In the absence of wrinkle (so far), the thing that is making me feel old is how many documents I have. I am not even copying my archive from high school and college (since it’s on the old machine as well as the backup hard drive), and still it is taking ages and ages. And there is still other stuff I want to put on the machine - but at least it’s functional. I have officially more-or-less decommissioned the old computer (it is in its case, under my bed) and am writing this entry on the new one.
Now. Christmas. (If I write this entry slow enough, there might even be pictures.)
It feels like the holidays have been very long. I guess my holidays started Thursday night, but I told you-all about the opera and MoMA and the FIT museum. I spent most of the weekend working, as well as Monday. (oh, work… so much stress… must be super-productive tomorrow and every day from then on until infinity.) Monday night I received a surprise Xmas present - a rice cooker from N! This is exellen because now I can make myself lots and lots and lots of rice, and also I got to learn about my skin’s ability to heal after I slashed off a big hunk of it trying to pop the big air bubbles Amazon sends in its packages.
Tuesday the IB came to town. He almost didn’t because his flight got cancelled and he didn’t get to his parents’ house until 2 a.m. and then he had to get up early to drive for two hours to New Haven to get the train to the city, which I felt bad for when I found out about. Also he brought me a present! It was a Borders gift card, in one of those little boxes they have at the register to put your gift cards in, containing also some fancy chocolate. This was pretty impressive. Boys very rarely give me presents, especially books and chocolate, which are obviously two of the very best things. I felt a little bad because I didn’t have a present for him, but he said it was okay because he has flaked out so many times in the past and his goal is to not be a screwup anymore. He said he couldn’t remember whether I preferred Borders or Barnes and Noble… I would have gotten better use out of a Barnes and Noble gift card, but I’m impressed that he even remembered I had a preference. Anyway, we had a really nice day. We walked around, and ate things, and drank things, and talked a lot. He’s great to talk to because we have known each other well for a long time. And he is a good guy. But that is really all there is with us, and the only thing sad about this is that it is true on his end as well but he doesn’t seem to realize it.
Wednesday I went home. I had a nice two days with my family. We built a gingerbread house, and made latkes, and opened presents. My brother gave me a book about opera and an Einstein finger puppet (this was a crowd-pleaser), and my parents gave me the new Neal Stephenson book and a contribution to the laptop fund. My brother and I gave my father a GPS. I gave my mother a scarf and a candle (yeah, cop-out gifts, but I thought she would like them both.) and my brother an Australia guidebook (he is about to go there for work).
While we are on the subject for gifts, I gave TSTM a book before I went home. I chose the book because I knew he would like it. However it was kind of a cop-out gift - it was a new, well-promoted book (at least if you keep up with these things) and it was so obvious he’d like it that I was a bit worried someone else would give it to him or that he’d already bought it for himself. [my keyboard is weird. it seems ... sticky. not in the sense that my fingers stick to the keys but in the sense that i feel like i have to press very hard to get keystrokes to register. is this because it's new?] But I also knew that he probably wouldn’t get me anything (he doesn’t really like Christmas - apparently, according to N, a lot of people don’t - and he isn’t even really into shopping for his family, as opposed to me, who has an entire file on my computer devoted for gift ideas and notes for various people in my life) so I didn’t want to make a big investment of money or, more importantly, time that would cause discomfort between us or lead me to be resentful that the gift exchange was one-sided. He seemed to really like the book; I think at least half of his happiness was not about the book but about being given something that he would like. And I guess I was still kind of holding out hope that he would give me something, because I was a little bit disappointed that he didn’t… it isn’t really about the gift itself, but about being given a gift.
But, actually, I’m surprised by how not-upset I am about this. I’m really big on occasions. Other people aren’t, especially guys. For my birthday, I usually deal with this by celebrating privately by myself (I’m convinced this is part of why none of my relationships last more than a year - all the long ones have started in the fall, and being given something like an electric teakettle as a combination birthday/anniversary gift has generally been a big part of their downfall, or at least a sign of it). Obviously it is not possible to not tell someone when Christmas / Hanukkah is and thereby make it a private occasion, and TSTM knew in advance I was going to give him something (I mentioned it) and I think it is common knowledge, or at least there are plenty of books and people who would tell me, that if a guy you are seeing doesn’t give you even a card or a poinsettia or something for the holidays he not only doesn’t like you much but doesn’t even consider himself to be seeing you, and perhaps you have hallucinated the whole thing. But, I don’t know, maybe I have gotten stupid in my old age, or else confident, because I feel like it is just not that big a deal. Would I have liked TSTM to give me something? Yes, of course. Everybody likes being given presents. But it is just a gift. It is not actually the same thing as him wearing a big neon sign on his forehead saying “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you,” and in this case it doesn’t even feel like it is.
Anyway, continuing the narrative of my holiday. I returned from my parents’ house Friday afternoon and ran errands for a while. Then TSTM and I attempted to go to a crepe place for dinner, but it had closed (permanently), so we went to this very strange little bistro with fancy martinis and tin ceilings, and had wine and food and fancy dessert drinks (chocolate martini for me and something with coffee and alcohol for him) and fancy dessert. Saturday, in between each running a couple more errands (errands seem to have proliferated over the last few weeks, so that I have to do about eight every day from now until forever) we exercised our mutual superpower, the ability to accomplish absolutely nothing for exceptionally long times when we’re together.
Today TT, TE, the LP and the in-situ ELP (Tinkering Theorist, her husband Tinkering Experimentalist, their toddler, the Little Poker, and the Even Littler Poker that Tinkering Theorist is pregnant with) came to town. We went to the zoo (the zoo!) and had pizza (at Ray’s Famous Original, which I think is one of the knockoffs but which turned out to be quite good). The zoo was a disappointment, until we got to the children’s zoo, which was extremely cool. I got to feed a llama. And there were frogs (maybe that was in the adult zoo?) and many many birds. There were peacoks and peahens and giant blue birds. But no lions or tigers or anything. TE called it a bird zoo. The children’s zoo had a separate netted-in area where the animals (mostly birds and turtles) were semi-loose, which was really neat… I’m glad I went with them rather than with other people, because I never would have thought to go to the children’s zoo otherwise.
So… it was quite the holiday week and a half. I got some culture, did some work, saw my family, saw some friends, spent time with TSTM, and got lots of rest. Tomorrow it is back to work, with an emphasis on productivity because I need to have something to present for a conference in about ten weeks. It is going to be a bit of a slog, but I feel good about the break I just had.
I hope everyone else’s holidays were great, and that you’re all psyched for great start to 2009!
