December 22, 2002
Happy Winter Solstice.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to do much in the way of celebrating myself. Part of the problem is that Holden's birthday and Solstice are usually the same day and so it's hard to take the time out from being with him on his day to do my observance. But, seeing as this time around, Holden's birthday and Solstice were only on the same weekend, and not the same day, I should have been able to celebrate more than I did.
Unfortunately, I've been having problems with my teeth -- I won't go into specifics; they're too complicated, but the bottom line is that I've been in SEVERE pain for a week and a half now, but seeing as I don't have any dental insurance (fuck, I don't even have major medical -- ah, the Bohemian life) and I don't have any cash right now (my next paycheck is December 31st), I've got no way to pay for the work I need done until after Christmas. So I've been taking 15 Extra-Strength Excedrin at a gulp and trying to get to sleep before the pain becomes too excruciating. Luckily, it sort of ebbs and flows: I was absolutely fine for almost the entire day and night yesterday. I made it through all three hours of The Two Towers on Friday with only slight twinges here and there (of course, that may have had more to do with the movie, and Billy Boyd in particular, taking my mind off things, but hey, three hours without intense pain is a rarity in my life these days, so I'll take it any way I can get it. Hell, maybe I should just spend my days in a movie theater watching The Two Towers over and over again -- how's that for new age dentistry?)
Ah, but I was not so blessed today. My teeth have been bothering me all day and the pain has been getting continually worse. By this evening, I was in agony. Holden dug up a Xanex from somewhere and I took it and slept for about an hour and a half, but it wore off, which is why I am sitting here in my dark living room writing an entry on my laptop and stopping every three minutes or so to grimace and whimper and half-seriously consider reenacting the "ice-skate-as-tooth-removal-implement" scene from Cast Away. I don't have a clue how I'm going to make it through Christmas. I mean, I have an incredibly high tolerance for pain and discomfort -- I am quite obviously descended from peasants -- but this is pushing even my limits.
So, anyway, I had been planning on having a little Solstice ceremony this evening. I was going to go out on our balcony with some Crescent Cakes and wine and offer some to the God and Goddess and just sort of be quiet and reflect, but the Teeth of Doom put a stop to that project. Instead I either lay around, zonked on Xanex, or curled up in the fetal position, moaning. Lovely.
I did get my Solstice presents from Holden today. You know, I have to say that Holden has been an incredibly good sport about my becoming a Pagan (or, rather, my realizing I was a Pagan. I don't think your spirituality is something you choose. It's something ingrained in you and you discover it.) I think it was harder for him than he let on, particularly because before I really decided to pursue my own spiritual route, we had been talking about my converting to Judaism because he wanted to raise our children in the Jewish faith. I am still willing to raise our children Jewish, actually; it means a lot to Holden and I feel that children should have some form of faith system in their lives and since the form of witchcraft I subscribe to teaches that witchcraft is not something you are born into, but have to come to on your own as an informed adult, it would be better for our children for them to be raised within Judaism.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to expose my kids to my beliefs; I even plan to make sure they are informed about Catholicism, since that is a huge part of my parents' and siblings' lives. Hell, if Holden ever allows Teddy into our house ever again, I'll let him tell my kids what it's like to be a Buddhist. But I do think they need some solid foundation from which to start and since Holden is much more attached to having our children brought up in a formal religious tradition, it should be his. Of course, my not converting to Judaism and being a witch to boot is going to make this a bit more difficult than we planned, but we'll work it out somehow.
Which brings me back to Holden being really great about my decision to follow this path. Out of everyone in my life, he's the one that's going to be most affected by this decision. Granted, my beliefs will not prevent me from celebrating important Jewish holidays and events with him, like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and Hanukkah (which isn't that important in the grand scheme of Judaism but hey, it's a time to give him gifts). But they will make raising our children more complicated. And things were already going to be complicated -- what with my parents being Catholic and wanting to have their grandchildren help them celebrate Christmas and Easter -- something I'm not opposed to as long as we keep the celebrations secular. (You know, I'm sitting here writing this and talking about "our children" like we're planning on having some any time soon. Scary.)
