Holidays…Ray goes nuts on potatoes…watching videos as weirdos…stuff vs. experiences…reread on favorite manga, Fruits Basket.
Adventures du jour!
I took the last few days off and didn’t work on fiction or do any business-related activities. Inbox = disaster. Probably I’d be better off using the time I’m going to spend writing this in starting to clear that out, HOWEVER, I know myself and I know that I won’t do any “simple” tasks until I clear my head a bit…by writing something like this.
Eh, c’est la guerre.
So this was the first holiday since I split with the ex that I haven’t felt a cloud of fear and/or dread hanging over me.–I checked with Ray, and it was the same for her.
Cooking: I made lemon bars with candied ginger and jalapenos, and what ended up being pollo a la crema in puffed pastry. Ray made potato pancakes. For Thanksgiving she wanted to know if I wanted her to cook anything, and I said, “You do potatoes.” She likes ’em more than I do, and I *like* potatoes. She made some kind of cheesy scalloped potato dish that was a personal invitation to lie down and take a nap–success!–so I told her she was in charge of any and all holiday potatoes until she got sick of it.
This time, she asked me what I wanted. “I want you to be in charge of potatoes. GO NUTS. Tell me what you need.” I made the puff pastry so I could cook in the morning and clear out of the kitchen while she worked on potatoes. (She’s a night owl, so everything shifts later.)
Everything turned out wonderfully, if not as overwhelmingly as Thanksgiving. (I just made Fancy Salad wiv Prosciutto on Thanksgiving to help cut some of the richness and it was still A Lot.)
We watched Weird: The Al Yankovic Story together, and loved it.
Watching anything on the small screen with Ray is becoming quite the experience: we hit the pause button ALL THE TIME. To laugh, to rewind to watch perfect little bits, to stop and look up actors on IMDB (admittedly, I used to do this on my phone all the time but we wouldn’t hit pause for it), to make plot prognostications, to take breaks for tea and/or snacks and/or Too Much Social Embarrassment. But it suits us, and it’s *so* much more fun than sitting there and behaving like reasonable adults.–Although she does freak out if I get chatty in a movie theater. HMPH. Well, fair.
I avoided doing gifts other than food/snacks for Christmas this year because a) I just wanna give Ray things all the time and ask her regularly if I can give her XYZ, and b) GIFTS WERE STRESSFUL with the ex. I still feel weird not having some kind of “open the gifts” ritual, but apparently it was the right thing to do, because things went well. We’re both making each other artsy stuff, but…timeliness is not a factor.
Personally, aside from handmade arts and crafts, I’d rather give and have experiences than stuff; stuff is what you give people when you can’t drag them to a restaurant or to the zoo. (Sometimes you find That One Perfect Thing, but that’s not a Christmas gift but a Thing That Must Be Done.) It’s weird. For all that I was upset that I rarely got what I wanted as gifts as a kid (my parents were also weird about gifts–although Dad gave us STILTS one year and the memory still puts a smile on my face), I find myself wanting time more than I want stuff. But when you’re Far, Far Away, it is what it is.
I danced a bunch, walked some, and mostly skipped yoga. This morning I did a bunch, though. Photos were taken and Midjourney was played with.
The other thing that’s been hitting hard is that I’m rereading Fruits Basket, a manga about a family whose members are possessed by the spirits of the Chinese Zodiac. I have the series in paper–all 22 volumes or so, a considerable investment at the time–and reread it about once a year. I haven’t done a pass since I got divorced, and I’ve been really feeling it.
The series is about recovering from emotional (and physical, in some cases) abuse, from the introduction of characters and relationships that aren’t abusive, to the ugly backstory, to learning how to navigate tricky social situations, to the black humor that runs under everything now, to the moment when the bubble pops, to letting go. It’s very warm and witty and wise. “My” character is the Rabbit (although I was born in the year of the Tiger), a mostly-irrepressible character named Momiji. But there are lots of good characters. I can’t recommend the anime versions; the old one is abbreviated and I haven’t watched the new one.
As I move into the new stories that I’m able to write (less horror, more romance, but still dark), I find myself referring back to Fruits Basket, basically a YA manga for girls that not only includes extremely dark themes and scenes, but puerile humor, fashion, food, books… Yes. I’m probably drawing a lot on Fruits Basket for the WIP.
Everything reads just a little bit differently this time, less hypothetical and more immediate.–I’m in the middle of a story arc at a summer home, in which everyone in the family is trying to protect the main character by trying to distract their abuser; she ends up spending a lot of her vacation time with the “outcast” character or by herself. The other characters are like, “It doesn’t matter if I get hurt; I’m tough.”
Ahhhh, how many times have I done that? And had it make no difference?
Anyway, I keep tearing up as I read, thinking of myself and Ray, but also of people I’ve talked to and stories I’ve heard. I’m thankful for everyone who’s helped me pull through, and thankful for the people who’ve allowed me to help pull as well. There have been days when being able to help others has been most of what saw me through.
Yes, I *am* cheesy. Please provide more cheese.
Here’s a clip of a bird, definitely NOT the Loch Ness Monster.
Dino Santa takes unethical steps to secure his position.
