iVillage - This Fish

iVillage - This Fish tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2007-11-30:/love//27 2010-02-08T19:27:04Z Movable Type Enterprise 4.21-en mightily tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.98814 2010-02-08T17:25:32Z 2010-02-08T19:27:04Z

I was putzing around on Facebook the other day and discovered that my old running buddy, Bob, got engaged last month. And I will not lie, I was totally crestfallen. On my Feelings Meter (where one end is labeled with glittery gold lettering, "Happy for Bob! Yay!" and the other with, "Crazy Jealous Like a Pathetic Stereotypical Chick Lit Cat Lady"), the indicator is decidedly right of center, and fluttering wildly.

Engagement is a sensitive topic in our household. See, I don't give a rat's ass about tradition and I don't really care for the whole formal proposal with three months salary riding on my ring finger bit. We've made the decision to get married. We've even marked the five year calendar with when we're going to start adding kids to this whole chaotic mess. We have a joint savings account. In short, we make every decision together. But this one? This one, because tradition says so, is entirely up to him. And he couldn't be in any less of a hurry to make it.

And it stings. Mightily.

I hear his reasons for waiting - he doesn't like where he is financially at all and his Man Pride won't let him bend that knee until he feels better about it. He wants to pay cash for the ring. And while I hear his reasons - and understand them in their universality slightly better after talking to my similarly-minded brother (there is, apparently, a very insightful Little House on the Prairie episode in which Almanzo temporarily cancels his engagement to Laura over money issues) - they do nothing to quiet the discontent I feel over the matter. I'm broke and in debt, too. But what's that to do with love? I don't need to be provided for - I've been doing a damn good job of that all by myself.

When we initially talked about moving in together, I said I'd like to be engaged first. Not as a rule, but as a preference. He had other ideas. Namely, that he thought we'd live together for six months or so and then get engaged. That didn't seem unreasonable to me at all. So now here it is, one year later, and I'm keeping house and making dinners and picking up step-dog poop and folding laundry and helping with homework - playing the housewife without the title. I do all of these things gladly, but the lack of forward motion in our relationship makes me feel like a bunch of old ladies are sitting around somewhere tsk-ing about how he's gettin' the milk for free. He's not moving forward because he has very little incentive to.

Except, you know, for being in love and excited about our future and wanting to.

The part of me that doesn't fully understand Man Pride has been unable to help feeling that if he were as excited about us as he used to be, money wouldn't matter. I don't want a diamond ring. I don't. Period. Because that's not where our priorities should be right now, or really any time within the next five years. He's in school. We're in debt. But what I want is for our plans to be official and public. And, yes, I suppose I do care that we look legitimate to the rest of the world. He doesn't, but I do. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do.

Also - and I'm fully aware of how selfish this sounds - I'd like a little something for me. Something to be excited about. Our lives right now revolve, with minor interruptions, around dog excrement and school work. Investing in my beloved's future is an investment in our future and so I'm happy to revisit fractions, edit English compositions and research Mt. Rushmore, but some days it feels like, in playing the supporting role, I have very little to look forward to for myself.

He loves me. Unquestionably. I know how much I matter to him. We're happy together. And in my brain, I know that's more important - that's most important. But there's another part - the heart part of me - that doesn't know anything except that there used to be something so exquisitely special in feeling like we were terribly in love and couldn't wait to spend forever together. And the more he hesitates, the less special I feel.

Like I said, it stings. Mightily.
]]> when all you got going for you is streaming netflix and a snuggie tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.98304 2010-02-06T16:53:33Z 2010-02-06T21:57:14Z

Sometimes I miss waking up in New York. Especially on the weekends when I want to do something and nothing all at the same time. The City is good for sublime adventures in nothingness. An iced coffee and a meander in Central Park. The man behind the bodega counter always seemed a bit relieved to see me, maybe because my presence meant that the pot of room-temperature joe wouldn't go to waste on winter days when the sky was sulking. A dollar twenty-five beginning to an afternoon of bliss. And when you've got $4.28 in your checking account, even that feels a little like decadence.

