« November 2004 | Main | January 2005 »

December 27, 2004

Evangelical Chinese Chicken

Well, Christmas came and as predicted, the goose got fat. I don't even know what I mean by that, but it seemed the right thing to introduce my list of Christmas Highs and Lows.

Highs
1. Seeing the Bean bug out about his new stuff. The best gift was a bus made out of giant hoops, ties and fabric. When assembled, it makes a cool bus-shaped fort/crawling space for the Bean. It then folds neatly and flatly up so you can hide it and bring it out an hour later to blow his little mind all over again.

2. My new pink Kate Spade laptop/tote bag that my husband got for me. It has cellphone AND ipod pockets inside, and brown handles. For someone who is so mouthy and pooh-poohy about commercialism and ordinarily a devoted discount shopper, I sure love me some Kate Spade. Hence the endearing, almost slapstick duality that is me.

3. Family jam session. No Boggle, but thanks to a little musical instrument set we got the Bean that had egg shakers, spoons, a tambourine and a harmonica, there was a guitar sing-a-long. I especially love it when folks are singing because it ends the endless monologue about how Republicans are awesome and how Jesus is going to smote me for being a godless heathen etc etc.

4. Commemorative RV Plaque. My brother and sister-in-law sent the Bean a beautifully illustrated sign with a picture of my mom and step-dad's RV on it. Since it also has their names on it, we suspect it may not really be for the Bean. He is going to be pissed.

5. Guitar lessons for my sweetie. This was my present to him. Now he is going to be a rocker on top of everything else. How lucky am I?

6. Getting to go to the mooooooooovies, a luxury we have only enjoyed maybe five times since Beanapalooza 2003. We saw The Life Aquatic and if you like ocean-themed movies that are sweet and dreamy with the added bonus of hot hot Owen Wilson in them, this is the movie for you. As well as me.

Lows
1. See number three above about the Republicans and the smoting.

2. Christmas card/"holiday letter" and photo from my husband's ex-girlfriend that my mother-in-law felt compelled to bring to our house and then weirdly leave out on our coffee table. To my husband, I threatened to post the picture on our fridge and pepper my conversation with PRAISE JESUS like her stupid letter said every fifth line.

3. Dogs Gone Crazy. I was feeding my friend/neighbors' dogs for a few days while they were out of town and boy those dogs really partied while their owners were gone. They jumped over the gate meant to keep them in the back of the house, lay all over the couch with muddy paws, ate candy that was left out on the counter, and tore up a bunch of Christmas cards that were posted on the fridge. Sometimes I am glad that my dog is 2,000 years old and toothless and just lays on a pillow quietly passing gas. Sometimes.

That's really it. In all, it was a lovely holiday made lovelier by the fact that we weren't stranded in an airport, sliding down sheets of black ice on freeways, or freezing in -20 weather. In fact, our little family was walking on the beach yesterday evening, watching the sunset over glassy Puget Sound and the snow-covered mountains beyond it and saying to each other, Seattle is really not so bad in the winter.

Posted by Max at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2004

I hope somebody got me crackers cause I got a Christmas crab

Last week I was filled with joyous holiday feelings and inclinations and this week they have all gone the way of the yuletide dodo. In a misguided effort to not get blindsided at the last minute, I bought most of the Bean's Christmas presents at the end of November. We put up our tree the first weekend of December, so now we've been looking at the mofo for what feels like an eternity. Granted, a sparkly, glittery eternity but still.

At work we adopted a family from a local school and bought a bunch of presents from their wish list. After wrapping them up and sending my friend P. to the school to drop them off, we were all feeling pretty jolly. That is until P. came back from the school to report that of the thirteen families who had signed up for the program, only four families received any gifts. So. Thanks largely to the efforts of our resident elf "Tink", technology workers were united, vice presidents tapped, bleeding hearts bled, etc. etc. and darned if we didn't raise almost two grand to get the rest of the families their presents in record time.

As cool as it was to be able to do that for the kids, I seriously felt that by the end of it, my holiday spirit had run out the office door, taken the elevator to the lobby, trickled past Starbucks and filled the city gutters in tarnished rivlets. I tried really hard not to overspend on the Bean and yet still feel like we're giving him ten billion plastic gee-gaws and a stack of whomajiggins that he will a. break b. lose c. not even notice. Sometimes I hate having a kid because I can't bear knowing what having a kid means, and knowing how screwed over so many of them get just by being born.

