In Twilight Regalia

WHICHEVER COMES FIRST

Last night was horrible dream night.

Maybe it was that we didn’t get to go and watch Narnia that day as I had planned, because the crowd was too insane and we gave up. Frustration building.

Maybe it is because Koreans just do not understand Christmas in any way shape or form.

Maybe it was that I hadn’t eaten the whole day before and then ate Taco Hell out of sheer exhaustion and blood glucose was zigzagging wildly.

Maybe it was just an incredible lot of emotional pent up steam. Lord knows I’d been seething for a day at least. My friends were unsympathetic to the plight of someone receiving a foot spa instead of a gift for an intelligent person who was still young, aka moi.

Maybe it was that we gave up and rented “I Heart Huckabees” that dealt with all the fucked up shit in life and what ever the hell it can mean, and people trying to find answers by bashing each other with balls and destroying their jetskis and ruining their saleable images with bonnets. And asking Lilly Tomlin for help.

Again, maybe it was the Taco Bell, but I think I would have dreamed badly anyway since I practically threw the Christmas tree at my husband yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t believe Christmas was so lame AGAIN, after I had told him Christmas was a big deal and he had sworn last year that next Christmas would be better. He had also said that about other things, like Thanksgiving. But when it rolled around…. Again no change.

I was so infuriated that he seemed not to care that I was having no reciprocity from him on holidays, not even in little silly gifts that didn’t cost anything, all while he spent night after night on e-bay shopping for clothes for himself. Economically, but still — self-absorbedly.

I asked for a camera. I asked point blank for Pimsleur Korean language tapes. I figured asking for such things point-blank would make it easier for him to shop. Just fill in the blank. When I asked him after Christmas what the heck was he thinking buying me a foot spa when I had asked directly for two things, either of which would have been good, he got really upset and said it was the money. Whereupon I asked how much he had spent on his clothes. $200 he said. There was most of what would have been my present. Had he considered saving any money to shop for me? No.

I got him something like 6 gifts, totaling over 300 and thought out and terrific and tailored to his wishes enough to make him say “WOW, this is really cool!” and be generally enthusiastic. (Mario Andretti racing school champ ride at 180mph qual race.)

I began to try to rationalize this all when I opened the foot spa and instantly sank inside, and felt 90 years old and completely ignored.

But, even if he had decided my tapes or the camera was too expensive, where were other things or suggestions in its place? Why THIS??? It looked like something you’d find in a sickroom. It creeps me out. I don’t want it even as a large taker-up of space. It’s a burden. It didn’t function worth shit when tried out either.

Maybe when we first discussed the camera, he thought I was demanding he spend all his money on it. I hadn’t meant to imply that at all — I consider our money ours. He could have used some of mine to buy it for me, I wouldn’t have cared; I wanted the THOUGHT that he had paid attention to me asking for something I truly wanted/liked. I explained this to him after all the tinsel was cleaned up, and the lights tearfully untangled …. and he’s still treating me like I’m the inexplicable ungrateful demanding bitch.

When the glitter was vacuumed, and I had asked him if he really did want to communicate with me, that I in no way meant to ask for something too expensive to demand it of him; I don’t think he’d thought of that. I wasn’t thinking about cost as something he was supposed to provide. I didn’t care about whose money it was. I don’t think he’d considered that and he softened a bit.

But you know, he knew I give him stocking presents and this still makes me want to huck the plastic star at him like Michele Yeoh in a B-feature. There was nothing in my stocking on Christmas morning either. His was full of his favorite snacks and nuts and Korean treats.

I tried kidding him where are my stocking presents days before Christmas. Nothing happened. He just blew it off.

He told me he blew off the Pimsleur language MP3 set I requested because it was (1) expensive (yes, it was) but also 2) because he truly believed it was a waste on me.

He then said that if I hadn’t learned Korean by going to Korean Cultural center and with the other books I had, why would this MP3 set be any different.

This was a really bad jab to me. Other women wouldn’t even TRY to fucking learn Korean. I found it really insulting. And an indication that he thinks I’m some sort of whimsical spoiled child. (While he goes shopping on e-Bay.)

