Ass Turned Toward Fire

That was hard.

That last semester and that Christmas vacation, both were excruciatingly hard. I won't bore you with the specifics because they bore even me. Let's just summarize: I worked my ass off; (most) of my students did not. It made me sad.

Then I packed my car, said goodbye to The Lady-Killer and Abbey, and I drove home for Christmas. I looked forward to the trip home. I'd been craving Buffalo for a while. I kept having dreams about pierogi.

At home, I thought, I could rest. Relax. Decompress. But what happened was this: I ran. I ran a lot. I had a billion things to do, a billion places to be. And I also had to meet and mingle with my father's new girlfriend.

And here's where I utter something that makes me extremely guilty: I spent the entire two weeks being really, really annoyed at my father.

I don't know what it was exactly, but I spent two weeks grouching my way around Western New York.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?" I asked the girls, who I was not grumpy at. (It's hard to be grumpy at people who keep me well-supplied with vodka and M&Ms and chicken wing dip.) "WHY AM I SO PISSED AT MY FATHER?"

Everything he did infuriated me. If he asked me where I'd been, if I'd had fun, if I'd seen this person or that person, I wanted to punch him. I kept thinking about that scene in My So-Called Life, the one where Angela admits that lately she can't even look at her mother without wanting to stab her. I just wanted to call up fifteen-year old Angela Chase and say, I feel you, sister.

My father wanted me to do this with his girlfriend, do that with his girlfriend, attend his girlfriend's family's party, go to a movie with his girlfriend, eat breakfast with his girlfriend... and every time he requested these things, I felt my shoulders involuntarily rising until my ears were crammed down into them, making permanent shell-like indentations in the skin.

"I can't do it," I told the girls. "I just can't do it. I'm exhausted. I'm just so tired. I don't have it in me. I don't think I can go to a party filled with strangers and answer questions about myself. And I don't want to ask them questions either."

The mere thought of that made my eyelids go heavy. And then I felt guilty because I was being a brat. I was being selfish. I was being a nasty thirteen year-old version of my self, but worse because I'd never been that nasty when I was thirteen years-old. So I spent the entirety of my Christmas break breast-stroking through vast oceans of exhaustion, tantrum, and guilt.

And then came the incident with the fire.

It was a morning after my father had spent the night with his new girlfriend. I had the house to myself, and I spent the morning lounging in bed. But my lounging was interrupted when my father called at 10:15. "Hey!" he said. "Come to breakfast. We'll be there at 10:30. Join us!"

That last phrase--join us!--made my fingers clench into fists. I wanted to chuck my phone across the room. Why? WHY? I do not fucking know.

I declined breakfast; after all, a lady cannot get ready in three minutes to make it to the restaurant in time. But my father and his girlfriend made an appearance at the house after breakfast. I puttered around in the living room while my father collected things he needed for their New Year's party. I talked to the girlfriend, who is--it must be noted--very nice. And in the middle of the small talk, my father breezed in and said to me, "Okay, well, we're ready to go. I just threw some logs on the fire. Do you know how to use the stove?"

Okay. Okay. Now let's be clear: I am twenty-nine years old. I lived for more than eighteen years in that house, and for all those years that house was heated by a wood stove. When I was young, I was taught to respect the fire--to stay away, to warm myself from a distance--and I took to that warming idea with much glee: there are many pictures of a young me with my bare ass turned toward the stove, the white moon shining in the glare from the orange flame.

Later, when I was old enough, my father took me aside and taught me how to build a fire, how to teepee the kindling and feed the building flames. He taught me how to use the flue. He taught me how hot the stove needed to get before I cut off the oxygen and let it do a slow burn to last through the day.

Let's be even clearer: I have been making and tending fires for, like, fifteen years.

My father knows this. And even if my father had fallen and hit his head and that fall had erased his prior knowledge of me--his only daughter, his firstborn!--and my fire-making abilities, it wouldn't matter because two days prior to his asking me if I knew how to use the stove, he arrived home just as I, who had also just arrived home, finished building a fire to warm the icy house. He even complimented me on my fire.

So when he stood at his girlfriend's side and asked me if I knew how to tend the fire and use the stove, I almost committed a murder. I wanted to run to the family picture albums, pluck out any of the pictures of me warming my butt near the wood stove. I wanted to shove it in his face and say, "DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THE BUTT OF SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO USE A WOOD STOVE, MAN?!"

I don't know what happened to me. I don't know what split open in my brain and let all that rage leak into my bloodstream, but it was awful. And I feel guilty still--worse, actually, now that I've admitted it here, to you.

I need therapy.

My Own Little Boom Boom Pow

Last night I almost died.

At 10:05 PM I was sitting on the shore of one of Maine's many charming ponds--The Lady-Killer and I were spending time with his cousins at his family's camp--and the boys (TLK, two cousins, and his younger brother, who, for the majority of the day, spoke in the Old Gregg voice) were setting up fireworks the cousins had smuggled in from Massachusetts.

It had been a long day. I'd ridden on top of TLK's lap in a kayak made for one. I'd been chucked off a water trampoline with such vigor that my bathing suit readjusted itself inappropriately. I'd spent the rest of the time watching the water trampoline action from the safety of two noodles I propped under my head and feet so I could float in the 80 degree water without fear of exposing myself to wholesome New England boys. I'd played a rousing game of Uno that went on for over an hour, in which the boys shouted, "I fucking hate you, you motherfucker!" whenever someone used a draw four card or skip card on them. I'd been serenaded by these same boys as they, during quiet Uno moments, rapped, in unison and a capella, songs that talked about living large, spending money, loving pretty but sexually promiscuous women, and driving fast cars. I'd giggled and giggled and giggled when the four of them chanted, "I like it when you call me Big Poppa! Throw your hands in the air if you's a true player!"

But by 10:05 PM, I was ready to go home. I was feeling a little punchy, and--I won't lie--fireworks make me nervous. Once, when I was young, my father and uncle set off fireworks behind my uncle's house on the Fourth of July, and one of the fireworks had gone off wonky, had shot off into the woods, and my father and uncle took off sprinting and the women and children stood on the porch wondering if this was it, if the boys were going to burn the whole woods down with this stunt. And if there's anything I'm a pro at, it's worrying--and I had that skill down even as a child. I went to bed that night thinking there was a possibility that the firework was still sizzling underneath a pile of dry leaves, sparking and spitting and waiting to take the woods out with one hot breath.

This old fear was not helped last night by the fact that the boys handling the fireworks are not old enough to rent a car. It was not helped by the fact that boys took any chance they could find to toss firecrackers or spinning sunflowers at each other so that they exploded at their feet--or, in one case, on someone's back. It was not helped by the fact that when this happened, the boys would scream, "OUCH, YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER!" and then they would laugh and say, "THAT WAS EPIC! THAT WAS AWESOME!"

From 9:00 to 10:30, I was ten seconds away from standing up, putting on Teacher Voice, and telling those boys to PUT THOSE FIREWORKS AWAY AND SIT DOWN AND BE STILL BEFORE SOMEONE LOSES A FINGER, FOR GOD'S SWEET SAKE.

I relaxed a little bit after the first few rounds of bigger fireworks, because those couldn't be thrown at people and because the boys had towed in a small barge that floated just off shore, and that's where they shot the impressive fireworks off from. After a few fountains, I realized the boys at least knew which way the fireworks needed to be pointed and that no one had burned an appendage off yet, so I took a few pictures. I ooohed and ahhhed.

But then one of TLK's cousins picked up a spent firework and placed it in the bonfire that was built mere feet from the bench where I was sitting. My whole body froze. I looked at the boy, looked at the other boys. I waited for someone to shout at the cousin, to tell him to stop being a fucking motherfucker, that you shouldn't put fireworks--spent or not--in a fire.