I miss New York today. Broke and bored in Dallas, Texas is a terrible cocktail.

]]> talk amongst yourselves tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.97824 2010-02-01T19:26:04Z 2010-02-01T20:05:09Z

I had a fitful night's sleep, finally waking five minutes after my alarm should have gone off (helps if you set it, I guess). Deliriously tired, I headed downstairs to let Jillian Michaels give me a good ass-kicking before work...

good." I'm never just punching air -- it's usually some imaginary offender. Like, that lady who has absolutely no idea what a yield sign means. Or that ex-coworker of mine. The one who could not shut up. Ever. This morning, though, I wasn't in need of vindication so much as eleveteen more hours of sleep so I punched with little enthusiasm. And then I remembered.

Today is Sarah Brown day! If there was any perking up to be had, it was from knowing that this afternoon, I get to road-trip it up to Tulsa, Oklahoma and deliver a hug that's two-and-a-half years in the making. We're probably going to paint each other's nails and watch Meet Me in St. Louis and eat things which are bad for us. And talk about boys.

Sarah and I went through some relationship doozies in New York. In fact, I met Sarah the same night I met one of the biggest relationship mistakes of my life. We were bonded from that very moment. But the same week that I met the Dork Lord, Sarah met her own love, moved to far, far away London to be with him and await a fiance visa (me, I'm just awaiting the fiance (ba-dump-bum!)) so there is much catching up to do.

So blah, blah, I'm excited about seeing Sarah but can we for one second talk about how BAD Taylor Swift's performance was last night? Is that, you know, like a regular thing for her - the whole, not being able to sing thing? It was terrible. And up until that point, I have to admit I was pretty enamored of her. Gosh, she's so cute. And nice. And ohmygod, totally tone deaf. I felt like I was watching a talent show at church and it felt really, really awkward.

Discuss.
]]> not the feelings-suppression age tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.97594 2010-01-28T18:07:40Z 2010-01-29T17:07:04Z

Yesterday I purchased plane tickets for my sister's wedding. I did not get a sweet deal. And if prices come down before our travel date, I hope to be blissfully unaware of it. Buyer's remorse is the worst. Wait, I take it back. Buyer's remorse runs a tight second to One Night Stand remorse, followed closely by I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing remorse - a trilogy which beautifully sums up a weekend I once spent in Florence, Italy. But you know, that's kind of a long story.

The wedding is going to be one of those awesomely warm fuzzy events, not just because it's full of mushy I Do love stuff, but because I don't get to see my siblings very often - I've never even met my niece, Penny - so this will be our chance to get in some good bonding time. While wearing pinned-on flowers and acting on our best behavior. I snorted while typing that. You just couldn't hear.

Well, mostly the wedding will be a warm fuzzy. My mother and I aren't exactly on speaking terms, which should make the whole wedding weekend one big Lifetime Original Movie Starring That Woman From China Beach. Sometime shortly after Christmas, I (totally against my better judgment) let my mom know that I didn't appreciate her advice. I said I thought her assessment of the situation was incorrect and that she was wrong to butt in. She said F--k you - just like that. Only spelled out in full, with exclamation points and maybe the @ symbol for good measure. I've come to expect a certain degree of fall out from disagreeing with the one who birthed me (the last time we dared question motherly love, she took our photos off the mantle put them away in a cardboard box) but this - this is new territory. I won't lie. I think it's unhinged. I have never had an argument with anyone that deteriorated into "Screw you!" Ever. A first for everything, I suppose.

If you've been reading for any length of time, you'll know that things with my mother have always been difficult - in cycles. One, we're both strong willed. Two, like with my father, there are greater factors at work. My sister, brother and I spent our childhood being parented by two people who were terribly stressed out and suffering from, at times, severe depression. And now that I'm an adult (and I'll be the first to admit that yes, the following statement makes me feel bad about myself), I'm running out of patience for it. Enough, already. Suicide talk from a parent is truly horrific. And it's unbelievably disappointing that with all of the available help out there, all the hours of therapy and medication have changed nothing. NOTHING. And I want to know who's to blame for that.

I'm angry about it. I'm angry that my parents are unstable. That their instability is going to affect their relationships with my future children. That they may not HAVE relationships with my future children. That I find much more comfort in other people's parents because they behave normally.

My siblings and I spend hours sighing over phone lines, wondering what to do. Yes, accept the people you love for who they are. And then... what? Then don't have weddings, because you're tired waging wars on guilt and self pity? Don't share information or say how you really feel? Oh my god, the amount of truth-avoiding we do! I even do it here - the one place I created to be a more thinking, feeling, expressive person - because I fear the reaction. But not today. I'm done with that crap. This is mine, and I'm taking it back.

My brother was right when he said, "This is the information age, not the feelings-suppression age."

And today I'm feeling angry.

]]> of saints and vikings tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.97194 2010-01-25T17:37:42Z 2010-01-25T19:16:05Z

"You're breaking the house rules!"

"House rules?" I raised my eyebrows at him and propped myself up on the couch with my sore elbow, adding a wince to the eyebrow raise. "What house rules would those be?"

"I'm the man of the house and I determine who we root for in the football!"

"The football?"

"You know what I mean."

What did I care, Saints from Vikings? Absolutely not a bit. But when the latter scored a touchdown to tie up the game yet again, I made the mistake of letting out a, "There ya go!" with just a little too much enthusiasm. Look, I just like a close game. In playoff football - where your (fella's) team is no longer playing off - it adds the only bit of excitement there is. And excitement I need. See also: tired of football.

"I can't cheer for Minnesota because they beat Dallas last week?"

"Exactly."

"But, doesn't it sound better to say you lost to the dudes going to the Superbowl, rather than just another buncha losers who also lost to the dudes going to the Superbowl?"

"No. We hate the Vikings."

I shook my head. But I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. If there's no crying in baseball, there is no reason in football. I mean, after all, this is a sport where we call a 400lb Baby Huey in a jersey an athlete just because he's too big to be pushed around by actual athletes. Which, really should be the jumping off point for all of my expectations about the game. It'd save a lot of head shaking.

]]> bags fly free, but not people. no. tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.96834 2010-01-21T16:08:52Z 2010-01-21T19:27:05Z

Yesterday was an experience in total frustration. See, my sister Audrey is getting married in exactly two months, making right now a fine time to make travel arrangements. First, I went to Southwest Airlines' website because, lucky me, I have a frequent flier ticket that I've been saving for just this occasion. Fool that I am. Because as it turns out, unless you have TWO of those tickets, you can't actually get on an airplane anywhere near the dates you want to travel. Or, you know, at an hour that's not 5AM or 11PM with three connecting flights.

What a scam. Truly. I felt like a horrible trick had been played on me. We were really counting on having to purchase only one ticket for this trip. Alas. I shake my fist at the joke that is award tickets.

So, on the advice of a coworker, I introduced myself to Bing.com. And looky there! I found two round-trip, direct flights to Salt Lake City for about $500. Five hundred dollars is still a chunk o' change, but with some budget re-adjusting we could do that. Hot dog! I messaged the Dork Lord to confirm the times and sat back feeling rather pleased. But in the time it took him to get back to me (an hour? Less?) the price of the cheapest flights had soard to an unconscionable $900, for the both of us. In what world does that make any sort of sense? Yes, the seat that you wanted to sit in for $250? Well, tick-tock, we decided it's now worth $450. BECAUSE WE CAN.

I didn't cry, but I wanted to. You know how life is not fair sometimes? Yeah, not cool. Really not cool.

With a little research, I've learned that the cheap fares are released at 12:01AM Wednesdays, after a couple days of price warring by the airlines. Which, I suppose, explains why some of them were still around yesterday at 10AM, and then extinct before noon. So, guess who's got two thumbs and will be staying up way past her bedtime next Tuesday night? This girl right here.

And if that fails? We will be taking extra time off work and driving to Utah. So what if the Dork Lord gets a little antsy in the car after four hours, never mind twenty four. It'll be a test of our deep and abiding love. Ahem.

UPDATE: Oh, people. The trickery continues. So, I took the suggestion to clear out my cookies. After I did, I went back to Kayak.com and performed the same search and BAM! Two tickets for $500. Which I bought in the same breath.

UPDATE the DAMMIT Edition: Also, I am an idiot. I booked tickets for the wrong month, canceled them. Search BACK ON. I need a cocktail. ]]> a bodice ripper of a night tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.96704 2010-01-20T14:55:40Z 2010-01-20T19:41:57Z

In every photo taken at my friend Jen's wedding, I appear to be either eating or holding cake. This seems wholly appropriate (that my zipper broke prior to all this cake consumption, does not. But that is another story). In pictures where cake is conspicuously lacking, I'm wearing what my sister calls my Baby Eater Face. Look, if suffering from exceeding joy makes me look like I'm crazed and ready to eat your baby, then so be it. Because on Sunday night, I was exactly that - suffering from exceeding joy.

Right now, though, I feel like I'm suffering a sort of hangover. Not from the soaking I gave my liver - and oh, I gave it a soaking - but from the intense happiness of being surrounded by friends, most of whom I have spent a great deal of time missing over the last few years. If I wasn't keenly aware how much I miss having them in my daily life, I sure am now. That's the bitter-sweetness of reunions, I suppose.

As for that zipper story: Biscuit, my date and hotel-room-sharer (the Boy and I could not both afford to travel to Boston for the event), was in the shower when I threw my dress over my head, tied the halter and zip...

"Biscuit! Gah! I need you! Mydressohmygod it's stuck!"

The zipper had stopped a few inches from the top and would neither go up nor down. Biscuit scrambled into some clothes and to my rescue but no amount of tugging (or less physical but ingenious solutions) had any effect. It was going nowhere. At first I hit dead panic. The contents of my suitcase covered events like sleeping, eating take-out on Eleanor's couch and um, not much else. That dress was IT as far as wedding apparel and I was going to have to make do. And I did, while praying to as many deities as were on call that the zipper didn't suddenly quit altogether and expose a church full of innocents to my left boob. In the end, my zipper fears were totally in vain, because at the close of the night, Stuart had to use brute force to break me out of the dress, while Krissa and I squeezed our eyes shut in anxiety. Clearly, Stuart knows his bodice ripping, because the only thing damaged in the process was the rogue zipper. The dress will happily live to see more cake.

Photo Involving Neither Cake Nor Baby Eating by Jason Martin.
]]> stupid & fancy, redux tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.96034 2010-01-15T14:00:49Z 2010-01-15T15:52:46Z

It's been a very difficult week. I wish I could talk about it. Something about hashing things out here seems to make it better or at least, put it in perspective. But I can't, so I won't. I really resent it, though.

Tomorrow morning, I'm getting on a plane and heading off to Boston for a few days. The lovely woman who held my hair while I gagged and heaved and wished for death in a Moroccan backpackers' hostel, who zipped around the tip tops of the Costa Rican jungle with me, and who taught me the meaning of Stupid & Fancy is getting married. I cannot wait.

The expected high in Boston is a balmy 37 degrees. I love her just that much.

One of the beautiful things about this wedding is that Jen is a New York friend, getting hitched in her hometown of Boston - which, happily, is also one of my old hometowns. This visit will be like the winner-winner-chicken-dinner of visits, lacking only a handful of beloved friends and the family element to make it perfect.

Speaking of Stupid & Fancy, on the advice of the Dork Lord, I'll pulling out all the stops and wearing a really for real gown to this wedding. It kills me to see it collecting dust in my closet, and truly, there are not many Black Tie Optional events in my life, so I'm taking advantage of this one. Oh, crinoline, the twirling that will take place! Now, I had to up the Spanx quotient to fit into said gown, but Shhh. Let's not ruin this fun with the truth.
]]> six ways to help in haiti tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.96054 2010-01-13T19:19:17Z 2010-01-13T19:24:39Z

Like the rest of you, I'm heartsick over what's happening in Haiti. The media images are too much. If you can help, Chris Sacca has a list of ways to do it (via Dooce).

Six ways you can help in Haiti
]]> an addiction to disappointment tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.95864 2010-01-12T14:49:32Z 2010-01-12T17:17:01Z

I'm a fairly predictable individual. Every morning after I go through the same getting ready process, I launch myself off to the office where I begin another routine set of behaviors. Coffee, CNN, People.com, buckle down to work. At 10AM, it's snack time. At noon, I lunch. Sometimes, I'll get really crazy and throw in an extra cup of coffee before snack time, but that's only when I'm playing it fast and loose. Caution to the wind, people. Caution to the wind. In the evening, I'm just as much the stalker's dream. Walk the dog, make dinner. Maybe some yoga. I'm yawning by 9, in bed by 10:30 where I'll scratch the Boy's back for a few minutes, jam in some ear plugs and get ready to Michael Finnegan begin again.

The point is, I'm habitual. I fall into patterns - good and bad - with amazing ease and break out of them almost never. Because I find comfort in predictability. Every day, I park in the same spot - all the way on the very tip top level, even if the rest of the garage is empty - because it eliminates the need for the Parking Garage Confusion Dance. I follow the same make-up regimen every day because I can rely on the outcome.

I don't think it's any stretch to say that I apply the same cause-and-effect behavior to relationships. For years, I latched on to the same type of man, with the same type of personality flaws who would let me down in exactly the same way as his predecessor. Self loathers. Cheaters. Weaklings. Why? I don't know. Maybe because it's what I knew. I knew what it was like to feel the humiliation of public infidelity, of being undermined and undervalued. When I say I developed an addiction to disappointment, I mean I fed myself on the stress of living out dramatic, unhappy plot lines year after year. It gave me something to react to. It gave me an identity. I expected men to hurt and disappoint me and they, in turn, sure didn't disappoint. And once again, I could blame someone else for my unhappiness.

And then I quit cold turkey. I don't remember the catalyst. But in part, it was having watched both of my parents over the years, having grown up loving people whose unrealistic expectations and constant - and I do mean constant - discontent ate holes in the fabric of our family, that I decided I would not live that way.

Deciding and doing, though, are two very different things. When I met the Dork Lord two years later, I knew that was it. He was it. He knew it, too, and treated me the way you treat someone when you've decided you want them around for a long, long time. But I hadn't exactly broken my attachment to old patterns. Rarely, but there was a time or two early on when he had the gall to be human and make a mistake and my first reaction, shamefully, was to lump him with the others. Asshole. I'd show him! Obviously that feeling didn't last long (nor did I act on it), or we wouldn't have lasted this long. But I did a lot of self talking at first. Old habits being the kind to die slowly and with agony, I hadn't quite gotten rid of my instinct to get mad and get even.

The lesson I had to learn was that it was still possible to feel disappointed by someone who loved me, but that it didn't have to be cataclysmic. I learned that being loved - really being loved - means that a disagreement is just a disagreement and not evidence of dastardly intentions. It was not the beginning of the end, because I'd chosen well this time. And finally, I was able to dig in my heels and accept that the stomach-turning feeling that accompanies the old familiar rush of drama, drama, drama had no place in my life. In our life. ]]> jeans! jeans i don't hate! tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.95584 2010-01-08T14:26:53Z 2010-01-11T14:59:57Z

I'm wearing jeans I don't hate!

This day has been such a long time in the making, I feel like there should be a parade or at least a commemorative plaque and an anthem, sang in rousing tribute to moderation! And to fiber! These jeans, they are nothing special, really, except I do appreciate them for maintaining their deep indigo color and that sweet little perma-crease over the years. But they do not, in any way, resemble mom jeans and they fit nicely for that, I could do back flips. You know, if I could summon the energy.

