08 December 2002 ~ Poetic license, and the Blues...

I heard an interesting, and kind of disturbing comment about this website last night via The Grapevine. The comment, as repeated to me (however correctly or incorrectly), was: "Well, Helena's a writer, so I never know how much of the stuff on her website is true and how much is just stories..."

Heh!

This amuses me and bothers me. I think I'd better set the record straight.

Pretty much everything I write in here is true. Or 99% true. If I say, for example, that I'm pregnant, that's true. If I say, for example, that I'm having a bad day, that's true. If I'm bitching about lawyers, that's true.

I try to quote people accurately. If I'm not sure I can get their words verbatim, I usually don't use quotation marks. Either that or I say something like, "well, it was something like that anyway."

If I say something like, "boy, I wish I could shoot people," that isn't true. You kind of have to use your discretion when guessing about THAT sort of thing. If I say, "I'm so mad I could spit nails," um, I'm not REALLY spitting nails. It just means I'm really mad. In 9th-grade-English-class terms, things like "spitting nails" are called hyperboles. Sometimes I use hyperboles. Generally, when I'm talking about committing violence or vandalism, it's just a hyperbole. Or an exaggeration, in other words. Generally, when I'm talking about having lots of promiscuous sex, or running away to Iowa, or whatever, I'm not REALLY gonna do it. Those things are exaggerations.

Heh!

Apparently, at least one of my regular readers honestly thought that Jake's legal problems and me being pregnant were some sort of poetic license.

ALL I can say to that is that truth is stranger than fiction. I may be a bright person, but I'm not NEARLY creative enough to come up with most of the events that happen in my life. I'm not NEARLY creative enough to invent such characters! I'm not nearly creative enough to play games of make-believe that are anything like the goings-on of the these journal entries. Uh... I appreciate the compliment that you think I AM that creative, but I assure you, truth is stranger than fiction, and truth is much more creative than me.

Heh! Poetic license!

I woke up feeling bummed out today. I watched a movie. I listened to depressing music. And even though the skies are blue outside, it's the kind of day that makes me want to stay inside drinking hot cocoa and write depressing love letters. The kind of day that makes me want to stay in bed all day, covering myself up with blankets and watching bad television.

It's been nearly a year since I moved to Olympia. I think that's really getting to me. For various reasons. I've been thinking about the Christmas lights on Washington Street. And snow. I still pretty much hate Binghamton, but I can't imagine having Christmastime in any place other than upstate New York. It won't snow in Olympia. There won't be a tree in my apartment. I'll probably have dinner at Denny's, alone with all the other alone-at-Christmas people. That quiet, sad, nostalgic, snowflakey, dreariness is really kind of necessary sometimes. Like, at Christmastime. Where will I go, in Olympia, on Christmas Eve, to hear a church choir sing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"? Who will I make hot cocoa with, and cuddle up to keep out the dreariness? What will I do without a dog to get into the Christmas stockings and throw up all over the rug? What will I do without a dog to bark at the Christmas lights?

Christmas has always been a fairly depressing day for me. I eat a lot of chocolate early in the morning, and an hour later, the sugar-high ends. I always get lots of great presents, but once they're all opened, there are no surprises and it's just a matter of recycling the pretty paper. And it all seems like a huge waste: the shopping, the making, the wrapping, the giving, the giggling. The next day, there's always a snowstorm or a sinus infection, or something depressing. Everybody stays home. Reading the new books, and trying on the new clothes, and staring at the wall. The floors are cold. New socks don't help. The phone doesn't ring. Traffic grinds to a halt. All my friends are out of town, with their families. And I'm home, and nothing is really all that special. I don't get the joy of seeing people for the first time in ages. I get the joy of sitting at home and staring at the walls while the Christmas lights flicker and remind me I'm hungry and I ought to clean.

For some reason, I feel like I miss that.

I miss David's hazelnut-white-chocolate thingy that he made me for Christmas every year. I managed to duplicate the recipe, but this will be the first Christmas in five years I haven't had somebody to make it for me.

I miss the bleakness. Christmastime is one of the only times Binghamton seems to admit its innate bleakness and actively fight against it. The cheery lights, the carols, the candies. Christmas is Binghamton's time to say, "yes, everything in the world sucks, but we have lights on Washington Street, and the snow might keep us indoors for the rest of our lives in cold, miserable boredom, but at least we've got cocoa and Lifetime movies." It's kind of like a song by Low. I imagine that all of Low's music was written during an eternally-long blizzard. It sounds resigned to snow drifts and cold floors, loneliness and boredom, plows and insane relatives... It also sounds as though they're going to sing about things anyway, and drink cocoa. THAT, to me, is Christmastime. And Olympia is, to borrow a Robbinsian phrase, just too damned vivid for all of that.

I want a new notebook for Christmas. And a big, big mug, and a big spoon. And a big package of hot cocoa. And a red candle. And a hardwood floor. And Low's new album. And Christmas lights to drape around my apartment; blue ones like David used to have in his apartment. Oh, and cookies. I guess I'll make my own this year. And I'll eat them all myself.

If Jake's out of jail by Christmas, it's likely I won't be allowed to see him. If he's not, I might spend Christmas with his family. But regardless, I will be sad. And not a good kind of sad, like Christmas usually is for me. Not sad like being trapped in a snowstorm. It won't snow here. Just sad.

I've gotten three Christmas cards already. I think it was that third one that prompted the homesickness.

I have this desire to go to Burger King and eat a whopper with cheese. I'm trying to ignore this desire because BK is simply evil. Tonight I'll make myself cheeseburgers. For now, I'm going to go make some cocoa.

There are other things, too... Other things that are bothering me... Other anniversaries... Ways my life could have turned out... Oh gahd, sometimes I'm so happy, and sometimes when the sky is blue and I can see the mountain, I'm so full of hope that things are progressing in the right direction... But today... I don't know. It's a good day for the Blues.

~Helena*