So I’m sitting on my train reading Sex, Drugs and Cocoa
Puffs by Chuck Klostermann and my mind is going crazy. This is not a large step away from the
ordinary, but the way the guy writes makes me feel introspective about my own
life, and of course, the lives of others. Would that be extrosepctive? Either way, maybe judgmental. Ok,
yes, it makes me introspective about my own existence and judgmental about
others’.
I know I said I would let it go but I can’t seem to stop thinking
about my sister and her inability to EVER get me a gift that is thoughtful or
even a gift at all. And I can also tell
you that even if there is a crapbag gift, it never arrives on time. And by on time, I mean it arrives at least 2
months late, or two months in advance, which sound better than saying something
is 10 months late. I mentioned an
uncomfortable phone interaction with my sister to my boyfriend while I had my
arm crammed through his and we walked along 5th ave crossing 50 th
(I had met him during the day while he was working and I wasn’t) and heading….
North? NO, South! Anyway. She had informed me, as I said before, that she just didn't get my a christmas gift.. you know, just because. He didn’t look pleased and that made me feel kind of warm because I like
being secretly defended even though I know he’d never say an unkind word
against anyone in my family. He said
“you know, she sounds bitter, not just bitter towards you, but kind of bitter
toward life.” This is a painfully
accurate assessment of someone he’s never met and only heard stories of. We abandoned the conversation because I had
moved onto another stream of babble around a good conversation I had just had
with my step mom that trumped the turd taste in my mouth left by my sister.
So where is this going? My sister made a few declarations on the phone in addition to
highlighting her innate thoughtlessness. I asked her about her holiday (because there
was silence, and being that she is more self centered than me, she didn’t ask
me about mine, so what was I to do? If I
was going to wait for her to show interest in my life, I would be making sweet
sweet love to the silk lining of my casket… or the copper lining of my urn…
right now) and she said “oh you know… it was mellow.” Doesn’t ask me about mine. “And how was your new year?” I asked. She went on a diatribe about how usually she
and her husband spend the New Year (and by usually I mean once) with her
husband’s friends, but this year she didn’t because they owe him some obtuse
sum of money and “I ain’t interested in ever seeing them again until they pay
him back”. So she sat on the couch,
drank wine, and (god, this embarrasses me to type out loud) “mixed champagne
and orange juice together because, like, I heard that was s’posed to be good,
but it wuddn’t.” “It’s a mimosa” was
dangling off my tongue tip, but I held it in because I didn’t want to support
her unstated opinion that I am a pretentious social climbing metropolitan
asshole.
“New Years Eve is so overrated; I didn’t want to have plans
anyway.” She said in a tone that proclaimed that anyone who DID have plans was
a pretentious social climbing metropolitan asshole. I couldn’t let that one go. “Oh yeah, that’s what people who don’t have
plans always say.” Tell me I’m wrong,
I triple dog dare you.
And that statement is what led me to put my leaking coffee
cup down and slide my laptop out of my overlarge backpack. Isn’t it interesting how that which we most
vehemently verbally riot against is what we really in our blackest of hearts
want?
She makes disparaging digs about people with children,
saying that people have begun asking her, because she’s about to turn 31, if
she’s planning on having children before it’s “too late”. “I’ve made it through 31 years without ever
once saying that I want them, and the fact is I don’t want them.” No one likes having their own mortality
pointed out to them, sister.
Let’s talk about me, though. I do the same thing. I declare
loudly and often my distaste for children and all the mouth noises they stand
for. But who doesn’t lean on their hand
and gaze out the window of Starbucks at some yellow onesie clad shorty and
ponder what it would be like to have one of those little fuckers of their
own? You don’t wonder what a product of
you and your +1 would look like? The fun
of soccer or ballet? Or tractor pulls? Or garage band practice? Who cares, right? I talk a good game, but I wouldn’t mind a
few prolific poop producers in the future. Maybe I condescendingly decree that I don’t right now because it’s
financially impossible, and up until a year ago kind of physically impossible
because I was so no where near a loving relationship.
Up until a year ago I didn’t want new year’s plans
either. I certainly didn’t see the big
deal about sharing the holidays with someone, and what – having someone make a
big deal about your birthday… what was the joy in that? Planning your week out so you could spend
time with someone you love? Oh please,
those people are so lame.
Why would I say those things? It’s called bravado, people.
I was recently at a holiday party with the boy and his
friends. His girlfriends are a good
group of mammary carriers. They’re fun,
they’re funny with each other, they’re easy going, they laugh at my jokes, they
drink, and they have great stories (who can’t get totally sucked into a story
about “naked parties”?!?). We were sitting
around and talking about liking and disliking people and his one girlfriend
says “the other day I realized that I don’t hate anyone. I really don’t. When I realized that I thought ‘man, it is
nice to be grown up.” I agreed with
her, “Yeah, I don’t think I hate anyone either. Well, wait. Really, I only hate
people I’m jealous of. When I say I hate
someone it’s really because I’m jealous of them.” It was quiet for a minute, and his one friend
says “wow, that’s really big of you to admit.” Afterward, because I analyze everything overmuch, including everything
about myself, I thought “isn’t it weird that it’s big of people to be
honest?” It’s really fun to be honest with
yourself.
Maybe if people are more honest with themselves they won’t
be so bitter. I had dinner with my best
girl the other night at Valdino West in the West Village and it was freakin
awesome. But the point is, I revealed to
her that when she was dating her now husband I “didn’t get it.” I didn’t get that they carved out time to see
each other during the week. I didn’t get
that he called her when he got home from work and called her to say good night
or called her randomly when we were out doing something. I told her that I get it now and that I was
really judgmental back then because it was something I didn’t have, and
something I wanted, but covered up with “people in relationships are weak”
statements. Because I was so strong,
right?
I’ll bet if you listen to yourself for one full day and pay
attention to the statements of things you don’t like or don’t want, you will find that in truth, you really
want those things the most. And it’s
really fucking liberating to realize that. Once you realize that and are honest with yourself, I think
it makes you a bigger better person.
Better than my sister anyway.
Whoo, I think I just had a technology panic attack. More like a storage panic attack. More like a, “why don’t we go back to the
abacus because I can’t handle all this shit I have to store and remember” panic
attack. I’m on the train, it’s about 7:00am and I’m thinking about Thanksgiving. I’m heading to
What happens when Al Gore decides to take the internet back
and hide it in his basement next to what we know is a stack of Cialis and bales
of “Shut up, Tipper” tshirts that he got busted selling on Tshirt hell? Shit man, I better put all of my flickr
flotos on DVD STAT! Oh nuts, what
happens when we don’t read DVD’s anymore. I hope someone is working on the “transfer and convert” code for taking
info off of DVDs and burning it into our frontal lobes. What about my blogs?! Should I just print that shit out on
nonflammable, non-disintigrating paper? Will my printer take Kevlar!? Oh
man, what happens when we no longer read and we just absorb information like a
sheet of acid? 