obligatory Christmas update

let’s do it by days:

Dec 22nd Saturday:  Drive to Mobile. A car has flipped over a small bridge in Mississippi and all the traffic in the WEST BOUND lanes is blocked. East bound is clear. However everyone feels the need to stop and look at the wreck and the shiny lights so that adds an hour to my trip.

Go see friends downtown, drink some beers. Go to the bar where my friends are playing. A couple strange conversations and my best friend Jennifer leaves. Thirty minutes later I leave. The band still hadn’t started and it was starting to rain. Ten minutes later it’s pouring, like monsoon style pouring, and I’m driving under a slight influence in Heavy weekend night traffic all the way through Mobile back to my parents’ which is a 45 minute drive on a good night. I don’t die.

Dec 23rd Sunday: Not much going on. Mom and I hang out. Dad and I hang out. Mom and Dad and I hang out. I read and take a nap.

Dec 34th Monday: I brave the mall. I must really love Michael, that’s all I’m gonna say. Later on my parents to go mass, my sister gets into town earlier and we decide to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I drink 4 vodkas. I call four people and no one is answering. I give up on hanging out with my friends this Christmas. I try to summon some Christmas good will, the spirit of, whathaveyou. Doesn’t work. Makes me sad. I go to bed around 1AM.

Today Christmas Day Dec 25th: Wake up early-ish, we all open gifts, I nearly weep from the sheer amount of crap I’m given – and it’s not crap, it’s great stuff. I never feel like I can say thank you enough. I feel like this terrible ungrateful daughter. I bought everyone books this year. I guess they liked them… ?

We eat a great dinner around 1PM. Turkey and everything that entails. I clear the table. It’s the least I can do. Mom has Christmassed out every single room in the house. My dad’s having family troubles. His family, not us.

I avoid the shower, pack my stuff, say painful goodbyes and head back to New Orleans trying not to cry. I hate leaving but I can’t stay. No, I don’t want to live in Mobile. Just the kindness of my family kills me. I’ve been so hard to deal with for so long, I don;t know why they even talk to me.

So I’m back in New Orleans now alone on Christmas night. The cats are sleeping and the laundry’s laundrying. I’m about to go hunt down some booze to get through the night. Hope somewhere’s open. I mean Christmas is usually rough, I know this. Just didn’t prepare myself for the emotional onslaught. Lots of complicated, conflicted emotions. I think I’ll have a couple drinks and call my mom, tell them I love them all.