Also, my bum looks pretty great.

Aside from the sexy phlegm (which is mostly a waste since I don't make a career on my voice), the flu has left me with this hacking cough that keeps me awake by night and annoys my poor coworkers by day. Like my friend said, coughing is some serious exercise and seeing as I cough myself dizzy at least three times an hour, I'm getting the workout of my life. And I'm totally exhausted. But I'm wearing jeans I don't hate!

Guys, when I finally shake this medicine head, I have every intention of addressing that "sick addiction" I talked about in my New Year's Resolution post. I've been thinking about it a lot, about what bad relationships do to your attitude and what that attitude does to every relationship thereafter.
]]> happy flu year tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2010:/love//27.95364 2010-01-05T19:20:05Z 2010-01-05T19:57:16Z

Today is the first day I've been vertical since New Year's Eve. I'm celebrating with chicken broth and G2. I know. I'm a wild woman.

I'm not going to whine about how really awful the flu is because, duh. If you've had it, you know how bad it is. And if you haven't had it, you know it's bad enough you don't want it. But let's, just for a second, talk about the flu test. That thing really hurts. I don't know if the doctor who saw me was under-practiced or just lacked finesse, but when she said she was going to swab my nostrils with that long cotton swab, I didn't understand that her end goal was to grab a sample of my BRAIN. First I said the eff word and then I cried. I couldn't not cry.

Coughing up fifty bucks for Tamiflu hurt less than the flu test - and you KNOW how I feel about unbudgeted spending.

Being vertical today has meant working at the kitchen counter, from which vantage point I've watched the animals interrupt their napping only to chase the sunny spot on the carpet. I actually caught them napping together - and snapped a photo as proof. I've long believed that our respective pets, who all but ignore each other in our presence, socialize a whole lot more when we're not around. Which, it turns out, they do. They spoon. And yes, those are Hal's paws resting ever-so-gently on the back of his sixty pound little spoon.
]]> variety, patience & mirth tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2009:/love//27.95154 2009-12-30T15:27:15Z 2009-12-30T16:59:48Z

For me, New Years resolutions are sorta like vermouth - a splash or two is nice, I guess, but not at all the point of the martini. In other words, I can take 'em or leave 'em. I tend to...

For me, New Years resolutions are sorta like vermouth - a splash or two is nice, I guess, but not at all the point of the martini. In other words, I can take 'em or leave 'em. I tend to make changes when they need making. Like, when I have to do the sumo squat dance to get into the biggest, stretchiest pair of jeans in my wardrobe, it's time to reevaluate my position on things like exercise, melted cheese, and beer. You'll recall that blessed moment came at the end of September when I joined a boot camp and learned what pain really is. Three months later, I'm close to my fitness goal and back to eating smaller, healthier meals and enjoying the good stuff in moderation. So, I guess if I have a resolution, it's to keep on keeping on.

There are some other things I'm working on, that I plan to continue with enthusiasm in the new year - and the new decade (I wrote a check yesterday dated January 1, and wouldn't you know, I got the year right on my first try. THAT will be difficult to maintain), and here they are in no particular order:

Variety. I cooked with parsnips the other day. Parsnips! I'd never done that before. I'm going to try to add a new ingredient or recipe to my arsenal a few times a month now because boy, those two crazy little root vegetables sure did make me feel exotic.

Patience. Learning how to be part of a functional, happy couple has meant I've had to make a lot of mental adaptations. Giving up the sick addiction to constant disappointment I'd formed over the years has been a lot harder than you would imagine. Even harder than that, though, has been giving up the need for control over every aspect of my own sphere - the direction and time line my life follows. I'm trying to be more patient.

