Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

x-mas

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Yes, so, now my emotional life rests on the whims of a four year old, which honestly makes me feel a hell of a lot safer than when it rested on the whims of any number of nineteen and twenty year olds. But, this is just a symptom of my newfound adoration of young children. There’s this question on theSpark.com’s mating test that asks “Aren’t babies special?,” with the obvious intention of trying to suss out whether or not you are interested in having children any time soon. I always answered no, but this week i was thinking about it and i suddenly wanted to get online and change my answer to yes. I think it’s an age thing – i spent the entire week with three women aged roughly 75 who are slightly erratic and senile but also very funny, warm, and engaging. At the same time, tonight the only person who was missing from my family dinner was my paternal grandmother, who is in hospice care and not even 70.

My mother has a 26 year lead on me, so when i’m 40 she’ll be a venerable 66. She had the good fortune of having me while she was young and also forming a career for herself, so she now gets to watch me grow to be an adult as well as working at something she somewhat enjoys. All of my tiny cousins were born to aunts in their 40’s … when Audrey is my age her mother will be on the other side of 60 (and i’ll be 38… dear lord, let me find the fountain of youth before then…). How old will she be when Audrey has her own children?

I’m obviously biased by having such a young mother and father (it’s his 50th birthday today), but in my reflections on when i want to consider children in my own life a very certain and relatively small window of time is developing. I obviously would want to be out of college and securely in a job, but i’d want to have children while i was still young enough in body and heart to truly enjoy the experience and still have a life afterwards. That leaves a span of years that’s something like 26 – 35, which in today’s society (and recently in my family) is relatively young. But, what’s a boy to do? I might not be done living my own individual life by then, but do i really want to be in a retirement home when my kids graduate from college?

These are the thoughts that run through my head when i’m trapped in a condo in Florida at 4am with nothing to eat other than a bag of mini Twix bars and nothing to do except watch teevee or dream. These dreams are almost nightmares in a way, not because they’re frightening in and of themselves, but because they make me realize just how small the span of life really is. I somehow expect myself to mature into a lover and father in the next decade and a half… doesn’t that mean that i need to start dating eventually? Or, that i should start experiencing the things i want to do now rather than assuming i’ll get to them later?

Or maybe i should just start packing benadryl with me when i go on vacation so i’m not left with the time to ponder this sort of stuff. Either that or bring my guitar next time…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1763273/

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So, i think i’m encountering some extremely disturbing male relative of a “maternal instinct” lately. Tonight i spent Christmas Eve with my father’s side of the family, which is populated with five separate children aged 3-5 (by contrast, i was the only child of the family for over a decade before the next oldest cousin came along). While all of my cousins are usually fun to run and throw around, tonight i was a bit partial to my cousin Audrey. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that she’s the only blonde in our family, or because she’s the least baby-shaped of all the young kids, or because she has a personality (rather than the black & white shy/happy most children have), or anything else, but i find myself absolutely delighted whenever she decides that i’m worthy of her attention. After ignoring me for about three hours tonight, she decided that she absolutely needed to sit next to me and watch Winnie-the-Pooh for an hour, during the course of which i wasn’t allowed to get up or even move to the other side of the chair. Afterwards i was allowed to fetch myself some dessert if and only if i’d share it with her.

Now, obviously my rampant & irrational fear of herpes doesn’t come into play when sharing my fork with a four year old, but i still very rarely share anything with my cousins because i don’t want to get sick. I’m very healthy on my own, but generally my immune system falls like a house of cards in the wind whenever i introduce it to germs from some other person. Despite all of that, i sat on the couch with Audrey with the two of us alternately feeding ourselves and each other until my pile of dessert had disappeared. At some point my father captured the moment on 35mm film to be frozen forever, but i hardly noticed him doing it because i was more concerned with spooning up some strawberry sauce for Audrey.

My whole family thought that the whole affair was simply adorable (and very considerate of me), but really i didn’t have the urge to do anything else but sit there the whole time. Perhaps i was just sick of chasing everyone around the room and giving them piggy back rides, but i think it went beyond that. Audrey wanted to sit there with me, and only me, and she rested her head on my shoulder and idly toyed with the curly wisps of my hair, and it made me feel more special than any performance or audition or hits on my page ever will.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1763249/

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Picking out a Christmas tree is the single tradition that my mom and i have. Every year we go out together to pick out a tree, with me always looking for an imposing one and she always looking for one she won’t need a ladder to decorate (and as short as my mother is, that isn’t a very exciting tree). The two of us made a comic pair; both grasping lattés from the coffee shop with scarves cast intrepidly over our shoulders, me gabbing away about having to study for my philosophy final and she worried that either none of or all of her extended family would meet me at the airport in Florida.

The first two tree lots were awful, without a single tree that either of us were particularly inspired by. However, the third lot proved to be exactly the mix of good trees and comic genius that usually makes our tradition. I did a waltz with the tree, there was a discussion of market economy as it related to purchasing dead evergreens, and my mom thought the tree-guy looked like Peter Mulvey until i pointed out his prominent herpes sore.


As if tree shopping isn’t fun enough, afterwards i got dragged to Walmart to look for “the perfect garland,” which my mother had only bought two strands of on her previous trip. Why, oh why, did she only buy two strands if it was perfect? Of course, Walmart had sold out of it since she’d been there last. Also, she is insistent on doing the tree in gold and silver ornaments (classy) and color lights (trashy). I say, either go in the direction of total kitsch, or get some goddamned white lights.

But, what would Christmas be if we could agree on anything related to the tree? I almost bought a 6′ fake tree for $20 to have at the apartment, but after i got over the amount of hilarity that would ensue from me bringing it back with me i gained control of my senses and put my $20 back into my pocket. I liberated my stereo from the house and brought it back with me instead! Go me!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1662552/

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I spent yesterday totally away from the computer, and it was agonizingly fun. First i managed to make it to the coffee shop at 6:30 to open with Sarah and Stephanie, who were delighted to have me on board. Opening the store was fun, because all of my afternoon customers were delighted to see me in the morning and all of the morning customers were amazed at the efficiency of this “new” employee. My downfall was that i only accumulated about 4 hours of sleep prior to my barrista performance, so by 11:00 i was so cross-eyed with drowsiness that i couldn’t even count out change correctly. Rather than head home to a well deserved nap afterwards, i was whisked away by mother dearest to go Christmas Tree shopping.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1662437/