Coley Waxes Emotional, for a change. Or something....

Ah, November 1st. Officially time to start dreaming about Thanksgiving. I feel torn about the Holidays. I jokingly refer to Thanksgiving as Enslavement of Indigenous Peoples day, and hate the way it started. However, I love having a day of work to contemplate how fortunate I am. I often bitch about tiny inconveniences, and while I think about how grateful I am for all that I have, I have a hard time verbalizing. (Wow, I have trouble talking or writing about something? Never would have seen that coming. I can talk for hours. Just ask anyone who knows me.) So while I hate the history, I love the idea.
On top of other things, I'll happily take advantage of any holiday during which people make fantastic food that I would normally allow myself to eat. (Now, that's not being entirely truthful. When have I ever turned down food?)

Christmas is similar. I'm not a Christian, in fact I find most religious practices irritating. After being raised Mormon, I've spent the last 10 years trying to get all religiousness out of my life. I hate all religious accroutrement of Christmas, but love getting two days off work to revel in family with an excuse to give gifts to those I love. And, I love getting gifts. I don't care what it is, I just love to tear open giftwrap and see what's inside. This year, all I'm dreaming of is kitchenware. *sigh*


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With these thoughts of Holidays come thoughts of family. I've written before of my complicated relationship with my dad. I've been thinking more and more about it. I love my dad and we used to be inseparable. Then we had problems. And now we spend a lot of time avoiding a lot of topics.
Things I love about my dad:

• With two days notice, he was on a plane to help me escape from my broken relationship.
• That he still refers to me as the best catcher he ever coached.
• Whenever Terms of Endearment is on TV he calls me to the living room where we both watch pretending we aren't crying.
• The man can feed a problem better than most I know (well, really my whole family is good at eating when things get shitty. Hmmm, could this explain my expanded waistline?)

Things that I'm still not ready to forgive him for:

• Telling me at the age of 14 that he thinks I'm too intelligent to have a soul.
• Telling me at the age of 10 that the only reasons a woman should go to college were to be able to help her children with homework and be interesting enough to her husband.
• Calling me a whore while beating me on the side of the road when I was caught sneaking out with the car.

I know I'm better off letting go. And I know most of the bad stuff comes from his ignorant upbringing and his conversion to Mormonism. I understand that. I know that I've had it better than he did. I didn't have to fear coming home to an alcoholic mother and wondering when she was REALLY going to hurt someone.

But, things still hurt. Every time I see my dad all those good and bad things come back, and I'm left feeling conflicted. I'm working on just seeing people as people. Flawed, broken and doing the best they can. But I'm human too.

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Thank heavens we didn't have any Trick Or Treaters last night. At least when my lunch failed to be fabulous, I had some M&Ms and Snickers to bridge the gap. I love sugar. I love chocolate. I'm not going to pretend I don't. I'm so tired of Bay Area hipsters claiming their favorite thing to eat is Organic Tofu on a bed of Arugula with just a dash of balsamic vinegar, no oil.

Fat and Sugar taste good. This is the truth. I like tofu too, but you know what? A doublecheeseburger with grilled onions and perfectly fried french fries smothered in full fat Ranch dressing is way better. Mmmmmmm.

Good night ya'll. Let's put an end to the worst day of the week. Stupid Tuesday.