Anyway, my point is that Holden has some right to be concerned or upset or whatever. Yet, he's adapted pretty well. Sure, he doesn't like me to do spells for him specifically, but he's always interested and supportive if I do spells for the house or myself or us as a family. He doesn't mind the sometimes strange paraphernalia that gets placed around the house -- like the bowl of dimes that' s been sitting on our windowsill for six months. He encourages me to take classes and read. And he does little things like giving me my holiday presents for Winter Solstice rather than Christmas or Hanukkah. It may not seem like much, but it's a big difference from my family who still insist that they are giving me CHRISTMAS presents and always make the same tired jokes about how trees and rocks are my gods. They're not in any way malicious about it, but it's obvious that my rejection of Catholicism and exploration of witchcraft doesn't sit well with them. (Even though, if you want to get technical, my dad was the one who started me on this path, talking to me when I was a child about how we're descended from the Druids. Gee, Dad, and now you're surprised that I'm Pagan?)
How the hell did I get on this subject? All I meant to do was write about what I got from Holden for Solstice and I end up with a compare/contrast essay on the differences between how my family and my boyfriend deal with my spirituality. Maybe the Xanex is still in my system.
So, on to the good stuff: For Solstice, Holden gave me the collector's editions of both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a fabulously swinging signed SHAG serigraph print "Kind of Blue" for our bedroom, a turntable so I can finally play my extensive collection of vinyl after a decade of having my rare Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds records languish in my parents' basement, an absolutely gorgeous copy of Lord of the Rings, in one volume (as Tolkien intended it to be) bound in red leather and embossed with beautiful Celtic-like border work, a Pippin bobble-head doll, and yes! my coveted Pippin and Merry action figures complete with battle slash action and a Moria Orc figure. Plus, he gave me his last Xanex. Am I a lucky girl or what?
Scott and his son Kendall stopped by this morning on their annual Egg Nog Run. Every year, Scott spends the weekend before Christmas visiting each of his friends' homes and making everyone a cup of egg nog. He comes prepared with his cooler full of supplies and he stays for an hour or so to make a toast and celebrate a little with each friend before moving onto the next house. His visit did mean that I was up this morning at 6:30 frantically shoving crap into closets and actually mopping the kitchen floor, but it's always wonderful to get a visit from him. Kendall was a little cranky at first, but that's understandable, seeing as Scott has been taking him on a whirlwind tour of family and friends' houses and city holiday events for the past week. All he wanted to do was sleep on our rug for ten minutes, poor tyke. But then he had a cookie and he and I watched some of The Wizard of Oz and played with my nail polish collection while Scott and Holden talked about the Phillies and how this is going to be their year (something I agree with, although I am terribly upset that they traded Johnny Estrada. What's up with that, Bowa? Mark my words, we're going to regret letting him go.)
So it was great to see Scott with his son -- they have a terrific relationship -- and what was even better was that Scott and Holden got to spend some actual time together (which, considering the past, is an amazing feat in and of itself). They have so much in common and today they discovered a mutual passion for silent horror movies. It seems like they are on their way to becoming good friends. How absolutely, wonderfully bizarre.