In that moment, I felt a transcendentally-projected version of my father sitting next to me on the bench. He put his arm around me, sighed, shook his head. "That," he said, "is not a smart idea."

"Oh Jesus," I murmured.

"That might not be a good idea," one of the boys finally said.

"Oh, it's FINE," another said.

And then I watched the fire get loaded with the carcasses of Roman candles and cherry bombs and cakes. At first the boys were careful about at least settling the fireworks face-down in the fire, but after a while they got a little caught up in their excitement about the next one about to go off, and they'd just toss the cases and let them fall whatever way they pleased.

Which means, of course, that it was inevitable. Of course it was.

And at 10:05 PM, just as TLK's thirteen year-old cousin settled next to me on the bench, one of the bigger fireworks erupted, and a lick of fire exploded out from the middle, headed right for the bench. All I saw was green flame, and I took off. I don't think I've ever moved so fast in my life. I had no control over my body; it simply went. I could hear the explosions crackling behind me, and then, after I turned when I thought I was a safe distance away, more came belching out from the fire, so I launched behind a beached kayak.

When TLK found me, after he and his cousins put out the towel and chair that had caught fire--"DUDE!" the thirteen year-old yelled. "THAT WAS MY FUCKING TOWEL, ASSHOLES!"--I was quivering and sitting on top of the kayak. I was holding everything I'd come with.

"You okay?" TLK asked. He petted the top of my head.

I was in the throes of a nervous breakdown because those boys were laughing and starting to set up the next round of fireworks.

"No," I said.

"Are you having an anxiety attack?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I almost threw myself on you to save you," he said.

"ALMOST?"

"Well, you were out of there so fast I wouldn't have caught you," he said. He poked the bag I was cradling in my arms, the towel I had wrapped around my shoulders. "And look," he said. "You grabbed all your stuff when you ran."

I frowned.

"Want to go home?" he asked.

I didn't say anything. I just stared at him.

And that's when his cousin threw a firecracker at his feet, and it exploded inches from me.

Needless to say, we were hiking our way back to my car real quick after that. And later, while we were standing in the middle of a gas station mini-mart and trying to decide what to get to eat and drink, I felt very lucky, very grateful for the Mountain Dew, the Mike and Ikes, the Junior Mints we would buy and eat, and how much better they tasted than whatever they would've served up in the hospital, had I been transported there to recover from third degree burns. Right then and there, the melty taste of mint on my tongue was heaven.

How I Lost the Last Seven Dollars I Had in My Pocket on St. Patrick's Day

So, there was this bartender.

He was cute. He looked exactly like a more Irish version of the Wily Republican, which, I suppose, was fitting, since I saw him when we were out in Buffalo for St. Patrick's Day.

After ten minutes of watching this boy work behind the bar, I decided I was in love with him and that I wanted him to set aside the bottle of Jameson that was perpetually clutched in his hand so that we could duck out into the alley and kiss.

What I settled for was pushing my way to the bar and ordering a drink for Becky. She wanted a Bailey's and milk.

"A Bailey's and milk?" the bartender asked. He wrinkled his nose.

"Hey, it isn't for me," I said. "My friend requested it. I don't know."

"I'm not even entirely sure we have milk back here," he said. "Let me see what I can find."

He ducked down and rummaged in a cooler. And then another cooler. And then a final cooler--way back, under a row of dusty glasses. He pulled a gallon of milk from the cooler and hoisted it up so I could see. He unscrewed the top and cautiously sniffed. Then he gave me a thumbs-up.

"Great!" I shouted. "I really appreciate it!"

"Anytime, sweetie," he said, and then he got to work mixing the drink.

Later, after I had decided I was super in love with him, I went back up to the bar. There was a lull in the action, and there was some space up there because a large group of people--including a girl who spent a whole lot of time fingering a guy's ass for all to see--had left for the night. So I slid up to the bar and my bartender came right over.

"Can I tell you something?" I asked.

"Of course," he said.

"You look exactly like my ex-boyfriend."

"Really?" he said.

Do I even need to admit here that I'd had a lot to drink by this point in the night? There was, after all, a good reason the cute bartender always had the bottle of Jameson in his hand: Everyone was drinking it, and the boys who'd parked themselves at the bar early in the night--the ones who were getting their asses fingered by slutty drunk girls--bought us several shots.

"Yes," I said. "You look exactly like him. And I was thinking that maybe later I would bring my camera over here and take your picture so I can show him he has a twin in Buffalo."

The bartender tipped his head to the side. "Is that all we're going to do?" he asked. He grinned.

I had to restrain myself, lest I leap over the bar. "Honey," I said, "I'll do whatever you want, but first we need to take that picture."

And I did eventually get that picture. It was busy again, and the bartenders looked like they were seconds from losing their minds, but still the cute bartender came over to me--we were leaving then to get tacos; we wanted Crunchwrap Supremes more than anything in the world at that point in the morning--and I needed to get the picture that second.

And, luckily, he humored me. He leaned over the bar and let me snap a picture with him. And then I pulled whatever money I had left in my pocket--which amounted to seven dollars--and I shoved it at him.

"Here!" I said.

"You don't have a tab," he said, shaking his head.

"No," I said. "It's for you. For being cute!"

And ten minutes later, since I'd given the last of my money to the bartender just because he looked like the 24 year-old version of Wily, Amy's boyfriend had to buy me a taco because I was officially poor, poor, poor.

Merry Christmas from the Stupid Girl

Let me be clear: I do not know Polish. My family is Polish, yes, and my grandparents infused some Polish words into my lexicon, but those were mostly words for food (kapusta! pierogi! placek!) or body parts (butt=dupa!) and thus were not enough for me to pick up anything substantial.

Upon hearing that I was Polish and could not speak the language, two of my old (perverted) customers at the diner--the ones who, when I asked them what they'd like to eat one night, gestured to my apron, which was slung over my hips, and said, "Oh, you know.")--took it upon themselves to teach me parts of the language. But they always chose the worst possible times. They'd test me on last week's lesson on a swamped Friday night, when I was running to and from the kitchen with my arms piled high with plates of fish fry. I was a very bad student. I'd always end up muttering something that was halfway correct or in no way correct, and they'd always look disappointed and tell me to study harder. "You have to listen to us," they'd insist. "You have to listen very carefully."

But I was less interested in listening to them and more interested in making it through the summer so I could get out of that diner and to Maine, where I would start my full-time teaching job. After all, it was possible these men were not being good teachers. It was possible that while they were telling me, "This is the phrase for 'good morning to you'" they were really telling me the phrase for "Your female bits look mighty delicious this morning, and I'd wish you'd take off that apron and service me right here in the dining room."

I didn't trust them, and I didn't trust their Polish.

And so my Polish is still rusty.

As it turns out, if I were a little better at speaking the language, I wouldn't have had to rely on my brother's girlfriend on Christmas. She was the one who ended up translating for me when my grandfather started hissing Polish words at me shortly after dinner, just as the cousins and I were setting up our annual Uno Smackdown in the living room.

Here's the deal: My grandfather has many things wrong with him--legs still riddled from a childhood bout of polio, heart disease, no peripheral vision due to stroke, bad lungs, general bowel craziness, etc.--but the one thing he takes the least care of is his diabetes. He hates taking his medicine, he hates pricking his finger, he hates having to care about the number that his meter beeps back at him. So mostly he does none of those things.

