Damn Holiday Cheer

Well, its the last day in the office and I am a straggler among ditchers.
I plan to leave shortly - there is one bitch who has one project she asked me to do MONDAY who is giving me three 'last one I swear' pieces at a time to keep me in check.
Whatever - not like I am dying to get to the mall... well, thats a lie. My roomie graduates college this week and I eagerly announced my interest in being part of the celebration. By eagerly, I mean I had my hand in the air and there may have been some waving and a little jumping while there was a conversation going on at the other side of the room.
They never invite me out but I am always up when the party migrates back to the house. They seem so surprised that I am up at 1:45am on a work night. Fuckwits.
Anyway, I haven't been out to a dance club in over a year... and my wardrobe shows my homelyness. So I figure I'll just get something with sparkles and a deep Vneck and call tonight the 'practice outfit' for New Years.

I digress.

What I meant to say was that I hated the idea of coming in today and spent the entire morning shirking duties. My ex-roomie made it to my building for an hour of chat, all my email inboxes were cleaned out, the post-it copulation that obviously occured in the last month produced what looked like a brood of new mini post-its was decidedly given a profilactic (oh, if I could burn them I would), and a general tidyness is now the mood of my work space even if there is no diminishing of the amount of work there is to actually do.
Then there is this damn 'oh, found one more, you don't mind do you?' mentality that keeps me firmly understanding I am parked at the bottom of Shit Rolls Downhill Mountain no matter the season.
So when people ask if I have plans for the holiday break, I begrudingly reply "I don't know, depends if my sister calls me or if she's decided that I will ream her for being pregnant - if my dad will extend an invitation or pull the traditional 'you know your always invited, don't say you didn't know you could come' that follows three days after any major or minor holiday - if my cousin will use partying with me as a reason to have another affair - if my aunt can pull her bleached blonde head out of her brazilian waxed ass long enough to realize I wouldn't mind having dinner with her but not if she can't ask me outright to buy my own meal BEFORE we choose the restaurant or eat the meal". Even the edited version gets a sidelong stare.

Welcome to Disfunction Alley, my name is Sassy, I'll be your tourguide.
To the right you'll find the stepsister I met at 18 who I wouldn't be able to pick out of a lineup who has chosen me as her guiding light after 10 months in rehab. She hopes to be out by her 19th birthday.
Up ahead, you'll find the Guilt Booth that looks surprisingly like a mailbox where I like to find letters from the grandparents who moved to my hometown 6 months after I left and can't understand why I won't make the trip to hear about their latest trip to the hospital in person.
As you exit, you'll see the light from under the closet door I keep my skeltons in... I've been hiding in there with Him lately; we have stores of canned goods and batteries and vodka to last a good five years.
Please excuse the construction. The remodel is having a hard time getting past the demo phase. Perhaps the next time you visit, we will find it has been deemed uninhabitable by the county and destroyed in favor of something useful... porn shop? parking lot? pet store?
Whatever, as long as I can visit without contributing to the Send The Therapist To France fund.

I need to get a creative hobby. Geez I can't concentrate.

So, back in the real world, in the office on a quickly deserting Friday-before-a-holiday-in-the-marketing-department... I realized I've been spewing my icky humbug guck all over everyone I've seen today.
That made me sad.
THEN my 'oh, and do you mind? there are only another five here... it shouldn't take you long' bYotch-who-won't-go-home found me hiding with the binders in the back room. She isn't too bad really, just irking me today.
See, she has a daughter my age and likes to hear what my generation is up to... and so she askes who I'm seeing and what I do on the weekends... and I never have a reason to lie about it... so I told her that my family is letting me sit this holiday out by being incommunicado during the birthday/Thanksgiving/Christmas months.
Having caught me, she kinda lowered her voice and said "I hope it all works out with your family over the holiday" while she put down her pile of crap and opened both arms for a real mom-type hug.
She stopped her tyrade of running around to push shit downhill on whoever is still here to hug me in the middle of the file room.

Damn it.
Now I miss my Christmas Spirit.
It usually catches up with me eventually.
Its the 23rd already and I hate everything Xmas has come to stand for and resent that I am the only one I know who acknowledges the distain for materialism by not participating.
I hate that I am coming into being someone who says 'yea, I have family but I haven't talked to them in xx years'.
I dispise that I am always having to be the bigger person and I can't seem to muster the energy to be big about anything this year.
And my anger is turning into bitterness faster than I can blink and say "great, how are you?"

Ok, so I'm trying to decompress and get excited about going out tonight and having all my first of January bills covered with a paycheck in my hand and a plan for Vegas turning quickly into the "I had a savings account; then I went to this party" trip of '05.
Somehow all I can think is that I already have plans to hide with Him tomorrow.
Christmas Eve plans with Him.
Well, if the holiday is about sharing time with the ones you love, I guess I'm participating.

Cheer and Merriment and Eggnog and Rumballs and Gym Rat Mantras and Sleeping In to All, and to All a Good Night,