updates

everyday I check my updates...
In the morning I read the newspaper on my computer first.
After I usually move on to other updates of things that I follow.
I have things I check every single day and each day they give me a little more,
then I have things I check every once and a while.
The things I check every once and a while have lots for me to be updated on.
The daily updates serve to keep me just hovering out of the reach of reality and the inconsistant to vault me far away from reality for up to an hour...

Occasionally, I spend great swaths of time scouring the internet for all the new updates I might have missed
but this always leads to an inevitable desert of reality.
With no more updates left to discover on the internet I move to my bookshelf.
I frantically search my bookshelf things I haven't read.
I search for text books but then remember selling them that one week I needed grocery money or a ticket to an art exhibit or something or other...
After staring at my bookshelf for an hour, having removed most of the books and set them on my desk,
I begin pacing through the kitchen.
I search through the drawers and the cupboards.
I look at the silverware.  One of them has water stains on him.  So I wash it.  I place it on the drying rack, take off the dish washing gloves, and lay them on the pile of dirty dishes in the sink.
I pace between the living room and the kitchen for ten minutes, pick up 3 beer bottles and place them in the recycling.  The beer bottles make me want to drink booze.  I stare at the clock and it's the same time it was an hour ago.  It takes me a full minute to realize the clock is broken.  I walk over to my phone to get the correct time...
I pick up my phone, it says I have unread emails on both my accounts, a text message, 3 missed calls, a voicemail, it's 11:13, and it tells me It will be more than twelve hours before I go to sleep even though I got up 5 hours ago...
Anyway, I reset the clock to the correct time...
Or I hope it's the right time.  I'd rather not check my phone again...
I didn't actually read any of the messages...
Coffee!  That's right it's too early to drink so I'll make coffee.  I dump the grounds out of the french press from the previous day and I'm about to clean it out when I just stare at the pile of dirty dishes for five minutes then walk over to the coffee grinder.  I think about the sound it makes.  I feel nervous.  I think about turning it on then running out of the room so I don't have to listen to it.  Instead I strangle it tightly while it runs in a feeble attempt to smother the sound.
I realize I haven't started boiling the water yet...
Shit...
A moment passes and I'm staring at the kettle.
A moment passes and I'm trying to see if there are puffs of steam...
Should I have filled it with hot water instead of cold?
Would it really decrease the amount of time it takes to boil?
My scientific mind thinks yes but my artistic mind disagrees.
I remember being told that warm water has more toxins in it so I think next time I'll use warm water.
Still no puffs of steam, back to the bookshelf.  If there were any books still left on the shelf I remove them, leaf through them, and set them on the desk.
Back to the kettle and still no steam...

Christmas

Christmas is a time for pretending.

We pretend that Jesus is the reason for the season.  

Just like pagans who, 

before the Christians stole it,

participated in Saturnalia would give gifts to everyone they were supposed to care about.

We play this game on such a large scale it should come as no surprise that it also plays out in our personal experiences of Christmas.

Even in Dicken's A Christmas Carol the final thing Scrooge has to learn, 

to truly change, 

is that he will die if he does not.  

He will die, Tiny Tim will die, and nobody will care.

Even when Scrooge does the right thing it does not create life, it does not give him children, it does not fix Tiny Tim.  At it's ideal it can only minimize pain.  

Tiny Tim is still a cripple but he's a living cripple instead of a dead one.

Scrooge's change begins with the threat of an afterlife of suffering and ends with the threat of death.

I have always wanted Christmas to be about joy rather than minimizing pain.

I wish Christmas wasn't about fighting pain and death

but about living.

I'd like to find a deep joy in Christmas.  I want to, so much so, that every Christmas I want to have some deep powerful moving life changing conversation with my father.

Every time I try to press the conversation it ends in a fight,

A fight I will never win.

I want him to take my gender seriously.  

I listen to him spout on about the meaning of Christmas as I sit writing and reading on my laptop and I want to create exactly what he is talking about.

I want the profound catharsis that Christmas promises.  

I want to have the fight but at the end

we will reach an understanding.

He will finally understand why I'm taking hormones, why I'm changing my name.

I hope beyond all hope that he will understand me.

I want him to look me in the eyes and say 

"I'm so sorry.  You're a wonderful daughter and I'm so glad to know you."

Teary eyed I will look back and say

"I'm sorry I didn't know the words.  I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

Everything healed, everything complete.

Christmas promises made good.

Of course, his expectations come in conflict with that vision.  

For him the narrative is different.

In his mind we'll come together and spend hours sitting around the campfire.

We'll talk about how great our family is.

We'll talk about how smart we all are.

Old memories will be discussed leading to new memories being made.

His dream is simple and picturesque.

My dream is moving and cathartic.

Instead, he'll sign a truce and I'll compromise.

Neither of us will provoke conflict

He will never use any pronouns or gender specific language around me, passively remaining unengaged.

I will not speak about anything that matters to me but I will speak with enthusiasm about the past.

It is all we can offer each other at this time of year.  There will be other days for conversations and fights.  Other days without all the history of Christmas bearing down upon us for that.

For now I will smile and laugh at the past no matter how painful it is to me.

For his part, he will not comment on my life no matter how strange it is to him.

We will do this because it's Christmas.  We will superficially smile.  We will lie to each other about how we feel and, when we can, we will lie to ourselves.

Occasionally we'll both let slip little stabs.  

A line about how his mind, in old age, is slipping.

A line about how back when I was a little boy I used to love this or that.

Only a toe over the line.  

The truce will not be broken because of minor violations.  We'll will do our best to preserve a semblance of peace.

We will do this not because it is painful

but because it is the least painful way we know how to behave.

We will cause each other as little emotional anguish as possible.  

Christmas is a time for pretending we haven't been hurting each other for our entire lives.

On Christmas Day we tell ourselves "All you need is love" 

We smile

And we open another bottle of wine.