I was over at his house the other day--not because I am a good granddaughter, but because I had to give him something of his my mother had accidentally left at my apartment in Maine during her Thanksgiving visit--and while I was there I felt compelled to make his lunch and do his dishes. I knew he was supposed to be taking his medicine and worrying about his blood sugar, so I made him do it while I stood there and watched (or, more specifically, pretended to dry a pan for fifteen minutes), and so he did. When the number came back as 346, I asked if that was good or bad.

"Well," he said, "it means I'm about ten seconds away from a coma."

But he just doesn't care about those things, and that became even more clear on Christmas, when the cousins and I were sitting around waiting for the Uno to begin. Grandpa was in a recliner in the corner, watching us through slitted eyes.

When my cousin Sarah got up to get herself a raspberry candy, my grandfather said, "Hey. Give me one."

I watched as Sarah took one of the candies for herself and then lifted the whole bowl and transported them over to where he was sitting. He slipped his fingers into pile and drew out several candies that he immediately shoved in his mouth.

"Grandpa..." I warned.

"Be quiet," he said.

Later on, it was sponge candy. Sarah was heading back to the kitchen for some, and my grandfather requested that she bring him one. Actually, several. Actually, bring the whole plate.

Appealing to or guilting my grandfather wasn't doing the trick, so I said, "Don't do it, Sarah."

She looked between the two of us, and then my grandfather narrowed his eyes at me. He started mumbling something under his breath. It was garbled, fast, angry. It was Polish.

"Well, I don't speak Polish," I said. My voice was light, bright, cheery. "So here's a bonus: I don't know what mean thing you're saying about me right now!"

But my brother's girlfriend, whose very Polish grandmother has taught her more of the language than I'll ever know, was there to translate.

"He's saying, 'Shut up, stupid girl!" she said.

And I nodded, said, "That seems about right," and turned back to the game at hand.

Energizer

At 4:18 PM on Christmas Eve I was in my father's kitchen. I was baking cookies and listening to holiday classics. That was exactly when Josh decided to text.

What are you doing? he said.

Baking cookies, I said.

So, am I going to see you or what?

Right now? I asked. I'm baking cookies. Come over. I'll make you a drink!

I figured I'd make him a festive eggnog--made with a liberal dose of amaretto, of course--and he could sit in the kitchen and watch me pull the last few sheets of cookies out of the oven.

You should come over here, he said. No one's here.

Fine, I said. I'll be over after I get the cookies done.

When I got to Josh's forty minutes later, I found him scrubbing at his bleary eyes.

"I'm hung over pretty bad," he said. "I'm disgusting."

I'd heard from him the night before, shortly after he and his friend John had decided it was a good idea to do two things: eat all the steak they found in the freezer at Josh's apartment and then go sit in John's car and drink a whole bunch of liquor straight from the bottle. I'd gotten a picture of it.

Now, we went into the living room and sat on the couch and watched CNN and then a soccer game. After a team had finally, finally scored, Josh turned to me and said, "Want to know what I got everyone for Christmas?"

"You got everyone the same thing?" I said. Already it sounded like a pretty bad idea.

"Yes," he said. "Batteries."

"Batteries?"

"Yes. I bought a shitload of batteries. All kinds of batteries."

"You got everyone in your family batteries for Christmas?"

"Yes! Come on--that's awesome!"

"Oh my God," I said.

"Think about it," he insisted. "Everyone always needs batteries."

"So when your mother opens her present tomorrow, she's going to just have a pile of batteries sitting in her lap," I said.

"Yes," Josh said. He was so proud of himself. "Isn't it a great idea? It IS! Really!"

Honestly, it sounded like something my brother would do. He is notoriously odd about gift-giving, too, and has been known to wrap packs of gum and give them out as seriously as if they were boxes of jewelry. But if I told Josh that--if I'd compared his gift-giving technique to Adam's--I know he would've taken that as a good thing. It might have even made his day.

Marvel at the Glory

Here's what I was greeted with bright and early on Christmas morning. The robe:



And if you're wondering if that's vodka-tea in that glass my brother's holding, you'd be right. He left it out overnight, and when he scuffed into the kitchen on Christmas morning he said, "I wonder how this tastes now. Want some?" And when I said I really did not want some he tried it himself. And that face he's making tells us it wasn't that great.

Happy Thanksgiving from My Family to Yours

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here in Maine, especially this kid, who, when we went to see New Moon last night, pulled a beer out from his coat pocket and cracked it just as the lights were about to dim.


My brother is so classy it's breathtaking, isn't it?

Lesson Learned: Don't Hold Up a Sign That Says I AM DRUNK!!!!!!!!!

I am more exhausted today--my first day back in Maine after winter break--than I was when I left for Buffalo after the fall semester ended. I did a lot of running around, sure, but that was only a small part of what made me tired.

I couldn't sleep. Or, to be more precise, I could sleep, but it was an awful sleep, a sleep that was interrupted every hour by another nightmare. Each morning I would wake up feeling like I'd spent the last seven hours running instead of sleeping.

I dreamed I was fired from my job because while my students were doing oral presentations, I sat in the back of the classroom and held up a sign that said I AM DRUNK!!!!!!!!!!!

I dreamed I was waitressing, that I'd forgotten table 52's bread, that I couldn't find the kitchen to pick up my orders, that the bartender was yelling at me, that fish frys were stacking up and up and up and up and up beneath warming lamps, but I couldn't get to them.

I dreamed I was lost. I dreamed I was being chased. I dreamed there was someone in my bedroom, standing over me, watching me sleep.

I dreamed I moved into a new apartment without looking at it first, that the bathroom was green with mold, that the toilets were so backed up they spewed mountains of waste into the air, that the toilets were so backed up they'd gotten into the bathtub, that when I tried to take a shower all that came up through the drain and down from the shower head was brown, brown, brown.

I dreamed of him.

Every morning I would open my eyes and feel it immediately--the pressure, the weight of something invisible leaning down on me.

I went back to Buffalo with an awful lot of baggage from a strange semester, and I guess the nightmares, the pressure, was just my body's way of working through it, trying to make sense of the often-ugly things I slogged through for the last five months.

Even when I was awake, I was busy trying to work things out in my head. I thought I would spend a lot of time writing, but I didn't; instead, I spent a lot of time reading, and when I tired of reading I tented a book over my face so I could lie still and think while rows and rows of words pressed their tiny serifs into my skin.

I thought about what I want to accomplish in the next semester and over the summer. I thought about the girl I've become. I thought about all the heartbreak I gave and took. I thought about my students and what I could do to better teach them the things they need to know. I thought about how I want to become a better person.

And it tired me out. Still, yesterday I made the drive back to Maine--tired--but when I made it to Portsmouth, to the Piscataqua River Bridge--the midpoint of which serves as the border between New Hampshire and Maine--I suddenly felt lighter, brighter. I felt like maybe I'd made peace with some of the things that had been hanging over me as I crossed the same bridge on my way home for Christmas. And later, after I went to sleep with Abbey curled against my hip, I didn't have a single nightmare. Today I might still be tired, and I might still need a lot more sleep to catch up on all that I lost over break, but I think maybe--just maybe--I'm getting somewhere now.

Summing It Up

I think the picture that most accurately captures the essence of my New Year's Eve is this one:

Cheers, 2009. Let's see what we can do.

No One Does That

On Christmas, my father ducked away for a few hours to be with his fiancee's family, and that meant I was alone with my brother and his girlfriend. My brother decided that because his girlfriend hadn't seen Top Gun in a long time and because he'd gotten it for Christmas, he was going to put it in and treat us to an afternoon of sweaty Tom Cruise.

During the sex scene--one of the first sex scenes I'd ever seen, a scene that forever shaped my idea of romance, seduction, and sex--my brother chuckled.

"I love '80s sex scenes," he said.

