is it okay to buy toilet paper on Not One Damn Dime Day if I feel really guilty about it?
It's easy to malign thanksgiving. It is a symbol of European imperialism, celebrating in equal parts the slaughter of animals for American feasts and the one-time massacre of the Pequot Indians in Plymouth, but it also provides balance. In yoga, there are postures, and counterpostures, cat and dog for instance, that you do in tandem to keep from fucking up your back. For me, autumn is bookended by two holidays, Yom Kippur and Thanksgiving. One is about apologizing to those whom you have affected, and the other is about thanking those who have affected you.
On the day itself, I've needed to keep a balance of my own. My blood family and my other family, the people I take my troubles to, the people who protect me physically and emotionally, the people who've made sure I've had a roof over my head, and at least a sofa under my ass to sleep on; my enablers.
I've never been able to enjoy my family. They're sarcastic sons of bitches and they can all tell a good story but it always seemed so superficial. For years I was just the butt of jokes, the sullen kid with funny hair dioing my best to hide in the bsement and not get angry, but for some reason yesterday was different. I don't know if it was that they've grown or I have. We shy away from the term mature in our family. Maybe it was just that we all had the White Sox to fill in the blanks in conversations.
"So...how's the smalltalk?" I asked my cousin Jason, before sharing inumerable strings of awkward pauses over Molsons. It was...pleasant (as opposed to caustic, at least).
I left smiling, "That was the most tolerable time I've ever spent in Northbrook."
Then came my party.
I was talking to Pinky the other day, on the subject of friends (as I have been to anyone that will listen). It seems like I have too few friends over the week, in the sense that I don't have that many people I can call and hangout with and stay up all night with anymore, although that seems to be changing. At the same time I have too many friends over the weekend. Those enablers I spoke of, who I can drink shit drinks and dance and yell with. "It's not friends, I'm lacking. It's conversation. I can't get on the weekend, what I had on weekdays. Those beautiful pointless talks about nothing and everything. It's all jokes and maybe a diner afterwards, and it feels emptier."
I never know who's going to show up to my After-Thanksgiving Dinner. I started it a few years back, for my friends who had no families, for my friends who hated their families, for my friends who couldn't afford to travel back to see their families, and for people like me who were just frustrated by them. I've had as few as three and as many as sixty people show up. It's one of those inbetween things, a dinner party for people who've been eating all day, a nibble-party where we can look into each others' eyes and recapture that lost conversation.
Yesterday there were people I'd known forever, Duo, Nell, Breanna, Tom, the Duckworth siblings and Vicky; people I used to love but have barely seen since high school, Sean, Kyra, and Jenny; people I've known for just a couple years that feel like I've known them forever, like Sarah, Tania, Ramon and Emerson; and people that I've really only gotten to know this year and want to spend much more time with, Alanna, Sarah, Jesse, Misha, and Robin.
A few wanted the night to be more of a party, like I always have the Friday-after-Thanksgiving, and a few wanted less, which is hard to control, but I was glad to see and talk to everyone I did.
I'm thankful for the variety of people I know. That there is a Jesse, who says ridiculous and offensive things for no reason, can debate me on obscure punk dance steps, and runs a Food Not Bombs thing from his house, and Vicky, who talks like a horny ditz, doesn't know fuck about shit about music, and spent her afternoon handing out boxes of food and blankets to homeless people who lived under overpasses.
Then there is Tom, who doesn't fit in with most of the friends I have now. He's a soldier with some of the worst taste in gangsta rap I've ever known, who can debate people in circles about the current war, while at the same time be obnoxiously forward in his flirtations, but he is earnest, more than anyone else that I know, and a better friend than most people could realize.It's a shame to see him condescended to by people who don't get him, or get him too well and don't agree with him, who've mistaken him for stupid.
