, and I hadn't seen them since my grandparents were alive. Then... there was also my grandmother's brother - I guess my great-uncle? Who I talked to for quite a while, he was really, really nice to me, asking me where I've been and what I've been doing. I guess no one told him what was going on with me all this time, cause, I don't know, he's old, so he really must think of me as just a grown-up version of the little girl he used to take to the docks to see the boats.
And! I got my picture! Marla heard me reminiscing with Ryan about running wild on some farm property our grandparents used to own and how we climbed up this old, broken down, rusted tractor and thought we were going to build a clubhouse out of it or something totally nonsensical, and came home covered in rust and dirt, and Ryan remembered there being an old shed that wasn't part of the property but was on the other side of the creek that we used to dare each other to sneak in to - Marla went and found a picture in my aunt's photo boxes, it's a polaroid of me and Ryan and Bevan and Justin and my sister, and I think I'm somewhere around nine years old in the picture, but we're all sitting on the tractor. Someone arranged us all nicely like a real portrait or something. I love it. It's on my fridge with a beer cap magnet right now. I'm so excited to have it!
We had ham and manicotti with spinach and black olives (my cousins are vegetarians...) and some kind of chocolate cranberry bread for dinner and OH YEAH MY DAD. So, I was kind of nervous about seeing my dad, but it was really fine. He's just my dad, same as he ever has been. He came kind of late, brought wine and cookies and a cheese log, and his daughter... who I've never met and in fact, who's existence has been denied several times by my mother - It's not a suspicion or conspiracy theory of mine, it is a concrete fact that my dad has another family. I've just never met any of them. Well - I met her. She's in her mid thirties, so, I mean, really, it's not like I've had this long-lost sibling all this time that could have been my best friend or something. She's more than ten years older than I am and it was just interesting to finally see and meet her. I don't really think of her as a sister - she's just a person. But she looks a whole lot like me and even more like Ryan, because she has dark blue eyes like my dad does. She's got a kind of odd way of speaking, really fast, and an accent that I can't really place.
Anyway. Last time I talked to my dad (on the phone a little while ago) I told him how I have no car insurance because I can't afford it, and he's basically told me that he's adding me to his insurance and he needed to know my license plate number and the milage on my car and stuff, so after dinner he drove me to my house and we looked at my car so he could get all the information he needed, and he came and saw my house and came and saw how the other house is coming along, and he seemed really impressed. He said they were always really nice properties but no one ever had the time or the money to keep them up, and he came in and saw the pink and green couch that was in the house when I got it, and immediately laid down on it and put his feet up on the arm, and said that he used to sleep on it when he was a teenager driving to the island to go surfing early in the mornings.
I think he was expecting me to think him paying my insurance was this grand gesture or something, and to be oh so grateful, but I'm sorry, I just can't see it that way, and I told him so. I was just kind of like, ok, well, now that you're paying my insurance, I'll take the rest of the money too. You know, since you and mom called me your dependent on your taxes and all, and now I guess you'll do it again this year too. My dad gave me four hundred dollars then, right out of his pocket, and I didn't really even want it, I was just being me, just being nasty instead of nice and instead of saying thank you bringing up old shit, and now I feel really awful about taking it, but at the same time - I bet you they declare me again.
Then we went back to the Ps for the rest of the night, and I ended up sleeping over there - ah, and I met Ryan's girlfriend, who came over while I was at my house with my dad - and we watched Mama Mia on DVD, which I had never seen because Meryl Streep kinda scares me when she goes all out like that, and I still found it frighteningly trippy and probably will never watch it again, but I do know every single word to every single ABBA song, and I mentioned how I like to sing ABBA at karaoke, and Ryan was like, karaoke in Cape May? I go there! And I was like, I go there too! We should go together! (I have this feeling Ryan's girlfriend has something to do with him being home so much - she must have like responsibilities or something and can't just take off for New England to snowboard at the drop of a hat - but I know he's definitely leaving by February because he's got some kind of ski resort job then)
So... yep. That was my Christmas. It was pretty fabulous. I have no complaints whatsoever. Well, except that my Doctor Who hasn't downloaded yet. STILL!
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Date: 2008-12-26 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-27 07:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 06:01 pm (UTC)VIPuzzle.com - Personalized Jigsaw Puzzle | Christmas gifs | Online puzzles
Date: 2011-09-21 02:35 pm (UTC)anyway, thanks a lot! and a happy vication :)