Tonight, when I awoke awhile ago, I was singing that old �Black Velvet� song by Alannah Myles to myself. It�s no wonder that awakened me. Now it�s the Woody Guthrie-penned �They�ll Be No Church Tonight,� as sung by Bennett/Burch.
I do not have troubles sleeping. I have troubles not sleeping. I shall mull this information over, diagnose myself, and take a good year to solve the troubles.
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Yesterday was the extended family holiday gathering at the grandparents� house. Slightly less depressing than Thanksgiving, for which I�m grateful. We arrived around 10 am and left at 5 or so. A long day, too long in the car, but that�s what the holidays are for. Eh?
I made a valiant attempt to play with the 2-year-old, of whom I�ve heretofore been utterly frightened, simply because he�s old enough to talk and walk away. We colored together for approximately 2 minutes, before his attention returned to the allure of making someone walk up and down the basement steps 20 times in a row with him.
I guess it wasn�t so much playing with the child that pleased me (though he didn�t run away screaming, making everyone believe I�d done something �wrong� and that I had no more luck with children than with the opposite sex, as has been mentioned in the past), but rather hanging out in the basement. It�s sort of like how I�ve finally discovered the good crowd at work, you know? The basement is where fun things happen at the grandparents� house. Not only do the children go down there to play, but the adults also go down there to cool down. Literally. It�s cooler and quieter and we get to talk about whatever the hell we want, without reservation. Anyone who comes to the basement is all good. It�s taken me awhile to figure this out--when the grandparents still lived in the big old house on the farm, the good fun was had either upstairs or out on the porch. And, well, there are some life lessons I�m far too slow to learn.
When Drew and I colored, I pulled out an old drawing book to use underneath the plain paper on which we were coloring. Inscribed on the front was the name of my uncle, my dad�s brother, who died when he was 18 and Dad was 16. He must�ve been about 14 or so when he had the book. And Grandma�s kept it for 40 odd years.
I don�t want to keep these prickly things that have me awake now for one more day.
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The immediate family will celebrate the holiday tomorrow evening. I�m not working. Dad and I will cook tomorrow, though I couldn�t care less if I ate ever again. The guilt eating of yesterday is too fresh. Do we all do guilt eating? Do we all look at that huge pile of doughnuts at brunch, calculate that even if we all ate 2.4 doughnuts that they�d still have leftovers, so we feel obliged to eat at least 2, in order to feel as though we did all we could, when inevitably Grandma later complains that she can�t possibly keep stuff like that around the house? There was so little I wanted, but this is precisely where I learned that eating will rectify guilt. It doesn�t, dolls. Please be assured of that. It�s the one thing I�ve learned for certain this year, though that came after learning that not eating won�t take anything away, either. Too bad for me right now that it came in that order. Sigh.
Back to couch, back to television. Wish me luck.