I said why didn’t you try something cheaper? Why didn’t you instead buy me the flowers I always ask for?
Because it’s a waste of money, he said.
But it’s what I want, so it’s not a waste, I said; I’ve told you this is important to me.
It’s not important, he said. It’s a waste.

(How do you argue with a person who is fucking CHEAP to his spouse?)

You know, he’s also lazy and sleeps all the time lately (maybe he’s depressed and unhappy? Who knows?.) So on the last day of vacation when we were supposed to try a second time to see Narnia in the theater, he slept all day, through to 3pm. I was so angry and upset by 5 it was not surprising I nearly threw the tree at him and ripped it apart crying the whole time.

Later he seemed to slowly realize that I felt hurt and unloved and angry, and started getting nice to me, but no committment for any future holidays when I asked about it. Just “Why bring that up again????!” And that makes me sure the cycle will just continue. He just puts out what he thinks is some irrational fire for now and expects it to just be some kind of emotional blow up that goes away, when I want true reform.

I want change.

I want him to actually think of my wants and my needs.

I want him to recall that I am an equal and not an adjunct.

It’s evident he thinks it’s just some whim that will blow over like PMS.

DREAM

So last night I’m dreaming I’m in a huge college math class, but it’s some kind of extra course, not a standard 101 kind of thing, and the teacher was answering questions. He then started talking in third person and making some kind of word problem out of someone’s circumstance.

I then after the fact realized he was indicating I should answer — and that it was about ME — but I hadn’t understood the whole thing, because he hadn’t been speaking directly to me. He made me look stupid and embarrassed in front of the class and everyone laughed at my expense. I was miffed by this but let it go, and he went on making other word constructions with others, who answered somehow better, now understanding the process. I tried to ask more questions, but he kept answering other people.

As I stayed after and all the other students were filing out, they all noticed I had stayed to talk to the teacher. A trendy looking young blonde girl I knew pointed me out and said Hey, bye Lala! (I can only assume this came from the Teletubbies, who also bob around my head once in a while), (But I like Po best — Hmmm?. ) and the others around heard the “Lala” part and snickered.

“She can call me Lala!” I said — “SHE can.”
(Since she knew me and we were somehow acquaintances). I was keeping Lala. Dammit.

Weird thing was, after this horrible dreading feeling and finally waking up and the lingering depressing feeling that the Math teacher was really my husband, and my life was nothing but a big public joke in which I am the classic dunce, I go to work and to metaphorically clinch my mental atmosphere, my purse splits a seam and everything starts falling out. No flowers arrive and the day assures me that nothing has changed.

Until I go to lunch, stop at the $5 shop, and buy a purse to replace my broken one. I hand the guy 20 bucks for a made-in-Taiwan purse that will hold me over for a bit.

He hands me back change, and there, on top of the bills, is a 5 dollar bill with the word LALA written in three places, like this:

FRONT:
5 5
LINCOLNFACE LALA

BACK:
5 LALA LINCOLNMEMORIAL LALA 5

Hmmmmmmmm.

Dr. Phil, apart from the obvious other questions, what should I do with this five dollar bill?

The mad shopping wave is over and my mind is quieting — I’ve found pretty much everything I was going to find. It’s hard to get to that nice holiday feeling of quiet here. Coming to L.A. in the biggest shopping season of the year is quite a switch from my life elsewhere…. there are two kinds of shopping here. There’s your MALL shopping which involves huge crowds of bourgeoisie-to-poor folks all stampeding to get an X-box or an obligatory glittery sweater, or there’s your upscale blonde-or-Jewish-folks-boutique-shopping on Melrose or other trendy Hollywood areas, mixed in with the Italian and French design houses and extreme cuisine equipment and antique Ming dynasty (This used to be in Clark Gable’s house!) stuff. I have a figure for the former, but taste for the latter, with a pocketbook for neither — but I managed to hunt down some very interesting stuff anyway. I have managed to keep my head together and maintain my reality.

When I first moved here, I told everyone my evaluation of L.A.: For women: It’s a town about shoes and handbags. The style here is very bling-y, way more than I’m used to. My San Francisco theater dragqueens would be right at home, but my Seattlite friends would NOT understand the walls and walls of silver stilletto heels and Von Dutch caps, pants that sling the word “JUICY” across your posterior, and various other Aguilera-wear. I fear for parents of fourteen-year-old girls.