I'm leaving tomorrow for my parents' house and I guess I'll be there until Thursday or so, although this depends on my teeth, I think. Holden is coming down on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, my Uncle Paulie is a total jackass, so I suspect this year's celebration will be marred with melancholy. For the past 30 years, Uncle Paulie has always come to our house for Christmas Eve. Initially, he came with his first wife, my Aunt Roxanne; then, after Roxanne went out for groceries one day and never came back, he came by himself; and finally, for the past twenty years, he has come with his second wife, my Aunt Lulu, and their three children. So Christmas Eve has always meant my mother's parents and her brother and his family. But, even as a kid, I suspected that once Uncle Paulie had married Aunt Lulu, he was just marking time and looking for a way to get out of coming to our house on Christmas Eve. He spends every other holiday with Lulu's family and it's been pretty obvious that Lulu would rather be with her family for Christmas Eve as well. Still, they came every year for twenty years because of my grandmother. But, just as I suspected, as soon as my grandmother died, he began trying to change the rules. Last year, our first Christmas without my grandmother, he asked my mother to do him a favor and have us all come to their house on Staten Island because his mega-bitch of a 19-year-old Britney Spears wannabe daughter had just had a baby and they were having trouble with her crack-dealing, small-time Mafioso ex-boyfriend (a.k.a. the father of her baby). Holly, Frank, our father, and I were not pleased and we tried to tell Mom that Paulie was just using the new baby as an excuse and this was his way of trying to weasel things around so that now we'd come to him on Christmas Eve. But my mother asked us to be charitable (we got that whole lame Christmas guilt-trip: "This time of year should be about understanding and family and Uncle Paulie is our family") and so we went to their house last Christmas Eve. Naturally, Aunt Lulu's family was there and everyone ignored us -- we were even seated at a separate table!
Well, Paulie tried to get out of coming again this year. And he's such an asshole that they way he did this was to call my mother up and say, "So, what time are you getting here on Christmas Eve?" Jerk. When my mother told him half past never, he tried to guilt her into coming with all this crap about how it's time for a new tradition and how it's the new millennium and things need to change -- all of which translates into "I'm a weak jerk who is afraid of my wife and my evil daughter, neither of whom has ever wanted to come to your house for Christmas Eve and now that our mother is dead, I have no reason to stand up and be a man and say, 'Shut the hell up. We see your obnoxious family for every other holiday; the least we could do is give my sister this one evening.'" Needless to say, my mother is quite upset. Christmas Eve was the one holiday that we ever had any company and it was something that was her tradition and now Paulie is trying to take that away from her. And I know it's tough for her not to be with her brother on the holiday, but I'm impressed that she's remaining strong and not giving into him. We all tried to be good about it and told her we'd go if she wanted to, but she said that she can't give in on principle -- that if he can't do this simple thing for her, then what does that say about their relationship? She's right, but I suspect that this Christmas, with just the five of us and Holden for both nights, is going to be a little rough.
Adding to the roughness of the season is the fact that Teddy is not going home to Pittsburgh for Christmas, so I'll be spending Christmas with my family and Holden and feeling a little bad that Teddy will be all alone in Brooklyn. Still, there's really nothing I can do about it unless I want to start a new tradition of murder on Christmas, because this scenario is not going to play out like a Hallmark Holiday Theater movie starring Kirk Cameron, Tori Spelling, and Dustin Diamond, where Kirk learns the meaning of forgiveness and welcomes his girlfriend's best friend home for the holidays. Nope, it would be much more akin to Silent Night, Deadly Night.
So, it's three in the morning and my teeth are not better and I have to be up in four hours to turn in my grades at University A. Lovely. I'll be back next week sometime, most likely with some blather about The Two Towers (won't you be glad when I move on to another obsession?). Enjoy your holidays whatever you are celebrating!
7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions
Pride:
Envy:
Wrath:
Sloth:
Avarice:
Gluttony:
Lust:
Book:
Quest for Publication:
I have a pretty great boyfriend. Even if he isn't a magician or a hobbit.
Right now? People who can go more than 10 minutes without pain.
My Uncle Paulie is really cruising for it.
Actually, I cleaned the entire house yesterday because Scott was coming over. I feel very unslothful at the moment.
If I could, I would hoard Percocet right now.
None today, but I'm sure I'll make up for it over the next three days.
Still Billy Boyd.
Still The Two Towers.
Task at Hand:
Figure out how I'm going to pay for a dentist.
Total Submissions: 21
Rejections: 12
Acceptances: 1
Withdrawals: 7