Queen of the Savages

I can’t figure out if listening to Chet Baker during the holidays makes me want to kill myself or fall in love over and over again.  I’m not sure which one is worse, Chet or Sigur Ros, but I find that both are phenomenal when it’s cold outside and visions of cigarettes and rivers of booze refuse to leave your head.

Tonight I took my paternal grandmother out to dinner with my mom and Brother J.  At dinner, mom pulled one of her classic asking the waiter for whatever it was that she felt like eating instead of LOOKING AT THE FUCKING MENU.  This is a practice that absolutely drives me over the edge (although Brother J will say that my demand for a varied assortment of condiments is almost as bad) and by the end of dinner I just turned to Brother J and very slowly, carefully, as quietly as possible said: I need to leave         RIGHT       NOW.  There is an unspoken understanding between siblings here that if these words are uttered it is imperative that it happen as soon as possible or I will inevitably set something on fire or make someone cry within minutes of not leaving right when I needed to.  And god forbid that we both need to leave at the same time and there is no way out.  Like the time we jointly made mom cry on Thanksgiving because we stupidly got into a religious conversation (I NEED TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW) and she ended up staring at us in disbelief and sobbing over her deer cutlet in this weird-ass Italian restaurant in Iceland, as if she’d just found out that she’d given birth to two headless demons who liked to eat babies for fun.

But, I digress.

On the way home from dinner tonight, Nana and I got stuck in BUMPER TO BUMPER Atlanta godforsaken traffic so we had some much needed forced-upon-us alone time.  Nana is unbelievably cool.  She curses, she’s shy, she tells superior stories in a sweet Southern accent, she’s an amazing cook, she loves to read, and she doesn’t care that I’m liberal, don’t believe in Jesus, and hope to live in sin for the rest of my life. She gives the best advice of anyone I’ve ever met. It’s always a variation of Be kind, Be happy, and Don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks about you.

I remember when I called to tell her that I was moving in with my first boyfriend, and mom and dad didn’t approve and what did she think:

Nana: Why do you care what I think? And who gives a shit what you’re mom and dad think, it’s not their life and they’re divorced. What do they know. Do what you want and be happy.

Tonight we sat in the truck in the parking lot that was Ga 400 and talked about the Hubble Space Telescope, Erskine Caldwell, what to do with photographs of old lovers, what we wanted for Christmas (She wants a trip to Myrtle Beach to see the Rockettes.  I want to Be Kind, Be Happy, and Not give a shit what anyone else thinks about me.), Aspergers disease, the Cha-Cha, getting old, and how many times we’ve moved in our lives.

Usually when stuck in traffic, I will have the very strong impulse to stop my car, get out, open the hood of the car, stick my head under it, and let the hood slam shut.  But tonight, the time flew by and I felt so thankful for holiday traffic jams.

Dear Santa,

Why do you hate me? Did you get my Christmas list mixed up with someone else’s? I believe I very clearly stated that I wanted a puppy and a holiday threesome with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, preferably strung up in Christmas lights in their undies waiting for me with a pitcher of margaritas.  Was that too much to ask?

Is it because I went to Wal-Mart tonight?

Do you know how many times I’ve restrained myself from standing in line at the mall this week and whispering in children’s ears the truth about you and Mrs. Claus before they got their pictures taken with your so-called stand-in? Many.

So tell me, why did I get pulled over again tonight? After I had gotten in the holiday spirit and gone to buy a tree and lights, loaded them into the truck and decided to make an illegal u-turn RIGHT IN FRONT OF A POLICE CAR.  Tell me.  Why do you insist on making me spend the holidays in a courtroom arguing with a judge over the lack of proper street signage?

When I was a child, after years of fighting over their stylistic differences between what made a Christmas tree a proper Christmas tree, my parents finally decided on their version of a compromise: they bought two separate trees.  Dad’s had multi-colored lights and was displayed in the den, while mom’s had all-white lights and went in the living room.  I never really questioned why they ended up divorced several years later, but the image of the two trees stuck with me.  Symbols of their individuality and refusal to bend to one another’s will.

So tonight I went out and bought my very own tree for the first time. And guess what? I couldn’t decide on what kind of lights to get.  I tried to think back to which parent’s tree I preferred as a child.  Mom’s elegant Christmas-cover award-winning display, or dad’s kitchtastic array of splendor.  In the end, I decided to go with a blend of both.  And I realized, that’s what makes me ME.  I am a perfect blend of two people with completely opposing genetic taste buds.

I was supposed to wait until tomorrow to get my tree with mom, but sometimes I get the urge to do something from start to finish by myself and I can’t let it go. It’s what has always separated me from the rest of my family.  A need to be completely alone.  To do things my own way.

Mom called when I was in the check out line and she was appalled that I had ditched our plans and decided to do it myself.  But there is honestly a certain joy in starting my own traditions.  Doing things by yourself is 100 times harder than when you have another person around.  I am convinced sometimes that it’s the sole reason why we cohabitate, or get married for that matter.  Try to put something together from Ikea by yourself and you’ll know what I mean.

But maybe it’s because your significant other compliments the skills you lack. And if you’ve found that you feel lucky, and even if Santa obviously got your Christmas list mixed up with someone naughty who loves traffic citations and curdled egg nog, you know what you have and you feel like the luckiest person in the solar system.