For guys: It’s a town about wildly expensive cars. Bentleys, Rolls, custom Lamborghinis and Astin Martins are commonplace, and you see the funniest things sometimes…. Like today I saw not one, but TWO identically matching BRIGHT white, super-rivet-decorated Hummers having a game of speedchase down Robertson…. Maybe they were cars for Him and Him, since it was close to Melrose….

Second runner up category to describe this place — I can describe it in three shops: Salons for the stripey-highlighted blondes, nail shops, and sushi shops. It’s a wasteland of those three things. With Paramount Studios and some downtown thrown in. And some stars imbedded in a cracking sidewalk.

The weather is plasticly perfect as well — a pleasant sunny 75 degrees. Windows down, shorts if you wanted. The poinsettias are thriving while the Christmas tree lots dry out.

At Christmastime I feel like I must be out of here !!NOW!!. I need to go where there’s direct Arctic freezing gales, huddling midnight singing, stamping of feet, coats and shovels and soggy mittens and icesludge in the slushy road and stupid looking knit caps all wet from snowball fights, soup and cocoa, wet boots, frost on the dashboard and windshield, and trees that smell good. This sunny golfer’s nirvana is so not me.

So what’s left of Christmas (besides the religious part, if you are) ? Spiritual Materialism, as Spaulding Grey once said.

What’s left is thinking of others, even materially: You wonder about them, puzzle over them (what gift they would adore?), but at least you think of them. Hopefully you don’t just buy the latest TV trend. Hopefully it’s an artistic IQ test: Does this object look like your friend? You fund and pinpoint the idea of THEM in your gift purchases. You get them happiness in cloth and metal and electricity. You find something that matches their coloring, goes with their other purchased items and suits their “look”. You remember what they pointed out and previously drooled over. You spend too much on them for flattery’s sake just to see their stunned OMIGOD!!! look. You take out the wallet because you do in fact, think of them. Or at very least, want them to think of you.

You get your conscience bothering you fast if you have no love for others; you soon find yourself marching around aimlessly in the pestering piped-in carols, with no idea what that person is about, what they like, who they are, and you wonder why you’re buying anything for them. Who is this person and why do I have to buy them something? Do I even like them? Is this obligation? Would they like this? Do I care? Should I just throw money at it and walk away? Fuck it, here’s a gift card, go get something. I have no friggin idea who you are. I have no more time to spend on you. And really I just want to get out of this damn mall. Who wants to live in that mindset? See, you’ve made your own material hell. It’s a fitting revenge for not having any substantial feelings for the ones on your list.

But I like best the gifts of TIME, that come from those who have nothing in their wallets to spend on me. I like the paint on the page; the box wrapped in comics and magic marker; the nickels spent at the Musee Mechanique; watching an afternoon of otters bathing; the berries that were picked by hand for me; the ridiculous cartoon e-mailed to me; the hour spent with me on the phone sharing a pool game vicariously; the movie we froze all the way through; the walk with the dog to nowhere talking about nothing; the long drive while the sun was setting, listening to old disco and laughing; sitting nearly asleep at dim sum in a steamy greasy room drinking tea in a haze of sound. Those are my best gifts.

People, I announce herein that I want TIME of yours for Christmas. That’s all I want. If I can’t go to Minneapolis, time will do fine. A bunch of words, a room, and you. That’s plenty. I don’t need all the cheese here in this town. And I will know you mean it when I sit there and say nothing and smile.

It’s that time of year again, that time that always comes two weeks before the big time at the end of the year we all love so well. ::cough::

The great Company Party was held last night. It’s one of those things where I feel:

1) edgy for a week before it,
2) panic the weekend before it and shop in a helpless frenzy for something I like that fits,
3) curse every shoe store in town two days before it,
4) give up and make my earrings of crystal beads and findings I already had the morning before it,
and
5) curse my salon stylist a couple of hours before it after she’s turned me into a newscaster.

As we finally dress for it, it’s inevitable; my husband and I have the yearly white shirt argument.

