It would be lovely if you have seen this nativity – because I no longer see it. That’s right. Last night my Favorite Christmas Yard Decor EVER was STOLEN. The above photo shows an enthusiastic Hayley, complete with green hair and microphone (don’t ask….)

Not only is it my Favorite Christmas Yard Decor EVER it is also a source of Christmas Delight for my dear little ones.

Hayley knocked on my door this morning to tell me about the crime and I truly thought she was preparing to tell me that someone had passed. She was THAT UPSET. She knows they can be replaced – that wasn’t the issue. Hayley was upset that someone would steal a nativity scene on the day before Thanksgiving – to quote Hayley, “what the poo, mom? what kind of person takes a nativity! the day before Thanksgiving? what the poo????”.

We take Christmas seriously around here. It is the mother of all routines, it is the ritual that keeps all our crazy in check. That nativity reminds my kiddies that everything in the stinkin’ world might change or fall apart but mommy…daddy…family…and THAT NATIVITY will always be there. Just like the silly weird Elf-Mobile / Carousel thing was always there for me. Nice job, silly robbers. Nice job.

Last month Ruby & Gabby brought Baby Jesus, Mary & Joseph in from the garage (not a mommy-approved action, I might add…). After a lot of scurrying, duct tape, sheets, and intense rehearsal the girls debuted the Several Act Play – “Do You Support Us?” – featuring Baby Jesus.

See?

Do You Support Us? To say that I am steamed would be an understatement. The sad, sad scenarios play over and over in my head – Baby Jesus guarding a cooler of beer…The Wise Men gussied up in bad lingerie…Baby Jesus as some sort of lighted centerpiece for Ironic Hipsters… I could go on and on and on.
Act 34, Scene15	Act 38, Scene 92

BUT THE POINT IS THIS (and this and this and this…)

• That was my stinkin’ nativity.
• I have to defend – every year – Christmas According to Tracy, “Why I Have a Nativity But Don’t Attend Church”. Annoying.
• I have to argue – every year – that it is imperative a make-shift lean-to is constructed, hung with non-Bethlehem appropriate greenery, and lit up like a motor inn on the Vegas Reno strip.
• I have to tolerate all sorts of Tolerant People that, oh the freakin’ irony, can’t seem to tolerate my Christian decor….can’t seem to understand it. Get over it and Be Tolerant already, okay? Ridiculous.

I forget my point.

But let me say this, oh Rude Robbers of My Nativity…I will be looking for you. You broke a gosh-darn commandment – and for what? Clever Dorm Decor? Shame on you!

So that leaves me stamping my feet, shaking my fist, and wondering what on earth I will say to the girls when they get back from their Thanksgiving travels. Roar.

(and I kept them…)

It’s your birthday for another twelve minutes. I’ve been babbling to you all day, reading your words, my words, missing you terribly, missing you in such a surreal way…

****************************

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Hell Bent on Taco Bell Grande

Today. One of those days. Which is really becoming a fucking stupid thing to say. Everyday is one of those days. Every damn day. I walk the proverbial tight rope and you know, its like the racing games I used to love at the arcade – eventually, game over, you fall off and it fucking sucks.

So why I even contemplate the notion that there might be a day that doesn’t fall into the category of “one of those days” I DO NOT KNOW…

My sister had her bone marrow biopsy today. I have her two kids, so I have four kids running around…which is FINE but it is one of THOSE days, those days when I would call you at 4 and you would say “yes, it is okay to have a glass of wine with dinner” and you would laugh at me and talk to Sammy and Ruby and they would fall in love with you AGAIN (you and women – I SWEAR) and I would make the pasta and kiddies would squeal but it would ALL BE GOOD because you – you have the ability, had the ability to calm and comfort and give me love like no other. You made me okay.

And yes, I hate that I am wallowing and romanticizing but its my fucking misery and I’ll do it if I want to…

So along that vein…I know I didn’t throw out the note you scrawled on the back of the Blue Skies flier that listed off your Taco Bell order and ended with a great big I <3 U in that insanely fabulous handwriting that you have…I KNOW I KEPT IT. I know I put it somewhere VERY SAFE.

You wrote it April 21, I was in LaGrande, and sister would be in the hospital after that Taco Bell visit. You were amazing.

So I’ve been digging through every box of crap in every nook and cranny in the house and while I’ve found all sorts of things you have touched and scrawled on – adding to the Beezer Box that is now the Derek Box -I have not found that note.

Frustrated, tired, worried and…yeah…same ole’ song & dance.

I miss you. I love you. I’m fucking crying again, for you. I don’t know whether to box it all up and hide it or pull it all out so I’m dulled to it.

Nothing feels right, everything feels wrong and crooked.

Someone said I was your heart. You were mine. WTF do I do now?

Sigh.

I’m starting to realize that so much of my writing was for Derek.  Everyone needs an audience, real or perceived – and I use “audience” loosely – think of that tree falling in the forest…  Derek & I, we were all about audience….

When Derek died, I had so much to say.  So angry with him.  So terribly, terribly lost and brokenhearted.  So very alone.  So fucking sad.  I have never felt grief – my thoughts, my sadness created such physical pain – how could I not write?  Writing cleared the thoughts, let the sadness take form, relieved the pain…

Lately, as I lay in bed for the first twenty minutes of my day – just me and my thoughts – I write.  I write in my head all the things that are so clear at the beginning of the day.  Somehow, those thoughts are muddled, chaotic, or forgotten by the end of the day.  The words wrap around, day after day, they are there every morning – a never ending circle of days and thoughts – and I clearly have so much to say, but can’t remember the words.

When the words do come, they are tangled in guilt, regret, fear, and love.  I have the privilege, and I do feel it is a privilege, of being married to the most wonderful man.  He and I, the sum of us – we are greater than our parts, we are greater than each other.  And so, most of me knows that writing for a dead man – that wonderful man would understand.  But other parts of me, those parts always ask – why do you want to write a dead man?  What could you possibly have to say to him that you can’t say to that wonderful man?

As I write these words, I feel tears piled up, pressing forward.  And all these words have spun ’round my thoughts and, as though panning for gold, I am left with a little treasure.  It is this:  one love does not replace another, one love is not greater, nor less than another, and that said, I want to write to a dead man because I miss him.  I  miss him every day.  I don’t think that will ever go away.  I’m okay with that.

perhaps the most released, re-released, regurgitated single of the 80′s….

That said, I remember the first time I  heard “I Melt With You”, Modern English’s magnum opus.

Benny Jimmerson (real names changed to protect those who are no longer 18 and Fluevog obsessed…) left his record collection at my house, borrowed $500 (from moi) and disappeared.   The rumor was that Benny Jimmerson was hanging tough in Seattle, checking out some super stylish Fluevogs with pointed toes.  Hmm.

Things might have been different had said record collection consisted of something other than Stock Aitken Waterman 10″ and 12″ singles.  But things were not different so Benny Jimmerson’s record collection was loaded into the back of Lonica Mee’s (another real name change to protect those who no longer drive Ford Pintos) baby blue Ford Pinto and cashed out at Off the Record (name not changed, FYI).

Fifteen dollars later we were lounging at Lonica’s pad, chatting about the scourge that was bois, boys, BOYS, and listening to the one 12″ bit of vinyl that survived…

I Melt With You

Fast Car – Tracy Chapman.

I had a lot to say but now that I’ve logged in, well, all those words ran away.  So that’s it, I guess.