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I love the holidays, starting around Thanksgiving and ending after Christmas. I’m one of those people who re-reads A Christmas Carol every year, who listens to Handel’s Messiah on repeat, who plays all the traditional Christmas carols on my piano and sings along, and who bakes more batches of holidays cookies and cakes than everyone I know together can eat. I realized this year, in light of all the introspection surrounding my parents’ divorce, that much of what I’m doing when I throw myself into the so-called “spirit of Christmas” is trying to re-capture some sort of intangible magic. I’m always seeking, somehow, to find that thing that makes me catch my breath in wonder, that thing that makes everything seem warm and cozy and perfect and exciting. I want to believe in Santa Claus again. I don’t know that I’ll ever actually succeed in re-capturing that, because the normal daily non-magic always interferes — it’s exhausting, it requires constant vigilance not to slip back into mundanity. I haven’t been successful yet. (Maybe when I have my own children some day?)
But, this year, especially in the knowledge that Christmas will be hard with my family, I do have some goals. I want to try my absolute darndest to make it special. Maybe it’s grasping at straws, but if I actually encourage that childlike excitement by allowing myself to indulge in many of the childishly exciting things, then I’m hoping that this holiday season will be special, and wonderful, and delightful.
Here are my plans:
- Thursday morning, mi’lady and I leave for what our friends have been calling our “Lesbithanksgiving”! We’re renting a tiny little studio cabin on the Russian River a few hours north of here. It has a hot tub. And that’s all we care about. We’re staying two nights, leaving on Saturday, and our plans for the 48 hours we’ll be there include nothing but bathing in the hot tub, sleeping, giving each other massages (we even bought massage oil for the occasion), reading, watching Mad Men, talking, and oh yeah FUCKING. We got a new toy that will get its debut! And we’ve been talking about all the sexy things we want to do to each other for days. After that rejuvenating mini-vacation, away from the stressful obligations of family that are so often present at Thanksgiving (at least in my family), I’ll be golden for embarking on the month of December.
- In the first week of December, mi’lady and I are (hopefully, assuming a certain stressful situation which I won’t bother going into here because it’s boring doesn’t interfere) going to go see Ovo, a Cirque du Soleil show, here in San Francisco. Granted, this isn’t Christmas-themed, but any spectacular show like that is bound to feel festive.
- The following week, we’re going to see the Nutcracker ballet performed by the SF Ballet! I haven’t seen this performed live, ever. As a little girl my sister and I had a video tape of the American Ballet Theatre’s version starring Gelsey Kirkland as Clara (she was one of my favorite dancers, back in the day), and we watched it every year (multiple times!), but I’ve never actually seen it live. I’m really excited about this, and these tickets were quite reasonably priced!
- And THEN, that same week on Friday, mi’lady and I are going to host a holiday party! Last year, when we’d just started dating, she had one at her house, and that was when her best friend walked in on us hooking up. Fun times. This year, we’ll co-host! Maybe even at my house, since it’s cleaner and much homier than her place (my roommate and I are much better decoraters, what can I say), and I’m going to bake lots of cookies and make mulled wine and hot toddies and roasted vegetables and any other ideas for vegetarian holiday party fare? And she’s in charge of the playlist :)
- Sometime in December we’re going to amble up to Union Street for their annual Fantasy of Lights. Lots and lots of pretty lights, candy canes, and general merriment.
- We’re going to watch Christmas movies! We probably won’t have time to watch that many — I mean, how many movies can two busy people actually watch together in one month? — but even if we just get one or two! I really don’t like It’s a Wonderful Life, she really doesn’t like Love, Actually, so any other ideas on Christmas classics? Last year we watched Home Alone, haha. And my favorite, The Snowman:
Other ideas?
- Just in case this needs to be said again, although I’m sure it doesn’t, I’m going to bake lots of COOKIES!
- AND, I want to decorate. Last year, my roommate and I got a tree! We took it home with us on Muni, since we didn’t have cars. We definitely got some funny looks and smiles. This year, I’m with a new roommate, and our place is way too tiny for a tree. But I’m thinking maybe a wreath, or at the very least some candles and some holly and ivy.
- I’m going to make sure that I have an infinite supply of cookies (have I mentioned that already?), Christmas teas, mulled wine and cider, and Christmas music. Just so that whenever I, or anyone else who’s around, need a good dose of Christmas, I can get it.
