gift giving moratorium

Today, the day after I celebrated my 32nd year of life, I have discussed my annual plight in relation to gifts received in recognition of the aforementioned event with several tolerant individuals (many thanks, I KNOW that I'm annoying and self absorbed and need to figure that out--now that I think about it maybe my correct diagnosis would be simply "drama queen"). I feel comforted by the fact that every woman I have discussed this issue with has experienced issues related to gifts with their husbands/boyfriends. This has helped me feel like less of a heartless bitch.

I have the right to not like gifts and not feel wrought with gilt about it. I think I may be evaluating the issue of my guilt in response to my negative reaction to some poor gift choices in a superficial manner. I think the real problem here may not be limited to my very obvious perfectionism and pickiness. As with many issues, the deeper problem is the PATRIARCHY. I, like many women, got the message that I needed to be pleasing and to make everyone else happy and comfortable even to my own detriment. It is true that I need to work on communicating more clearly what my wants and needs are so that the chances of them being met are increased. At the same time I need to feel more justified in stating without guilt how I feel about things (including gifts). If I don't like something, I don't the end (absence of guilt, dilemma, worry, dismay). I seem to think that the other person's feelings are somehow more important than my own, which leads me down the dangerous (and not ultimately successful) path of deception (lying, practicing my fake "I love it!" smile, crafty evasion of conversations relating to the gift). When I as a gift giver give someone a gift I must ask, is it about me feeling good about myself or that person's happiness?---The obvious and logical answer is that the objective in this exchange is the receiver's happiness--- if they don't like my gift my desire would be for them to get something they DO want and NOT to lie to me and keep something that does not achieve the objective. So my guilt and anguish as a gift receiver is counter logic. Maybe this means that I have to enact a gift giving moratorium. I think I as a woman need to see that my guilt and anguish stem at least in part from my assumption that I need to make other people feel good and happy even if it costs me my own happiness. This lunacy must stop.

walking amongst the mortals

I went to two showers yesterday. One baby shower and one wedding shower. The first shower was noteworthy for two reasons. One, NOTHING was homemade--not the food nor the gifts. No knit baby booties or blankets or cross stitches decorations for the baby's room. I thought this was strange, but then again what I do I know I have mercifully been spared from showers for most of my life. It was a couples shower and I was one of the few non-couples without children there. I wanted to drop off my thrifty yet thoughtful shower gift, which sadly was not homemade, but it was a high quality piece of children's literature so just about a good as homemade and eat some food before I dashed off to my next shower where there was the promise of no children and alcoholic beverages. I quickly became sick of all the toddlers ruining the shower for me and certainly their parents. I mean really, eat your pizza or don't (sit on the chair or don't, pet the doggie or don't... you get the idea) but realize that NOBODY cares either way so stop fussing about it 2 yr. old girl sitting behind me.

I do not like toddlers and neither does my friend Annie. I think she's very rationale and also very polite because she's from the South and they know about manners down here so I do not feel badly making this important declaration thanks to my dear friend. Anyway, I don't like toddlers and my fear of having them in my house and knowing I'm supposed to love them when all I want is for them to get the hell away from me is the main reason I resist engaging in serious discussions about family planning with my absentee husband.

Back to the showers. The second shower of the day was a Mardi Gras themed wedding shower in rural Texas. My other lovely friend Mitsi accompanied me to this shower and helped me immensely with navigation since at one point the road ended because in rural areas I guess this happens. I know it happens in rural WI so I have deduced it happens everywhere since it happened here too. We arrived at the shower about two hours after it began. We were greeted warmly and given a beer (thank you God) within seconds of our arrival. I enjoyed minor celebrity status simply by being "Ray Lynch's wife". Several folks were brought over to meet me a soon as I made my identity known. All seemed to agree that Ray is lots of fun and very nice. Even the sweet grandfather of the groom was roused from his dinner to walk over using his walker (he was wearing his West Point jacket since it was like a frozen rainy tundra yesterday) to tell me what a nice man my husband is. The drunken bride trapped my friend Mitsi (a former middle school Spanish teacher) with the intent to impress her with her well pronounced Spanish. It's her party and she can do what she wants, right? We ate many homemade treats and thoroughly enjoyed the Zydeco band. It was hard to not take note of the extremely handsome guitar player/singer whose name is either Dwayne or Leon depending on who you ask. I do hope they'll be free in May of 2010 for one large graduation party who's theme with be "Is there a doctor in the house?" One of the 63 hosts of the shower demonstrated his many talents by making the gumbo and playing his broom with the band as if it were a guitar for us all for nearly one hour. The groom's little brother informed Mitsi and I that he was a sophomore at one of my alma maters (Roll Tide Roll!), but promptly corrected himself and said actually that he will be a sophomore next year. He might have misspoke as a result of one of the five keg stand I observed him engaging in. Before I go I must mention the matron of honor. She informed us that she was married I believe three times during our brief (yet somehow it seemed far too long) conversation. She didn't want to be snotty or anything, but her husband is an engineer at NASA. The bride was so glad that the matron of honor could be there or she would not have been able to go through with the shower because she NEEDED the matron of honor's face to be the first face she saw when she walked into the party. Yet more indisputable evidence that what they teach you in Sunday school is TRUE... All God's creatures have a place in the choir.

food, sports and other thoughts

I went to a Super Bowl party for the food and seriously, there is no shame in that. I did watch the game some since it was projected on the wall of a small living room (not at all sure how they pulled that off), however I had a few "technical" difficulties. I wore my two sizes too large Patriots t-shirt the my father-in-law proudly brought for me a few months ago and although I did not manage to squeeze in a shower, I did wash my face and put on sparkley eye shadow just to be festive because this event is worthy of a bit extra. I am officially a fan of all things Boston--the Red Sox, John Kerry, Patriots, Bruins, cream pie, the Kennedy's, baked beans, my sweet husband and his "special" family, lobsta rolls , random deletion and addition of the letter r, etc. However, as I mentioned I went to this party for the food not the sport and thus kept clapping for most of the first half for the team I thought was the Patriots only to find out that the Patriots were wearing blue uniforms, not white like I assumed, so I was intermittently cheering for the wrong team. In the end the Patriots (who indeed were wearing snappy blue uniforms) did not win, but I did get a great dinner of clam chowder, NY style pizza, several chips and dips, and King's Cake without the plastic baby Jesus (so glad to be off the hook for next year). I'm not as I mentioned a sports fan, but I am a fan of food so I do hope that next year's Super Bowl party can match if not exceed this one culinarily speaking. I almost forgot that I had a lovely discussion about gender inequality with a man from Georgia (the republic not the state) in which I was able to discuss the gender divide in embodiment vs. representations of the state and get some fascinating food for thought based on his distinct views and life experiences. Ah, being nerdy never felt so good.