Happy Mother Fucking NEW YEAR

whoever you might be reading this shit.

This might be the third year in a row I’ve been sober at midnight. But, I got a call from drunken friends, so I’m still very much in touch with the drinking world. (And a special Happy New Year to the drunks who were still awake on the east coast, but not drunk enough to not know my number…)

Would Meg hang out by Haight/Ashbury and take pictures of the Gap? I think not.

Still have to decide one of these days if my bitter, cold New England heart would thrive or shrivel if I moved to the ancestral home of the Summer of Love.

I’m such a ‘tard, I really can’t get over it. My neurotic insanity has ebbed, and I’m psyched to be getting the hell out of Dodge for New Year’s.

So, $400 later and I’m going to San Fran! It’s a direct flight, so more time to hang out. I’ve never bought a ticket and taken off in days.

If there’s one negative about my mom that lingers, it’s that she drilled into my head fear at every turn that you could lose your job in an instant. One cross-eyed look, your number was up, and you were looking for a bed in the shelter.

I have boatloads of vacation time, and I get teased annually by the people above me for not using more. It’s my irrational safety net — when they shitcan me I could cash out that unused vacation time and buy the catfood I would eat to survive.

So, to say that my fear that somehow my boss would mind if I took vacation time during the holidays is irrational doesn’t even skim the thinnest edge of reality.

Her response to my request for time off, even on such short notice:
” I think it’s great that you’re going. Why aren’t you staying longer?”

My first reason for self hatred today is that this ‘blog is spiraling into a tormented adolescent hell. Boo hoo, my boyfriend moved, I am tragedy incarnate, I suffer for love and writhe in the brimstone of emotion. Soon, I will begin all entries “Dear Diary… M. is sooooooo cute. It hurts when he smiles and he’s as cool as all of the other boys.” What sad emotional depths I fail to plumb each and every day in my teenage banality. I wish I still had a locker to facilitate note passing.

Oh yeah, I’m almost 40. That is pathetic.

The second reason for self hatred today is my sneaking suspicion that I ain’t right in the head. I just ain’t normal. I’ve spent the better part of the day
O B S E S S I N G
about New Year’s Eve and Day.

I hate the essence of New Year’s in that I have spent some horrible, lonely New Year’s Eves pining away in women blues agony. I think the worst of all New Year’s was the one about a decade or so ago where my boyfriend du jour told me to get ready for a very special night, wear something appropriate for downtown, be ready for wining and dining, etc. So, there I sat in my apartment biting my fingernails next to the telephone that never rang, listening at the door that never opened. Yup, he was a no show. Mind you, we had been dating for about six or seven months by then, this date was not a one off, desperate attempt to couple at the dawn of a fresh year. The next morning brought telephone calls, tears, many tears, and recriminations. The story was an unintelligible narrative that involved a toast with his brother over a glass of wine, an alledged trip to the emergency room after a tipped chair really did equal a cracked skull, just like the teachers warned, and some other pathological bullshit that strained credulity far beyond stretching.

In truth I have had some wonderful New Year’s. Last year, I was in a hot tub with strangers (except for one man, who is one of the people I have met in comedy that I consider to truly be a friend). I was sober, drinking organic ginger ale, and I felt unfettered and alive, as Joni once wrote. The year before, at least I think it was the year before, I happily ate Thai food and ice cream alone with a stack of DVDs, genuinely enjoying the rest from a tiring year. In the past, there have been parties and friends and several cold First Nights and some genuine good times.

Yet, it is the negative shitty times on which I choose to focus. And, worse, I buy into the manufactured feeling of “When Harry Met Sally” female inadequacy year after fucking year after fucking year. An average of 364 fucking days of any given year, I am hip to my lifestyle and pleased that I am not a surburban wife and mother. I revel in the choices I have made. But on fucking, godforchristlysaken New Year’s, poof, I’m a loser of epic proportions who no one will ever love. Boo fucking hoo, right?

