How you know when it's time to take the Christmas tree down: you step into the living room and discover that the cats, in some sort of doomsday metaphor, have gotten to the beautiful feathered tree top angel, and she is now wounded on the carpet in a pile of down.
For the record, I have no idea why the "comment" link now reads "poseur." I assume it's French; I think you might poser une questionne. Or that might be complete frenglish--it's been awhile since college.
More thrashing around on the Eightfold Path tonight. I don't know. Is it possible to approach spiritual practice from a deductive standpoint? Inductive/deductive doesn't quite apply here--what I mean is, can one go from practice to belief or does the belief have to be there first to guide the practice? The problem is, I've never been very good at the latter, so the former may be necessary. Thrash.
While I was spending a pleasantly lethargic afternoon yesterday, alternately futzing around in the kitchen and lying on the floor reading, I came across a couple of quotes that made me sit up (not literally--please) and muse about the way the world shrinks when you're not looking. The book was Arkansas, a set of three supremely indifferent novellas by David Leavitt. I must have bought it at some book sale or other, but have absolutely no memory of the purchase. The inside flap summarizes one of the novellas as "a writer [experiencing] literary rejuvenation when he agrees to write term papers for UCLA undergraduates in exchange for sex," though, which is exactly the kind of sentence that would make me shell out for a used book. Anyway, moot point, I bought the book. The third novella, "Saturn Street," is about...some guys named Phil and something else--I dunno, they're not very engaging. But at one point Phil and the other guy are watching an old Star Trek episode on tv, and Phil says, "Now I've got the whole series on video. Not that I'm a Trekkie or anything. I mean, I don't go to the conventions, or read those fanzines where Spock goes into Vulcan heat on a desert planet and Kirk has to offer up his butt so he won't die. I just like the show." And I, of course, was all, "Hey! I like 'we're stranded in the wilderness and must keep each other warm!'" But it was kind of weird, to see slash fandom referenced in print, in a book with copyright date 1997.
Another strange quote was the one referencing the "Goofus and Gallant" column from the old Highlights for Children magazine: "Gallant asks, 'Am I hurting you?'" "Goofus says, 'Shut up and take every inch of it.'" This whacked me out because my buddy D, he of the low tolerance for incompetent waitstaff, has written a completely hysterical Goofus/Gallant slash story that, sadly, isn't currently available online. I believe it was "Goofus is Horny, Gallant is Aroused," and it was comic genius, and I am desperately curious if D had read this book before writing his story. With luck, I will see him tomorrow and can ask.
Aside from dozing and lying on the floor, I've been watching a lot of cartoons, because I got three DVDs of Beavis and Butthead for Christmas. I love Beavis and Butthead to a frightening extent. I can do the Beavis laugh. I'm wearing a Cornholio shirt right this second. And guess what? My favorite episode ever, even better than the one where B&B get speech therapy ("Butthead, you try making the S sound!" "Uhhhhh...first could you, like, lean way over and say it again?") is on one of the DVDs. It's the nosebleed episode--summary: Beavis gets a nosebleed--and it damn near made me cry with laughter the first time I ever saw it. I have a crude streak a mile wide ("My people, we have but one bunghole!"), and Beavis and Butthead are right smack in the middle of it.
This has also been a week for weird nightmares. I don't usually have an overabundance of threatening dreams, but this week I've had several. There was the ZombieVision one, a fairly standard horror trope where I would look at people and the image would flicker back and forth between normal and bloody and monstrous, and I didn't know which was real. This nightmare was memorable mostly for the scene in which I'm riding in a car and look over at the side of the highway to see a small pit barbecue joint with outdoor picnic tables. Seated on the wooden benches are four or five zombie families eating "lunch," and drooping limply over each table is the corpse of a golden retriever. When I refocus and look again, horrified, ZombieVision is gone, and it's just a regular barbecue joint.
Then there was the one where I'm back in my old neighborhood in Florida, except it's now biodomed and controlled by pod people. I manage to wriggle through a hole in somebody's fence and escape, but not before the sickening dream-running sequence, where I'm racing for my life but my legs don't work and the horizon doesn't get any closer but the pod people do.
There was also being stuck inside a strip mall at dusk as winged demons smash through the glass windows to carry off people in their claws. I was grabbing victims by the legs to drag them back down, but the demons were strong enough to lift multiple people.
Really, it's been a good vacation so far. I don't know what's up with the subconscious. Probably needs more exercise.
Today: marathon cleaning. Spent almost the entire day sweeping and vaccuming and mopping and chipping away at the layer of limestone that had formed around our bathroom sink, so the house would, according to the Hubster, "look nice for Jesus."
We went to mass this evening, possibly the first time the Hubster's been with me since we got married. The priest was Father H, a cheerful, doddering old man in his mid-eighties at least, the kind of guy where you just pray that he doesn't keel over before the end of the homily. I like him, although I hold my breathe every time I have to watch him mount the steps to the altar. After mass we drove around town looking for an open restaurant, mock-yelling at each other that we'd be forced to make our new Christmas tradition the partaking of the Holy Sourdough Jack Burger and the Blessed Side of Fries. That was not the case, thankfully.
