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2001-10-03 / 1:37 p.m. ~The Last Quarter~ I'm sitting here at work, 11:23 a.m., looking at my Year at a Glance calendar and thinking how the "holidays" are almost upon us. Ah yes, that glorious time of year when family values are thrust upon us, forced down our throats, when family becomes paramount in the media's eye. I don't have family, and although the traditional Thanksgiving meal, in all of its incarnations, is probably my very favorite of all meals, the hassle of figuring out how to engage in it is depressing as hell. I'm sure H. will be inviting me, and as always it will make me feel awkward, because she will never fully grasp how unfulfilling it is to share a "holiday" with someone else's family. And maybe she'll do the Christmas offer as well, as last year, and unlike last year I won't want to hurt her by refusing again. I'll probably agree to participate, especially to see Lilly's joy, her perhaps first real comprehension of what's occurring, that this stuff happens every year. Oh, and of course there will be the media focus on the "tragedy", the families without their "loved ones" for the first time on a "holiday". We will be encouraged to feel their pain, again and again, to reach out, to donate money or some such. Gee, I can't wait. Really, although I especially love this time of year for the weather I also hate it, simply for knowing what's to come, actually part of me wanting it to pass quickly so we can be past it, so it can be next year already, all the "holidays" over. I have shared "holidays" with friends. One Thanksgiving in particular comes to mind, a certain potluck at a friend's house. She had some great friends, and we all cooked gourmet offerings. I even ate duck and liked it. But there's that twinge, that feeling that one is not actually with "family", people who share DNA, blood, that the bond is artificial and unreal, forced. It's easy to go home afterwards feeling something big is missing. The offers made to a single person are especially awkward to receive. No, I don't want your pity, no, I don't want you to think that I "shouldn't be alone". I love being alone, I am seldom lonely, yesterday being an exception. The offers to let me come to this one's house, or that one's house, because how horrible if I were to sit at home eating Chinese food, or a burger, watching cable television, or playing around on the 'net. Added stress, just to have to refuse these supposed well-meaning people. Yes, it's glorious to be in October, it's glorious that every day lately is filled with sunshine, blue skies, cool temps at night, warm temps during the day, the smog not enveloping for once, but only a brown haze on the horizon, but to think that it's only a matter of days before H. calls to broach the subject�this I can do without. Let me finish this off by describing my favorite Thanksgiving ever. I was in love, or was it lust?, I don't know, but it was good, I had lusted after someone at the bookstore and when I found out he no longer worked there I sought him out, I called him up, asked him out, confessed my attraction, and so he said he had felt the same. Shock of shocks. A mutual attraction. This does not happen for me, nor to me, it is rare. He and I wanted to spend Thanksgiving together, or more to the point, he canceled going to see his sister, he wanted to be with me. I managed the cookbook section at the bookstore, so I researched, ended up not able to choose between two cookbooks specifically on the Thanksgiving meal. I bought both, pored over recipes, shopped, bought my first turkey. I cooked, I roasted turkey, I made gravy, I made creamed spinach and cream of artichoke soup, I made stuffing, cranberry orange relish, everything elaborate and time consuming. I put everything into that meal, and he made my favorite pie, butterscotch, and corn pudding. He was so sweet, so desiring to please me, to please us both. He was 21 and I was 30, and we were in love. Or so we thought. Dinner was awesome, the turkey a bit overcooked because I was terrified of undercooking it and giving us food poisoning. We ate like pigs, watched "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" on TV, fell asleep, woke up the next day and ate leftovers. I was overwhelmed by us, by what we'd done, by what we'd shared, and when he finally left to go to his own apartment part of me was glad to just be alone. I used the leftover turkey to make Turkey Tetrazzini, and it was excellent. I ate leftovers for days. He and I didn't last through Christmas, but he gave me Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" for a present - it's probably my favorite album, and we went to see the Cirque du Soleil for the first time. I'll never forget him, and I'm sorry he didn't know how to be in a relationship, glad I was his first lover, glad we cooked that Thanksgiving, ate that meal, that year, together. Cost of the War in Iraq
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