He puts on the blue shirt. I tell my husband ok please look nice, please a nice dress shirt; WHITE. This company is CONSERVATIVE, I preach. He contends that business is white, and parties are blue or other colors. I retort: NO honey it’s like that in Korea, not here. He replies: “What you want me to wear, a tux?”, and it degenerates. We end up driving in silence for 15 minutes after he’s acquiesced. I feel guilty, he feels grumpy. But he looks GREAT. I tell him so. A car cuts us off and we both yell at it together. I praise his driving. He feels better. We relax.

But I am still dreading the hurdles of the evening.

This company puts on a big shebang at a four-star hotel each year. More sumptuous than any place I’ve ever worked for, because they are LARGE, like LARGE MARGE LARGE, obscenely large. The Department Head, Mr. Old and Inappropriately NOT PC, expects to see you there, and it’s become an obligatory social ritual you can only bow out of once in, oh, 15 years, or maybe if your wife is in the hospital having a baby that night. And I am well below getting my five year benchmark pin, so …. off we go to the gauntlet.

We arrive outside the big ballroom, noting each other’s gowns and introduce our spouses or dates, all of whom look like deer in headlights while spouting something politely casual. Our pics get taken by a photographer who uses too much flash in front of a cheezy fireplace display (We find the resulting photo at the end of the night is fruitless when I see that HAIR!! oh my GAWD what was that woman THINKING?!.).

Then it’s the drill: Stand in line for drinks at the bar outside the ballroom, get accosted by the Department Head and, in front of a cluster of staff and attorneys, watch D.H. have a forced conversation with your spouse who has just been newly introduced and has no idea how to answer your D.H.’s awkward questions:

“The Koreans are really Han Chinese way back in history aren’t they? Aren’t you actually all from Chinese?”…..

Three faces go pale with nervous side glances, one rolls their eyes (he’s behind Department Head’s back, of course), and spouse replies tactfully:

“In my country, we became the Chinese’s successors.” I was soooooo! proud of him. What in heaven’s name else could you say? That’s my guy. I practically high-fived him once Mr. D.H. was gone.

I’m in the top 10% of my company, and by that I mean: the 10% comprised of nonconservative “je ne give-a-damn pas” sorts +/or completely clueless non-societally conscious postal worker and janitorial ones.

The remaining 90% being people who are APPROPRIATE middle class rank and file sheep content to say all the right things, eat just enough to be polite, schmooze just enough to make their quota, drink just enough to look the right amount of slightly silly, which is considered “festive”, and dance in fuzzy antlers and blinking santa hats to some aging super whiteass band that can’t syncopate and couldn’t get truly funky even if you abandoned them in blacksploitation film set for a few years, and doesn’t even have the brains to get a black chick singer to front them. (They had a guitar player that bore a warped resemblance to Neil Young who got sweatier and stringier as the night progressed, and I had more fun watching the girl trumpet player in the back who accentuated her little tiny toots and riffs with a kick of her feet. (She was so marching band–It was cute though, in a GO MICHIGAN! kind of way.) Anyway they were about as new as an old Gloria Estefan tune (no offense Gloria). And that was the NEW stuff).

There is one advantage to this torture ritual: You get to pig out, if you so choose, or get drunk, if you so choose. There’s an open bar for the hour before dinner with top shelf alcohols so you can prepare to embarrass yourself later.

The buffet menu choices: 5 or six hors d’oeuvres, all top-notch, salmon, pate, etc, GIANT SHRIMP (this is all I want), and I mean GIGANTIC shrimp, Oh right there’s an oxymoron; 3 kinds of Chinese or Hawaiian stir fries, a pasta table (five kinds), 3 meat carving tables (beef, turkey, ham), with thanksgiving fixings, a salad bar, some upscale quasi-mexican grilling, some quasi-meditteranean wraps, some Thai dishes, some salad, and OH YES, all you can eat SUSHI. Even nigiri.

Finish with an entire desert ROOM with Bush de Noel, a chocolate fountain where you dunk your fruit or rice krispy treats or whatever, bananas flambe with ice cream torched before your eyes, and like 20 kinds of pies and torts and serious creme brulee, with an espresso bar. It’s INSANE.