So, this year, this turn from 2003 to 2004, M. is there. He wants to see me. We have concocted the spontaneous plan that I should fly out on New Year’s Eve and spend the weekend in California. For one of the first times in my life, I even have both the financial means and the motivation to do it. Cool, right? Movie script perfect. Cue the fucking strings all ready, because the music should goddamn swell, right? RIGHT.

Of course. M.’s a great guy. We have much fun together. We enjoy each other’s company. He is cute and funny and sensitive. He talks as much as I do.

It will be great. For once in my life it will be great to take the leap of faith and jump on a plane. Really. It will be.

But, goddamn me and my neurotic behavior. Goddamn the upbringing my mother gave me with the special sense of doom that only the guilt-ridden, shit on, downtrodden spirit of a true Irish Catholic can poetically feel whilst boohoohooing and wryly chuckling in his whiskey.

It’s a great thing. An adventure with a caring person. And, all I can do is worry about the worst.

What must it be like to get through a day and not think about losing your job, the plane going up in flames, the man greeting the plane with his beautiful wife or a dozen assorted calamities imagined around every corner.

My 2004 New Year’s resolution is to be
Alfred E. Newman: What me worry?

So, I pissed away part of the work day looking at flights on Orbitz and various airlines. Why? You may ask (as though there is a you). So, that I can jet off to be with M. for New Year’s.

It’s a great way to spend a work day, believe you me. However, I can’t really figure out what should such an adventure incur in terms of a reasonable price and level of inconvenience. More importantly, it scares the bejesus out of me.

Somewhere in my retarded emotional state, such as it is, I can’t fulfill the dream of being a Meg Ryan character. Where other women swoon, I start hyperventilating.

Running to catch a jet to spend the holiday with the man is just so Meg Ryan-y that I would have to wonder what’s next. Faking orgasm in a diner while Billy Crystal’s mom watches?

I’m not so much a glass half full optimist or a half empty pessimist as I am a middle of the road non-committal equivicator. I overthink the glass.

I was thinking about this today, since I have no definite plans for New Year’s and was feeling slightly lonely and sorry for myself. But, on the other hand, I realized that I had about 10 overdue email replies, which I had neglected over the holidays, etc. So, I vowed to make today my catch up on email day and sent out quite a few. The question might be: Do I have no friends, as the lonely pouting about the holidays would suggest, or am I just too fucktarded to get back to people and maintain the friendships I have? So, here’s a life lesson from recess, be a friend, make a friend. DUH. I’m an idiot.

In the same vein, it’s such a brave new world for me to have a boyfriend who is thoughtful and caring, that I am completely unschooled in appropriate actions. The thought that someone might think of me isn’t something I’m pessimistic about and cynical (no really, I’m not, I swear). It’s just not entirely comprehensible to my overthinking.

Here’s some advice to the ladies out there, if your man moves far away, you probably don’t want to dive into Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls and cable on demand repeats of “Sex in the City.” The unfortunate pattern of those two oeuvres is not exactly male positive. All my life, my male friends have always outnumbered my female friends, and they have been good friends. Yet, I still get amazed that I’m date worthy. I wonder what repressed memory fucked my self esteem.

Here is a first draft, if you will of a character I have an idea for animating. It’s a penguin in honor of the man some might call “Captain Linux.”

By the way, I was looking at this picture, so I remember what Captain Linux looks like. (I was bringing stuff to the laundry today and found his sweater. Not only did it smell like him, but it had a tag from New Zealand. Besides merino wool it was part possum fur. No kidding. Those wackie kiwis.)

Here’re some slightly delayed pics from Christmas. I was at my oldest brother’s family’s house. To say that Susan and Jim decorate is an understatement. I’m refraining from anything more editorial than apparently they like lights…

(In contrast, at my house the decorations consist of a box of 50 percent off, after-Christmas, Pepperidge Farm Gingerbread Family cookies.)

Much of my weekend has been dominated by an unabridged audio version of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls.

The next time you see me, I’ll probably be drinking vodka straight and popping seconal.

Alternatively, I could play “I Need a Doll!”