Here it is. The entire month of November for the year 2000. Don't you just feel like a part of my life? Doesn't it make you all warm & fuzzy inside to know that I'm sharing a part of myself with you? I know it does. Read on, starting from the bottom.
November 26th, 2000: So, I'm home for my four-day Thanksgiving break right now. I've been coming home every or every other weekend for a few hours to do some laundry and generally hang out at my house. Dad and Joanie are home at times, but mostly I just leave them notes, telling them that I stopped by. I've only spent one entire night at home since leaving for THE Ohio State University on September 17th. For a while, I thought that I was spending weekends up at OSU because I always have plans with either my roommates or my other random friends, but I soon figured out that I was making the plans to avoid going home. Things just aren't quite the same since Mom died, as one would imagine. Joanie spends all of her time either doing homework or cruising around with her friends, according to Dad. He pretty much lets her go wherever she wants to as long as she leaves him a note, telling him where she is. She seems really happy, but she's also really good at disguising her feelings. Dad's working on his second girlfriend, which is just plain odd. Dad is a very attractive man, and woman were randomly throwing themselves at him while he was married, so I knew that fun things would abound when Mom died. I just didn't realise how soon it would be. The first woman was a neighbor named Vicky who just struck me as a psycho the first time that I saw her. For one thing, she was absolutely obsessed with my dad. She walked up and down our little road for exercise at random times in the morning, but as soon as she became infatuated with Dad, she made a specific walking schedule that allowed her to meet him as he was coming out of the house for work every morning. She just plain freaked me out, and after a couple of weeks, Dad found out that she was lying to him about some things in her past, so she was left at the side of the road. It was nice to see him happy, but he's as bad as I am when it comes to falling in love with everyone he meets. I'm very satisfied with the current woman, though, because he's known her for his entire life. They went to elementary school together, and he's been playing golf with her for a while and all. The fact that she has her own business and is clearly not after Dad's money like some other woman are helps a bit, too. I haven't met her yet, so it was a bit of a shock when Dad left me a voicemail, telling me that he was going to Florida with her for Thanksgiving. At first, it actually bothered me a bit; I figured that having to go through my first major family holiday without Mom was bad enough without Dad being absent. However, after I thought about it for .02 seconds, I realised that whatever makes Dad happy makes me happy, so I told him to have himself a merry time.
Dad and I were never close when Mom was alive. In fact, I imagine that I spent a total of five minutes talking to him every day when I was in high school. I didn't know a thing about him, and he was too busy to know anything about me. Don't read into that last statement and think that I was bitter about him not spending enough time with me, because frankly, I always found some reason to argue with Dad when we were together, so Mom made very sure that she stayed involved enough in my life for the both of them. I've always been terribly proud of Dad for everything that he's done to ensure that I never want for anything, but working that hard meant that he didn't have too much free time for me or anyone else. When Mom got sick, it was especially bad, because working meant not thinking about losing her, so we hardly said a word to each other except when something was up with Mom. However, toward the end, Dad realised that he was going to be forced into the role of both mother and father, so he made the time for me. I've talked to Dad more in the last seven months than I have in the rest of my life combined. So, when I came home on Wednesday night, we caught up on what had happened in the two days since he had last called me, and when I mentioned that a few guys were helping me fix a little problem with my computer, he told me that he had something to ask me about. Asking me something didn't seem like a big deal, but the way he said it let me know that he was going to ask THE QUESTION. He got a little nervous and reminded me several times that he didn't want me thinking that he was judging me or insinuating anything. So, I told him to go ahead, and he went into some story about how Debbie, the woman he's dating, is very responsible and worries about me very much (even though I've never even really talked to her) and wants the best for me and wants to make sure that I ask for her help whenever I need it. I wondered where the heck he was going with the story, but it ended exactly where I expected it to. He just stopped for a second, looked at me, and said, "Are you okay on birth control and everything? If you need anything . . ." And I had to cut him off there with a laugh. He said that he doesn't really want to know what I'm doing up at OSU when it comes to that, but he and Debbie want to make sure that I'm "safe". I laughed again, clasped my hands, and said, "Dad, just so you know, I'm waiting." A look of absolute relief came over his face, and he said, "I told Debbie that I knew my girls. I knew it. Good, good." I seriously thought that he was going to launch into a little Jewish man dance a la Fiddler on the Roof. I loved it. Absolutely loved it.