There will be a party tonight that will be completely ridiculous, where I will run around and break up fights and keep my eye on strangers I'm suspicious will try to steal my DVDs and break my hookah and have very few conversations that stretch longer than two minutes. And I will regard it all with a smile tomorrow, as I'm cleaning up the stink. I will have my friends and I will have balance and I will sleep well all the way through til December.
Rest in Peace Pat Morita
On the day itself, I've needed to keep a balance of my own. My blood family and my other family, the people I take my troubles to, the people who protect me physically and emotionally, the people who've made sure I've had a roof over my head, and at least a sofa under my ass to sleep on; my enablers.
I've never been able to enjoy my family. They're sarcastic sons of bitches and they can all tell a good story but it always seemed so superficial. For years I was just the butt of jokes, the sullen kid with funny hair dioing my best to hide in the bsement and not get angry, but for some reason yesterday was different. I don't know if it was that they've grown or I have. We shy away from the term mature in our family. Maybe it was just that we all had the White Sox to fill in the blanks in conversations.
"So...how's the smalltalk?" I asked my cousin Jason, before sharing inumerable strings of awkward pauses over Molsons. It was...pleasant (as opposed to caustic, at least).
I left smiling, "That was the most tolerable time I've ever spent in Northbrook."
Then came my party.
I was talking to Pinky the other day, on the subject of friends (as I have been to anyone that will listen). It seems like I have too few friends over the week, in the sense that I don't have that many people I can call and hangout with and stay up all night with anymore, although that seems to be changing. At the same time I have too many friends over the weekend. Those enablers I spoke of, who I can drink shit drinks and dance and yell with. "It's not friends, I'm lacking. It's conversation. I can't get on the weekend, what I had on weekdays. Those beautiful pointless talks about nothing and everything. It's all jokes and maybe a diner afterwards, and it feels emptier."
I never know who's going to show up to my After-Thanksgiving Dinner. I started it a few years back, for my friends who had no families, for my friends who hated their families, for my friends who couldn't afford to travel back to see their families, and for people like me who were just frustrated by them. I've had as few as three and as many as sixty people show up. It's one of those inbetween things, a dinner party for people who've been eating all day, a nibble-party where we can look into each others' eyes and recapture that lost conversation.
Yesterday there were people I'd known forever, Duo, Nell, Breanna, Tom, the Duckworth siblings and Vicky; people I used to love but have barely seen since high school, Sean, Kyra, and Jenny; people I've known for just a couple years that feel like I've known them forever, like Sarah, Tania, Ramon and Emerson; and people that I've really only gotten to know this year and want to spend much more time with, Alanna, Sarah, Jesse, Misha, and Robin.
A few wanted the night to be more of a party, like I always have the Friday-after-Thanksgiving, and a few wanted less, which is hard to control, but I was glad to see and talk to everyone I did.
I'm thankful for the variety of people I know. That there is a Jesse, who says ridiculous and offensive things for no reason, can debate me on obscure punk dance steps, and runs a Food Not Bombs thing from his house, and Vicky, who talks like a horny ditz, doesn't know fuck about shit about music, and spent her afternoon handing out boxes of food and blankets to homeless people who lived under overpasses.
Then there is Tom, who doesn't fit in with most of the friends I have now. He's a soldier with some of the worst taste in gangsta rap I've ever known, who can debate people in circles about the current war, while at the same time be obnoxiously forward in his flirtations, but he is earnest, more than anyone else that I know, and a better friend than most people could realize.It's a shame to see him condescended to by people who don't get him, or get him too well and don't agree with him, who've mistaken him for stupid.
There will be a party tonight that will be completely ridiculous, where I will run around and break up fights and keep my eye on strangers I'm suspicious will try to steal my DVDs and break my hookah and have very few conversations that stretch longer than two minutes. And I will regard it all with a smile tomorrow, as I'm cleaning up the stink. I will have my friends and I will have balance and I will sleep well all the way through til December.
Rest in Peace Pat Morita
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