With the arctic tundra that is outside my door right now, I'm not leaving this house unless it's necessary. I'll take care of puppysitting duty and come right back home. (Puppysitting will look a lot like a dog huddled at my feet while I plead with her to just pee so we can go back inside.) No social invitations will be accepted today, sorry.
I've taken a couple days into the new year to be still and tidy up the remnants of what felt like weeks of holiday celebrations. It was a flurry of lunch dates, brunch dates, family dinners, neighborhood gatherings, catching up over a beer, and errands. I saw old friends, family from every branch, the babies I'm going to teach bad words to in a few years, and lots of puppies who are the best company because they don't care about your marital status. Here are a few highlights of my holiday season...
--Gossiped with one cousin about another until the person in question walked by. First cousin changed the subject by inquiring about a fake date I never went on and asking how I felt about pursuing another long distance relationship.
--Declared an Old Maid Corner during dinner with the other unmarried cousin, successfully avoiding all questions about our futures except one meaningful glance when the aunts talked about babies. We threw the just-married cousin under that bus.
--Broke my streak of striking out.
--Competed for Best Aunt award.
--Played Robot Shots. This is Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots where the loser takes a shot of peppermint schnapps.
--Walked into a room, heard "health care" and "birth control", and backed out very slowly and escaped.
--Won THIS in an intense gift exchange game.
--Revived my career as a Rock Band drummer.
--Gave no shits about football. Spent one unprecedented afternoon watching hockey.
--Lamented the popularity of the Christmas proposal. Why is this a thing?
--Took peppermint bark everywhere because man, that recipe makes a lot. You've been warned.
Overall, I'd say the holidays were a success around here. How about yours?
I went out with my niece and nephew this weekend. Yes, they're adults. My niece is a new 21, so it was the first time we've gone out. The three of us, along with their significant others, started out night at an arcade. (It's this bar that has a whole arcade game section. It's fine, if you're into air hockey.) The boys have this definite bond and ditched us immediately. That left us to judge the people there on dates--a surprisingly high number.
Fortunately, the arcade didn't last long. We headed out to a different bar, which none of us had been to before. I started the night with some random sitting at the bar staring at me. A while later, he was hovering sort of near our table. Checking facebook on his phone. The five of us exchanged looks...do you know him? What's his deal? Nope, never seen him before. After a few minutes, my niece said, "Hi, are you single?" He looked a little startled and said yes. "She's single, too." She pointed at me. He looked away and my niece informed him that was rude. He turned back and put his phone away, said hi. "Amanda, he's tall. Stand up and see how tall he is." He introduced himself to us and sort of joined our table.
Conversation was...sort of awkward? We chatted, but I felt no problem abandoning him to get up and dance. He hung around with us all night. He asked me several times how I was getting home, if I lived far, and informing me that he lived five minutes away from the bar. I GET IT, ok?
Outside the bar at the end of the night, he asked if he could take me to dinner. I passed on giving him my number. He's a 22 year old European man here for his job. 22. He's a baby. He was cute but if I'm honest, I'm not sure what we'd talk about over dinner. He's the kind of guy you make out with in some corner of the bar and then sneak away from, leaving not even your lost shoe for him to track you down. Thanks, that was fun. (You can judge all you want, but at least I'm honest about it.) And I wasn't going to make out with him in front of my niece and nephew. I'm not exactly a conventional aunt to them, but that's a line I'm going to leave uncrossed.
OH--nephew's wife also tried to hook me up with the bouncer. Meeting the 6'4" wall of a man, he looked me up and down twice before telling me I was a beautiful girl. (Surprisingly, I was not charmed by the action.) Then asked for my number. Pass, thank you.
Laughing over pancakes at IHOP after last call, I was glad I hadn't gone home with the 22 year old or the bouncer. It was, however, worth it to watch my niece act as my wingwoman.
Guess what I did this weekend?
If you didn't guess "attend a wedding" then you must be new here. Because that's all I do. It was actually a 50th anniversary vow renewal for an aunt and uncle. And it was actually a pretty awesome time. Vow renewals are the way to go--they're so much better than weddings. It was way less sappy and a lot shorter and no bouquet toss or any of that nonsense. But there was still a bar, good food, cake, and loads of my cousins who are the greatest in the world. All the parts of weddings that are fun but none of the crap. (Still have to get fancy, though. No yoga pants allowed. Not that I asked. It was implied.)
We all got together the night before the ceremony, since so many family members came in from out of town. My aunt brought a home movie she recorded at another family party in 1994. (I was 10 years old.) It was...well, I think we can all just admit that the early 90s were a rough time. We saw a lot of shoulder pads and a lot of very large glasses. I regret nothing about my choice of dress, I remember loving that dress and thinking I was pretty fashion forward.
All the cousins in my generation crowded around a dining room table, away from the older and younger generations, beers in hand. One of them asked about my boyfriend, and I explained that we are no longer together. She asked what happened and I tried to use polite grown-up conversation words to describe the situation. It's a hard task for me. After I finished, she said, "Well...that sounds like...a dick thing to do." I breathed a sigh of relief that cousins can be counted on to be awesome. "YES it was a major dick move. Thank you." All the others nodded their heads and murmured "dick move..." in agreement.
The rest of my weekend was full of meetings but I have serious issues and love things like that. On Saturday morning, everyone gave their status reports on various projects. Coffee in hand, I listened as B reported that we have a potential director for something coming up in the future. Without looking up from my notes I asked if he was single and attractive. It was an instinctive move, back to the single person I used to be. And it felt awesome. It felt awesome to not think about my ex for once, who still invades thoughts more often than I care to admit. Maybe this normal feeling will stick. We'll see...
