A Long December

I am not a fan of Christmas. I hate to be so obnoxiously grumpy and…cliché, but God, I hate that there is an entire month where I can’t leave the house without wanting to scoop someone’s eyes out with grapefruit spoons. As I’m sure throngs before me have noted, Christmas is like Disney in that it’s supposed to be this grand magical childhood experience where memories are made, and yet the only kind of memories I see unfolding before me are those of whining children being screamed at by their worn-out parents. I just want to wipe the holiday from the calendar and make Christmas some sort of flexible event for families to celebrate at their leisure, because this kind of month-long pressure just isn’t fair for anyone, least of all the CHILDREN, for the love of God. There is also no reason why I should have to circle the Target parking lot for 45 minutes for a quick run for sundries, which, if I’m honest, is where the current of rage began its holiday course.

I think the aggravation is partially spurred on by the leftovers from Thanksgiving, which consist of the cold we’ve been quietly suffering that has been recently brought to a raging boiler of a head (which might be the grossest thing I’ve ever said, and I’m so sorry). It seems that we were fooled into some sort of complacent lull of health before being overtaken by the germs within, and it’s like Dawn of the Snortling Dead over here. I finally washed our sheets, and was able to enjoy two whole nights with them before being banished, once again, to the relative comfort of our well-appointed guest suite, where I will snorf my way through at least one more night in diagonal-sleeping solitude. This banishment, by the way, is of my own choosing, lest you think I’m married to a cruel, mean man who refuses to move himself. If I leave the room instead of him, it confuses the pets, which means they sleep past 7 a.m., since they can’t smell me and oddly, they can’t figure out where the hell I am. Therefore, they cannot wake me, and instead just roll over and sleep for a few more hours.

It’s sort of sad, sleeping away from Adam, but in a way, it’s really exciting, because do you know how nice it is to be able to stretch out and use the entire bed without a single restriction? The few times we’ve had to do this, I’ve been amazed at the sheer joy of laying out each limb from end to end without having to worry about flailing my arm into someone else’s face. And this is in a king-size bed. I cannot imagine, nor can I even remember, how it was when we slept on a queen or worse, the Summer of the Full-Size Bed, so help us God. There are cuddlers, I suppose. People who love nothing more than to sling a romantic arm around their spouse in a sleepy gesture of love and affection, and to those people I say: you’re crazy. I need freedom when I sleep: freedom to move, freedom to breathe, freedom from someone else’s sweat and morning breath. I do not like to be touched, and the very idea of spooning gives me an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia that is only matched by wearing socks to bed. In keeping with the theme of somnolent freedom, I cannot tolerate anything restricting my feet, and that includes covers of any kind, because the feet, they need to ride like the wind or I cannot sleep. This is perhaps because as soon as I fall asleep, my body goes into Furnace Mode, and I spew forth unnatural amounts of heat in my slumber, and more often than not, wake up as sweaty as if I’d just run the Boston Marathon. Hot sleeping, by the way, is also why I am perplexed and awed by those who are night showerers, because for me, that would be like showering before you go to the gym, then heading to work, fresh as a mildewed towel.

I would have perhaps written something with some sort of purpose and/or coherence, except that my own laptop monitor died a horrible death, complete with melty-screen and big black LCD holes of death. This makes me immeasurably sad, although it is tinged with relief, for it means there is no heavy-duty working of any kind happening at home until it is fixed, and I am forced to sit back, relax and – because I am sick as a dog – do nothing, for large, wondrous stretches of time. This time, by the way, included watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and if you haven’t seen it, it was utterly delightful. Until it’s fixed, I am getting by on a spare Dell Inspiron that runs at a temperature hot enough to turn my ovaries into little omelettes, and is likely reducing my child-bearing years by months with every passing moment, which means those moments will be brief.

Incidentally, and apropos of nothing, Adam recently discovered that Tootsie Rolls are chocolate flavored. Although he is an avid supporter and eater of Tootsie products, he vehemently argued with me when I referred to them as a “chocolate candy.” When asked what flavor he thought they were, he simply replied – with a hilarious air of utter indignance – “TOOTSIE. They are TOOTSIE-FLAVORED. DUH.”

Duh.

*Counting Crows.

20 comments December 3rd, 2006