I spent much of the evening cooking, and am now preparing to flop on the couch with a glass of eggnog and get misty-eyed over the season.
Merry Christmas to you who celebrate it. Good night.
Fluffed yesterday's update because I fell asleep on the floor at 9:30 last night. The Hubster got me into bed about 12:30, and I slept like a dead person until 9:30 this morning.
So I just got a call from my dad, an event I basically forced by calling and yelling into his answering machine: "Why is it that you do not call your daughter who loves you?! Phone tag! You're it!" which maybe wasn't the most mature way to handle the situation, but I hadn't spoken to him since July. One of us had to break the cycle of avoidance. Anyway, my dad says, "I've been meaning to call you, because a couple of weeks ago I googled my name and about a page and a half into the results I came across your name, and when I clicked the link I got directed to this website--" (Me: Ohgod, what's out there under my real name--) "--called RATales, and you wrote a horror story about a television character?" Me: (Oh thank God) "Yeah! Didja like it?"
Well. He didn't really answer that, being too busy conveying "amused yet vaguely appalled." But if he didn't, I don't know why the hell not, because it's a good story and he likes my writing style. And there's nothing even vaguely sexual about it, so I don't have to kill myself.
Still. Note to self: get in touch with your pseudonym.
Christmas Juggernaut, indeed. I have about four thousand more gifts to buy, wrap, and mail before next week, decorations to hang, and if I don't call or email some (okay, 99%) of my family members and express holiday goodwill they're going to disown me. Have massive guilt hangover as we speak.
Good things: our facility got a big chunk of change from someplace--a grant, I think--to buy gifts for our low income clients and their siblings. Most of my caseload now has a sack of wrapped presents waiting to go home with them next week. Ever seen a five-year-old spontaneously combust with excitement? It can be a beautiful sight.
The Hubster and I watched almost all of The Godfather on tv tonight, and he's now shuffling around the house mumbling about how back in Sicily he used to get respect. I'm tempted to have him whacked.
The Christmas pageant was breathtakingly cute, and JC did really well considering he was sitting on stage for half an hour. And EP and I have a whole new world of respect for this family, because the commute from JC's school to our facility took an hour and twenty minutes. One way. With absolutely no traffic.
Rainy and cold again today, and the dark seems to come earlier every evening. Days like these make me think of Alaska and wonder when the sun goes down up there.
I might be spending tomorrow evening on the road, heading to a smallish town about an hour north to attend one of my kids' Christmas pageants. I've only recently begun seeing JC, but EP, the occupational therapist, has seen him for a couple of months now and thought that it would mean a whole lot to the family if we took them up on their invitation. Mean a lot to the parents, anyway. JC himself is autistic as all get-out, and will not necessarily be able to flex his routine enough to handle therapists out of context. The Hubster, when I told him about it, said, "This is isn't going to end up as another revival, is it?" I was like, "No, certainly--hmm."
This is, after all, the Saved family on my caseload. This is the mom who, when JC whined, "I can't do it!" during my language evaluation, said, "Oh honey, yes you can. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you." I don't say this judgementally--I have yet to see this family act in any way besides loving acceptance--but there is strong potential for "do you accept" here. Well. If I go, it'll be with EP, who's Seventh Day Adventist, so she'd be at least as squirmy as I would.
Job update: boss told us today that they're only going to hire for a part time speech therapist to replace JD, since my caseload is terminally low. Um, great? I get to stuff every available hole in my schedule with JD's kids, and then watch them fumble around trying to find someone who'll work the remaining odd hours?
Sigh. I shouldn't be complaining here--a full caseload means job security and less bitching about wanting me to shift my hours to later. I'm just dissatisfied in general.
I was slug-like again today, although when I woke up I had plans to shower and run and maybe do a little Christmas shopping for the Hubster. Granted, I did eventually bathe, and there was no way I was going outside to run in the rain with the temperature in the 50s (okay, that's not really cold, but it's chilly enough to be unpleasant when you're damp), but the rest of the day passed in a blur of mediocre fanfic. There are issues at work here, I think. Probably I should address them.
We also did not purchase a Christmas tree this weekend like we had planned. I'm a little leery of getting a tree this year, actually. I keep forgetting that we've only had Mr. Sinatra since February, so every time I think about a tree I'm lulled into this false sense of security that, no, Mr. S. won't graze on it and then puke needles in every corner of the house; he did just fine last year--oh wait. And Mr. S. isn't even the one I'm really worried about--I forsee many happy hours of plucking Zebadiah out of the tattered remains of my heirloom Christmas tree ornaments, or possibly out of the light fixtures after he scales the tree. I mean, he's young and reckless enough that I can shut him in the fridge and he thinks it's a fun adventure, like, maybe next time you could leave the lid off the margarine, huh? So he certainly isn't going to show any self-restraint around indoor vegetation.
Oh well. I guess since we're not going home this year, we have to make our own Christmas traditions.
Having spent the entire day in front of the computer in my pajamas, I now have about an hour to get ready for a formal dinner. The Hubster's getting recognized at some annual dinner of the yacht club (I know, shut up) he belongs to, so I have to bathe and iron and try to make my hair look passable. And eat something, because I'll probably be desperate for a glass of wine the instant we get there, but I'd rather not spend the entire evening plastered.