This is why we endure insulting racial stereotyping and bad bands.

We get to snicker watching our bosses dance with their wives, snipe at our inferiors bringing scantily clad hot girls (which will either boost or destroy their status — no one can tell until Monday), and spend most of the evening yelling “WHAT??” to the person next to you, over some mercilessly murdered Ike & Tina Turner song.

But this means the end of another year, when I can sigh, and be relieved, kick off my shoes that gave me blisters, and know that, along with all the shit I’ve endured and abuse and panic, I’ve fulfilled my company duty, and can now look forward to my favorite time of year.

Bonus time!

I am constantly having trouble getting my blog page to load.

I don’t know if it’s a Mac unfriendliness issue or WHAT.

They suggest I make yet another attempt to post.
Here is how I pay for my computer inept lameness.

Someone make me my own web page for Christmas??

I am in a food coma, and that is an end-of-year phase that lasts a month around my office, and would at home too, if it were not for my nearly ascetic husband. But today I really hit it hard.

I just ate 6 chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. I haven’t done that since I was in high school.
And I shouldn’t! REALLY, I shouldn’t. My body hates me. It makes me do things. Terrible things. All my chicken and vitamin water plans of earlier in the day dashed in a 15-minute chocolate smear campaign. Holy daze. It’s worse this year due to my mounting feelings of deprivation.

It all started with how my Thanksgiving plans were dashed.

I did consider a family visit for the holidays. Unfortunately, I have no family that I can afford to fly to see without spending enough for a downpayment on a Mercedes. Secondly, no one I know including my husband eats Thanksgiving food anymore. The days of my childhood are crying in a corner waiting to be told to turn around, while my skinny vegetarian friends are just … I don’t know what they do, actually…

Thanksgiving dinner used to be the best meal I cooked each year (with lasagne or Thai pompano fish running a close second) — a meal with my friends surrounding a few abutted tables with paper party tablecloths, best plates and glasses, candelabras and much munching and snarfing and joking. I would make:

A really juicy turkey, never the wierd steroided brands (not my mom’s; I learned it the right way)
Sage stuffing with just a little lop cheung sausage (yes! it’s excellent — my Chinese influences coming out)
Gravy that was dark and flavorful, not the pale runny kind; (my grandmother’s style)
Mashed garlic potatoes (those new-fangled diners taught me this one)
Parmesan stuffed mushrooms (a coworker Kathy shared this with me and it’s there every year now)
Rolls of two kinds
Baby white corn (the good kind!)
Double-baked cheesey potatos (I learned this from Madine, the best boy’s house cook in all U of I )
Baked Spinach– a slightly oniony spinach souffle sort of thing (My old housemate showed me this one)
Peas with a tweak of honey (Did that by mistake one year it was great)
Green beans that had snap and were not the grey green crud my mom used to provide (thanks ma)
Cranberry sauce made from scratch with orange zest and cinnamon (Joy of Cooking? Can’t recall.)
Knockout strong spiced pumpkin pie with Breyer’s and vanilla whipped cream to mellow it. (My own mad invention.)

This year, far away from all my friends, I tried to give over to happenstance, I really did.
Just release, I thought.
Let go of your holiday expectations.
Let it just be. Things will work out.
You don’t need to have these to have a thankful happy thanksgiving.
Things will just happen.

They didn’t.

Which was puzzling to me, since I really did mentally let go.

I gave up on a Thanksgiving family meal day and thought, ok, we’ll have a Korean BBQ with our one friend who’s in town. I bought some great food at the Korean grocery. My husband would be very happy with this solution, and I felt like, ok, I can adjust.

I have no idea just what he told our friend about what we were going to DO that day (maybe he didn’t say it was dinner?), but when our friend showed up at 3:00pm he was clearly looking green and hungover, having gone out to the typical forced Asian karaoke drinking night with his work buddies the night before. He speaks mostly in Korean to my husband and sometimes in English to me, and since he’s had his head in a pre-med chemistry book for almost three months straight now, his English is sort of falling by the wayside. I am understanding him less these days.

