happy happy festichristmahaunakwanzavus - -

i just need to stop and get some electrolytes in me. Sake plus BC continues to make a killer martini plus local brewery plus palinka and slivovitz plus when was the last time i was properly hydrated anyway?

And a fucking manicure.

i sent a check to the brazos food bank, because one in five families locally recieves their help. it's a crazy huge number of people and i sent them enough for christmas dinner for quite a few seeing as how turkey is like a dollar forty a pound, or something. now they're probably going to publish my name again. what if someone i know sees it? because they send out a list of everyone who gives them money (which i believe is a legal thing of some sort). they published my name somewhere last year and it's almost like being ashamed - for gods sake nobody else needs to know this. i would hate it if someone asked me about it. it's like being caught with your pants down and all your vulnerability out. please just take my money and come back next year and let's pretend we don't know each other until then, okay? and for crying out loud, no thank you cards.

i dropped a large pile of clothing and implements of kitchenry at goodwill and made a complete fool of myself by saying the rice cooker was dishwasher safe. Oof. Who the fuck cares if its dishwasher safe - the dude was asking if it worked. It does. do they even have dishwashers? also, i felt crumby for having lost the rice cooker booklet. And weird about some of the clothes - my mom has a mending pile she's never, in my memory, mended anything from. i have no mending pile: i have a goodwill pile. lose a button? why no, i'm not gonna fix that shit (even if it would only take about a minute and a half). i'm gonna hope someone who needs it and who is more likely to fix it in a timely manner than i would be can buy it for a dollar fifty instead of two or three. plus that way nobody has to throw it away. The jacket was good. And the dress. And all those fucking sweaters i've never even worn.

i tried (unsuccessfully, since he said "no, thank you") to give my single biscotti (which i really think ought to be biscottus, without disproof of which i will continue to believe indefinitely, but didn't want to make a fool of myself twice in five minutes) to a homeless person. he was very nice though.

there is something else about christmas that really makes white privilege stand out. and you can barely look at certain people because you're absolutely white-hot-ed-ly glowing with shame and indulgence and i just paid three fucking dollars for a cup of coffee and the dumb luck of being born in what in many parts of the world would be well above middle class (my cup of coffee is worth three days of your labor) and how is our collective social conscience even okay with this?

WHERE IS YOUR COMPASSION, BITCH?

i didn't want to see Munich. but the new Bond is in it, Daniel Craig, and i've never seen him in .. um .. anything. i want to see how he is with explosives and plots and assassination and sneaking around being a crazy sexy spy (if he is even remotely hot, which has yet to be established, and which Bond really ought to - has to - be), and i'm not sure this is that sort of movie, so i'm likely to be disappointed in that arena, but ... and it doesn't seem like a happy sort of movie, either, but ...

because i work in such a small group - there are six of us if you count the boss and two of em are part time - two people, plus the boss, including one of the part timers, brought (surprise!) xmas pressies. How does one prepare for this if i don't quite identify with the urge to gift? one could acquire cookies or chocolates, and compound the seasonal sweets-eating binge. one could find cute little aggie-snowman trinkets, for instance, and help clutter their houses. (i am going to have to find someone to regift an aggie-snowman tree ornament. It's undeniably cute, but other people will probably appreciate it far more than me.)

The present from the boss was both cookies and chocolates, and the nature of my sweet tooth is such that i was more excited about the reuseable packaging (which was a set of three decorative, yet sturdy, little cardboard boxes) than i was about their contents. Probably - seeing as how we have, finally, finished off the Halloween candy - we will eventually consume them. Eventually.

i literally said ooh! reuseable packaging.

it's the sort of lunch that makes one reconsider anorexia as a potential coping strategy. here's the thought process: this isn't half bad. this is good. oh god, i ate too much. eurgh. i feel like i'm gonna barf. hey, wait a minute...

plus, a molecular biology imaging company sent me The Dorkiest 2006 Calendar Ever: it is pictures of flourescing cells with certain dyes in them, which is exceedingly geeky to begin with. but! it comes with a pair of 3-D glasses. With which to view the flourescing cells. They're extra dorky because it's just multiple planes, with the red/pink plane in front, and then the yellow, and then the green, and then the blue behind, but that's 3-D, right? it is the absolute coolest. And! it comes with three poster size images of their favorite three months (which they don't let you pick). For extra nerdling factor.

which is, of course, something one is never quite sure if one ought to be looking forward to or not. one sort of ought to be, ideally, but then it just doesn't happen. and it's not only because they bring out the worst in me: i think i might exacerbate all sorts of things in them as well. i'm not sure if, when i go home because they want me to go home and spend time with them, it helps, or if it's just making everything that much more expansively explosive, if you will, that much more volatile. and i don't know how to make it better, and everything i can think of that might, would only have at least as much chance to piss somebody off, and scramble downhill from there. and i don't want to exacerbate things. which makes me scaredey and nervous. which makes me blog.