"Gross," I said. "Don't say the word 'sex.'"

"No, seriously," he insisted. "I mean, who has sex like that? Really."

"ENOUGH!" I said. "Sick!"

"Like, really," he said. "Who has sex standing up against a wall? Who just stands there with a belt buckle half-unbuckled? Who goes that slow and is all touchy-touchy-touchy? No one does that."

"PLEASE STOP!" I shrieked. It was Christmas, and I didn't want to be learning what my brother thought was normal and abnormal in the bedroom.

"NO ONE DOES THAT, JESS!" he said. "No one. Do you hear me? NO ONE."

And then I got up to make myself another drink.

Holiday Gems from My Grandfather

When you get my grandfather to sit down at the dinner table on a holiday, you can never really tell what you're going to get. Still, one thing is for sure: what you get is usually inappropriate. And while my brother made it his mission to say the word nipple as many times as humanly possible in the span of twenty-four hours, my grandfather decided to give us his arsenal of responses to insults. Nothing celebrates the birth of Christ quite like my grandfather saying the words fuck, ass, shit, and dick while his family pours wine and assembles slabs of roast beef and neat piles of horseradish on their plates. Here are some of the highlights:

(1.)

Grandpa: When people say "Fuck you!" to me this is what I say to them. I say, "If you did, you'd never want to go back to sheep."

(2.)

Grandpa: When I was at the home, there was this woman Irene who didn't like me very much. One day Irene told me to go straight to hell, and I turned right around and I looked at her and said, "Now, Irene, I will never go to your house."

(3.)

Grandpa: Goddamn this dog! He's got his nose in my ass.

Mom: Sorry, Dad. He's just a puppy. He's just trying to play.

Grandpa: Well, I don't like it. He's acting like that dog your brother had down in Texas. That dog was always running up behind you and sticking his nose in your ass. After a few days, I'd had quite enough of that. So there was this time I could hear the dog coming--he was running right up behind me, ready to stick his nose in my goddamned ass--and I was ready for him. I waited until he had his snout buried as far up in there was it would go, and then I let a fart rip as loud as I could. And you know what? That dog backpedaled so fast it was like he'd been shot. He never put his nose in my ass again after that.

Merry Christmas from Our Family to Yours

When you think of Christmas, you can't help but think about love and gifts and lights and eggnog and mistletoe. And, of course, a scarf-ed bust of our sixteenth president.

Abe's wishing you a very merry Christmas, and so am I.

Thanksgiving: A Play in Four Acts

Act I: The Arrival

We open on my uncle's kitchen. My uncle is carving a turkey. A smoked ham is already sliced and waiting on the stove. There is Southern gravy--floating thick with giblets and hard-boiled egg, his wife's favorite--in a large pot. A sweet potato casserole that would make you see God is steaming on one of three tables.

Enter the Cousins. There are six of us. We are a little misbehaving gang. Five minutes after our arrival, my brother has already cussed fifteen times, none of those times discreetly. "Adam!" my mother has to keep saying. "Adam! ADAM!"

My cousin Aaron, who talks sass like no one else, interrupts one of my stories to ask if I ever, ever, ever shut up.

"I will kill you," I say, but I am kidding. I am in a good mood. After all, I have already pulled kittens off the back porch and cuddled them under my chin. The kittens are Abbey's half-siblings. Her mother, it appears, gets around.

Now that I'm in the kitchen, I wonder why there are three tables crammed into the currently-being-renovated-room. I am not entirely certain we know enough people to sit in that many chairs. "Who's coming to dinner?" I ask.

My uncle explains that he and his wife--a slow-talkin' Tennessee lady he met while working in the South--have somehow signed on to cater the wedding of someone they know from work, and--surprise!--those people are coming to dinner to test their food out before agreeing to the catering.

I have questions--who tests out a caterer's food on Thanksgiving; since when has my uncle been a caterer; don't these people have family dinners of their own to deal with; who comes over to a co-worker's house on a major holiday--but that will have to wait. There's another surprise!

My uncle looks over his shoulder, not stopping his turkey carving, and mouths the words THEY. ARE. BLACK.

For a moment I think I have hallucinated. For a moment I think I am getting my leg pulled. Everyone knows what an awful sort of racist my grandfather is. If pain and embarrassment were amusing, it would be sort of funny if someone other than the white people he was related to sat down for a holiday dinner with my grandfather--especially if that dinner involved giving thanks and expressing love and tolerance. Ha! Ha! The thought of that is mildly amusing and not bad fodder for a story, a novel, a play.

Then I realize my uncle is not laughing and that he is instead flaring his eyes in a terrified sort of way.

"Oh Jesus," I say.

My mother's boyfriend calmly gets up and takes his glass--not a wine one, but a giant plastic pop cup--over to the counter and pours himself a tall drink of White Zinfandel. When I get up to follow suit, he says, "Yup. Keep pouring."

Act II: The Dinner

My grandfather arrives at the exact same time as my uncle's co-workers. I can't imagine worse timing. I am in the living room when it happens, and I see my aunt trying to lead my grandfather--who is tapping his cane over ice--to the house. I see the co-workers headed to the house, too, and they are carrying a small child bundled in winter finery. This makes me even more nervous because if there's anything my grandfather hates more than black people it is black people who have procreated and thus contributed to another generation of black people who will go on ruining his country long after he is unable to complain about it.

I skitter away from the living room, back into the kitchen. "Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus," I say.

When my grandfather finally makes it into the room, everyone starts talking all at once about everything. His pills! The weather! The pie! His dead wife! Anything that cannot even remotely be brought back to any race, cultural group, or religious sect that my grandfather despises. If we can just bamboozle him! If we can just keep him dazzled for an hour! Maybe we'll all make it out alive!

It is the child that makes me the most worried. He is the cutest thing I have ever seen, what with his little sneakers and little jeans and little holiday sweater. He is three and just learning to talk, and whatever he does say comes out loud, shrieky, and sort of wrong. I want to pick him up and tickle him and listen to him giggle. I sense, however, that my grandfather wants to talk about his hair--I can sense the words nappy and afro on his tongue--and I start guzzling wine and praying that our small corner of the world will suddenly crack open and suck the whole family into a fiery abyss so at least our deaths are quick.

This does not happen. But the Cousins act up and say foul things and cavort in a manner that makes it hard to hear anything that is going on over at the adult table. When pie is served, everyone is still in one piece, no one is crying, and I take this as a good sign.

Act III: Moaning

The Cousins have eaten so much and so quickly that we have all made ourselves sick. Sick as dogs. We cannot get comfortable. We arrange ourselves in different locations, trying to find a place that allows us to be the least nauseous that's possible. We try sitting next to the Christmas tree, in the parlor, on couches, in high-backed chairs. We finally settle on the floor directly in front of the bathroom, just in case anyone needs to go shoot turkey and stuffing from their mouths, which, considering the way my brother is moaning and writhing, might just happen. No, really:

Act IV: The Departure

We are sitting in the back living room. The adults are sitting in the front living room, down by the tree, and they are watching TV. They are talking adult things. No one is screaming, shouting, or cursing, so we assume my grandfather is being made--somehow--to be quiet.

The Cousins are playing Uno. My brother is discussing all the bathroom trips he's made this evening. He is cataloguing the results of those bathroom trips. He's talking about poop and smelly farts. He is making my girl cousins squeal Gross! Gross! Gross!

He occasionally drops a sentence or two about how much sex he and his girlfriend are having.

"Just kill me," I say.

I say that for several reasons. First, eww. Second, this is the most nervous I've felt in a long time--and I've recently gone out to lunch with The Boy From Work, and the moment before I opened the door and saw him for the first time since we broke up was a pretty sweaty moment--and I feel like we're all sitting around waiting for something to go wrong.

