Hi, strangers. If you ended up here from the PEN Mark blog, I feel like a giant asshole, because the last several posts are actually reposts of my weekly blog over there. That sucks. Haven’t you had enough leftover Christmas ham already? But I have a dilemma, which is that–as much as I’d love to thrill you with some scintillating new bloggery–I’m smack in the middle of a PEN Mark deadline.
*shakes fist* Curse you, deadlines. (Ptoo, ptoo, ptoo. I have to spit three times and take that back, because I’m incredibly grateful for the structure that PEN is bringing to the lava lamp that is my manuscript right now.)
Anyway, if you just stumbled in from PEN, maybe you haven’t seen this, a guest blog I have up over at Betsy Lerner’s place. I’ll post it here, if you’re not feeling linky, but then you might as well just be throwing my carefully wrapped Christmas present back in my face, because she’s spectacular. http://bit.ly/sVUOt8
Well, you know I like to end the year on a high note of pain and suffering, so please enjoy the last post of 2012 from our beloved west coast correspondent, the ever sunny Shanna Mahin . What can I say? This writing business can really kick your ass. Most people quit. And they might be on to something. But for those of us who need to keep scratching at the great wall of being and nothingness, you are not alone. At least not here at Mr. Roger’s neighborhood where the punch is spiked and the language is too. Have your self a merry fucking Christmas and survive the god damn new year. I hope I’ll see you back on January 2, 2012. Love, Betsy
AND NOW, HERE’S SHANNA:
The first shitty Christmas I remember was when my mother got drunk at the bowling alley on Christmas Eve and went home with some guy named Bob who looked like fat Elvis. I think I was seven. When I woke up on Christmas morning and she wasn’t there, I ate some Lucky Charms moistened with tap water and then I opened my present.
We didn’t have a refrigerator in our one-bedroom apartment, but we had a serious motherfucking tree. It was green and fragrant and it touched the cottage cheese ceiling. Priorities.
I got a Twirl-o-Paint set, which I’d been raving about ever since my father showed up for my birthday and took me to the Santa Monica Pier, where he and his girlfriend stuffed me full of cotton candy and let me play all the games, even the ones that cost fifty cents. I came home with a stomachache and the still-damp painting clutched in my sticky fist. I didn’t stop talking about it for weeks.
I had the whole thing assembled when my mother came in the door on Christmas morning, barefoot, with her stiletto heels dangling from one hand. Things went downhill from there.
I’ve told that story, in person and on paper, and with varying degrees of detail, for the past 40 years. I’m telling it here, now, because I feel like it’s my street cred for a big cliché I’m about to throw down, which is this:
Bah, humbug.
Fuck you, Santa, with your forced bonhomie and your egalitarian nature. The holidays suck. (And I’d like to say that if you’ve read this far and you’re mildly horrified by the turn this post is taking, then it’s probably time for us to part ways. No hard feelings. Go call your sister and tell her how much you love her and have a cup of eggnog and a Christmas cookie.)
The holidays are every writer’s nightmare. We’re the kind of folk who like to skulk around the periphery, and the holidays are so front and center. I don’t know what I was thinking when I chose December 18th as my wedding date. Now it’s just a cattle call of celebration: Thanksgiving, our anniversary, Christmas, New Year’s. Fuck me.
My husband and I just celebrated our first anniversary. The day before we left for our romantic Laguna Beach weekend, my husband told me (again) that he’s having a really hard fucking time with my weight gain and my unfinished manuscript. Newsflash: so am I, bro. I’ve been through 100 pounds*, six years, four drafts, and 1.33 agents since I started writing this fucking memoir. And a partridge in a pear tree.
In Laguna Beach, there are twinkle lights on all the lamp posts, and if I see one more dog wearing antlers, I’m applying for a hunting license. I realize what white girl, middle-class problems I’m having, in case you were wondering. But, seriously, the holidays.
What’s the worst holiday story you have to tell? Don’t hold back. Misery loves company.
*That’s 100 lbs. gained and lost and gained, etc. Ongoing struggle, sure to be a fascinating topic of an upcoming blog post or five.