I have about eight thousand drafts of posts waiting for my attention. There’s been so much going on, so much I want to write about. Sometimes having too much to write about gives me greater writer’s block than having too little.
I started writing about my thoughts on the Maine election, and the repeat of last fall. I started writing a post in response to G’s post on femme invisibility. I started writing about the changes that are going on in my life, the big things I’ve been doing and thinking about. I started writing about illicit sex, the sex I have when I’m not supposed to be having it, and why that’s so hot. And now I’ve started writing so much that I’m overwhelmed and can’t finish any of it! Ahhhh!
So, instead, I’m just going to spew verbosity all over this post, and maybe that will help clear out the “clutter” in my head. If I were a self-conscious writer, I would spew the clutter, and then trash it, but I’m not, so I’m going to post it anyway. Hehehehe.
1) One of my best friends from college was here last week, arriving Wednesday and leaving yesterday. We had so much fun, and I felt more San Franciscan than I have in a long time. Having visitors who’ve never been here before always does that to me. We went to the Academy of Sciences on Thursday for their weekly NightLife — so amazing, seeing the aquarium and the planetarium and the live roof at night, with music and drinks, without little kids running around. (Love little kids, but I can also certainly appreciate their absence!) We went to the Japanese Tea Garden and then walked all the way out to Ocean Beach — her first time seeing the Pacific. We went to the Lexington (duh), but then realized we shoul’ve gone to the Rickshaw because it was Rebel Girl. Oh well, we had fun anyway! We walked all through Chinatown and North Beahc and then took a cable car (MY first time on a cable car since my childhood!) back, and as it was passing by Union Square, with the ice-skating rink in the process of being set up and holiday lights starting to go up, I just felt so happy. The holiday season tends to do that to me anyway, but this time it just felt so magical. I don’t know. I felt like I was in a movie. I find myself looking forward to winter this year, to cups of cocoa and baking cookies and cuddling in the evenings when it’s dark so early, to going ice-skating and making mulled wine and escaping to the Russian River for Thanksgiving…
2) Friday evening, my friend and I went down to Palo Alto with mi’lady to meet up with another friend from college who lives in San Jose. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard since I left college. I have friends here, and I have a lot of fun here, and I’m happy here in San Francisco, but it was such a reminder to me that I have friends who know me inside and out, friends who make me feel at home no matter where I am, and friends where being around them isn’t socializing, it’s being, and it’s being in the fullest sense imaginable. And of course having mi’lady there made it even fuller, because I had it all in the same place. I can’t wait for my college reunion in May. Cannot WAIT. I also can’t wait until I have those kinds of friends here. It’ll happen, and it’s actually already happening now, slowly but surely.
3) Things with mi’lady feel so good and are so right right now. We’ve had some conversations about things like my relative introversion compared to her relative extroversion, and how we can balance that and make sure each other’s needs are met. We’ve had conversations about my relative planning compared to her relative spontaneity, and how to balance that as well. And I’ve had some internal conversations about learning how to let little things go. For example: She is working on recording with one of her bandmates, and tells me she’ll be over at my place around 9pm. 9pm comes and goes, no sign of her. She calls at 9:30, still in Oakland, happily making her way over to my place. I get frustrated. She gets defensive. We’ve had conversation after conversation about this. And I think my wanting her to be punctual is a control thing. It’s about sticking with plans and being meticulous, everything needing to be just so. But we didn’t actually have plans for 9. She’d just said that’s when she would be there. So… I let it go. Because really, it’s not that important. And because we’ve talked about it, I know she’s not disrespecting me. She’s just not so great at managing time. So is it worth arguing about? Again? No. It’s not. I was fully occupied the whole time anyway. Maybe a different time, if it has a bigger effect on me, if it feels like a breach of plans or a lack of respect or standing me up, then I’ll bring it up again. But this time, it just wasn’t important. And when she got to my place and I saw her, it was so much better that I’d let it go.
I’m such a meticulous person, I do things very particularly and have very specific ideas about things. I’m very organized and a bit of a control freak, and while a lot of that is good in my personal life because it keeps me functioning (and because I enjoy it! I love organizing!), it can be not-so-good when it spills over into trying to control her life. I don’t do that much, but sometimes in little ways I lose track. I’m learning, though, and it feels liberating to allow myself to let things go.
