fuck you, thoreau. it is possible to oversimplify. you didn't know everything.

christmas eve: kelly came over, uninvited, and if you know some things about my family you'd understand how trying that can be. she's beyond infuriating but also pitiable in the most additionally infuriating way possible. she had her kids, whose futures one imagines with soul-crushing intensity: cody the neglected child who is growing into the neglected teenager and archetypal angry young man-- failing classes, repeatedly suspended, beating up little girls and disabled children on the school bus-- destined to become an alcoholic wife beater and/or petty criminal. the younger one is similarly starved for attention, calling everyone who shows him a scrap of it 'dad,' as his mother has weaved in and out of relationships with so many men his young mind probably rationalises that anything with a penis has a chance of being his new daddy. he became hyper towards the end of the visit but until then had sat creepily silent and glassy-eyed despite any stimulus offered, freaking everyone the fuck out.

my christmas spirit (and spirit in general) thus deadened, having to hold my tongue in various conversations through the night for the purposes of tact only wore me down more.  at one point, my father and grandmother were talking about their respective bedtime prayers for themselves and for souls in purgatory when kelly came in and was asking whether they actually said them out loud or in their heads.  suddenly, she asked me if i said prayers nightly, apparently because i was in the same room, and i had to answer with a clipped 'no,' but it got me thinking about this nominal catholicism i'm surrounded by again.

my sister got a prayer book as part of her gift contingent.  she loves angels but doubts certain parts of the faith she's about to be confirmed into, admitting as much and not even knowing what apostolic succession is.  i brought it up the other day.  fascinating that so many people can be so convinced that a book of words is their direct line of communication to the almighty. that there is order and a set of rules governs everything.  sin.  canon law.

christine contacted me for the first time in almost a year and i was right back to last festivus, walking outside in the cold with my father's christmas display illuminating the lawn around.  i think we went out to the street and walked back and forth in front of the house a few times catching up; mainly me telling her about alex and what had happened with tina.  some conversation with patty after everyone else was gone and i was still thinking about that night with christine. i don't want to think about how the best thing about this place is gone. all this got me feeling like a horrible person for what happened with alex once again, and recalling the plot of goodbye tsugumi, which i finished today, lamenting last summers at home, all of which resolves itself into a series of recent and ongoing events in my mind as i write this: trying to explain the concept of categorical imperative to my mother, crying next to laura in the night awaking from horrible guilt-ridden dreams, and the dream i can't remember from this morning: when my eyes opened but i couldn't move no matter how hard i tried, until i finally could.