This will be only the second time I have ever not traveled for Christmas, or been with family. The first time was in Santa Cruz when my boss would only give me christmas eve and christmas day off work, so I couldn’t travel, so the old man and I stayed in a yurt in Big Sur and that’s when he gave me my subscription to the New Yorker and promised me that he would always be in charge of renewing it, which has been true, thus making it one of the more successful gifts I have ever gotten, not counting things like my entire education.
I remember a time when a subscription to the New Yorker seemed so decadent. When I could not imagine having enough leisure money to spend on such a thing. Now look at me! I’m about to go buy a Dr. Hauschka product, that’s how financially successful I have become.
We are not traveling for Christmas this year and we are SO EXCITED. Not because we don’t want to see my parents/brother, of course, but just, can we please be honest and acknowledge that traveling at Christmas ABSOLUTELY SUCKS??? There’s “weather.” The airport crowds make you want to travel back in a time 1,000 years. You miss your connection. Everyone is stressed. Everyone has way too much carry-on luggage. Not to mention, it’s your first year at a tenure track job and you have so much work to do and the idea of taking a week out of your cherished off-campus time in order to slog across the country with a million other panicking people and shrieking children gives you hives.
I’m sure it will be depressing, as our solo Thanksgiving was also mildly depressing. One of my favorite colleagues got a concussion and can’t travel over the holidays and maybe we will see if he wants to come have milk punches with us and hear stories about my grandmother (HOT INVITE ALERT). He is 24 and is always texting us at 9:30 at night being like “hey I’m about to drive to New York want to come” and we are like “WE ARE LITERALLY IN BED.” Getting a taste of age difference in friendships! I’ve always been intrigued by my parents, who have this huge crew of 30-something friends in their town who they have parties with. One time I was visiting and the door slammed open and it was a dude my age just dropping by with a six pack; apparently this is very normal. I am really into it. But obviously there are times when the door slams open and my parents are in bed asleep at 8:30 p.m. and I wonder if that is awkward or just funny.
To combat the potential future loneliness of our Christmas I went outside and got an old wet stick and stuck it in an empty wine bottle and hung my grandmother’s ornaments on it. The old man proclaimed this to be “fun” and said it had “really made it festive in here.” Right now there is one present underneath it, which is a package from Katy that I know is just my Meredith Monk DVD she borrowed a year ago that I have been bugging her to return, but I will still open it on Christmas Day and be delighted.
I was supposed to go to campus today for a meeting but it got canceled at the last minute, which I love. When I saw the dude’s email appear in my inbox my heart already was leaping in my chest. YES! I pump my fist! Now I don’t have to brave HR to see why my dental insurance hasn’t come through, but can instead put it off another week.
Hell is having to go to HR for any reason
Our washer and dryer broke simultaneously and I don’t even know if they are our responsibility or the landlord’s. I JUST had to call the property manager to get a new toilet put in, so I feel bad about this new turn of events. If it’s not one thing it’s another, I swear.
Living in a house with radiator heating is so rad. I love radiators. I don’t really know why, but I always have. They seem so utilitarian and efficient and brilliant and like they haven’t changed in 100 years. I love sitting in the house and listening to them all starting up–why do they clank and hiss so incredibly loudly? And each one has its own unique sound: the one in the living room makes these sharp, very loud BANGS, while the one in the bedroom makes a progressively higher and higher pitched squealing sound that is terminated by a soft clank, over and over again. I like to stand against the one in the kitchen in the morning when it’s so dark and cold, as I wait for the coffee to be ready. I think of the illustration of the 18th century woman lifting up her dress to warm her butt in front of the fire while she reads Matthew Lewis’s Gothic novel “the Monk.”
“COMFORT”
Not sure how they know that’s what she’s reading, but since I love that book lets just say they are right. “They” being “whoever posted this on the internet where I found it,” I think it was Kate Beaton
It’s glorious here. Every day is beautiful somehow. Whether raining or snowing or glittering in the sunlight it is just weirdly always attractive outside. It’s very strange that a climate so similar to Iowa’s somehow produces a landscape and natural beauty, even just in the color of the sky and the smell of the air, that is significantly different. No one can believe that we lived in Iowa for four years. Least of all us. However, Iowa is where the snoopy was born, so it can’t be all bad. “What’s born?”–snoopy
Snoopy got a bath two days ago and he is just as fine and silky soft as a baby’s butt. He truly looks like a million dollars. I can not believe we have not been approached by a Hollywood Dog Agent offering us a contract for a million dollars if only our snoop’s visage may be used in a commercial for antidepressants