During a lull in the game, my brother needles me in the ribs. "Just look at him," he says. "He's dying to say something. You can tell." Then my brother slaps a Draw Four Wild onto the pile and turns to my cousin Aaron. "Take that, Fuck Head," he says.

After an hour or two of digestion--during which the sweet little three year old has torn around the living room, chasing after the cat, climbing under the Christmas tree, plucking off parts of my aunt's massive Christmas village--my uncle's co-workers are ready to go. They plop their son into his snow boots and winter coat. They pull a hat over his head. They say goodbye, wave, thank everyone for everything, say how full they are, and then they shut the door behind them.

All the Cousins' heads whip around to see our grandfather, who is sitting like some shrunken king in a chair angled directly at the television, but most of us are too far away to hear him. Still, his lips are moving, and they are moving fast and quick.

My brother, who is sitting closer to him than any of us, widens his eyes. He rolls those eyes to the ceiling. He shakes his head. "You don't want to know," he says. "You just don't."

But in that moment I am thankful for that small mercy, for the fact that he at least kept his mouth shut while guests were there, for the fact that he didn't ruin their holiday and send them away from our family thinking, What the hell is wrong with them? Just who do they think they are inviting us over and letting that happen?

And already we are moving on, blocking him out, sliding more red-yellow-green-blue Uno cards across a towering pile, saying take that! and ha! and suck it! and, really, it's not a bad way to spend a night. In the back living room, we are all getting our assess whooped at a game we used to play four hours with our grandmother--a woman we loved more than anything ever--and in the front living room, my grandfather is spilling hate from his lips, but for once we don't hear it.

A List of Things (Big and Small) That I Am Thankful For

• Fresh snow on thin-limbed trees
• Mike Rowe
• My family
• My friends
• Kittens
• Bacon
• The smell of Cheerios hanging over downtown Buffalo
• Ryan Miller

[Note: The moment when Rick DiPietro hugs Ryan Miller? THAT IS ALL MY BEST DREAMS ROLLED INTO ONE.]

• Vodka mixed with ginger ale
• High heeled boots
• A wood stove
• The town where I grew up
• Garages
• My high school English teacher
• My college creative writing teacher
• My grad school creative writing teachers
• Books
• Eggnog
• Snow plows
• Calculators
• Cameras
• Ocean air
• Cheese
• Hockey
• Chicken wings
• Penguins
• Boys
  

Extending the Celebration

Yesterday when I got in to work, everyone from the department was suspiciously hanging out in or around my office. After I had settled in and put my things away, everyone surrounded my desk as the chair of the department brought in a chocolate and raspberry cake she'd made to celebrate my twenty-seventh. It would be my second cake in less than twenty-four hours. If that's not recipe for an excellent birthday, I don't know what is.

My father and his fiancee were in town all weekend long to celebrate my birthday, and we'd spent that time eating lobster and wandering the cobblestone streets of Portland, eating crab and hunting for bargains in Freeport, and, of course, taking the mandatory I'm in Front of the Big Boot picture at L.L. Bean. We had an official birthday dinner where we drank peach martinis and muddled Old Fashioneds and ate duck and prime rib and crab cakes. Then we came home and drank champagne and ate thick slices of coconut cake from a bakery that smelled like spun-sugar, even out in its parking lot.

I totally milked my day. Totally milked it, just like always, just like tradition. I got excited every time I went down the stairs to collect the cards from my mailbox, and I got excited every time there was a knock on my door--the mailman dropping off another package from New York, from Minnesota, from Wisconsin. I got excited each time I tore open the wrapping paper and found books and shirts about cow tipping and Spam singles and treats for Abbey. It was a good day. A very good day. And definitely better than last year, when I, in the first few weeks of my first semester as a full-timer, had to teach until 9:00 and then come home to an empty apartment--no cat, no boyfriend, no family, no friends--and open a bottle of champagne and cut into a slice of dry grocery store cake by myself. This birthday was an awful lot more festive than that, as you can imagine:

If some of you have been wondering all these years where I get that bizarre posing I do in pictures, I think the answer is now abundantly clear.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday. Today I turn twenty-seven years old.

If you're curious about how I'm celebrating this momentous occasion, let me just tell you this: I'll be eating an awful lot of expensive seafood and drinking an awful lot of expensive vodka. I'll be wearing a slick black dress and carrying a pink croc clutch. I'll be busy taking my father and his lady love, who arrive tomorrow morning, around Maine for a few days. I'll be eating cake from this place. I'll be busy thanking the gods of aging that I no longer look like my thirteen year-old self--a girl who looked so happy and earnest and psyched to have a cake with that many frosting roses:

And, as always, as is tradition, I will turn up the Lowest of the Low and continue to dream that their best songs were written about me.

Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay!

I don't know much about the gay lifestyle here in Maine. I couldn't tell you where the great gay bars or saucy meeting places are. I couldn't tell you about festivals, shows, or parades that celebrate Maine's LGBT population. I don't have a link to that world here--which, yes, distresses me a lot--but after this weekend, I can tell you this: there's definitely a gay undercurrent zipping through this state, or at least its southern coast.

I realized this as my mother and I picked our way through a large Christmas store in downtown Portland. My mother and I are both fools for Christmas decorations, and there is absolutely no time during a year that we aren't game for shopping for ornaments, garlands, trees, or holiday-themed place settings. So, while her boyfriend and her boyfriend's son sat in a bar down the street, my mother and I spent some serious time oohing and ahhing at Christmas villages, hand-painted Russian Matryoshkas, and a variety of lobster and moose-themed ornaments. Then we came to the last room of ornaments. There, lined up in neat rows that took up nearly an entire wall, were mermaid ornaments.

It's important to know why I saw the flicker of glittery tails and was immediately drawn to the wall. For a large period of my childhood, I was obsessed with the movie The Little Mermaid. I was so obsessed with Ariel and her life under the sea, I spent a considerable amount of time fantasizing that I was a mermaid, that I was able to float and twirl among sea anemones and schools of fish. Sometimes I would go so far as to pretend I was a mermaid for a whole day, and if my parents called me to, say, come into the kitchen and eat my dinner, I'd make my way lazily down the hall, arms stroking, hair tossing, voice singing Ariel's trademark songs.

I've always been into mermaids--probably more than one girl should be, especially considering mermaids aren't real. But still, this explains why I got so excited, why I squealed a little bit when I saw that wall of mermaids. I stepped over the wall to check them out--there were tons!--and that's when I stopped, gasped, and clapped a hand over my mouth. These mermaids weren't what I'd originally thought (mermaid ornaments depicting human careers and situations); instead, they were just slutty. And gay. Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay.

"Look at this!" I hissed at my mother. I plucked one of the mermaids off the wall and balanced it in my palm. It was the best thing I'd ever seen. The ornament was big--larger than my hand--and heavy. These mermaids and their glittery tails were made of real substantial stuff. Slutty, slutty stuff. Their tails were arched in various positions that insinuated sex; they were wearing outfits that should only be seen in the bedroom; and they always had liquor in their hands. A martini, a margarita, a flute of champagne--each mermaid looked like a Vegas hooker who was two drinks away from giving a freebie to that cute guy over by the slots.

"These mermaids are prostitutes!" I said, and my mother and I laughed and poked at each of the skanky sea creatures and their tiny glasses of booze. But none of the girls could even come close to the beauty, the brilliance, and the hilarity of the mermen. I'd never seen such blatantly gay Christmas ornaments before, and, needless to say, I loved them. I wanted to buy every single one of them and start a tradition of having a small themed tree devoted only to these ornaments and their sparkly awesomeness. Just picture it:

It would be the best themed Christmas tree ever. Start shopping.