Yesterday had a high level of suck potential.
I spent the afternoon and evening at the wedding of one of my cousins--one I grew up with--and the awesome woman who married him. I actually do love them both and think they're a great couple. However, there was all the possibility of Terrible Wedding Things. Obnoxious, long toasts, bouquet toss, having a great many family members in one place asking about your job and relationship status. (Unemployed and single, thank you for asking.) So I went into the day skeptical and hoping for the best, as with all weddings.
Yesterday was kind of a backslide for me. Before I left for France, I was just starting to get myself back. I hate that my relationship ending brought out this terrible part of me, but it did. I'd been dealing with it and going to France did a lot for me. It was a wonderful and necessary experience. (Lots to blog about...stay tuned.) Not that it was the escape from home that I needed, but being at summer camp and talking to people who knew me when I was wholly myself and people who didn't know me at all but didn't see all the terrible parts that came out recently and leaving bullshit behind so I could run around outside and play pranks and hang out with cool kids...that was the part I needed.
It's nice to be back. But yesterday brought out the ugly things again. I just kept imagining these horrible scenarios with my family at the wedding...talking about my failed relationship that, hearing their opinions of my failed relationship...I'll stop there. By the time I got dressed I was steeling myself to be angry. When my dress didn't fit the way it used to, I totally melted down.
I am not proud of those moments.
Then I spent the day with my family. They mean well and they're RIDICULOUS in a really awesome way and sometimes I forget that. We ate good food and everyone had a Tom Collins in honor of my grandfather (I learned that was his drink of choice) and danced and there was no bouquet toss and instead of talking about my breakup we ended up talking about setting me up with single men. (Oh yeah...I'm dating now, apparently?) I left there feeling like the person I prefer to be.
Today found me with an emotional/maybe some gin/dancing/not enough water hangover...which is vastly different from and much better than a straight up drinking hangover. Mostly it means wiped out and fighting off self-loathing, to be honest. I allowed myself to skip working out and instead cleaned. I'm combatting the urge to go back to bed by washing my sheets. Sometimes it's the best you can do.
I'm trying to do better.
Stick around for some Paris updates. Here's a preview:
My mom taught preschool for most of my life. (She's retired now.) She doesn't swear and spells words out if she's quoting someone. She lets the words slide from her kids, but there is an eye roll and sometimes she sends out a warning. She sent me regular care packages while I was away at college, and always sends me emails when I'm working at summer camp. She has talked me down from many a panic.
The summer before my junior year, the year I spent abroad in Ireland, my mom was getting rid of some of my dad's old clothes. We're talking stuff from the '70s and '80s here--Dad does not regularly clean his closet. I found this great blue fuzzy sweater and despite some signs of aging, it fit me perfectly. I took it and I guess she didn't realize it, but I took it abroad with me. It's in a lot of my pictures from that year. The summer after that, showing Mom all my travel pictures, she realized that the sweater had traveled a lot too. It was not a popular choice, apparently.
Senior portraits rolled around during spring of my final year at Smith. Consulting Mom over the phone on wardrobe, she said, "As long as you don't wear that blue sweater!"
There was no way I had considered that option. However...
I took my portrait, normal sweater and pearl earrings. It's not bad, actually. I got home from my session and popped into a friend's room. "I need you to take my picture in 5 minutes." She was confused but not entirely surprised--this kind of weird request was not unusual, from myself or any of our friends. I met her in front of the trees by our house, camera in hand and blue sweater on. My hair, makeup, and jewelry were still photo appropriate. "Amanda, just pay the portrait fee if you want your picture in the yearbook. It's not that expensive."
"Oh," I replied grinning. "I just got back from that. This one...is for my mom." She realized what I was wearing and shook her head. I posed exactly as the photographer had told me before, mimicking my actual portrait pose. (You can tell I'm sort of laughing in this one, though.) After a quick trip to CVS, I called my sister. Proofs from the real photographer would be sent to my school mailbox but also my home address--the people with money. I told Twin to intercept this letter at any cost. My father was brought into the fold for this. I cropped my newly printed picture and scrawled some letters and numbers on the back, as I'd seen from older proofs. A quick note to my mom asking for her opinion was written and my pictures was in the mail.
She called me. "Of course I like it, you look lovely in--wait. What...are you kidding me?" My father and Twin, unable to hold it in any longer, sang like birds and gave up the real proofs.
But guess what? I learned all this behavior somewhere, so Mom was not to be outdone. I received a care package not long after the picture incident. Some cookies and stickers she'd seen at the store. And a wrapped gift. A note about keeping pictures nice and showing them off. My mom had taken my fake picture and blown it up, then framed it--in a frame of her own design. Remember when I said my mom taught preschool? This picture frame was a hot mess. She hot glued all manner of trinkets and crap around the frame. Pom poms, seashells, a plastic bunny, buttons, sequins, pine cones, dyed macaroni...it's ridiculous. We cried laughing, passing this monstrosity around the dinner table. A nearby first year, unaware of the backstory, awkwardly tried to find a compliment for my mom's talent. I loved the mental image of my mother sitting at a small table in her classroom, glue gun in hand, making her 21 year old daughter a gift. I imagined her telling her friends what she was doing, laughing at what I'd done to deserve it. That frame still sits on a shelf, displayed proudly. (Lots of pieces have fallen off, actually. I need to do some repair work.)
My mom is awesome.
**Yes, I still have the sweater.
