Gahd, I feel like such crap... I can't explain why, exactly. Nothing specifically hurts. I just woke up a couple of days ago without an appetite, and the thought of eating or drinking anything sort of repulses me. I know enough about my body to understand that when it doesn't want to eat, I shouldn't force it to eat. And when it wants something peculiar to eat, I'd better feed it just that, even if it's something freaky, like mangoes.
So, I haven't eaten much of anything since the day before yesterday, and that's making me feel even shittier: tired, mostly, and low blood-pressure, etc... I don't know. I just feel gross.
Christmas was pleasant. The Jensens gave me a hair dryer (probably so I'll quit sneaking upstairs in the middle of the night to use theirs while they're asleep), and some fuzzy pajamas. My mom sent me a cashmere sweater that looks and feels as if it were tailored specifically for me. And my youngest brother sent me a Pink Floyd t'shirt, with freaky illustrations from "The Wall" on it. I'm not really much into Pink Floyd anymore (I mean, I love their music and all, but I'm busy listening to other things now), but it's a cool shirt anyway.
I gave Jake the king-sized blanket I've been crocheting for the past, like, year. I looked at it one day, and realized that I'd been using a combination of my favorite colors, and his. I also gave him a pair of boxers that reads "If you can read this, your too close" across the front. Jake's spelling really isn't as bad as he thinks it is, but he gets the your/you're thing fucked up all the time, and I'm mean to him about it. I also gave Jake's nephew, the Kiddo, a plastic box of creepy-looking Star Wars creatures. To the best of my knowledge, everybody was pleased.
After we'd opened all the presents, and lain around awhile, digesting turkey and biscuits ("buns" to Yankees; "biscuits" to Southerners), Jake's brother came over, and taught us all how to play dreidel. So, everybody sat around the kitchen table, spinning the dreidel and talking about Jesus, while songs about Santa Claus played on the radio, and I wore a pentacle discreetly under my new sweater. It was very, very weird. Especially when Jake set the menorah in the window next to the Christmas tree.
Oy.
Jake and I won the dreidel game. We were rewarded with "chocolate Macabees: creamy milk-chocolate warriors." Like I said, it was really, really weird.
On Christmas Eve, Jake and I went to midnight mass at a Catholic chapel near the house. I certainly wouldn't call myself Catholic, but I know the motions and the rituals, and the ritual of it all fascinates me, even if I do detest saying the Nicene Creed. I wanted to go because I like the singing. Catholics have this way of making their Christmas music sound like ritualized funeral dirges, and for some weird reason, I love it. The priest spread incense throughout the entire chapel, so that it was as heavy as mist. Afterwards, Jake showed signs of wanting to be a priest, and really, I don't blame him. If you don't really understand the religion, but just walk into the incense and music, it's irresistible. So I told him that he'd have to believe that taking communion is literally eating the body of Jesus. That appeared to freak him out, but to really dissuade him, I had to change into something slinky (okay, slutty) when we got home, and prance around him, asking if he still wanted to be a Catholic priest.
No, he said, he didn't.
Good. Because I'm tired of getting dumped for other men. I have never been dumped for the Lord Almighty before, but it's not really a good time to start.
To top all of this off, on Friday, Jake and I went out to the Olympia Zen Center, and signed up for a "newcomer's class." A Christmas tree, a menorah, a pentacle, and a Buddhist prostration mat, all in the course of two days. Makes me kind of dizzy.
I'm going to go fuck around with the TV now. Have a merry whatever-it-is.
And a happy New Year.
~Helena*