Resolved

I usually come by my New Year's resolutions in strange, maybe backward ways. For example: During grad school someone I didn't like very much accused me of being a sucky person, of being a gossip, of telling all sorts of tales behind people's backs. This person said I was a big fake, that I pretended I was such a goody-goody but then would turn right around and be catty. I didn't argue with this person's first point--I am a gossip, and I do tell all sorts of tales behind people's backs, but, really, who doesn't? (After all, the person talking about me clearly does.) The thing that irritated me was the fact that this person said I was being fake. She was somehow under the assumption that I wanted to pass myself off as someone who didn't gossip, but that's just not right. I think anyone who knows me well understands I would never try to pass myself off as non-gossiper. I'm a writer. I like to tell stories--mine and others--wherever I can hog the stage. To think I'm not going to log those embarrassing incidents, strange flukes, uncomfortable moments, and drunk nights in my brain is just silly. If I can find reason to, I'm probably going to tell people about them. If I can find the occasion, I'm probably going to write it in a story.

I've never said otherwise. I've never pretended otherwise.

Still, this person's remark gave me pause. I started thinking about how much I hated people talking about me (yes, I realize this is an inconvenient position for someone who likes to gossip as much as I do), and I started thinking about how many times I'd been hurt by someone who said mean things about me behind my back. I wondered how many times something I'd said had hurt the person I was talking about. I didn't want to be that girl--the girl whose remarks cut deep wounds that were slow to heal--and that's how I arrived at one of my New Year's Resolutions: I was going to gossip less.

Some of this year's resolution came about in similar fashion. One of them came about because someone else--my grandfather, to be exact--said and did something that prompted me to do some hard thinking about myself, where I come from, and where I am going.

A few days before Christmas, I had a typical moment with my grandfather. I spent a few hours turning that over in my head, irritating myself by replaying the event and wondering why he can't be nice to everyone for just one holiday season. Just one. But I had other things to busy myself with for the next few days, and so I did, and I'd almost forgotten how angry I was at my grandfather, but then he showed up to Christmas dinner at my mother's house and reminded me.

He was two hours late to dinner. My mother held dinner, juggled the food's temperature and readiness, for those hours because she had no idea where her father was, what he was doing, or when he was going to get there. He stumbled in the door late, late, late, but never said a word about it really--and we all just shrugged our shoulders and went along with things, which is what we've taken to doing with him since his stroke. We ignore his forgetfulness, his shaking, his stumbling, his inability to see things right in front of him, his insistence on driving even when it's so, so clear he shouldn't. (He recently ran into a picnic bench outside the diner where he eats his breakfast and lunch. He deflected the fact that he couldn't see the picnic bench that was so clearly right in front of him by raising royal hell in the parking lot, yelling about how the owners were stupid, were moronic, were foolish for putting a picnic bench in front of their restaurant. What purpose could it possibly serve? He demanded to know what use a restaurant would ever have for a picnic bench. By running into it, he'd crippled the front end of his new Jeep. So he went out and got another new one, and that one has since been hit three separate times--all of which, of course, were not his fault.)

After our late dinner, we moved the party into the living room so we could watch a movie. Before the movie, though, we got sucked into a standup marathon on Comedy Central, which my grandfather slept through--thank God--but he snuffled awake just as a commercial featuring Tom Cruise flashed across the screen.

"Goddamnit," my grandfather grumbled. "Tom Cruise. I hate that faggot cupcake. What a fruity princess."

And I suppose that's not all that shocking. There are worse things my grandfather could've said--and I've heard those worse things before--but the actual words weren't what really bothered me in the moment. It was my grandfather's tone that bothered me. His voice dripped with hatred--real hatred. It was clear he'd devoted some serious time to thinking about Tom Cruise, to hating Tom Cruise, to thinking up mean names to call Tom Cruise. (My grandfather has had a similar life-long hatred for Rosie O'Donnell. He knew Rosie was a lesbian ten years before anyone else did. He was the first person to ever use the word dyke in my presence--as in, I don't know why you waste your time watching that loud-mouthed fat dyke!) That someone can develop that kind of real anger and ill-will toward someone they will never know, someone who has no bearing on his life, someone who is a celebrity, is shocking. How many minutes must my grandfather have spent cataloguing hate over the course of his life?

Of course I understand that lots of people have those prickly feelings for certain celebrities, that they will often throw barbs when that celebrity comes on the television or radio. Me, I have the habit of doing that when I am exposed to Fergie. I've been known to say I hate Fergie, mainly for her song Big Girls Don't Cry, which haunted me all last summer. It's a ridiculous song with atrocious lyrics and grammar (I'm going to miss you like a child misses their blanket??--Come on, Ferg!), but do I really hate Fergie because of it? No. No, I do not. I don't wish her ill, don't wish her harm or death, but I do wish she'd stop singing and showing up on my television screen looking like a half-naked drag queen.

Last summer when I, in a moment of exasperation after hearing that awful song for the eighteenth time that day, said, I hate Fergie! in front of everyone at the restaurant, it was in a spirit very much different than my grandfather's. No one at the restaurant was startled by my tone. No one thought I really did hate Fergie, that I wanted her dead and buried, that I wanted to be the one to kill her myself. When my grandfather proclaims hate, there is no question about its intensity. If you prodded him further about Tom Cruise, I know for certain that my grandfather would say that the world would be a far better place if Tom Cruise were dead, and he would tell you if you gave him a gun and the chance he would do it himself because nothing would give him more pleasure than to put a bullet between that faggot cupcake's eyes. I guarantee that's what he would say. And I guarantee he really, really believes it.

My grandfather is serious in his hate. His seriousness worries me because I'm half afraid his hate is catching. I worry mostly about my brother, about him catching it--not my grandfather's racism and homophobia but the anger, the rage my grandfather has exhibited over the years. I sometimes see it when Adam gets worked up--he raises his voice and bellows things like Jeeee-sus Christ! Goddamnit! This is all bullshit! Complete bullshit! and his intonation is a pitch-perfect mimic of our grandfather's. When he goes on his rants, I am instantly transported back to dozens of holiday dinners when my grandfather found reason to scold my grandmother for any number of things. Jeeee-sus Christ, Dorothy! he'd yell. Goddamnit, Dorothy! And all we could do was sit there and stare into our mashed potatoes.

And he hasn't stopped or mellowed in his old age. A few days before I left New York to come back to Maine, I stopped over at my uncle's house and found my aunt fuming mad at my grandfather. She told me that the day before my mother had called their house and left them a message. She was trying to get a hold of them to invite them for dinner at her house, and after she left a message with them she called my grandfather. While inviting my grandfather to the same dinner, she must have casually mentioned she had tried to call her brother but couldn't find him, which prompted my grandfather to take matters into his own hands. He agreed to come to dinner and then hung up the phone. He picked it back up and dialed his son. When his son didn't answer, my grandfather left a message.

"Goddamnit, you lazy son of a bitch!" he shouted into the machine. "Get off your goddamned lazy ass and pick up the goddamned phone! Your goddamned sister is trying to get in touch with you!"

And then he hung up.

Needless to say, my aunt was not too thrilled about coming home to a blinking light on her machine and a stream of curse words that poured from the speaker when she pressed play. She told me she was so mad she was doing some serious thinking about not going over to his house and cleaning up--something she'd planned on doing since she went over a few days earlier and found his house, which she'd cleaned from top to bottom when he was in the hospital for his stroke, to be a sty. There was garbage everywhere, she said. There was cat puke on the couch and old food wrappers on the floor. There was a suspicious bucket of liquid in the living room--she wasn't sure what it was, but it smelled like urine. ("That makes sense," my father told me later as I shared the story. "Your great-grandfather used to keep a bucket next to his bed so he didn't have to get up in the night to go to the bathroom. He would only empty it every few days, so the whole house reeked of urine. It wouldn't surprise me if your grandfather has taken up that habit.")

