Please enjoy.
She whispered, so I had to lean in and then ask her to repeat: "Are you ready for Christmas???"
For one thing, it is December 3rd. That's 22 days before Christmas, and I think putting the ham in the oven NOW might be a tad premature. Also, I only celebrate Christmas because of the cultural expectation to see my family and give them stuff now and then. It's a convenient enough occasion to do so, though I must say the travel would be much easier in the summer.
Surely some bank customers are not Christians... so isn't the assumption that "ready for Christmas" is a state I wish to achieve a bit presumptuous? But I went along with it, as she recounted her gift list status, acting as if I could actually afford to buy gifts this year. But then, before I could get the hell out of there she had to ask, "Do you bake, too?"
Yes, I am a woman. Yes, I have on occasion baked things. But this holiday baking subculture is not a part of my life. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it is offensive when someone assumes that just because I'm a white woman in the US I have a baking agenda for December. Well, the bank teller certainly does. I was literally done and backing away as she recounted the six batches of cookies plus xmas morning bread repertoire.
I am really not ready for Christmas.
Besides the obvious financial burden for someone without a real income, I am now sucked in to a North Idaho family extravaganza. If I had work I could claim I could not afford to be in Idaho for a whole week, but as it stands my only possible excuses are sudden illness or a bad attitude.
My cousin (on my dad's side) is paying for a fancy condo on Lake Coeur d'Alene for her mom and sister and their men to stay while they are in St. Maries with her dad's family. There is a sofa bed and free transport for me, but aunt Rosie wants to leave on the 20th and spend one night at the trailer of one of her drinking buddies up in the woods (I'd be on the couch), and now it turns out my mom's family won't be celebrating Xmas until the 26th, when my cousin (on my mom's side) gets back from his wife's family in Montana. And the condo where we are staying is an hour or mor from anywhere on icy, windy roads... and I have to rely on relatives (drunk relatives) to drive me anywhere.
The irony is that neither I nor anyone on either side of my family really cares about celebrating Xmas. Except the cousin who is paying for the condo (she once dragged us to the world's largest Xmas market in Rothenberg, Germany... I had a hangover... we were there for hours).
On the bright side, the condo building has a heated indoor pool and a restaurant with a bar. And I have plenty of books to read.
Since there's a big round number coming up in not much more than a month I've been thinking about what has happened in my life in a DECADE. It turns out quite a lot.
Please enjoy.
I was going to write a novel this month, like everyone else. (I hope someone still reads novels)... Actually I thought I'd finish the one I started last year, which combines a historical lesbian murder mystery with ex-pat magical realism. In Paris. Yeah.
But then 2 weeks ago my former boss called. I stopped working for him in Feb 2008, and he has since hired and fired several replacements, but right now the position is vacant to keep costs down. He needed help writing a proposal for a Microsoft project due in 2 days (how I don't miss those flaming hoops). So I agreed to crank it out for some freelance dollars. And I did, and even went with him to pitch it. All went well, but we didn't win due to the technical complexity... we could have pulled it off, but I am glad not to be working on it. It had a stupid schedule, and I think I already mentioned how I don't miss those flaming hoops.
Meanwhile, he got the opportunity to bid on 23 interactive applications for a museum. I got a copy of the RFP a week ago and agreed to work on this proposal as well... that means basically scoping out each (highly complex) application, budgeting, and a lot of half-sales, half-technical writing... by the 24th.
So all I'm doing, all day and all night, and even on my birthday Monday...is writing proposals. So maybe I'll write a novel some other month.
Last night I had a dream, the second of a new theme. In this dream my grandma (who died of cancer in 1983) has come back to life or reappeared from wherever she'd been hiding. I conjectured perhaps she had been in an induced coma all this time, until they finally cured her. And when she comes back home, my grandpa gets his mind back. This is the new recurring theme. Grandpa Frank has alzheimer's and every time I see him there's a bit less of him there. But in my dream world he goes back to his old grumpy yet good-humored and almost entirely sane self. When grandma comes home.
Their house is the childhood home base that my dreams seem to seek out by default. I never feel safe or happy there in my dreams. There are often problems with the plumbing and the lock on the bathroom door. The main plot point in this particular dream is the appearance of Adolf, one of grandma's long-dead cats. I look out the kitchen window and see him sitting in the middle of the dirt yard where grandpa now keeps his backhoe. I recognize his crooked Hitler mustache. He is bigger and rounder than any non-dream housecat. I announce to grandma that Adolf came home and open the door for him. He rushes inside out of the bitter cold and I sit on the kitchen floor where he uncharacteristically snuggles up on my lap (he was a weird, unfriendly cat). I realize with low-level concern that he is way older than cats are supposed to live. I ask grandma, "When was Adolf born?" She tells me, "45 weeks after your cousin." Even in dream math I realize this is simply not possible. My cousin was born in 1973.... which would make this dream cat over 30 years old. This reasoning launches me toward consciousness, where grandma is still dead and grandpa will never be sane again.
Another theme often found in my dreams: Moving in with my mom in some unfamiliar place that always has complex architecture and more rooms than one would think. The last dream like this was last week, and she and I had moved into an apartment complex much like the one I live in now. In this dream the multitude of rooms we share are spread over two units on opposite sides of the hall (and yet it is still somehow one apartment). It dawns on me that if we divide the space it could be almost like having my own apartment, and I go down the hall to suggest this plan. I find mom has gone insane and is making a variety of loud cat noises. This is not altogether improbable in real life. I try to talk to her quietly and rationally, but she continues to make cat noises. There are a bunch of young women neighbors who come over to help her (wearing fuzzy slippers and pink bathrobes). I decide I can be of no help and lock myself in the other apartment.
from an undead french prostitute. trick? or treat?
yays:
I like Barbara Ehrenreich. A lot. I have always enjoyed reading her ever since I picked up Bait and Switch a few years ago. And I have to admit - as someone who has a violent allergic reaction to The Secret - I am quite tickled by her new book: Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America.
