Hello blog, it's me. Sorry I haven't animated you with any content recently. I have been feeling guilty, imagining you still and hollow and sad, waiting for me to pump some life into you.
(Am I crazy? I seem to have anthropomorphized both my blog and my iPod recently).
Blog, I have come up with a few learnings and observations over the last few weeks and I thought I'd share them with you.
1. The word 'prosaic' has the opposite meaning to what I thought it did. I thought it meant flowery and descriptive but it actually means commonplace or dull. Huh. Although not especially recently, I did discover this year that I also had the meaning of the word 'dearth' completely wrong, I thought it meant 'lots of' and it actually means 'scarcity of'.
I am very lucky that I've never said "your prosaic words have resulted in a dearth of affection" to anyone special at a dinner party.
2. Blog, my family (a few members in particular) will never, ever change and their bizarre behavior will only get more entrenched over time. I'm still not quite sure what to do about this as it results in me wanting to run screaming from the room at holiday functions and produces a lot of stress and unhappiness.
2a. Blog, I am getting close to the point, at nearly 40 (it took a long time) to say to said family: even though I am not married and don't have children, I can have my own Christmas. I have traveled to your homes in your city for every one of my adult years on the planet to celebrate your Christmas your way, your dysfunctional consumer driven depressing boring tv-watching way and even though I am by leaps and bounds the best cook in this family I have eaten your dry, unflavourful turkey and your limp caesar salad out of a boxed kit with dessicated stale chemical croutons and your greasy floury flavourless gravy because even as I age and get grey and wrinkled and saggy and wise I am somehow still the "kid" and apparently single childless people are not allowed to have their own Christmas. Next year blog, I am fucking going to Cuba.
3. Blog, I enjoy giving you my thoughts and working things out as I type them and thinking that maybe one or two people are reading them. I don't really care anymore if I get 400 or 1000 people coming here - the idea that 4 or 10 might is pretty cool too.
4. Blog, New Years' resolutions don't work for me. What is better, made clear by a good friend on the night in question, is to think about and say what you want to let go of from the past year and what you want to manifest in the coming year. In very general terms, what I want to let go of is anxiety and worry, and what I want to manifest is doing good works in my community. I think/hope that all sort of other good spin-off things will come from these behaviours.
5. Blog, I love my dog more than I thought I would and it's pretty amazing. I was afraid to be solely responsible for her day to day care when I moved out on my own, I thought I might grow to resent the sacrifices of time and effort and money and end up not enjoying her as much. The opposite has happened and I'm grateful. There was that night recently though, when we had made our fourth trip outside in minus 30 temperatures at 4:00 in the morning on a weeknight because of doggie diarrhea that I thought I might sell her for glue, but I got over it by the time I'd showered.
Blog, I think I'm gonna have an awesome 2009. I wish the same for all of my friends, my crazy family and everyone reading this too.
Whenever you blog, I enjoy. Thanks.
Posted by: Rachael | January 04, 2009 at 11:21 AM
I am constantly getting words wrong, you are always welcome with us for the holidays and I am so glad to hear that you and the puppy are lovin each other!
I have been thinking it's time for a council meeting. I am going to talk to Jay and see if it can happen here.
Love Em
Posted by: Emily Jull | January 05, 2009 at 06:10 AM
Happy New Year to you! An excellent post. Very "Are you there, Blog? It's Me, Margaret".
Posted by: roro | January 05, 2009 at 04:50 PM
Another great posting :-) I hate Christmas as well, and the slogging and the travel, and the overcommercialization, and the way I try not to buy into it, but the reality is that buying presents even just for the 'must buy'for children, and immediate family always creates big financial problems for me. Ugh. Cuba sounds great! Em, a council meeting also sounds great...and I loved, loved loved the 'are you there, blog, it's me, Margaret' comment. :-)
Posted by: queen lisa of montreal | January 06, 2009 at 05:31 AM
A lovely post! Keep blogging... I'll keep reading.
Posted by: Luciana | January 08, 2009 at 11:46 AM