You throw up after your second half-slice of cheesecake, and feel lucky to find an aged bottle of generic mint mouthwash under the bathroom sink. The whole act feels as illicit as having had sex in your host’s bed, and you exacerbate the situation by stripping off your winter boots and jean skirt to stand on the scale. It’s old, stuck on a figure you hope isn’t accurate, and you’re groaning as the needles might under the weight of so much Christmas dinner and regret. Footsteps creak past the door, and you shimmy quickly back into your clothes.
It’s only grandma, fortunately, who would never imagine you were doing anything other then usual business in there. Talks of weight loss only lead to her boasting that she doesn’t need to lose or gain, but only, at eighty years of age, get back into shape. Your bone thin massage therapist cousin promises yoga and a detox diet in the new year, your husband refuses dessert and any humoring of your mania, and the chubby children dig into thirds. God, how you hope you won't have chubby children, and hate yourself for hoping.
At least the posh aunts in their skinny jeans are going home soon, and you can feel guilty and cruel in relative peace. Your metabolism can’t be to blame when they’re around. It’s just you.
25 December 2009
22 December 2009
Humbug
Knowing that I am not the only person ever to feel slighted by an unwanted gift does not alleviate any of the guilt that I feel. I remind myself that it is the thought that counts, but in the same mental breath I am thinking that thoughtlessness requires very little effort. I chide myself, too, for pride in the handcrafted gifts I have given, for I take as much pleasure in their creation as I do in the gifting, and it isn't like I wouldn't be doing something while watching episode after episode of The Office anyway. It's just an excuse.
"I'm working, really. JAM is just a happy coincidence."
Perhaps like all tactless young married folk, M and I have begun our collection of white elephants and re-gifts, shoved into a cardboard box in the basement like things we never cared enough to unpack. Worse still, something a loathsome roommate left behind, requiring a hit-and-run of the Goodwill lest better Samaritans of the world realize just what you're trying to pawn off on the unfortunate.
Besides, I shop there, too. One woman's trash is another's hand-painted resin seasonal showpiece, yes?
"I'm working, really. JAM is just a happy coincidence."
Perhaps like all tactless young married folk, M and I have begun our collection of white elephants and re-gifts, shoved into a cardboard box in the basement like things we never cared enough to unpack. Worse still, something a loathsome roommate left behind, requiring a hit-and-run of the Goodwill lest better Samaritans of the world realize just what you're trying to pawn off on the unfortunate.
Besides, I shop there, too. One woman's trash is another's hand-painted resin seasonal showpiece, yes?
12 December 2009
How I Could Just Kill A Man
There was something illicit about the sort of socializing that went on in the wings when I was in theatre in high school, all of us, or perhaps only me, thrilling in our roles offstage as much as on. Gathered around the couch that reeked, as a more daring actress commented, "of pepsi and sex," we would gossip, we would posture, we would rehearse - if clutching our scripts and tugging our collars and shirt sleeves in nervously mixed company could be called rehearsal.
Perhaps I was made more daring by my dance costume that flattered from hip to ankle, or perhaps I had simply seen too much Saved by the Bell in my formative years, but a Sadie Hawkins dance seemed to me the ideal moment to confess my desire to attend with a handsome boy on my arm, particularly, one with whom I shared a mutual appreciation for Rage Against the Machine. I knew who Tom Morello was and used his name in context of their greatness, hadn't he laughed when I'd done so? I quoted Zack de la Rocha in my creative writing assignments. Surely this warranted some attention?
Or a polite refusal, if toying with the brim of his baseball cap to keep from looking me in the eye as he explained his wanting to wait around for someone else to ask him could be considered polite.
The next year I wouldn't be conquered on that couch, but I would suffer hands on my breasts and sloppy kisses; I would climb the ladder to the costume loft and lay myself down in taffeta and crushed velvet, chintz, and polyester. The body of a lesser man pinned me above the stage lights, or so I like to think now so I can remember the ones that I did not know, that refused to know me, better.
I won't say they were all the same. But I'm thinking it.
Perhaps I was made more daring by my dance costume that flattered from hip to ankle, or perhaps I had simply seen too much Saved by the Bell in my formative years, but a Sadie Hawkins dance seemed to me the ideal moment to confess my desire to attend with a handsome boy on my arm, particularly, one with whom I shared a mutual appreciation for Rage Against the Machine. I knew who Tom Morello was and used his name in context of their greatness, hadn't he laughed when I'd done so? I quoted Zack de la Rocha in my creative writing assignments. Surely this warranted some attention?
Or a polite refusal, if toying with the brim of his baseball cap to keep from looking me in the eye as he explained his wanting to wait around for someone else to ask him could be considered polite.
The next year I wouldn't be conquered on that couch, but I would suffer hands on my breasts and sloppy kisses; I would climb the ladder to the costume loft and lay myself down in taffeta and crushed velvet, chintz, and polyester. The body of a lesser man pinned me above the stage lights, or so I like to think now so I can remember the ones that I did not know, that refused to know me, better.
I won't say they were all the same. But I'm thinking it.
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