She started her talk at the Seattle Public Library last night with a disclaimer: she is not pro-misery. In fact, one of her previous books focuses on the value of joy in society. She's not on a crusade against happiness, she is on a crusade against delusion. Because when delusion replaces realism on a large scale, bad things happen. Very bad things. Like complete economic meltdowns.
She starts with a personal story. 8 years ago, she was treated for breast cancer, and she was angry. She was angry because this disease is so prevalent and yet we don't know what causes it. (As a first-world disease it has environmental causes, but who is funding research to discover and eliminate those toxins?) She was angry because she had to fight with her insurance company to get coverage. (Health care reform, anyone?) She was angry because chemotherapy is the only option for treatment that sort of works, and it's fucking poison. (Did you know that anyone who survives chemo is at much higher risk for developing other cancers, because chemo is full of carcinogenic toxins?) And she was a bit irked by all the pink ribbons. Not all women like pink stuff.
Her anger was met by the sisterhood of survivors with a cry of: "change your attitude, or else." The popular myth in that community is that only people who think positive get better. If you're angry or depressed because you have a potentially terminal disease, you are apparently at fault if you die from it. Because of your attitude.
After doing a good deal of research (she happens to have a PhD in cellular biology) and surviving herself (despite never once thinking of the disease as a "gift"), she can assure us that this is not the case. And she has heard from a lot of other women with breast cancer who are relieved to finally hear this perspective. Not to mention oncology nurses who are beginning to take a stand against this kind of pink-fuzzy victim blaming.
The only way we are going to cure humanity's ills is by recognizing them as ills and NOT gifts. And then coming together to figure out how to fix them.
The economic collapse way brought to us by positive thinking. Real Estate Value Will Never Fall. Oh, really? Was that ever a realistic thing to think? I Got This Great Mortgage Because I Deserve It And I Will Never Get Laid Off? Ha. I'm glad I rent. The Stock Market Is Real, And Cannot Fail. The stock market, my dear ones... is IMAGINARY. What is real can usually be perceived by the senses. The stock market assigns value to the concept of potential future value. Concepts are very fickle and don't have a family to feed, so I would not trust them.
I am over my head in credit card debt not because I am irresponsible, but because I really believed I would continue to make enough money to pay them off. Optimism. I was wrong, because I did not have all the information. I did not foresee two layoffs in two years (or 3 in 10 for that matter). Now I know better. The mists are beginning to clear for me, and I won't do it again, or at least not in the same way.
I haven't read the book yet, but I am especially looking forward to her analysis of The Secret. That particular kind of magical thinking is somewhat confusing because it sometimes appears to be working. It is in fact true that you are more likely to "manifest" something if you have a clear grasp of what it is. But that isn't any kind of secret, that's just plain old fashioned planning.
Tonight I'm going to see a movie. The one from the previous post, Teenage Dirtbag. Watching the trailer was a bit weird, because the settings are still so familiar, even though this was filmed many years after I went to high school everything looks almost exactly the same. It's playing at Central Cinema, which means beer, wine, and food while I watch. Well, beer OR wine, not both. I haven't been out to a movie since District 9. Which is really not all that long ago.
I'm a matchmaker. I introduced two friends a month or so ago, and next thing I know they are happily dating. I'm very glad for them, but I can't help feel a bit odd about it. Odd because I did not really consider "setting them up." I just sort of did it. And now if things don't work out I am awkwardly in the middle. Let's hope it works out.
I cooked dinner for my ex-husband last night. I like my ex-husband. We get on well, especially considering we divorced each other, but I am still quite glad we divorced each other. I made a yummy potato-leek-spinach soup.
Apartment Therapy time again. Starting next week I'm doing another 8-week apartment cleansing. Hoping to get rid of a lot of stuff. I've recently become even more willing to let go of things as I consider the possibility that I may need to downsize my living situation.
I am re-reorganizing my memoir. I'm also getting much better at actually writing it. It's a complete mess right now, but I feel like I'm getting it on track. Slowly but surely.
I met Dave Eggers. I worked serving fancy toasts at the 826 Seattle Where the Wild Things Are VIP reception on Wednesday. I have been a fan for many years, but I wasn't going to make a point of talking to him. I didn't have anything I wanted to say, in particular. But he thanked us at the end of the night and chatted for a few moments. Which distracted me from the fact that I had to pee and I ended up having a very uncomfortable walk home after drinking water and mint tea all evening. Otherwise, the evening was kind of boring. But then I usually think parties are boring.
I saw Margaret Atwood. I'm not sure what to think about her new novel. It includes hymns. I guess the problem I have with dystopian novels is that they take certain aspects of what could go wrong (or weird) and explore those things thoroughly (rather than resting on the strengths of plot and character). This novel centers around a cult-like "green" religion. Which maybe is supposed to be a positive thing? But what if there were actually smart people in the future (who aren't oppressed to the point of incapacitation)? I'm just saying... the idea that the idiots must win rubs me the wrong way.
Andrew Wyeth tomorrow. I have to see these paintings at SAM before they go away.
My stomach is off. Although listening to Rick Steves talk about Italian food on NPR is making me hungry. I've been having heartburn every day this week, which just makes everything a little bit unpleasant.
I am going to take a bath now. And other useless facts about my day.