So, yesterday was the day. Mike was home, as well, so he called and asked if I wanted to eat dinner with them. "Dinner" was actually lunch, and since I was going to my grandma's at noon, he told me that he would call me at 5:30 or so to see if I was free then. Joanie and I put together a little vegetable tray and drove the minute and a half to grandma's. There are usually about twenty people at our Thanksgiving whatnot at grandma's, but half of the family had to go to dinner at their spouses' families' houses, so there were seven of us yesterday. That was insanely weird. I'm used to the big table in the kitchen being for the adults and a smaller table in the dining room being for the kids, but this year, we were all able to fit at one table. The small table, in fact. We mainly discussed my first OSU experiences, which I've scripted and memorised at this point. I told them all about my fabulous roommates and my horrible classes and all of the drinking that I've been doing. They all just looked at each other when I talked about my wild parties until I reminded them that I don't drink. They didn't believe me. Imagine that.
After lunch, all of the women-folk (that being five of us) sat at the kitchen table and drew names for the annual Christmas gift exchange while we made out Christmas lists. It felt so horrible. I've never had to be a part of that, because Mom always did it for the entire family while Joanie and I watched Dirty Dancing with my cousin Lindsey and Dad slept through a football game or two. It was actually kind of fun to sit and discuss life with my snobby grandma (who I love with a passion, I might add), but it wasn't right. So we left soon after it was said and done and went to Aunt Brenda's for dinner.
Aunt Brenda's get-together was the usual total opposite of grandma's. So relaxed, so informal. We looked at pictures of Guatemalans, because that's what you do at Thanksgiving. Can't you totally picture my family gathered around an album full of Guatemalan men? That's seriously what happened. I don't think that I want to explain why we found ourselves doing it, because wow, is that going to make you wonder. I don't have much to say about Aunt Brenda's beside the fact that there was no pea salad, but Mike called at 5:40 to invite me over. The fact that he called at 5:40 makes me curious. I'm trying to decide if he had been watching the clock all day and figured that calling ten minutes after he said he would made it seem as if he cares just enough but not too much or if he really totally forgot about me and just happened to be possessed by a Katie-loving demon that made Mike dial the number to my cell phone right around the time that he was supposed to. Either way, I told him that I would be over in an hour, which turned into more like two hours. But Mike cares not. So, it must have been around eight when I pulled into Mike's driveway. I felt like I hadn't been there in years, and I noticed that the birdbath in the yard was gone. I thought it odd that I noticed that, but it's like me to notice that sort of whatnot, I suppose. Mike and I had talked about his mom online when he invited me to dinner with them, and I kind of wondered how she was going to react toward me after I hadn't seen her for a couple of months. But when Mike opened the door for me, I remembered that he was alone, because his parents had taken Eileen, Karen, and Eileen's husband to see The Grinch. So, I watched Mike work on a drawing project for school until his parents came home and fawned over him for a while. Mike's mom asked me how school was and looked me over a few times before Mike called Jonathan and Karen led me into the living room. I wish I knew what it is about me that Karen loves and the rest of the family is impartial to. We talked about the fact that I haven't gotten my new car yet because of my less-than-perfect driving record until she felt like playing Squares and took me to the computer. She beat me ferociously about eight times, and then Mike came in and told me that we were leaving for Jonathan's as soon as the game that we were currently playing was done. Karen told me to ignore him and keep playing after she rolled her eyes and said, "Boys." How I long to be in middle school again.