The point is, things are good. We haven’t had as much alone time as I’d like, but when we are alone, we make good of it.
**
So, for the moment, I’m in a good place. So much more I could write about, but at least I’ve tidied up a bit, and gotten rid of a bit of head clutter. Now there’s more room for writing about what I actually want to write about. Problem is I’m taking the GRE on Saturday and have a lot of work this week besides, so it remains a question whether I’ll have much time to write. If you don’t hear from me again, you’ll know why — but hopefully you will!
1) Stay hydrated. I’ve been getting awful dehydration headaches lately. So at work, this means that my goal is to re-fill my water glass every two hours. On a normal work day, this would mean four glasses of water. Definitely a good place to start.
I did okay at this. Definitely a good way to remind myself to drink water. My dehydration headaches were much less severe this week!
2) Complete a full GRE practice test.
Wahhh-wahhhhhhhh. Complete fail. I did spend all day yesterday doing GRE prep though. It’s happening. I promise.
3) Write a letter to my aunt, who really really appreciates gestures like that.
I did write her a letter. And she did really appreciate it. Yay for getting good family points.
4) Eat breakfast at home at least one day this week (weekend doesn’t count). After last Sunday, when I was throwing up all night, I’m starting to take much more seriously the idea that eating in the middle of a stressful situation is bad for digestion. I am absolutely convinced that the reason I got sick was that that weekend, every meal I ate was while I was working.
I ate at home on Thursday morning and it was a great idea! Toast and a fried egg. I was a bit late for work though. I’ll have to work on that.
This week, setting my goals is a bit trickier for two reasons. One, because one of my best friends from undergrad is visiting for FIVE DAYS (cue everyone CHEERING!!!!) from Wednesday through Monday. I’m so so stoked.
And reason two is still a secret. Well, okay, not a secret per se, but I will write about it at some point this week and it will all become clear. Posting goals about it right now will make absolutely no sense. So y’all will just have to wait.
(I know you’re all at the edge of your seats waiting to see what my goals for this week are. Ha!)
I know, I know. I missed last week. But one of my goals from two weeks ago was to post at least twice before my next goals post, and since I’d only posted once, I just decided to skip that week’s goals. PLUS, I had more interesting things to write about.
So, did I meet my goals from two weeks ago?
1) Cook a good meal for myself (others could be there too) at least once. Doesn’t matter which meal.
Check! When my friend A was here with her fiance, we cooked a delicious meal on Friday night. Tortellini with an apple, walnut and parmesan sauce. Stewed green beans. And baked apples for dessert! I LOVE cooking with apples.
2) Have sex before mi’lady leaves on Monday.
We had a few hours on Sunday evening, finally, which was really lovely. We went out to dinner first and had tapas — I’d been at work all day and she’d been working on music, so we needed to unwind and transition into relaxation mode. Then we went back to her place and had sex :) It wasn’t the best sex, though, to be honest — I was feeling queasy and tired (I worked 16 hours on Saturday and then 9 hours on Sunday), so I wasn’t in the best sex space. We went to bed shortly afterwards and I woke up two hours later and was ill. I think from stress. :( But at least that explained why I was queasy during sex. Regardless, though, this goal was met!
3) Post here at least twice between now and next week’s goals.
I kind of cheated here by not actually posting last week’s goals. So I have posted twice (actually 3-4 times I think) since my last goals post, but I had to skip a week of goals in order to do that! Oh well, last week was so crazy busy anyway (work is KILLING me) that it was just as well I didn’t have any goals to focus on.
4) Be aware of my brow being furrowed and consciously take the few seconds whenever I notice it to relax my face — my brow, my jaw, my tongue, my eyes.
I did really well at this! And now I’m in the habit of checking in with my face and seeing whether it’s tense. Turns out it often is, but even just the act of consciously relaxing my brow, loosening my jaw, and lowering my eyes is sort of like a mini-meditation. Multiple times a day. It’s great. This will be an ongoing thing for me, definitely.
So, this week’s goals:
1) Stay hydrated. I’ve been getting awful dehydration headaches lately. So at work, this means that my goal is to re-fill my water glass every two hours. On a normal work day, this would mean four glasses of water. Definitely a good place to start.
