Holiday Party #3 - NYC Has Become Unromantic

Michael Bolton is singing about Christmas right now.

***

I witnessed the most atrocious thing this morning. After getting off the subway at Spring Street, I was trailing a woman - tall, glamorous, perfectly groomed, walking with complete determination. So determined, in fact, that she decided to bust right through the emergency door rather than negotiate the turnstile with we plebians. I watched her do this, certain she'd turn around, horrified after having set off the alarm, apologetic to her fellow commuters. But did she? Oh no. She didn't even flinch.

I suppressed my commuter rage and looked to fellow commuters for a shared roll of the eyes or shrug of the shoulders, but they were nonresponsive, typical New Yorkers, completely withdrawn so as not to go insane.

***

The sort-of company party was last night. We paid for it ourselves since things are a mess and the party has been cancelled. The DJ wasn't starting until 9:00, so we hooked up our IPods in the bar. As we got more and more drunk, people wanted to dance, so I volunteered mine and put on the Going Away Dance Mix, September 2004.

Awwww yeah.

There's nothing better than hearing your IPod rocking the bar, seeing people smile, watching people dance.

It was a little weird, though, for a variety of reasons. Weirdness #1: Summer 2004. Old school. Toxic. People seemed unphased by the datedness. It tripped me out and reminded me of Boston. Weirdness #2: Thinking of being back in Boston because of music that reminded me of leaving Boston at my last company function before being back in Boston.

***

I know there are things that he doesn't know that everyone else in the whole world knows, and that these things are not personal. I know he loves me and I know he doesn't mean anything by these things. But lord sometimes I reach explosion points, and I reached one last night.

Ironic given that our anniversary is the company party.

People in relationships behave in certain ways. No, I take that back. People in good relationships behave in certain ways. I always thought that maybe I was being insecure or hyper-sensitive but when other people point things out to you, you realize you've been underreacting.

It's fine now, but it wasn't last night.

***

I am off tomorrow because they force you to use your unused vacation time or otherwise it disappears. Sweet!

***

Until next week...

It Has Begun

8.5 hours a day of Christmas music.

It's acceptable now, but next week... prepare for the madness.

Annoyed

It's not so much what he did that's bothersome to people. It's what he was like before it even happened, and what he's still like. This is what he doesn't understand, and this is why he will always find himself alone. He can't accept responsibility for any of it, and there is so much he has done wrong over decades.

It is complicated, annoying, and right now I'm enraged about money. I'm freaking out about the future. D and I had a conversation about the rent issue (and yes, it seems that the landlord is breaking the law but at this point we're so fried from being New Yorkers that it might just be time to leave) and things are going to change. And change requires money, and lots of it.

He owes me money. He is very good at playing the victim, but he owes me money, and to me its a big sum, a sum that could really help in this transition. To me it's more than money - it means less worrying, less stress, feeling less trapped, and remorse.

We have been talking about lines in the sand. We all have different lines. I drew mine a long time ago, before everyone else did. I said "This is what it is" and accepted it. But sometimes the line becomes a wall, and I don't want my wall to be money but I think the wall isn't money itself but what the money represents.

Because don't normal parents try to help their kids out with downpayments and things like that rather than contribute to their being nervous about money?

I think this is a valid wall, because why should I be kind and supportive and sympathetic when he can't be generous and reasonable to his own child? After all that he's done?

I am going to demand the money, and the result will hopefully be retribution. The result might be a wall, and that's not what I want. What I want is to feel about him the way so many people about their fathers, and he makes it impossible. And then he gets all pitiful and sad and wants us to pity him when its his own fault.

Ah, I love these sorts of moods on Monday mornings!

A better entry later...