Unloading a Whole Bunch of Shit: It's Like A Cheesy TV Show Where I Learn Important Stuff About Life Or Whatever

I can't decide if I love or hate writing. Sometimes I make writing my bitch and sometimes she makes me her bitch. Sometimes we're each others' bitches and things seem to go okay. Since I don't keep a journal or anything and most of what I write gets published for my dear handful of readers, I try to avoid the writing that's like taking a big huge fucking dump-- that boring, overly personal shit detailing all of my stupid issues.

No, I mean that other boring shit I keep to myself.

But, like a big huge fucking dump, writing doesn't let one alone until one lets it out.

Minus the stomach cramps. Mostly. There has been some stomach cramping lately that's not related to periods or eggs or big huge fucking dumps, making me thing there's something in my head fucking with my stomach.

And no, it's not that either. Concern trolls, kindly piss off please. Because unless I'm the Virgin fucking Mary, it's definitely not that. As much as I might find that cool, getting stricken by the hand of God, or whatever he strikes the abstinent with. I'd rather not know, quite frankly. Explaining the inexplicable baby seems related to my other big hopefear, which is having the Shaolin monks turn up at my doorstep telling me LE is the Chosen One or whatever and the inner turmoil that might ensue when they want to take him away to some temple in the mountains to teach him how to fly and smash bricks with his head. Do you suppose the monks would let me come and hang out near the temple? Would they let me send presents from time to time? It's quite a dilemma.

The way the Virgin Mary thing relates to the Shaolin monks thing is if it were the Catholics on my doorstep instead of the Shaolin monks, that would be totally fucking scary and way worse. The only thing worse than Catholics would be Adnan Oktar minions.

This business about virgin birth and Shaolin monks and the chosen one and Adnan Oktar also goes a long way to explaining why religion doesn't quite work for me.

You see what happens when I start writing shit?

My living room?

Speaking of holidays, ours were grand. Seriously. My mom and dad came here on Christmas Eve day and we had a proper Christmas the way Christmas is meant to be. For me, I mean. Making Christmas in Turkey is challenging, at best, requiring a monumental effort of imagination and tinsel and deliberate self-delusion because Christmas in my atheist planet is way more important than it should be. If it weren't for LE, I wouldn't bother, but making Christmas through his eyes makes the whole thing super cool and totally worth it. And you can believe our house looked like freaking Vegas for a month. If the damn kittens hadn't started chewing through the cords, I'd have left the lights up forever because Christmas lights are great and a fine addition to any decor. Especially ones that do the alternate-y flashing thing.

The damn kittens are another story. They're fucking cute, let me tell you. I'm thinking of making a movie about their antics. You know, because there aren't nearly enough kitten antics on You Tube. But I might not get around to the movie. Just so you know.

It's going a little bit this way from here on out.

Last year, I made the hell out of Christmas. Starting the first week of December, I began going out of my way to thrill LE with Christmas stuff. Decorations, hauled from the US and bought here. Christmas songs. Christmas stories. Incredible lies about Santa, who I swore I'd never lie to LE about but it's way too much fun. Christmas cookies. A digital animated advent calendar. A special night of Christmas tree decoration (sabotaged by BE, who just couldn't manage to leave his tea drinking buddies in time to bring LE home early enough). A special Christmas gift I had made LE wait for since summer to receive (sabotaged by BE's parents, who bought him the same gift a week before Christmas, claiming they'd forgotten I'd asked them several times not to buy it for him but apparently he'd cried in the toy store and goodness knows a child must never cry).

Hooray! Christmas!

All of this, of course, building up to Christmas day itself (sabotaged by BE, who after numerous promises he'd be home for the day, suddenly left for work shortly after the presents had been opened, claiming the whole family would be at the factory that day filling a big order-- he sent me pictures in case I didn't believe him, just sealing my deep-down belief they were all going out of their way to sabotage my one fucking yabancı holiday I care about, oh, and by the way, did you know Christmas is our anniversary?). All this in the face of everyone in Turkey carrying on like Christmas is on New Year's Day and BE's endless comments about how silly it is to make a such fuss over one day.

Nevertheless, I made the hell out of Christmas and I fucking liked it even with all that. Remember the gecekondu gingerbread house?

I remember it.

But BE's leaving for work on Christmas Day kind of killed it for me. It was rather a crushing blow, actually. It's not the reason we're separated now (Hah! See how I just threw that in there?), though obviously it's a brick in the wall. In fact, I just pushed that particular Big Hurt out of my mind, along with a bunch of other ones, and had almost forgotten about it until my mom asked me something a few moths ago that made me remember. It's just that the other Big Hurts were far more significant and pressing.

So this year when I started making Christmas, I was kind of pretending at first. It was a lot of extra work I didn't need because of the crap going on at my job, but I did it nonetheless. By the third week of December I started getting into it, because by then I knew my parents were coming. LE, of course, was completely batshit by December 3rd and Santa is the best disciplinary tool ever. I'll miss it, and might just save it for a big gun if I can trust myself not to abuse it. Then Christmas Eve involved fondue and Christmas morning involved side pork my folks had brought from the States and it was great and normal and easy to feel the way you're supposed to feel on Christmas.

*cue sentimental piano music, or something like at the end of Doogie Howser, M.D.*

By about 10am on Christmas Day, two things had occurred to me. One, was that my parents being here at a time I really needed them and hadn't even realized how much, more or less erased whatever sad black Christmas clouds I had because of last year. Second, because I know my parents can't come here every year to make Christmas normal for me means I'm the fucking grown-up who has to make Christmas normal for LE. In fact, it's all some fucking atheist parable reminding me I'm the one who has to make the whole world normal for LE. Which means, for Christmas at least, I can make it however suits us and we'll do just fine. The possibilities are endless in kind of a fun way. His Christmas will never be my Christmas because of all these damn choices I've made in my life, some of them cool and some of them less so and some of them hardly thought-out at all.

As for the world, I think we'll have to work together on that one. And it's working out okay with us. So far. He's only four, after all.