2) Complete a full GRE practice test.
3) Write a letter to my aunt, who really really appreciates gestures like that.
4) Eat breakfast at home at least one day this week (weekend doesn’t count). After last Sunday, when I was throwing up all night, I’m starting to take much more seriously the idea that eating in the middle of a stressful situation is bad for digestion. I am absolutely convinced that the reason I got sick was that that weekend, every meal I ate was while I was working.
While I’m at it, I might as well procrastinate a bit more and do a This Week’s Goals.
Here are last week’s:
- watch my Netflix movie that’s been sitting around since the beginning of September (Million Dollar Baby, I’ve been meaning to watch it forever because I’m kind of obsessed with Hilary Swank… especially if she’s all tough. ::swoon::)
I did this! I did this! Yay! Thursday evening I had a “Me-vening” as mi’lady dubs them. I left work early(ish), put on my jammies, and popped in the movie. I haven’t watched a full movie in… I don’t know how long.
- finish reading the biography of Buddha that one of the attorneys I work for lent me
Didn’t really finish it, but read about as much as I was interested in. I was much more interested in how Buddhism originated, what brought the Buddha to the place of beginning his preaching, than I was in the actual preaching(s) itself.
- go to yoga again
:( Nope. Work got in the way. Sigh. And the weekends don’t have as many classes, for whatever reason. BUT! I did play tennis on Sunday with one of my friends! So I did get some quality movement!
- ride my bike to work one day!
Also didn’t happen. It will happen soon. But again, my work schedule didn’t even permit me the chance to buy a bike light, and since it’s often dark when I leave work, it’s absolutely imperative that I have a light and some reflectors. So until I get a day where I can leave at 5 or 5:30, this won’t be able to happen. :(
- finish preparing my grad school applications master to do list
Um, grad school? What’s grad school?
So, not so much success this week. But I think the most important things were the quality time (movie) and the movement (tennis), so all in all, I did do good things for myself last week.
This week’s list comes TWO days late. Ugh. But I need to be less ambitious this week since (a) it’s already well underway, and (b) I’m busy at work so need to be realistic about what I can manage outside of work.
1) Cook a good meal for myself (others could be there too) at least once. Doesn’t matter which meal.
2) Have sex before mi’lady leaves on Monday. (Okay this shouldn’t really be a goal, because it will obviously happen, but if I make it a goal hopefully it will be really good intentionally making time for it sex. As opposed to the spur-of-the-moment-it’s-kind-of-late-but-let’s-do-it-anyway sex, which is also great, but is overwhelmingly the kind of sex we’ve been having in the past few weeks. And which to me feels more rushed.
3) Post here at least twice between now and next week’s goals.
4) Be aware of my brow being furrowed and consciously take the few seconds whenever I notice it to relax my face — my brow, my jaw, my tongue, my eyes.
And for this week, I think four goals is enough. Let’s do this!
1) It’s at El Rio. And with winter looming up ahead, everyone and their mothers should be at El Rio on a Friday night to enjoy the patio.
2) It’s for ArtXX magazine, and the cover is only $5. ArtXX is seriously sweet, if you don’t know anything about it, please go to its website, and buy the issue. The art is radical and by/for queer/trans/artists of color/seriously awesome people.
3) The music will be sweet. I know one of the bands is Elle Nino, bay-area based queer/synth funk band — the lead is a dyke, and she’s got 3 guys backing her up. (I love it when guys back up girls in music. Pretty rare in the music industry.) Their music is amazing and they’ve got great chemistry and stage presence.
4) Big Moves will be coming through!! In their words, “Big Moves is the only producing, training, and service organization in the world dedicated to getting more people of all sizes into the dance studio and up on stage.” AWESOME.
Basically, pass the word along to anyone you know in SF to come support this magazine and the awesome work they’re doing on getting underrepresented art out there. And pass the word along to anyone not in SF that they should either:
1) Move to SF and go to this party, or
2) Go to artxxmagazine.com and BUY THIS ISSUE!
- bake something desserty (ideas: red velvet cake, snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies) and split three ways to send in a care package to my brother, my sister, and my dad
I sort of did this. I actually baked twice — on Thursday and then again yesterday on my mental health day — but I haven’t sent anything to my family yet. I’m not sure frosted cupcakes are the easiest thing to send in the mail, but I’m going to see about getting some tupperware containers and packing ‘em tight.
