Sharing a narrative about how I will fool my parents this Christmas

The plan is simple, but let's go back a year.

A year ago, I called my mother to tell her I had enough time and money to visit home for Christmas. She was Very excited, but I told her to can it, because I was going to surprise the family. So, to her dismay, she lied to my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and her own father, saying I couldn't make it and that I would be completely alone for Christmas. Well, I did make it, and my parents picked me up on the way to Ft. Collins via DIA. I waited at the bottom of a mountain until all had settled, the walked up to the front door, and, SURPRISE!, was the best Christmas gift anyone had gotten that year. Then this happened:

No, those are not shiny things on her sweatshirt, her tits really are that big. Really!

Anyway, I'm not that fat this year (although I could be by Christmas), but I can still surprise a bitch. My biggest (forgive the pun) regret was not having a white elephant gift. This year, I have the PERFECT one! For my house-warming, I promised a fireplace, but netflix didn't deliver as promised, so I had to PURCHASE a DVD full of nothing but continuous video of fires. As a matter of consequence, it was perfect for the party, but it is nothing I would like to own. RE-GIFT! The funny thing about this particular gift is that I'm pretty sure every member of my family, I being the only exception, has a real fireplace. However, I'm probably the only member who doesn't have a TV in multiple rooms, unless you factor in how I could roll my AV cart into a doorway for the technicality.

I booked a flight today to arrive the morning of Christmas eve, told my sister (and as a consequence, her husband), and plan to be the surprisorist again! I have a perfect funny gift and will even shop around for a bad sweater. I have dropped this bad ensemble:

FOR which, I will add, I won a bad sweater contest. I'll do it again, chest hair and all. I had the very best bad Christmas sweater of all for a couple of years, but never used it in a contest:

It's small, but basically it's mice carrying christmas packages across an ugly red sweatshirt. Embroidered. I should never have given it away! Blast!

Well, anyway, Je and I devised a plan to "spend Christmas together in Levenworth." Levenworth, besides seeming like a nice place to spend a life sentence, is Washington's North Pole, a veritable winter playground that takes Germanic Christmas fables very seriously. Christmas is to Levenworth as Wine is to Walla Walla: street cred. So anyway, we are making "plans" to stay there for Christmas, but "something" will happen which will leave us "mad at each other" or "displaced without a way out" or "stranded." We'll share this tale on Thanksgiving, when we video chat with the family. If we're not contingent on the plan, it will all go down hill. My sister needs to know right away.

Sharing good-byes

Farewell to Ben Kegan.

On September 15, 2007, I had the pleasure of sharing a position with Ben, a volunteer hosting gig for a dinner party at Bob Tobin's house. We were helping Bob host a charity dinner. Right before the guests arrived, we were asked to take our shirts off so we wouldn't dirty them while we were moving chairs and tables. Bob: brilliant! It was awkward, really. Ben was shy. He was nice and such, but shy or reserved or some such thing. We worked together well; this happened before I had been a server (I was working for Starbucks at the time), and we had the same level of service experience. I took to mixing strong drinks, and Ben took coats and seated guests. Eventually, we were sitting, eating, and drinking with the guests. We volunteered to stay behind to clean up a few things, but all we really did was pack up some bottles of vodka, and walk over to the event wrap-up, at the art center. During the walk, we knew each other, in the moment, drinking from the same bottle, in love. There, we ran into some other donors, lots of professors, and a few friends. I had a conversation with my economics professor, met her husband, and came off as wildly drunk. Bob took the picture above, and in that flash it was over. He was no longer a lovely person I had just met, he turned out to be brilliant and confusing, to be beautiful and distant. The night ended, I was alone again, and it was never the same. He made me nervous. I couldn't talk to him without being something outside myself, a something-I-am-not.

I ran into Ben two times in the last two weeks, the first to welcome Bob back for his recent visit. I couldn't help but mutter that it was awkward, mostly because it was, but also because I had nothing else to say. I can't figure out how to tell someone I love them without reason. Our last meeting happened this evening when he came into eat. Apparently this was his last night in Walla Walla. I said good luck, but I wanted to tell him to carry my love with him. I can't carry it with me much longer, and I think I'll let it loose in a stream or channel somewhere nearby. It could find him, but it probably won't.