The Toxic Housewife

This is the first Christmas in which Mr. C has been old enough to partake.  It's really the perfect age: he enjoyed the Christmas lights, knew to get a little excited when that "Sanna Cause" was mentioned again, had a great time ripping up wrapping paper, but was still too young to fully grasp the concept of Christmas.  Hence, I did not feel the pressure to get him a bunch of gifts. I took him to see Santa Clause at the bookstore a few weeks ago, and -- I am proud to report -- he did not cry.  Of course, he wasn't exactly happy about it, either.  He sat quietly on Santa's lap and kept to himself; our photo memorabilia came out looking like a twisted version of American Gothic , with Santa and Mr. C looking impassively straight ahead.  All they needed was a pitchfork. It's like when we took him trick-or-treating

Sometimes I'm so domestic that even I'm disgusted.

This would be our Christmas tree this year, of which I am pathetically proud. It is just the perfect size for the few ornaments I've collected since my childhood (or the few of Bee's that he hasn't chucked over the years). It is just tall enough to hold a single strand of lights without being overwhelmed by it. And (can you tell?) it was free:

  Today is my birthday. Thank you. I am thirty-two years old. I'm telling you now, out loud, not out of pride, but to get it out of the way. I have finally reached the point where I'm offended when people ask me how old I am, instead of being ambivalent. It seems a rude question, when only a few short years ago it was just an ice-breaker. I wonder when things changed? When a 'good day' was one where I woke up without hip pain. When I'd rather take a five-minute detour than work up the energy to hop a fence. When my new boss was younger than me. When getting carded at the grocery store was no longer an embarrassment, but a bona fide compliment. When did I actually start feeling old?

I am a cynic at heart. It comes naturally to me to think the worst of people, long before I've gotten to know them. I suppose it's a bi-product of those adolescent years of low self-esteem; back then, rather than feel better about myself by learning to love myself, I coped with my awkwardness and poor social skills by feeling better about myself via internally putting down those around me. I'm trying to get better about this. Now that I've come to accept myself and therefore have higher self-esteem, I am more open to others, and therefore I usually wait closer to five minutes into a conversation with someone new before I write them off as a loser.