My aunt had planned on going over there and whipping things into shape again, even though my grandfather is more than capable of doing it himself. He is not an invalid. He is mobile. He has enough control of his faculties to putter around and keep a clean house. He certainly has enough know-how to make it down the hall to use the toilet instead of a bucket in the living room. But he's lazy. He's complacent. He knows someone will eventually come by and clean up all his messes, just like they always do. And he can treat them just as badly as he wants to--they'll still come. That's the way it's always been, and I suppose that's the way it will always be.

My aunt was mad--she was hopping mad--but after a few days she would calm down and she would go over there and empty the bucket, pick up the wrappers, scrub off the cat puke. We constantly reward the man for his foul mouth, bad disposition, his anger, his hate.

We are not the only ones. Others cater to him, too.

Ever since my grandmother died, my grandfather has taken to driving up to a small diner in town for both his breakfast and lunch. My grandmother died in 2003, so my grandfather has been at this for a considerable amount of time. He knows the drill. He knows exactly when this diner stops serving breakfast and switches to lunch. He knows because he's witnessed it for four and a half years.

Still, that didn't stop him from raising holy hell a few weeks ago when he came to the diner about half an hour after they'd stopped serving breakfast. My grandfather had a taste for pancakes, and when his waitress--just some young thing, a skinny little high school girl--told him she was sorry, that they'd stopped serving breakfast half an hour ago, my grandfather let loose on her. He told that little girl the rules were stupid, that no restaurant should have timelines for serving different types of food. "No restaurant that does that will have my business!" he yelled. He thrashed about. He caused a scene. He made everyone in the restaurant uncomfortable. He made that little high school girl upset, and she probably went home and cried because she hates her job, she hates customers like my grandfather, she hates how they make her feel so small.

My grandfather stormed out of the restaurant after telling the owner he was never coming back, not ever, not if they were going to keep up this ridiculous scheduling of meals.

He came back the very next day, though, and parked in his usual spot. He walked into the restaurant, and I imagine everyone there held their breaths, just like our family does in similar situations. We've mastered the art of breathing so slow, so quiet you'd never guess we were actually doing it. We've learned to make ourselves very still, very small, as not to attract any attention.

But someone at the restaurant was going to get attention, that much was sure. I imagine the waitresses all turned their backs, all scurried to parts of the restaurant where they could look busy and engaged, where they woudn't have to tend to my grandfather's needs. And, thankfully, someone saved them. As my grandfather settled down at the counter, the cook turned around and gave him a small smile. Both she and he knew it was long past breakfast but he'd be wanting it anyway. "George," she said, "how about I make you some potato pancakes for breakfast?" And my grandfather smiled, tented his fingers behind his head, and said that would be just lovely. He told the cook his wife used to make them for him, and he'd sure loved them. He told the cook he would be happy--so happy--if she made a batch just for him.

And just like that, my grandfather was rewarded for his bad behavior. He got exactly what he wanted. He walked out of that restaurant with his head held high. He owned them. He controlled them. And he always would.

I'm tired of that. I'm tired of him spewing hate and anger at us. I'm tired of everyone doing that. And it's not that I'm saying I'm innocent of similar things--because I'm not--but still, I am tired of throwing around hate, throwing around distaste for the rest of the world. I'm going to shape up. I'm really going to. Starting now, in 2008, I am going to be much more conscious about the way I present myself, about what I say, about how I talk. I'm going to be more positive. I'm going to abandon hate, shed it layer by small layer. It won't be easy, and I won't be perfect at it, but I'm certainly going to try my best. I am going to make a very big, very serious effort at leaving that kind of negativity in the dust. There's too much of it out there as it is, and I don't need to be contributing more when I don't even mean it. I'm not going to make the people I love, the people I am closest to, feel small and insignificant. I'm going to tell them I love them, that they are good and kind. I will never stand over them and treat them like dirt because I know they will take it.

I'm going to really think before I speak. I'm going to bite back every time I feel the urge to say something as false and unnecessary as I hate Fergie! or I hate straight leg pants! I'm not going to waste any more precious words on things so silly. I refuse to contribute to the already raging attitude this world has. I'm going to listen, think, and be just a generally better person. I don't want to pass along any more of the quiet strain that has been built into our family. I'm done with it. I really am.

And I realize that if I am going to try to hate less, if I am going to try to let go of some of the anger inside, I probably need to let go of some of the bad blood I have with my grandfather. I realize that, and I also realize it might be my hardest task. Ever since my grandfather and I had our fight on Christmas Eve so many years ago, I've found it difficult to look at him, to sit next to him, to even be in the same room as him. I always want to put as much physical distance between us as possible, mostly because I know what he's thinking when he looks at me. I know what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is make sure I know he is right and powerful and bigger than I am.

And I will try to let go, and I will try to forget, but there are just some things that can't ever be fixed--and I'm going to try to make myself a better person before I become the thing that can't be fixed.

A Look Back

Before getting to the New Year's resolutions--most of which occurred to me only after I arrived back in western New York for my Christmas vacation--I felt it was appropriate to take a look back at the last year and how exactly I got from one place to the next. So here it is, a look back at 2007, in the style of DJJ, who did it first this time:


January

Days before the break of 2007 Jess reads that certain Latin cultures believe that wearing red underwear on New Year's Eve helps you secure luck in love in the coming year. Jess wears red underwear to the New Year's Eve party.

Jess gets drunk a lot with her cousins.

Jess considers joining Match.com.

Jess's brother decides to inform her his favorite spot for masturbation is on their mother's couch.


February

Jess goes on a double date with a boy her uncle swears she will just love. The boy, while nice, wears glasses that hang from his neck on that type of string-and-clip-combo favored by old ladies and librarians. After hearing about this date, Diana says, "You need a little wild. He doesn't sound wild."

Jess realizes the only man she is truly ready to be in a relationship with is the Buffalo Sabres' goalie Ryan Miller, even if it means they will breed children with freakishly long heads and vaguely crazy eyes.

Jess's date to the Valentine's Day dinner party she throws is a miniature bust of Abe Lincoln.

Jess faces the possibility that she will never, ever, ever get over the Wily Republican.


March

Jess gets a really badass haircut. She now has bangs. The World's Best Bangs.

Jess goes on Spring Break. Vacation spot of choice? Minnesota. While enjoying the frigid flatness of the Midwest, Jess makes out with a long-haired boy who tells her he is going to write poetry about her. To her knowledge, that poetry was never written.

Jess stalks Ryan Miller. She sits behind him at the taping of a local sports show. She prays he will look at her and instantly fall in love.

Ryan Miller does not notice Jess.


April

Jess realizes she is in love with at least fifteen of her students at the giant state university where she is teaching. They have followed her from English 101 to English 201, and they love her right back. She considers proposing they all move into her father's basement so she can go downstairs and hang out with them whenever she wants.

Jess's grandfather suffers a stroke. She drives from the small country hospital where he was initially admitted to the city hospital that specializes in stroke patient care. She sits up all night with her family and her grandfather. She doesn't feel much of anything, which seems inappropriate for the situation. She realizes she doesn't like herself very much for that.

The Sabres enter the playoffs. There is much rejoicing and foot-stomping and screaming of the phrase, I want to have your babies, Ryan Miller!

Jess's brother gives her helpful hints about what Canadian strip club to go to for Becky's bachelorette party.