He got up to smoke a couple of times, rubbing his tummy uncomfortably. The more ashen he looked, we just looked at each other and thought, oh just let him go home. He left in an hour, too ill. The food never happened. My husband, food traitor that he is, just whimsically decided to eat something else, since we then didn’t feel like a huge barbecue. I went to Taco Bell, since I was STARVING and just PISSED and quick fixable.

I was MAD not at him and really at no one in particular, but MAD that I couldn’t have my Thanksgiving.

I know it’s probably a fantasy that’s just pretty much selected memories, but I love the idea of family, perhaps because mine was so fragmented and I am hoping against hope. And my family food and the past happy events with my friends take me there. This food is like a roster of my life’s history, each dish coming from a different part of my legacy. I have this great wish to share the “me” part of what I do with …. someone. I miss it.

So the next day we go out and have a nice dinner and that’s that, and I don’t feel bad but I don’t feel quite right either.

Everyone around us has kids at the table with them, and here we are and here we’ll be in years to come, still like this? Or will I turn into America’s second sumo wrestler and will he be gone? Just gone? It’s tough and binding, this strong feeling and my food. It feels like I’m losing and it’s winning and there’s nothing I can shunt my feelings off to this time. A week goes by….Christmas! oh SHIT!.

I try the shopping cure: For a day, it works.
I’m mailing packages to France, to Hong Kong, to Singapore, to Korea…..I wonder if they even care? I wonder if I’ve picked the wrong people to mail to? They don’t really care that much about Christmas either, I think. The postage is a killer, but I swear it should be appreciated anyway.

Right? It is? Isn’t it?

So a week goes by…..

Back at the shopping cure. I noticed it seems like even the stores have all made these sort of subtlely sacrilegious decisions about Christmas. No one’s playing much traditional music anymore because everyone knows we’re sick of it and everyone feels all PC and guilty because about 50% of L.A. is Jewish anyway, so this year they’ve committed to sticking to poppy commercial tunes.

Today I heard played in the stores:

1) Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses (ah, we all know about missed connections)
2) Santa’s Beard by They Might Be Giants (now THAT WAS a surprise coming out of Macy’s ceiling),
3) Paul’s version of Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time (ho hum)
4) Someone else’s version of Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time (ok ok)
5) YET ANOTHER version of Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time, LIKE ACK!!!!
6) Santa Baby by Eartha Kit (yawn)
7) Some warped version of Holly Jolly Christmas. (run screaming) Father Christmas, by The Kinks (wherein Santa gets mugged).

I know it’s probably lame to ask for Silent Night, but I was beginning to feel like all this gangsta bling around me and the ransacking mocking rocking lyrics were ….. well…. suddenly wearing.
I began to chant to myself, I really want a real holiday. I want my holiday. I want something REAL. Where’s my holiday? Where IS it?

My hydra headed grinchy meanness was coming out in the white mall light in front of the 200 Mexican women with strollers I kept stepping around (they seem to ignore the fact that I exist because I’m like a giraffe or a light post to them and they don’t really think I’ll be needing to get past them, I’m so big I must be part of the architecture), and I didn’t find any clothes I liked to wear to the Christmas party because I look like Kirsty Alley pre-Jenny Craig right now. I found a pair of boots that were 7 bucks at payless and that was my small rejoicing. I bought them just to buy something I could feel guiltless about. I don’t even like pink.

I’m putting up the tree now by myself while my husband is passed out after what was, for me, a relatively small Christmas shopping trip.

This is just not right.
Who puts up a tree by themselves?
Where is the rearranging the furniture for the little Charlie Brown tree we searched out?
Where is my mom?
Where’s the FUCKING SNOW? They’re all in shorts…
Where’s the carolling? Yes I even want that.
Where are the corny tacky cards with glitter on them? Have I sent any? (guilty face) NO.
Where is the cookie baking and decorating?

That’s when the Great Cookie Disaster of December 2005 began today,
and I came home and
ATE ALL THOSE COOKIES.

I’m mad.

Mad mad mad mad.

Is there such a thing as a reverse Bah Humbug?

I will give dinner and hugs to the first person who actually sends me a sparkly card.
SNAIL MAIL.