Christmas Commentary

This is the first Christmas/New Years since I was 17, that I haven’t seen Lauren. It’s something that started to really bother me while I was driving around town and doing my last minute things. I read/heard somewhere once that your friends are the family you actually chose to have…and that’s pretty much the way I feel about Miss L. McK. She’s my family…the good part of my family, and I really do feel her loss dearly.

On the other side of the coin, we have the bad part of my family. Like how I spent every half-hour on the hour on Christmas Eve trying to get a hold of my father. He did finally get in contact with me around 7pm, but by that point I was pretty far on my way to being pissed/depressed/etc. I was even crying in front of the boy, which was weird, but cool how he dealt with it.

Speaking of! The BFKP (boy formerly known as the Pirate)? Yeah…we’ve been doing some hanging out. I like him, he’s a sweet guy who seems to care as much—if not more—about what’s going on inside my head as outside. I’m proceeding with caution, but very thankful for the progression. After all, it’s no fun being shy, giggly, crush girl.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a lie…I mean, it was fun while it lasted. It’s just way more fun being, you know, me. TNF, she of the “curiously strong” volume, the nor’easter, the southern-raised Canadian firecracker. Me.

This Christmas holiday season was plagued with sickness—um, sorry for the pun there, folks. Dad and my closest Uncle came down with some random, gross, fever and coughing-type-nastiness. Mom ended up with bronchitis. Dad’s gf topped the list with pneumonia. Given my rather…well, let’s just be kind and say “historically weak immune system,” I went to sleep every night convinced I’d wake up all hot and mucusy.

So far so good. Dare I think that my body has finally started to be able to defend itself against this crap? Rock on. Seriously, party like a lobster, there immunity; party like a lobster. (Okay…um…Did that just make me sound like I’m on some kinda reality show where people “make alliances” with one another? Um…sorry about that…yeah…moving on…)

The sickness of my family made everyone’s visit kinda less than eventful. It did leave me more time to hang out with BFKP, and even meet some of the other “shopboys” et al, but I missed really going out with Mae’ma and actually spending some time with Dad. Brother was in Vegas with Linz and her fam, so that was a whole other sadness. (Not that I begrudge her time with her fam…or think that he shouldn’t have gone...fair’s fair, after all. I just miss seeing the both of them.)

In other news, I’ve finally finished Wuthering Heights. I have to say, before I get started, that I did really like it. I liked the story, I liked the narrative style (hello Elizabeth Kostova, this is how you do a multiple first person perspective), and—impossible to understand gardener aside—I really, really liked the language. Bravo Emily Brontë, way to write a story that works 200 years after you wrote it. Seriously…party on Garth…er, whatever. Now that we have that covered…WTF is up with Heathcliff being named “most Romanic literary hero ever.” Honestly? Honestly? More than Romeo? Mr. Darcy?? Eff Hamlet at least had a piece of Ophelia before she went all crazy and went swimming in a heavily—literally—bejeweled gown. Why, pray tell?! Because he tore out Catherine’s husband’s lock of hair from her dead body and replaced it with his own? Because he dug up her grave—TWICE!!—once actually rocking around with her in the ground some eighteen years after her death? Call me crazy—I mean, let’s face the facts here, I am—but…I mean…shouldn’t you at least…you know…well get a good…uh, taste…of a person before you know for certain that you love them? (And necrophilia totally doesn’t count!) That’s all I’m saying. Heathcliff is hot, he’s brooding and a little damaged and I totally would have done him. However, he is not a romantic hero. Westley is a romantic hero.

Glad we clarified that. Moving on.

Um…well, maybe that’s it for Christmas time. I mean…I have far more than I could ever need; hell, I have most of what I’ve always wanted. Going through a list of what I got just seems superfluous.

Suffice it to say that I loved the time that I had with those that could be here…and I missed the time with those too far away to be with me. The great Dr. Seuss probably covered it best: “Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

And for all those I saw…and for all those I held so tightly in my heart, it was as if you were here…Merry Christmas to all…and to all a good night…

Quote of the Moment:
Ms.I: I always feel like I look like a boy with my hair up.
BFKP [eyeing my low-cut tank]: Yeah…Must be the cleavage.
Ms.I [crazy laughing]: Just so you know, that’s probably going to be the quote. Oh…you donno what that means, yet.

Soundtrack of the Moment: Shiny Toy Gun, “le Disko”

TV/Movie Quote: Juno: “Oh, and she inexplicably mails me a cactus every [Christmas] Day. And I'm like, "Thanks a heap coyote ugly. This cactus-gram stinks even worse than your abandonment."