Jess realizes that in a month's time, she is going to need to have a summer job. She starts to cry. She cries a lot.


May

Jess starts having nightmares about waitressing. She knows what's coming. She spends too many minutes feeling sorry for herself. I have a master's degree! she thinks. I should NOT have to go back to waitressing! Then she hates herself for being so snobby.

Jess bakes and assembles a giant penis-shaped cake. She carts it to a suite overlooking the cataract in Niagara Falls. She gets drunk and celebrates the fact that Becky is the first Pink Torpedo to be headed down the aisle.

Jess says goodbye to the best bunch of students she's had in a long, long time. She bakes them dozens and dozens and dozens of cookies and cries as she drives out of the parking lot.

Jess also says goodbye to the students she's been teaching as a side-gig at the big community college in town. She has never been happier to be rid of a group of students. The class had started with 25 students, had been whittled down to eight who occasionally attended, and only four of those passed.

Jess fills out an application at a tiny 50's diner in her hometown. A waiter brings her an application and hangs around the counter while she fills in her school and employment history. He keeps asking if she wants anything--food, a pop, a glass of water, anything--but she declines.

Jess sits in the cramped and dirty office of the tiny 50's diner in her hometown and gets hired as a waitress.


June

On her first day of work, Jess is trained in by the same waiter who handed her the application. He is the only waiter at the restaurant. He is bald. He has a long beard. He looks sort of like a man Hollywood producers would cast in a prison-break movie. He would be the vaguely Mexican inmate with murder in his eyes.

On that first day a woman at the restaurant says to Jess, "Are you single?" Jess says she is. The woman asks the vaguely Mexican prison inmate waiter if he is single. He says he is. "Well," the woman says, "you two would be really great together."

The next night Jess is talked into going to Canada to drink with some people from work. The vaguely Mexican prison inmate waiter corners her near a bar bathroom and kisses her. "Is this alright?" he asks. She thinks, Oh, why not? and says yes.

Jess gets an interview at a small college in Maine.

Jess realizes everyone she works with is either a sex addict, a drug addict, or just really, really weird. Jess also realizes she really, really likes these strange people.

Becky walks down the aisle. Jess declares it the best wedding and reception she's ever been to. She gets so drunk she walks back to the hotel shoving leftover wedding cake into her mouth while her best girls from high school trade shoes and giggle, giggle, giggle.


July

Jess makes out with that boy from work all the time. He leaves flowers on her car almost every day. After a particularly bad day at the restaurant--a day where Jess considers quitting because it was just that horrible--the boy later shows up at the bar with two surprises: more flowers and a clean-shaven face. He has a butt chin. Jess thinks it's the cutest chin she's ever seen.

When one of the cooks asks Jess and the boy from work if they are dating, the boy looks at Jess expectantly and Jess--who, up until that moment had been saying, Let's just keep things loose, okay?--says, "Yes." Plain and simple.

Jess gets a second interview with a small college in Maine. She drives ten hours, does the interview, tools around Portland and thinks, Yes, please.

Jess is offered the job in Maine. When she tells the boy from work this, it looks like his heart is actually going to fall out of his chest. She panics about what is going to happen next.

Jess tries to hook her brother up with one of her waitress friends. This waitress has a box full of sex toys and the tendency to show her breasts to anyone with eyes. Jess figures they will be great together. They see each other a few times, but a relationships never gets off the ground.

Jess drives to West Virginia and to attend the wedding of one of her best boys from grad school. For two whole days she is just a drunk girl in a cute dress. It is a nice vacation.


August

Jess drives to Maine with her mother. They apartment-hunt. Due to an unfortunate mix-up in scheduling, they have no hotel room, and the entire state of Maine is flashing NO VACANCY. Jess and her mother sleep in a car for the first time in their lives.

Jess quits her waitressing job.

Jess loads her car with her most important possessions, including that boy from work, and drives to Maine. She and the boy spend a stressful week shopping for furniture and trying to get her apartment ready before school starts.

Jess eats her first whole lobster. She eats it on the coast, right above wave-washed rocks, right under the body of a lighthouse. She is in love.


September

School starts. Jess teaches five classes, all different, all with new textbooks.

Jess turns twenty-six.

Jess drinks a lot of Vernors-and-Absolut Peach. She sits in her new furniture and looks out her window, missing, missing, missing things.

Jess is amused by her students--especially the automotive-types, who are sly, witty boys she is fairly certain she would have been friends with if she'd been enrolled in her own class.


October

Jess's body falls apart. She cannot move her neck. She goes to get a massage and is told she is clogged with toxins. Her massage makes her feel worse.

Jess thinks there's a possibility she might have meningitis.

Jess does not have meningitis.

One of Jess's classes--a half-semester affair--is over, and she can finally breathe easier.

That boy from work arrives for a week. He makes her dinner, takes her apple-picking. He hangs onto her tightly in the middle of the night. He says he loves her. She says she loves him back.


November

Jess can't believe her luck. It's been a lot of work, but her first semester has gone pretty well, and she sort of loves everything and everyone involved.

A particularly bad case of plagiarism challenges those thoughts, but Jess gets over it. Fast.


December

Jess drives home for Christmas break. She sings carols all the way home. She sings them very, very loudly. She looks forward to her first Christmas not made miserable by the Wily Republican. She thinks a lot of her grandmother and how she wishes Christmas could be the way it used to be--special, magic--and she vows that she will do her best to make it so.

Jess's Christmas is pretty special, pretty magical. After all, she receives The Pop-Up Book of Sex as a gift from Diana. It is the gift that keeps of giving.

After the reservations for the Frank Sinatra-soaked New Year's celebration they were going to attend are canceled without warning from the restaurant where they were headed, Jess and her friends go downtown to ring in 2008 at a bar far from the frat boys who are puking into bushes and running down Chippewa without their pants. She counts her blessings for this and the many other beautiful accidents she stumbled her way into over the past year.

Merry Christmas from the Mad Bomber

And so, just like that, the Christmas season is over. The Boy From Work and I have passed through our first Christmas together, and I thought we did it in fine fashion. I wrapped his presents, made up a stocking (crammed with random things like disposable heat pads, beef jerky, iced tea, chocolate, and magazine subscriptions--this is just how we do things in my house), and asked him to do the traditional pose-by-the-tree holiday shot. We survived. We did fine.

And I think I did particularly fine. Sure, the BFW might not be what you'd call 100% thrilled with some of the clothes I bought because I thought he'd look good in them, but he is 100% thrilled with one of his presents, which, really, was the crowning glory of all my Christmas shopping: the fur-lined bomber hat.

When the BFW visited me back in October, we took a ride to Freeport and visited the LL Bean flagship store (which is, interestingly enough, open 24 hours a day every single day of the year). Once there, the BFW took to a giant wall display that boasted lots of fur-lined bomber hats in every color and fabric imaginable. He told me he used to have a hat like that, that he loved that hat like nothing else, and he lost it. He was sad about that. He was really, really fond of the hat.

I, however, was not fond of the bomber hats. I mean, a fur-lined, ear-flapped hat doesn't scream SEXY!, SOPHISTICATED!, or DEBONAIR! in any language. And I could see by the gleam in the BFW's eyes that once he put that hat on his head, it was going to be a real fight to get it off. That made me nervous.

But still, that gleam in his eyes haunted me for the entire Christmas shopping season until finally, when I realized I was going to have to go to LL Bean to get the LED head lamp my father wanted (more on that hilarity later), I broke down and decided to buy the hat for the BFW. He was just so thrilled when that warm hat was clamped down on his head, and I knew I couldn't deprive him of a winter full of that thrill.

So I didn't.