Has Been an Angel All Year

But alas, I've no chimney.

This year's holiday season is very different than the ones I have had before. It's more jarring than festive. It's an abrupt stopping of the things that have kept me occupied for the past couple of months. It is like hitting a brick wall but without the abrasion. Slamming into a cushy landing. It is seemingly endless options with no real motivation to select a single one.

I am having a hard time with choices even now. Given the date, should I write you something seasonal? Should I recount my favorite holiday stories? Should I tell you about the time I spent with Liz this Christmas Eve and what we did to toast the season?

Or should I recount all of the events that led up to me finding myself on my living room floor at 3 AM once again, this time constructing a Lego dream house with a pretty-eyed and lanky boy about 10 years my junior? This story would include the Frenchman, a friend of mine who is moving to SoCal to my chagrin, a future husband who the universe told me actually isn't my future husband and that boy with all of the tattoos?

Or should I do a little of both, since I am currently straining my ears to hear a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer but I don't, and I haven't had enough sleep either?

In the spirit of being generous with myself I shall try to tick a few of these things off. We have nothing but time at the break of dawn.

My first Christmas list that was not a letter to Santa was written by me when I was 8 and based on several catalogs. I wrote down the catalog name, product name, item number and price of every single thing I wanted that year. I got it all, only because my grandmother was impressed by the fact that when she called to order my stuff the operator found every item without a hitch.

Angelina is thorough. Probably since birth.

This year I did not make a list but I made it a point to ask for everything I wanted with the clearest communication available to me at the time. I did this via face to face conversations, text messages, emails, Facebook posts, IM chats and the occasional late night telephone call.

The reason for all of this requesting was not the season but some nutty idea I got last month about wanting to minimize regret and never feel that I hadn't put a proper bid in for something that I want or care about. This actually works out okay when you are dealing with objects. For instance: a cheeseburger with absolutely no mayonnaise on it.

With people and concepts and ideas, not so much. Again we find ourselves up against the communication barrier I'm always lamenting. The slightly or vastly different definitions we assign to the words we use and hear. The slightly or vastly different ways we interpret tones of voice, cadence, inflections. That problem of being human again. It always fucks me up. I should have been born a robot.

But I was not. I have a heart. And lately it wants more than money which is a rather rude awakening because I've been telling myself all along that making more dough and having a job that I love would solve so much. So very much. It has not. It's freed me up a bit to do what I want. It's made my days phenomenal and it's made immediate gratification a bit easier to attain.

But it hasn't helped me sleep through the night. It hasn't written me a love letter. It hasn't painted my name on a city wall. It hasn't explained to me the reason why "funner" is not a word or why spell check doesn't seem to know that. It hasn't read a single story to me out loud. It hasn't regaled me with tales of another life in another place a very long time ago. It hasn't ensured me that a new life is starting right now with me every single second as the leading lady.

Well that last. It has and hasn't. My new life fits that bill as long as I am the producer and director, but the Frenchman seems to have piles of cash and is beginning to convince me that the sporting life is not the best show in town. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Christmas Eve had been reserved for a walk on the beach with a dear friend of mine who has the habit of telling me he loves me. I always thought I would end up marrying him since I love him too. But just locking the beach date in was tricky. Not due to the husband thing but due to a certain hermetic tendency he has that kicks in at the least fortunate times and has caused me much heartache in the past. To insure myself against it I was very explicit with him about how canceling on me this time would simply break my heart. Break it.

He woke up with strep throat. The universe has spoken. We are not meant to be.

And I'm not wired to be bummed about something so clearly outlined for me by the powers that be so I went to the ocean anyway. Liz and I had food with no meat in it at the new Java Beach and cruised around looking for holiday lights to complete a project I came up with after waking up from my second dream of the day. The project is sheer genius, but I didn't have the proper tools to pull it off and I am pretty sure that's why Santa didn't show up even though Liz and I stayed up until midnight waiting and I even left some cookies and whiskey out.

This has been barely coherent and I've mixed way too many metaphors to be making sense any longer. But this is all I got on Christmas morning. This and a lack of chimney.

Now it's either off to my fam's or off to the beach again as I have much soul searching to do.