- do my laundry (easier said than done)
Yes! I finally did this yesterday! I don’t know if yesterday really still counts as part of last week. I think it doesn’t. But the point is I GOT IT DONE.
- vacuum the apartment
No ifs, ands, or buts, I actually accomplished this one! Within the proper timeframe! Except that the vacuum cleaner broke halfway through. So I swept the rest of the carpet. With a broom. Yep. It worked though!
- go to a yoga class
I meant to do this on Friday, but couldn’t leave work in time. So, I went yesterday, on my mental health day. I really need to do this more often.
- drink a cup of tea every day, and drink it slowly while doing something relaxing (reading, taking a bath, watching a movie, chatting with my roommate or mi’lady…)
Fail. Utter fail. I didn’t even do this on Monday night, the first day. I was at work until midnight that night and then just went straight to mi’lady’s place and crashed. Tuesday I worked until 10 and then came home and made tea but fell asleep before I even drank any of it! I think I actually successfully made tea AND drank it WHILE doing something relaxing all of two nights. But hey! Two is better than zero.
Verdict? There was an awful lot of last-minute cramming (yesterday…). But it all happened. Success! I think I’ve learned that when setting goals like drinking tea, I should start with something like “make tea and drink it while doing something relaxing 3 nights this week.” A bit more realistic.
So. This week’s goals:
- watch my Netflix movie that’s been sitting around since the beginning of September (Million Dollar Baby, I’ve been meaning to watch it forever because I’m kind of obsessed with Hilary Swank… especially if she’s all tough. ::swoon::)
- finish reading the biography of Buddha that one of the attorneys I work for lent me
- go to yoga again
- ride my bike to work one day!
- finish preparing my grad school applications master to do list
And that about does it. This weekly goals thing might just become a regular feature here. Let’s just hope I don’t have to take a mental health day every Monday in order to accomplish everything.
Okay, I keep thinking of things that I need and/or want to do this week, to the extent that I have a lot of things floating around in my mind right now and I figured HEY! I KNOW! I’ll do a blog post of my personal goals this week! And that way I’ll feel accountable to the Internet for actually accomplishing them all.
I have a to do list too, but the problem with that is that the to do list has everything that needs to get done at some point. Some of the things on it are eventually-I’ll-get-around-to-this variety, some are this-has-to-get-done-this-morning variety, and most are just tasks. Things I need to do. The goals on the other hand, are things I need to get done, but also things I’d like to get done. One more rule: it has to be manageable. I can’t just put every single thing I’ve ever wanted to accomplish on my list of goals for this week.
Without further ado:
- bake something desserty (ideas: red velvet cake, snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies) and split three ways to send in a care package to my brother, my sister, and my dad
- do my laundry (easier said than done)
- vacuum the apartment
- go to a yoga class
- drink a cup of tea every day, and drink it slowly while doing something relaxing (reading, taking a bath, watching a movie, chatting with my roommate or mi’lady…)
1) I’m positively SLAMMED at work this week, and since work is where I usually blog, it’s going to be a slow blogging week.
2) One of my very best friends is coming to visit TODAY from Portland on his way to Taiwan, and he’s staying until SATURDAY! So awesome. Also a hindrance to my blogging. But a good hindrance.
3) I had an amazing time last night in Palo Alto meeting Ellen for the first time in person (Hi Ellen!) and participating in her play reading. So much fun!!! Can we do it again?
4) Mi’lady and I have not been having enough sex lately. We’re just so busy. It’s not cool. We had a quickie on Saturday afternoon, and then a sort of last-minute rushed fuck on Sunday morning before getting up and going about our busy days. We’d WANTED to have all evening Saturday to just take our time and do some playing around with power/control dominance/submission stuff… but then we had to go to her friend’s good-bye party and we were there all night. And now we won’t have another chance until Saturday at the earliest… And it’s not just sex, it’s time. I want to spend time with her, good time, time where we pay attention to each other. I haven’t really been feeling like we’ve had that enough lately. Maybe I’m crazy. I don’t know. Or maybe I’m in the last few days before my period and my hormones are getting wacky and my low Prozac dosage isn’t enough. Whatever it is, something’s off.