What to do, what to do. At the very least, I made my husband promise that every year we would spend as much money on other families or charities as we did on our own kid, and that somehow we would incorporate this into our own fledgling family holiday ritual. The concept of a "ritual" is a funny thing, I think so many people end up doing something they don't enjoy year after year just because it's what they always do. My friend says she doesn't decorate because she finds the idea of putting the same stuff up and then taking it down every year depressing. I dunno, I think there is something sweet about it. And frankly, I'll take what sweet I can get.

We non-religious types need to come up with something that is not commercial to celebrate the holiday season. My vote would be for a really festive, eggnog-fueled Boggle marathon, maybe with mistletoe and rowdy, off-key singing. We'd have a fire and all the babies would stay up late but not be grumpy, then everybody would sleep in the next morning. Who's with me?

The Bean says Mama just keep it real.

Posted by Max at 12:41 AM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2004

Stuff it

I am suffering from an unusual form of Christmas anxiety, one that I shall refer to as Christmas Stocking Meltdown. My husband and I never really exchanged stockings as part of our haphazard, pre-child tradition. Stockings were a huge deal in my household as a child, but I am finding that as an adult, they introduce a whole new level of Christmas complexity and pressure: what to put in there, how much to spend, do you drive big nails into your mantel and then have holes there the rest of the year etc.

Not to mention that fact that OH LORD are most stockings ugly. I cannot bear the garish, got-'em-six-for-a-dollar standard issue white and red faux fur stockings. You would think the Christmas "industry", which has helpfully provided me with about ten million alternatives, would have been able to produce something both holiday in spirit and pleasing to the eye. Not true. It seems the vast majority of stockings have been created to uphold one of a few themes: needlepoint snowmen, felt Christmas trees trimmed in gold braid, or weird elvish Santas cavorting on plaid backgrounds. One has to place these items in a prominent location and look at them for weeks. I don't want my stomach to clutch in horror every time I glance over at my fireplace.

However, the introduction of a child into a home requires that new attention be paid to the rituals of gift giving, and to me that translates as buy some stockings or you are not a good mother. So I recently braved the sales rack at my favorite discount stores. Talk about pressure! I had to envision that THIS stocking, whichever one I choose for the Bean, would be the stocking for his entire childhood. Year after year it would be filled with charming gifts and delicious, whimsical candies, setting the stage for a lifetime of warm memories and holiday cheer.

After spending far too much time deciding, I finally purchased a needlepoint stocking for myself, a felt one for my husband, and in an apparently lapse of sanity that I still cannot explain, I selected a blue, sequined stocking for my only beloved son.

Why. This is not Christmas on Ice. Nor is it Vegas. This is just a simple expression of love and good wishes between family members. I've never bought anything with sequins in my life. This thing even had SILVER PUFFY STARS attached to the top of it that I had to cut off. Not only that, but in keeping with the American need to MAKE THINGS BIGGER and BUY MORE, all three stockings were big enough to each hold a brand new Hummer and Arnold Schwarzenegger to drive it.

Last weekend, my mother-in-law had to hear to my whole Meltdown history, philosophy, and current status complete with the unveiling of stockings. I laid them between us on the couch. The light from our Christmas tree glinted softly off the sequins as we gazed down. "Why don't you just return them?" she asked finally.

So I did*. We now have no stockings and no plan to fill anything in our house with sugarplums, walnuts, silver dollars, diamond earrings, candy canes, pocket knives, mini plush toys, card games, sour balls, concert tickets, Pez dispensers, cuff links, holiday-themed toothbrushes or wind-up mice. Nothing. Unless someone can please tell me where I can find stockings that are vaguely vintage looking, with muted stripes in shades of umber, goldenrod and russet, reasonably sized, and crafted to last at least 18 years.

Thank you. I hope you are having a joyous holiday season.

* Yes, I returned the stocking even though I had cut off the puffy stars. Believe me, it was better off without them.

Posted by Max at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2004

Talk about the passion

Last night, I received an unexpected call from an old friend of mine, D. I studied filmmaking in college with the (still there though dormant) desire to be a documentary filmmaker. The school I went to didn't really have a program in documentary filmmaking per se, so I got drunk instead. Despite the fact that the school basically had one vintage Bolex for 60 of us to share and two sticks of gum for editing equipment, I managed to both get a film degree and graduate with my liver more or less intact.