Mirth. In September I realized that if I was going to be really happy, I needed to take back some time and energy for myself. The Boy is a night owl. And in being much more disciplined about eating and exercise, it has meant a lot more early to bed, early to rise for me. I got really boring. Now, I was okay with that. Until I realized how much it was upsetting the Dork Lord to attend so many late nights out alone. So, in a compromise between discipline and mirth, I'm trying to be more fun - even when going out and spending time with the boy's friends means staying up past my bed time and throwing myself headlong into the temptations of the dirty martini. Four olives, please.
]]> two weevils tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2009:/love//27.95104 2009-12-28T18:10:33Z 2009-12-28T18:45:15Z

For Christmas, the Boy's parents gave him a PS3. And the next day, when he returned from redeeming gift cards, he had with him, predictably, three new games - and a dozen pale pink roses. My mouth danced between a grin and a smirk.

"You're buttering me up!"

"Is it working?"

"Well, yes. Of course it is."

"Good. I'm gonna go kill some terrorists."

And as the sweet melody of Modern Warfare II rang out in our apartment, I trimmed some roses, grabbed a new book, and headed upstairs to the No Carnage Zone. I'll say one thing for those violent video games - they sure make me glad when we switch to sports. You know, the lesser of two weevils.

I also saw Master and Commander for the first time this weekend. Clearly.

Although I got up this morning and went to yoga, the minute I got home and saw the animals dozing in the sunny patches on the carpet, I decided that I was doing Christmas Vacation all wrong, what with my productivity and all. And just as I began enjoying my day off the way it's supposed to be enjoyed - like a true sloth in pajamas, curled up on the couch - the dog decided to get tangled up in the patio blinds, ripping them off the wall and sending them crashing to the ground. I don't know what else to do but shake my head and pretend it never happened. I'll deal with it later. Right now, I have other important things to do like watch Snow White and eat truffles.

I hope your holiday was lovely. Get ready, cause tomorrow we'll talk New Years Resolutions. I figure we need some time to prepare ones that are reasonably attainable and if not, easily forgettable.

]]> making my list, no checking needed tag:thisfish.ivillage.com,2009:/love//27.94934 2009-12-22T14:10:05Z 2009-12-22T17:55:12Z

Done!

Last night, I wrapped gifts (okay, gift. One singular gift. The rest happen to fit neatly into pre-decorated containers that require neither artsy-craftiness nor paper cuts) and declared Christmas ready to roll. Even if I wasn't done buying gifts, I was done. Though I'm pretty sure my weekend happened, I don't remember much of it, except a whirlwind of errands and way, way too much time spent in the car - all well earned punishment for waiting until the last minute and not ordering every single thing online. When will I learn, I ask you?

If history is any indication (it took me until I was 25 to learn how to wink with my left eye) the education process will be long and drawn out.

Now that everything's wrapped up, I'm actually starting to feel a wee tingle of Christmas excitement. Funny, when I was a kid, the excitement was all about presents, but these days, every bit of my growing anticipation has to do with having five whole days off at home to sleep in (WAY in. Like, 9AM!), putter around the apartment, go to yoga and veg out to such fine holiday films as White Christmas and Meet Me in St. Louis (Louis, meet me at the fair!).

I'm going to interrupt with something totally off topic, but I just read something on People.com about Lisa Loeb getting an eyewear line. Which makes total sense! In 1996.

Anyway, I don't really make Christmas wish lists - that sorta thing makes me very uncomfortable. But when both my mother and the Boy's father asked that I outline something specific - my mother, clothing or shoes; the Boy's father, DVDs - that I'd like to find under the tree, I actually took a lot of joy in thinking about what I'd really like to own, that I wouldn't buy for myself: Reebok's new Make Your Bum Hotter sneakers and classic Disney films, like Snow White.

Christmas morning will find me a much more complete person, I just know it.

What's on your list? Is it a bike? Because if I ever made a list, that would be at the top, just like it was when I was five. Only, minus the part about the pink seat and white wicker basket. But since I don't make lists, come January, my savings account will have a wee little Bike Fund section. Growing up is all about learning to live without Santa the Enabler.
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