somehow, i escaped. and there is this Huge Pile of Guilt. because here i am, pretty much whole, with a house and a college degree and a job with health insurance and a steady paycheck and a husband and not even one but two dogs and friends and people i trust and things i enjoy, and pretty much stable and not what i'd call depressed, even. Plus i have managed to make the husband's family like me: i have functional extended and immediate families, now, which on a very specific level is something i always wanted. and you always wonder if it is genetic, or if it is contagious. either would be bad. and if i am self-actualizedly whole and healthy, first, how did i do that and why can't the rest of them, and second, who and what do i owe this to and where did it come from (google resiliency), and third, if i go back, will it all vaporize, and am i putting myself at risk somehow, and if i am, how am i supposed to prioritize that, or am i even able to help them in some way i have, quite honestly, yet to identify?

and if labelling x and y and z as This Is A Disorder - which is something that almost seems like a hobby, Ooh, it's syndrome this week, it's ism - even helps anyone or if it just stigmatizes people and makes them a victim and enables it all the more. and you can't google i think my brother needs my help, but then i think it would backfire. and people always say go to a therapist but again do i believe in therapists? and if i do, am i the one that needs the help? would my going to a therapist change anything for them? make their lives remotely easier?

and after the New Immediate and Extended Family met the Old Immediate and Extended Family (not, to be clear, that this is replacement terminology, but merely identificative), they noticed. and they asked me about it and i don't even remember what i said, but i'm sure they mentioned afterwards oh yes oh i'm sure, but she's very sensitive about it, and wouldn't you be, and i hate being pitied. Which makes me angry.

and see: i don't need a therapist, because i get this shit for free on the internet! therapists only go mm hmm and how does that make you feel and i will TELL you how it makes me feel for free.

we wanted to get the mini hungarian duplos.

We did not want to carry the duplos on the plane. duplos are exceedingly bulky.

Every. online. store. is out of good duplos and is refusing to ship crumby duplos so they will arrive by the twenty fifth. (Armageddon.) I am screwed.

however, i have a nice giant blue pilot bag. Will i be able to find Duplo locally? Why didn't i buy the one at Walmart yesterday? Why did i go to Walmart yesterday? i wanted Duplos. will i have to settle? Ugh.

so, at the new job, which i can still call new even if i've been here six months, i kill mice. And it sucks.

But somebody has to do it. Research neural tube birth defects.

They're bad. They're very nasty birth defects.

And once i can - or if i can - all the way down to the subcockle area* - accept that a baby is really worth more than a mouse, it falls in perfectly: how many mice do you need to equal a baby? i.e., At what point does it become better to let the baby die than to kill all the mice? And there is no answer for this; if a baby is worth more than a mouse, then a baby is worth more than any number of mice.

And when i need a little break i can go and look in the mirror and my head can say to my subcockles: see, i am saving a baby today. But my subcockles are still going Fuck you, i'm utterly nauseated.

note: dayquil tastes awful too. And that's the entire word-for-word standup of No Cure For Cancer, there in the link, which makes a day better. Only i don't know who the fuck that person is that made that website - because they have a small sampling of Jewel's mind-blowingly shitty poetry on it too.

and, it is good i don't have to buy presents for a doorman??? do people really give things to their mail carriers and hairdressers and was i supposed to give the Guy That Came To Spray For Bugs (whom i had never previously met) something random and impersonal when he was in my house for an hour yesterday, just because it's december? Should i have passed off some random regift? (are you freaking kidding me?) the cleaning lady at work - now, that almost makes sense. But come on.

Or.

ooh, what can i get rid of this season? whee!

You Are Dasher

You're an independent minded reindeer who never plays by the rules. Why You're Naughty: That little coup you tried to stage against Santa last year Why You're Nice: You secretly give naughty children presents.

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

it is impossible to look at luggage online (because you just remembered your previous bag is finally unarguably busted and you really don't want to travel with a bag with actual holes in it that are big enough for a cell phone, for instance, to escape through) when they always measure things in inches (which include all the funky extra pockets and probably that water bottle in the picture and maybe even the straps and what about all those triangular bags anyway) instead of in Gallons. Gallons are a measure of volume i deal with on a daily cereal-making basis and which i can easily picture; i think i need about three gallons of clothing and shoes and a hairbrush and whatnot for the holiday trip, which will be a week and almost a half. I bet i could get by with two. i pack awfully tight. But this is not the point. The point is that i have no idea how many sweaters i can fit in eleven inches. And so i cannot shop for luggage online. And this is frustrating because we have no rei store here and they have such pretty things only i don't know how big they are. and if i want Real Luggage instead of a Backpack from Target, which may just happen to be the case (hehe) ... my local options are annoyingly limited. i hate texas.

