Yuletide Dread

I've decided that my ongoing not posting is really me just doing what I can to seize a little bit of control in world of chaos. Like the way a toddler or a Republican will regress and insist on a binkie or resume pooping his diapers when things don't go his way.

Whatever. Fine. Damn.

Thanksgiving welcomed the return of the holiday season last week. The holidays are always kind of fraught for me. On the one hand, you have food, booze, friends and tradition. Generally, I'm pro all of those things. On the other hand, you have the fact that it's cold; it's dead; dark at 5:00 pm; and my family is all giddybonkers batshit insane. Normally, I can deal with my immediate family's particularly flavorful crazy blend. However, chuck in a couple of hours with the broader circle of the people to whom I'm related by blood or by unfortunate matrimonial choice (not mine, obvy), and in the best of years I'm ready to just stay the hell at home and extract tinsel from my cat's ass rather than face any more goddamn cheer.

This year, however, I'm just...really...adverse to the shenanigans. I know what it is that has brought this all to a head, I have finally come to the point in my life where I have virtually no hesitation telling people what I think or what I feel. Unless I'm actually on the fucking clock, I no longer choose to suffer fools gladly. Hell, even at the office I've stopped gluing glitter and flowers to the shit I say to people. I. Just. Don't. Fucking. Care.

I would like very much to avoid the cousin et al entirely, and I'm sure that by her my presence would not be missed. My grandmother, however, feels differently. For Thanksgiving, I attempted to avoid the situation by visiting Grandma on Friday, but due to the fact that that branch of the family tree lives in a veritable white trash compound, my aunt AND my cousin and some largish percentage of the brood all showed up at one point or another.

The fact that The Boy did not leave me is a testament to his faithfulness and his good heart. I would have probably dumped me for sure.

Even when not present, the cousin and her problems were a constant presence. Grandma, who is old and has earned break, mostly worries in the way of the old who can do nothing to aver the crisis that 1. she knows is coming, and 2. she feels keenly on behalf of the individual too stupid to see it for herself. In this as in pretty much all things, my grandma gets a pass.

However my aunt and the cousin herself have finally managed after 32 years to work their way all the way around to my last nerve. I'm about ready to give them my speech entitled Embrace the Truth for no other reason than that I can no longer Tolerate the Bullshit.

By this time, there are certainly those among you who might be wondering what could be so bad about this cousin. The reasons, alas, are too numerous for me to want to go into tonight. Also, and I admit this freely, some of the car wreck would not trouble you the reader as they do me--the poor fucker who shares, I dunno, a quarter helix or something.