When we got to Jonathan's, he showed us his newly-painted room and told us that his friend Crystal happened to paint her nearly the same colour. Jonathan doesn't realise that he and Crystal are totally getting married, but the way that he talks about her totally lets you know that he knows it somewhere in the back of his mind. There's nothing cuter than that, really. He also showed me a picture of his friend Adam who I've talked to online since March or so but haven't met, which has nothing whatsoever to do with this story. After we had been at Jonathan's long enough for Mike to rape his cat ten times or more, we left and drove to Jon's grandpa's house about five minutes away. I noticed that there were random people lounging in the living room on chairs, but I was immediately drawn to a 20-something beautiful Jonathan look-alike. I wanted to have eye sex with him, but I didn't think that I should do it with all of the family sitting there. I'm a modest girl, you know. He turned out to be Cousin Craig whose entire life story I've heard about twenty times now, which was nice. I had Cousin Craig pictured differently, but that's usually the case. Cousin Craig works for a movie distribution company and has illegal copies of every movie ever made, which I'm probably not allowed to mention on here. We watched a little flick about cows being anally-raped and an alien who hides behind trash cans before smashing all household appliances available to him, and in the middle of it, Cousin Craig got up to go get "Granddad" a drink. As he was leaving the room, I turned to Jonathan and asked, "Is Craig the one that I've seen naked?" There's really nothing that I love more than causing a bit o' ruckus. Craig came back and was terribly intrigued, as was hoped, so Jonathan and I debated over whether I had seen Craig in the nudie picture involving the hose or if his had been something different. (It actually was Jonathan with the hose, as you'll read in the March 12th, 2000 Day in the Life. I saw Craig nude somewhere, though. Oh, yes. I did.) It's always fun to see someone naked before you actually meet them, I must say. So, when the anal rape-age was finished, we watched The Big Lebowski, which was interesting, to say the least. I loved how Craig took care of his grandpa, bringing him whatnot and helping him to bed. I think I would do just about anything to get myself into Jonathan's family somehow. Jon's already madly in love with someone and doesn't realise it, and Craig is supposedly dating someone, so they've been ruled out, but there has to be someone left who either wants to marry me or adopt me. Yeah, I think adoption's the way to go. Unless, of course, Granddad's available.
So, after I absorbed Craig's fabulous hair for a couple of hours, and Craig told us that he was wearing the boots that Josh Hartnett wore in Pearl Harbor, he and Jon decided to head to bed, so Mike drove us back to his house. When we got there, we weren't the least bit tired yet, and I knew that there would be no one expecting me home anytime soon, so I sat down in the living room rocking chair while Mike laid on the couch. We talked about random college issues until he got restless and came over to sit on the inflatable chair that was beside me. He began randomly pushing on my legs to annoy me, so I fought back for a while, but seeing as how it was late and I was sober (notice how I say that as if I'm ever anything but sober), I decided to get up and move rather than exert any energy in resisting him. So, I sat on the couch in peace until Mike came over and sat down with me and pushed me over with his shoulder, which is clearly the natural thing to do. We talked about my roommates and his for a while, and then he asked me if I'm dating anyone at OSU. I kind of laughed at the irony of that question, because I came to the conclusion a while back that he's the reason that I don't generally date anymore unless a weird occasion arises. I always use Mike to compare my prospects, and when put side-by-side with him, none of them ever seem good enough to waste an evening on. I explained to Mike that no one's good enough for me, but how do you tell someone he's the reason that no one's good enough for you? I don't mean to say that Mike's perfect, because I'm really not even sure that he's good enough for me, but I guess somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that there's something about him that I can't seem to get over. I guess I've known that since the first time I actually talked to him in English class in 7th grade. I've been through so many stages of loving Mike that I can't imagine not knowing him or not spending time with him, but I feel like I give and give and don't get as much as I need in return. I sometimes wonder if I'm going to meet my supposed "one" and realise that I was only leading myself to believe that there's nothing better than Mike because I couldn't stand not having someone to fawn over. Or maybe I'll just spend the rest of my life comparing, leaving me with no one but this random friend who I'm really nothing more than a sister to. Maybe I'll just buy a house in Nebraska and live with no one but my forty cats. Continuing on . . .
After that, I somehow ended up laying on Mike's legs, whereupon he moved his feet around to cause me supreme discomfort until I wanted to fight no more and got up to leave. I got my things and came back to say good-bye, and that led to examining our pores in the mirror behind Mike's couch. Wow, that seems like a really homosexual thing for Mike to be doing. I wasn't worried about that at that point, though. It was about 4 a.m. by that time, so as I was being kicked out, I stood up and waited for Mike to stand up to hug me, but he said that he couldn't get up. I wasn't about to give in and lean down, though, so I just thanked him for everything and left. He got up and stood at the front door to watch me leave, and I had this incredible urge to go back inside, because I am, after all, a giver rather than a receiver, but then he walked away from the door, so the feeling left. But then Mike appeared in the kitchen window, so the urge came back. I didn't give in to it, though, and I'm still not sure why, because I knew that I would leave feeling unfulfilled, and I did. It was still the best night that I can remember spending with Mike, though, oddly enough. Maybe distance really does make the heart grow fonder or whatever that annoying saying is. I kind of freak myself out.
