'Tis the Season to Be Jolly

It was, although I had no way of knowing it at the time, my last excruciating holiday season with Lars.

He was his usually Scroogy self - went and bought ALL the kids gifts at some warehouse store with out consulting me - or even informing me - got gifts I would have never selected, and then "billed me" for them. Things like a battery-operated hot pink barking, walking poodle with various tacky accessories. (Which remains untouched by human hands, even today).

All this so he could tell his friends that he did all the Christmas shopping. As if.

And since when you have announced your intention to divorce, you are really just social typhoid, we had far too much time together over the holidays. They are more fog than fa-la-la-la-la to me now, but I do remember sort of faking it through separate visits to family and friends' homes, speaking in hushed tones about how I was doing. But mostly "celebrating" by ourselves in our house, the tension almost crippling with its weight. Visions of impalement with a porcelain Star of Bethlehem danced in my head.

And as we always had done unless we were traveling, Lars and I split the holiday break from school. Each taking a few days off from work to spend time with the kids and to let the kids spend time with their friends and their new loot, even if Lars did buy the world's largest privately held collection of crap to give to the them.


And it was one of the days that I was home...and not confined to my 3rd floor dwelling, that I connected with J.


Not that I was confined to the 3rd floor by a lock or a mandate. No, it's just that when you share a home with a lunatic, and his ass groove is deeply indented in the sofa, and he routinely sits in complete blackness to watch several TV shows at one time while guzzling beers and dipping Chips Ahoy cookies in them, and there can be no talking or reading in his royal company, there really isn't any reason to spread out in the other available rooms. I'm supposed to read John Irving at the dining room table?

So I'd let the kids have a few friends over and after whipping up lunch for a cast of thousands, had set about sorting through and paying the bills Lars and I shared, and projecting a 2007 budget for myself that included buying the house from him. My New Year's resolution.

And it was then that I got a call from J.'s Mom. She was nearly giddy she was so pleased with herself. She'd had J's family over for Christmas dinner the day before and had gotten him to give her his cell phone number. "Call him any time," she'd said.

I dutifully took down the number on the inside of my checkbook cover.

And in spite of having had school girl crushes on him at this time or that time throughout our lives, and though he'd remained in my thoughts long after having seen him at funerals or parties our families had attended, all I could think was "No way am I doing the calling."

I finished the bills and went to stoke the fire so the kids and I could watch "Elf."