So me and the holiday spirit? Not so much.
Usually I am all aglow at the idea of Christmas, New Year�s, all of it. But lately, I just want a week of being left alone and not having to deal with all the fucking goddam shit that people have been throwing my way.
That sounded bad, I know�but I feel like the angry, stressed, competitive energy of people all around me (especially the customers at work) is rubbing off on me, and I just want a vacation in a clean, white room somewhere�where I can read in quiet and relax and not have to deal with anyone.
This is not to say that I am unhappy with anyone in particular�as the title implies, I am in ranting mode, and rant I shall. For example, to all the people who come in to the store and want their tiny, little $3 gifts gift-wrapped when there is a long-ass line of seven customers behind them? Fuck you. Oh, and to UPS � fuck you for reasons best kept between us.
I love Christmas-time, and I want to enjoy it, but the joy of the season is being sucked out of me by the crazies on the street and the assholes on the subway and the bitches with their holiday furs and oh, the religious zealot who came in the store the other day ranting about how the Muslim people are like �cockroaches,� lectured me about the majesty of elephants as a species, grabbed me and began praying for the lord to bless me, then started talking about Trista and Ryan�s wedding. Sell crazy someplace else, lady�
Oh, and did I mention that we have houseguests basically forever? Kent�s cousins were here a few weekends ago � when we got a little pre-Christmas blizzard and they were stuck and extra day�and my sister-in-law is here now (she spent last night huddled on the couch, writing in her journal and practicing looking sullen), soon to be followed by my parents and then my brother and his girlfriend, started two days after Christmas. People, I love you, but I don�t want you in my apartment. Go home�
I guess that�s most of my rant� it felt angrier before I started typing.
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On Saturday night we went to a party at our friends Em and Jones� apartment in Park Slope. It was awesome�but for a good hour, I got stuck talking to the Alvin.
�The Alvin?� you ask. Yes, and let me explain. Every group of friends has that one person who no one really likes, not all that much. The Alvin is not offensive enough to dislike, but more of a tolerable tool, if that makes sense. When I was in college, I lived in my sorority house, and next door was a frat�and in that frat was a guy named Alvin. He was nice, at all the parties, a friend to everyone�but never anything more. And it became a (mean) joke that every group of friends has its own Alvin�the one you just keep around because, well�someone needs to drive. Anyway, my friends and I came up with the Alvin Theory back when we were sorority bitches (and we had our own Alvin, who we�d call at 3:00 a.m. to pick us up from a party or bar, and she�d load us up in her Toyota Tercel, eager and happy to do so every time), but it still holds true. At every party there is one person who is not offensively annoying or rude or difficult, but who is just�the Alvin. And I got stuck talking to the Alvin at Em�s party for a good long while�and then discovered that the Alvin is actually my neighbor. She lives three doors down from us, and now I am paranoid about running into her because she was chock full of ideas of places we could hang out. Gah.
What else? Oh yeah�this pissed me off: I got an email the other morning from my in-laws thanking me for the Christmas gifts we had sent them�which they had already opened. I shopped for them, wrapped the gifts, lugged them to the UPS store and shipped them out, and they opened them! On December 17th!! Maybe I�m over-reacting, but I expected them to put the WRAPPED gifts under their tree and open them with all the others on Christmas Day. But no dice. And again, maybe I�m being hypersensitive, but I felt like they figured, �Eh, since Kent won�t be here on Christmas, there�s no sense in even trying to celebrate, so we�ll just open the gifts now.� I thought it was kind of a passive-aggressive move to make us feel guilty for not being in Ohio this year, but Kent thought otherwise � he had the unto suggestion that they were worried that I�d be offended if they waited to open the gifts. The Christmas gifts. Whatever. It just seems silly that two people in their mid-50s can�t wait a week, but oh well. I just wonder what they�ll do on Christmas�I have a feeling it will involve sitting around and bemoaning Kent�s absence. �It just isn�t Christmas without him,� and the like.
But in all honesty, I love Christmas and the holidays and New Year�s and all this good stuff�so from me to you, Happy Holidays. Much love.
