a-meta

Today is Thanksgiving, and I spent the majority of my day slinging natural foods to very nice people who were mostly, I believe, very thankful that our store was open at all. A rather cheery and lucrative (love that time-and-a-half) way to spend the holiday. The rest of the late afternoon and evening I spent riveted to my tv, catching up on movies I've been very much wanting to see, but haven't for one reason or another. The research is always pressing. My students have invariable written something or another I need to evaluate. I'd rather spend time with my girlfriend, and so on. So today was chick film night. By which I most definitely do not mean the Boys on the Side kind of movie, but rather the ass-kicking variety. Infinitely preferable.

And, indeed, the movies took the edge off. I hated the night a little bit less than I would have otherwise, I think. the worst part of the day, hands down, was walking home from work. The streets were mostly deserted. Everyone off to celebrate this most dubious of holidays at some relative's house, my supervisor talking about whether or not she should spend the evening with her boyfriend's parents, my girlfriend away with her family because she can't yet see her way out of it. The entire street that I live on was dark. The usually cramped parking not a problem at all, to say the least. Freaking nobody around...at all. It made me think: Do I live on a street filled with people whose lives are of no lasting familial significance? If everyone goes somewhere else, does that say something about the reality or the permanence of our lives here?

Sickened, truly. I'm trying to pluck up my courage to brave this once again for Christmas Eve at the glorious aftermath. C will once again be gone. Streets deserted. I can see myself walking home melodramatically from the co-op, my canvas bag filled with bruised produce slung over one shoulder, face masked in fleece against a bitter wind. Somehow. A tumble weed. And then long hours of movies. Bad lighting. Leftovers. Trying desperately to tire myself out enough to fall asleep without eyes staring blindly at the ceiling for hours.

I think the worst thing, truly, is that I can't quite work out whether or not skipping the holidays like I think I am makes me a coward. In some proto-rational way, I feel like protesting the artificiality of the day. But this feels cliche because, of course, we all know this, right? So what? So the holidays are a performance, even waxing on the grotesque while still remaining well within the limits of acceptability. Family or something ineffable anyway transcends the meanness of the vacant consumerism. People chuckling over the gobble gobble jokes and all the rest of it. Queer people's non-recognizable lives cast further into shadow. My own effectually finally obfuscated by my critial failure to appear at critical junctures. Like...the holidays...Thanksgiving...Christmas.... .... .... .... And yet. The sense of protest, the imperative to protest, remains. There's something honest about it, beneath all the dramatics and affect.