And where does does the budding young filmmaker go to try her hand at artistic fame and fortune? Why Orlando, Florida, of course! Actually, something that no one really tells you about college is that after four years of developing and exerting new-found independence, roughly 96% of college graduates end up moving back in with their parents. COOL. So when C., a girl I knew vaguely from school (who moved back in with her parents in Florida) said her mom worked at Universal Studios Florida and could get me a job in the film industry, I said what the hell, loaded up my Plymouth Horizon, and cruised down there to try my luck.

Turns out C.'s mom flipped burgers as an extra in an episode of Swamp Thing one time, which didn't really qualify her as a good contact for breaking into the film industry. Small matter because C. and I quickly became best of friends, renting a super cheesy, cockroach-infested apartment with forest green shag and a skanky communal pool where guys in Speedos constantly hit on us. It was like living in paradise!

C. landed a job in a bookstore, where she met two cute, funny guys: J. and the aforementioned D. We went out clubbing with these guys all the time, downed hundreds of cocktails, made each other weak with laughter every time we were together, but we weren't getting the one thing we were after: ACTION! And D. always smelled sooooo good. Finally, after weeks of frustration for us ladies, the boys took us in separate rooms and gently broke the news that they were gay...and dating each other! A-DUH!!! That soothed our egos a bit, because of course if they weren't falling victim to our feminine wiles, there had to be a good, preferably biological reason.

D. has been in and out of my life ever since, although it's been over a decade since we've actually seen each other. The last time I saw him, he had moved from Florida to Knoxville and I was driving to Los Angeles in pursuit of a more successful film career and the love of a boy from college for whom I still pined. D. agreed to meet me in Athens because I also pined for the lead singer of R.E.M. and was convinced that if I went there, I would meet him. OH GOD did I love Michael Stipe, that hair, that voice, those lyrics. My heart broke a thousand times just from listening.

Not only did D. meet me in Athens, but when we DID see Michael Stipe the first night out at a bar and I was too nervous to talk to him, D. believed me when I said it was OK, we would see him again tomorrow. And then when we did see him again, at breakfast at his restaurant, and I talked to him, it was amazing. I owe D. big time for not only believing in my crazed stalker fantasy but for making it come true.

I guess the early 90's were a big time for me to love gay boys. D., Michael Stipe and I have all managed to sustain our respective relationships as we've matured and evolved and for that I am quite grateful.

Happy 40th, D. Thank you for the phone call.

Posted by Max at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

December 03, 2004

Melmo's World

The Bean has discovered baby crack. It is red, furry and named Elmo, or as he might refer to it, "Melmo". Why why why, after only seeing this muppet once, did he become obsessed with it? How come "Melmo" is like, his tenth word? He doesn't even know what a doggie says or how a kitty goes and yet at the supermarket he can spot and greet Melmo on a box of cookies 25 feet away. Congratulations, marketers! You do fine work -- on a FREAKING ONE YEAR OLD. Have ye no souls?

I guess it could be worse; at least it is a Sesame Street character he is into. As a child, I was partially raised by Maria, Ernie, Oscar and the gang and I turned out relatively fine. Yet there is something disturbing about how quickly their little toddler brains latch on the His Redness. What is it that these muppets know? How do they know it?

A million years ago, I was at a writer's conference in Vermont, an idyllic, debauched and beautiful experience. One hot night, a bunch of us were sitting outside the main reading hall, a great, screened barn, listening to a man who had written a scandalous, unauthorized biography about Jim Henson. From our Adirondack chairs on the porch, we sipped whiskey out of mason jars as the writer trashed Jim Henson, calling him an abusive, religious freak who died because he refused medical treatment for something relatively minor, or at least curable.

The Henson family had somehow halted publication of the book, a draft of which the man began to read from. Mid-way through the reading, the biggest bullfrog I have ever seen emerged from nowhere, hopped through our ring of chairs, and stopped at the door of the barn to fix its glossy stare on the man. When the reading was over, the frog turned and hopped back into the night. “Dude, that guy just got the evil eye from Kermit!” one of my friends whispered incredulously. We drank a quiet toast to Jim Henson, for all his flaws and magic.

So see, there’s more going on with those muppets than we adults know.

Posted by Max at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)