Mom and I have been off and on fighting all day since 8 a.m. Merry Christmas! I did not sleep or lose consciousness all night long (which I am blaming on all the green coffee drinks I had last night), and then she woke up to go to the bathroom circa 7:45 a.m. and then said she wanted to go back to sleep (fine) and then didn't, then bitched about me having the phone on (I note she slept with a light on all night?), and I said, "look, I am NOT LOSING CONSCIOUSNESS TODAY, I have laid here all night long with nothing to do, I'm not going to fall asleep in the next hour and we're in a hotel room together so I can't get away." We proceeded to have various fights off and on throughout the day about phones, hair, CONSTANTLY NITPICKING EVERY ASPECT OF MY DRIVING, etc., etc. etc. I'm so tired of forever fighting with my mother. Like, please stop nitpicking everything I do, and telling me to still still and close my eyes is not going to work after I did that for seven plus hours last night and still couldn't sleep. YOU ARE NOT HELPING.

Had breakfast in the hotel again. I ate waffles, and frittata, couldn't finish the waffles and the frittata had no taste. But I shoveled food I didn't want in my face, so there you go. Eventually we left the hotel to do a little shopping: Mom bought Roger shirts, bought me books (obviously mom has had issues getting presents this holiday season), bought whatever at Bed Bath and Beyond, then picked up Panda Express for dinner on the way back. We ran into a friend of hers who is kinda drama-y at the bookstore and got to hear about how the lady's very estranged husband got robbed by one of his most recent ex-girlfriends, specifically it being an "inside job" in which she only stole his Persian rugs and suits.

On the bad news side, Shorthaired Sarah tested positive today, so now everyone in the show has to test every day...again. I didn't bother starting Wednesday or Thursday since I wasn't exposed to the emcee guy, but...sigh. Day three here, no symptoms on my end, for the record. "This is urgent. Jan is working on the possibility of redoing numbers for NYE." Oy vey. On the good news side, I tested negative, which happily I was able to hide that I was doing from Mom because I did it in the bathroom while she was otherwise distracted. But seriously wondering if the gala's going to go on, or if it should. At this point it's like either you cancel things forever or go back to normal and everyone gets covid at things....sigh.

In other good news, Evan has decided to stay for Christmas Day dinner and also wants to see Glass Onion (he texted Mom this and Mom was all, "oh, Jen wanted to watch that too!"). Mom says Roger didn't do much of anything for Christmas before her and maybe that's why Evan is now wanting to stick around instead of finding others to be with. Hmmm.

I do have one movie to mention that I saw in full today, Ion's "12 Pups of Christmas," which is delightfully ludicrous and features an extremely cute Yorkie(?) named Goliath that the camera loves and films often. His owner, Erin, is a pet therapist who gets dumped on her wedding day by her cheating fiance, who cheated on her with her best friend Taylor. Erin moves to the other coast (SF) when she gets hired by a company that makes GPS trackers for pet collars. This whole thing is pretty bizarre because it's run by a brother-sister team and Carly, the sister, had looked Erin up online (and apparently decided she's a match for her brother) AND also hired her to save the business, which I guess isn't doing well. It's up to Erin to do things like come up with a better name for it, woo the advisors, and find homes for the title characters that are somehow dumped in the office. Martin, the brother, is handsome but fairly cranky about all of this, and dogs (kinda) in general, and Erin unabashedly tells him off periodically for doing things like making dog collars but not seeming to like dogs.

Eventually, Taylor the best friend flies to SF to make amends--turns out Trevor the ex-fiance had girlfriends all over the country--and Erin sticks her with puppy sitting as revenge.

* "Dog Gone" is a dumb name, she says. "It's STUPID." "The first thing you want to do is change the name of my company? To what?" "Literally ANYTHING ELSE." (Eventually "Animal Track" wins.)
* "You can't have a company about dogs if you don't LIKE THEM."
* "I just love seeing you squirm. because you're kind of a jerk," she says after telling Martin off for claiming her ideas as his.

Eventually their relationship improves, they fly to NYC for a business meeting, they have closed-door sex (I presume Goliath watched), then Trevor shows up and Martin and Trevor get into a brawl and briefly go to jail, forcing Erin to talk to the investor...who apparently doesn't know English, so Martin has to call his dad to invest instead. Mom would like to point out there is no snow in NYC in this movie, I said they probably filmed it in August.

Quote from Martin: "You challenge me, but with a grace I've never seen before." I don't know humans who talk like this. Anyway, this girl is SUPER PRETTY and kind of evil snarky/cranky revenge-y, which I enjoy in a Christmas movie, but also it's kind of weird since like everyone in the company lives in the same fancy house? And the heroine is being snarky rude to her boss, but to be fair he's kinda rude from the getgo...It's an odd movie, but amusing in its own way.

I'm going to put the stupid personal whining at the end of this entry. Feel free to skip this.

I feel bad about Scott. About "quiet quitting" the friendship, about not giving him a custom handmade gift like usual. The last few years I've driven over there on the morning of December 24 to drop it off at his work, and I'm not doing that this year--I'm miles away and not able to if I wanted to or changed my mind. Didn't make him what I was going to make him since he's no longer present-worthy. He actually seemed to really like them (most of them, anyway) and I feel bad that not giving him a gift is the first open "fuck you, there's a problem here" sign that even he might notice. Then again, he's a dude. Probably not. They notice nothing.

I feel shitty about feeling shitty about someone at Christmas.

BUT: he was openly, obnoxiously horrified when we got mistaken for a couple in public, he didn't want to go to my show and lied about that, made his grandma fudge for him on that topic, but absolutely committed to going to Arielle's. That all made me feel like shit. He made it clear how much he values me (i.e. nope), and I should do the same. Don't treat him like he's special because he doesn't wanna be. I didn't think it was going to go like this, but I guess once he openly didn't like me at all any more, there you go.

I know it's not polite to openly say why I'm mad and hurt at him and it wouldn't do any good anyway, and it's better to just passively disappear and be polite if I run into him in public, rather than open warfare. Especially if we end up in the same show again. Telling someone why I'm mad at them doesn't do any good (look at Mom, for example). Other than the lack of present this year, frankly, he probably wouldn't notice if he never heard from me again as long as I'm cordial in public. Same old, same old to him. Could be a relief, even.

I used to try to talk these issues out with him--it worked before-- but at this point, I don't think I should try. It seems pretty clear how he feels (i.e. repulsed by me) and I liked him more than he liked me, and that's a nightmare situation. I certainly don't like him any more, so I guess he wins there. I just wish things hadn't had to go this way, but they did.

Now I'm going to be wondering tomorrow: does he text for the holiday like usual, or this year, he stops. Either way, I feel bad or worse on the topic. God, I wish I'd thought to bring alcohol on this trip, but I'm sure Roger can hook me up tomorrow at dinner at least.

So basically, I'm feeling this, because I am like this and that's just never gotten better. I used to kinda have hope, it's totally over, I go back to being hopeless again. Though I rolled my eyes at this line: "and there will be many other people who can give you the same level of connection as they did, whilst bringing more to the relationship, matching your wants and needs too," because that has literally never happened and it's been almost two decades now.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry