Tag Archives: xmas

christmas 2.0

first dinner (in the dining room)

Kev helped me clean the rest of the house.

We rigged the dining room table base with a temporary top and did a quick run to Target and Home-Depot for some things.

What was once a useless room holding bookshelves, a topless table and a cluttered desk is now an actual dining room. Sure, we desperately need a credenza and there’s a bare wall screaming for a painting… but – it’s a room with a purpose now nonetheless.

Chad’s flight was delayed but arrived eventually.

We picked up dinner (the best Chinese carry-out in St. Louis) and headed home.

Dinner
Presents
Christmas Jazz
Schmoopy Schnogling.

Merry Christmas…

Should blog about this – this was worth remembering.

finish

den done at last

6 coats of polyurethane….
20 sand paper pads…
3 vacillations on ceiling color.
5 of the loneliest uncomfortable days of recent recollection.

and that damn room is DONE!

Thanks toandwho talked my ear off, (and let me talk theirs off in return) on the phone to ease my stir-craziness of the week.

Picked up Kevin at the airport that evening…

Although I’ve been updating him on the phone through the week – he seemed genuinely surprised at the finished room.

Sat up late and caught up on all the news from his family in Ohio…. I let him open one present… Dragon’s Lair (the 1983 original) – ported over to DVD… Still near impossible to play – but he was thrilled to own a piece of video game history.

One more Day – and everyone will be home…

Christmas 2.0 will be tomorrow!

*not blogging.

shutdown and reboot

reboot my mind

I awoke with a mild headache… Thanks Jack.

Coffee, deeply missing the guys, the empty house, rewinding and trying to analyze the previous night…. I decompressed… Then shut down.

I went back to sleep.

I woke up… deeply missing the guys… sick of the empty house… rewinding and trying to analyze the previous night…. I decompressed again… Then shut down.

Third boots the charm… what was needed for my brain to catalog and everything and put on the back-processing burner.

Given the choice to sit and feel sorry for myself or bitch smack the dark cloud attempting to loom over my head – I chose the later… Time to make my own Christmas.

I re-caffeinated… Put on my favorite jammy pants, peeled off my t-shirt, put on a santa elf hat, cranked trance music loud enough to shake the house and got to cleaning, painting and dancing so furiously and with so much passion that I exercised my demons.

It will be days before I sit down to not blog.

ex-mas


Snane and his new boyfriend and pet mopAwoke to the smell of cooking bacon…. Dad fried up what looked to be an entire pig in celebration of my sleeping over.

We had a leisurely morning, drinking coffee and shooting the shit before I had to pack up and head out back to the house to feed the cats and then off to my mom’s apartment.

Mom had the usual spread out… cookies, cheeses, turkey, ham, schmears and mountain of homemade lavash. (a flat cracker-type bread, encrusted with seeds).

The afternoon saw a series of visitors… My uncle, normally abrasive and ill-mannered, was friendly and behaved like someone who was actually family.

Mary, (who’s mother’s funeral I went to the other night), also showed up.

Gift exchange was good… I scored a kitty-cat clock (the kind with the moving tail and eyes) – and a fireplace set (too victorian and fussy for our tastes, so it will be going back and exchanged for a simpler model).

So mom doesn’t quite get my tastes in interior drek… a forgivable error.. A bigger stretch is understanding what happened that evening..

While outside talking on the cell phone with Kevin, my ex pulled up and jumped out of an SUV with some other guy and a little creature resembling a muppet.

What… The…. Fuck….

I ended it with Shane 5 years ago. It was, by far, the most unsuccessful and unhealthy relationship I’ve ever endured.

It’s interesting to note that Shane is the only ex of mine that I don’t maintain regular, friendly contact with.

It’s ironic to note that Shane and my mother never stopped being “buddies”.

I don’t mind so much that they’re shopping buddies.. Shane gives my mother the attention which I, according to her, withhold so selfishly.

Not having a grasp on how I like to decorate my home is one thing… not having the god-given common sense not to invite your son’s loathed ex over for Chirstmas day? – well..

I have to write it off to menopause , paxil and a genuine absence of thought… because if I didn’t it would imply a vicious flavor of mind-game playing that I would not tolerate from anyone…

Quite out of character for me, I raided my mother’s alcohol stash. (I’ve had a genetic resonant gift for finding where she hides the hard stuff since I was 18).

Jack Daniels numbed my senses as the ex and his new boyfriend cooed over one another and their little dog.

I was cordial to a fault… and out stayed them – enjoying Mary’s company when not being upstaged by the smoldering young bear couple.

I slugged down some water to sober up and headed home.

Christmas, the holiday I remember as a child, is dead.

This is not a blog.. it’s a requiem.