For Multigenerational Families Who Gather for Christmas Reunions: [blah, blah, blah] Blood is not necessarily thicker than water, and it generally helps at this time of year to have a little Scotch in both.

excellent.

the most religious, awe-inspired, silent-moment-in-the-theatre was when the opening credits (as in, a gleaming firey Disney logo) rolled and everyone went "this is it!" and "shhhh!" and there was this complete everyone-holding-their-breath silence. This in the ten o'clock show full of grownups.

The star centaur was sort of boring until he killed that minotaur like an asskicking TOREADOR. Dear Star Centaur Dude, I Love You. Rock The Fuck On (with your Bad Self). Plus he was pulling swords out of scabbards you couldn't quite identify in advance (and that quite frankly we're going to have to see again, and pause, just to see what exactly he's getting them out of) - they appeared to be integrated into his codpiece-armor-thing somehow. Oh, and the star centaur had a codpiece-armor-thing, which makes one wonder exactly how they mate and where their tender bits might be - with the horse half, or the human half?

That, and there were girl centaurs, which i'm not sure i've ever seen before. i didn't notice any female fauns, or dwarves, or Nasty Bad Creatures in the witch's army, and there was one dryad - or thing that i think was supposed to be meant to be a dryad, though certainly nothing i would picture upon hearing the word - but she was only employed as a messenger, and peter didn't even fucking believe her immediately, or that's the suggestion. where are all the girl Nasty Bad Creatures? home making tea? ohhh, is she a jealous Witch?

They were loving that ugly butt minotaur though. every freaking shot was of that guy.

Also, Tilda Swinton (sp?) is a badass. Everyone can agree on this.

And they thought of things - tiny little details - that make you go, oh of course, yes. mostly. some were off. but most.

some really lovely wolf footage.

and this annoys me almost as much as not seeing any women in the armies (you sexist pigs): why is it that perfectly good creatures are supposed to be Mean Bad Evil creatures? wolves are lovely and cuddly and soft and very very smart, and there are traditions that say snakes are the wisest animals, and all sorts of things - only wolves are nasty in narnia. and all snakes are in league with voldemort. and lions are scavenging, foul creatures, for that matter, only they're never portrayed that way. it isn't fair.

and, A is coming. yippee :)

this makes life better. as if it wasn't already good enough with it being Friday and lunchtime. it would be like christmas, if i was five and still liked christmas. i'm sure there are people that continue to like christmas far into their adult years. i've met some. but not only are they playing christmas music on every. fucking. radio. station, and (ooh! this was funny: last night it was Very Very Cold Again, right, and our neighbors with the seven inflatable yard decorations - which, if memory serves, are a x-mas tree, a penguin, a grinch and dog, a snowman, ... shit, that's four ... a santa ... and some other hideous thing ... anyway - the blowers for the yard decorations couldn't keep up with the ice. So they were all bent over in half, inflated, but all bowing over - did you know the grinch could autofellate? And this morning they were frozen in this position. it is the Kinky Tantric Yogatastic Collection of Tacky Christmas Inflatables) our neighbors are going increasingly all-out, again, and couldn't we just skip all the religious part and just have a nice Solstice? please?

i signed up for that myspace thing.

or, this would never happen in wisconsin. in texas, though, it rains, and then it freezes when it hits something, instead of coming down in snow (or even hail) form. the upper atmosphere is too warm or something. it coats your everything in glass, and is really quite pretty. but. So car doors freeze shut in an entirely new way: instead of the edge of the car door being frozen to the car, the handle is frozen solid. you can't just chip away at it like you can a windshield because it is frozen solid on the inside, too, and volkswagen shapes their car door handles in a particularly unfortunate way. so instead of a thin sheet of ice with lots of snow on it, you get a very thick sheet of ice covering the entire vehicle. there were inch-long icicles hanging from the windshield wipers.

and you notice all this, first, because lying in bed, the dead branch that usually reaches half-way down the window outside (the one that probably won't fall on the house, but that starts way too high up and hard to get to to do anything about) is three-quarters of the way down the window instead. So you go out and look and it isn't really that particularly cold but the canoe is out of the way, at least, so that's fine then. And it'd be nice if there was a damn thing you could do about the branch. but.

which makes me google people. interesting: last updated in 2004. which is almost recent. and you wonder who's farther out of the loop. who else got lost. if you get back in touch with people - if you find them - do you start right up with the roll of the dead? Oh, so and so is married, and so and so has a kid, and so and so had leukemia, and so and so had a heart attack, and so and so OD'd, and so and so jumped off the george washington bridge, and so and so was hit by a car, and on and on and on. and how do you fit that in - you're glad to find someone, glad to meet up again, and then they sock you in the stomach. Oof.

i can picture it: Gee, thanks, you broke my heart,* good to see you again (WHATEVER), and now you're telling me my friends are all dead? what the fuck? obviously i am put on this planet to torment people's dreams. i am the angel of Making You My Depressed Bitch. there would be angsty poetry about it. i'd google it again in ten years and find it bleeding, with its guts all over the internet like moss.

see? that wouldn't go well. but: if other people google people like i google people, then it says right on mark's front page. At least.

