Anyway, today, or actually, yesterday, was Christmas and I bonded with my cousins. We sat around and made fun of everything. Snark. Holiday snark, it's a beautiful thing.
We also continued our tradition of watching Eddie Izzard while we waited for our assorted parents and other relatives to shut up long enough for us to open our damn presents. Last year we watched 'Dressed to Kill'. By the end of it, the entire family was gathered around the T.V., laughing their asses off. Even my Southern Baptist grandparents, Lord love them, were cackling.
This year, we were watching 'Circle' and laughing, when some more conservative and elderly relatives dropped by. They came into the room right as Eddie was talking about 'dog's bollocks', so, tragically, we had to turn it off. Damn elderly relatives. They come every year just as we're about to open presents and since there are no presents for them, my grandma doesn't let us open ours because she says it would be rude. So, just when we're all geared up and ready, they inevitably come, drink coffee and drone on and on about whatever the hell it is that old people talk about.
Oh, we've tried to outsmart them by saying real loud that we want to open presents about an hour before we normally would, but these old people are crafty buggers and always thwart us. Bastards.
Anyway, after all the fuss, my cousin Jeff and I decided to go see a movie. He wanted to see 'Big Fish' and I wanted to see 'Love, Actually' and since they started within about five minutes of each other at the same theatre, we went together. Only 'Big Fish' was sold out, so he went and saw 'Love, Actually' with me.
Tragically, I was fairly certain that people thought we were on a date or something, so I kept saying things like, "Gee, that was a great movie, cousin!" Okay, it was dorky, but I was grossed out by the idea that people might think we were together. I mean, I know we're in the South and all, but we're not in that part of the South, okay?
It was almost as traumatic as my Christmas shopping expedition with my brother a few days ago. He's so inept that I had to go lingere shopping with him for his girlfriend. The people at Victoria's Secret thought we were a couple, so I kept telling them things like, "My brother over there is wondering if you have this in red." Of course, some people might think it's just as creepy that I'm lingere shopping with my brother and I agree. It was gross. I had to read the January edition of GQ, the one with Orlando Bloom on the cover, about 10 times before I could get the image of the thong and nightie thing he bought out of my head. Now I'm remembering it, ewww.
Anyway, onward, to more pleasant subjects.
Or not.
Maybe it's just the time of year, or maybe it's because of the large amount of crap that's recently gone down in my life, or maybe it's because I went and saw a romantic movie with Hugh Grant, maybe it's all of those things. I'm feeling a bit mullish and mopey...and well, lonely.
Every Christmas I go to my grandparents' in Dallas. But on Christmas day, I always call my best friend in El Paso to wish her and her family happy holidays and to do an X-mas post mortem. So, I went to do my usual call, but, for the first time in, oh, about nine years, she wasn't home. She was out with her boyfriend.
Maybe she doesn't place as much importance on the calls as I do, they've never been an official thing, just two friends talking to each other over the holidays, but I always looked forward to our chats and I was a bit hurt that she wasn't home.
I'm happy that she has a boyfriend, honest. It's just that...well, I've become the third wheel and I don't like it. She's never home when I want to talk to her and I refuse to call her at her boyfriend's because that's just rude. So, I feel like I've lost her.
She's spending the next couple of days in south Texas, near San Antonio, with her boyfriend's family. I don't know if she'll be home before I leave for New York. See, I'll be spending the next week in El Paso. I always spend New Year's in El Paso and we always do something together. But are our plans for the holidays, plans we made a year ago, forefeit now that she has a boyfriend? Am I going to spend New Year's alone, moping around the house, all dressed up with no one but Dick Clark for company?
I don't really want to spend New Year's with her and her boyfriend. Nothing is more awkward than being the 'single' friend. So, will I be alone?
I never felt it was important to have more than a few friends. But now, I kind of understand why you might have them. Different friends for different things. Maybe I should get out more. I mean, it's been gnawing on me for quite a while that when I go back to New York, I'll be going back to an empty apartment.
There will be no one waiting for me at the airport, no one sitting at home to greet me. Not even a cat to rub up against me and purr. Nothing. Just an empty apartment with a malfunctioning sink and lots of boxes waiting to be unpacked.
It's a bit depressing, really. I guess I've reached that point in a single woman's life, the point where all my friends are getting married or are in relationships and I'm the third wheel, the single friend. I look around me and all I see are couples. Bah. No more Hugh Grant movies for me! They do nothing but depress me. Sure, he called Margaret Thatcher a saucy wench, but still, it'll only cause me grief in the end, because the movie will be over, Hugh will have gotten his woman and I'll still be the frumpy librarian with a pint of Haagen Daaz and an echoing apartment.