Hmm. Now that I think about it, it seems like the other time we went to this particular restaurant, back when the tech industry was in less dire straights and the Hubster's company could afford to spread largesse, I sampled the wine and later was violently ill. As in, I really think there was something wrong with the wine, because damn. Obviously I'd like to avoid a repeat performance, even if I will be surrounded by a bunch of drunken sailors.
I went--brace yourselves--window shopping with the Hubster tonight. We were up on the swanky north side of town having dinner and afterwards felt like a little Christmas shopping, which quickly devolved into wandering around Pier One and Pottery Barn exclaiming over the cute stemware. I love to visit those kinds of home furnishings stores--I hardly ever see anything I'd want in my own home, and even if I did I would never actually purchase goods there because you just know that you'd somehow be contributing to the destruction of a third-world country, but they do have darling little napkin rings. I'm so bourgeois.
It had been almost a month since I'd seen some of my Thursday kids, what with various absenses and the holiday. Today was like a mini-reunion--one where I spent most of the festivities peeling limpet-kids off of myself as they tried to scale my torso under the guise of hugging.
That is some spectacularly ill-conceived imagery. What I mean is, it's always nice to know you've been missed.
I've got an augmentative communication eval tomorrow that I'm stressing over. Wish me luck.
Was visited several times today by the client cancellation fairy, which meant I finished a bunch of paperwork that had been hanging over my head.
Hung out with church group and ate really good Chinese food.
Had marathon phone counseling session with LG, in which I practiced both emotional engagement and loving detachment. I feel pretty good about the conversation, although the autistic part of my brain now wants to go roll around in a huge pile of bus schedules until I get the icky social germs off.
My stomach's been jumping around all day, along with the tight throat and the shakiness. The pressing question on my mind right now: Antidepressants--not working so well, or keeping me from total raving lunacy?
Another advantage to Thanksgiving dinner: you can have a First Annual Thanksgiving Leftover Extravaganza party the week after. This went down tonight at our house with some success. Or, well, a little bit of success. I have to say, as a ploy to make people eat random crap out of our fridge it was remarkably successful. As a social event, perhaps not so much. The party wrapped by 7:45pm, leaving me enough time to arrange the pillows on the futon to my exact specifications for Smallville rerun watching, but hey, we have a lot more empty tupperware now. Almost makes up for the fact that I didn't get home from work until almost 7pm. (Me, stuck in SUV logjam behind hundreds of drivers who have apparently never before seen a police car or minor traffic accident, ever: "I reek of playdoh and I'm late to my own party! You people suck!")
I am a creature of sloth. I bought new running shoes Friday in an attempt to quit fucking up my IT band so I will not have to switch sports, and when I ran in them Friday evening they were fantastic. Soft, squooshy in the right places, and so very light...had only a minor, minor pulling sensation in my glute as opposed to right hip and knee pain. And there was a moment, about two-thirds of the way through the run, when I looked down and realized that my stride felt even. I have a noticeably uneven gait when I run--either the cause or the result of the IT band problems--which shows up as a sort of weird rolling limp in my stride. I'm aware of the instability, but haven't found a way to correct it yet. And I think the problem runs deeper than footwear, but I was encouraged by even a temporary abatement.
You would think with all that positive experience I would have, say, put the shoes on again, wouldn't you? Well, by golly, you'd be wrong. Instead, I have entertained myself by practicing the All Stuffing, All the Time diet and lying around in a bloated carbohydrate stupor. I've copped out of the marathon this year--the plan is to do the half marathon instead, since I like that distance a lot better and the training probably won't injure or kill me--but if I don't get out on the road again soon, my muscles may atrophy completely.
It's the first of December, which means I'm attempting to kick a new holiday tradition into gear. Last year I participated in Jette's Holidailies, a daily December update diary ring, with enjoyable results, so I thought I'd try it again. Unfortunately, for some reason this year the rules prohibit weblogs (sites using weblog scripts are okay, though), so I'm participating informally. If it sounds interesting, you can go to Celluloid Eyes over there in the sidebar and find more information. Jette might have a graphic up on the front page by now; if not, she talks about the diary ring in her last November entry.
Yesterday we inaugurated one of our family's yearly holiday traditions: the annual throwing down of the seasonal beverage gauntlet.
Me, greeting the Hubster at the entrance to the kitchen: "Now, I bought you something when I was at the HEB today, but before I tell you what it is I want to have a little discussion about my expectations."
The Hubster, lighting up: "Eggnog! You bought eggnog!"
Me, placing restraining hand in the center of his chest: "Yes! I bought a half gallon of eggnog, and--"
The Hubster, shouldering by me with glazed eyes and slack jaw: "Egg...nog..."
Me: "--I expect to get more of that half gallon than the four ounces I already drank! Is that clear?"
The Hubster, slavering: "Beer stein full of eggnog..."
Me, leaping to guard the refrigerator door, forefingers raised in front of me in a makeshift cross: "Back! Back!"