*which i always thought was already broken when i got to it.

so during a part of the time we were in seattle, while we were with the alumni, i was (since i am, after all, a girl) surepptitiously checking out the other girls' engagement rings. And both of theirs were perfectly typical - princess or squarey or something, huge rocks, prong settings. i didn't get close enough to see the metal - but i'm betting at least one was platinum the whole way around. Not that there's anything wrong with platinum, at least. Huge rocks.

and i was thinking. at the time.

did these women - intelligent, informed people, both, and i knew most of them from college, where everyone seemed perfectly rational and caring and nice - did they choose these rings? did their men choose them all on their own, or did these women want those things? and while they're gigantic, they're certainly very nice, and i'd have to say so if one of them asked me, but i couldn't help but feel a little bad about how painfully obvious it was that mine was superior. (and so infinitely far more practical (and unique and gorgeous).) have they heard about the diamond mines and the exploitation and the cartel and the blood? do they seriously want to spend that much bank on one little, albeit glimmery, thing, or did they get flawed yellowy ones that i just couldn't see because of the poor lighting? and if they didn't know about the diamond mines and the exploitation and the cartel and the blood, should one tell them and make them sad and guilty about this object they're forever going to associate with their being in love?

professor at (ha ha) b.y.u. (which is better than atkins dying of a heart attack, right?) endorses eating by instinct. which makes a certain amount of sense, and m could have steak and hamburgers and bacon, and i could have full-on bleached-wheat non-soy no-bullshit pasta, which if i was a nutritionist would be the love of my life and which is why thinking about even the South Beach diet almost makes me cry. (look, i said almost. no, i'm fine. go away. *sob* those poor sad people! how can they live?)

Am a little-less-than-half done with painting the computer room grey: the two walls that are left are behind the desk. Which is going to be a pain to move. But the two walls that are done (have all the windows and doors in them, so they don't take as long and) look great. In my opinion. So.

M's car radio was stolen. Out of our driveway.

and we haven't driven the car in months and the inspection's out and it needed an oil change (which, at least, it has now had) so really it isn't that scary. we don't know how long it's been since it was taken. but out of our driveway. not even parked on the street. and the idiot that stole it didn't steal the canoe rack, which is probably worth more. they did a very clean job of taking it out, though, didn't rip anything. didn't break any windows, because (finally!) m doesn't recognize that PEOPLE NEED TO LOCK CAR DOORS, and NOW I AM RIGHT. so it wasn't locked. sitting in the driveway, perfectly still (like a white cat that not even the tip of its tail is twitching), collecting tree pollen and spiders (like a stone lion collecting bird poop and snow, now that i think of it). it's nice to carpool to work. and we could sell it because then if we took the VW to the river and it got stolen/busted into/whatever the insurance people would have to buy us a new car and then we wouldn't have the VW any more, and we wouldn't have to get another VW ever again, or at least not one made in mexico, and that would be great. Since it failed to get a tree falling on it during the not-so-much-hurricane.

that, or i could get better at driving standard. which i think is always going to make me nervous.

am saving this 4 l8r

the point at which something that might clearly be a perfectly fine thing to do, and there are plenty of reasons that it would be okay and not really a bad decision at all to make. and at which the only reason not to do something might be that Certain Parents might be made happy by it is the point where it stops being kiddie rebel-without-a-cause-ness and starts being pathological and unhealthy and i know that those are synonyms and am putting them both in anyway. and pathological in is not a good thing to be. and the kiddie rebel-without-a-cause-ness can be uber and meta and lock horns with being pathological in addition to the Certain Parents and do it even though the Certain Parents might be made happy by it. perverse, but it works. screw you all, i don't care.

also: infp ("the healer"). i never change, either.

You scored higher than 25% on I to E

You scored higher than 34% on N to S

You scored higher than 22% on F to T

You scored higher than 52% on J to P

or, peres <3 sharon, and sharon <3 peres. maybe we're finally getting somewhere, here. liz is very pro "territorial concessions." the two state solution. there is almost hope. but then. the incontrovertible fact that shimon peres and alfred hitchcock have identical profiles.

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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