tired, stuffed and wiser

Back from the land of dysfunctia (otherwise known as my parents’ place) and so very VERY happy to be back in the big city. When three different cabbies cut me off as I drove through the city to my apartment, I wanted to get out and kiss them. I’m feeling a little like Dorothy when the world turns black and white again and everything is as it should be back in Kansas.
I checked under the tree as soon as I got to my parents’ place to see if Santa had made a little delivery boo-boo and accidentally left the Muse waiting for me under their tree instead, but some things were not meant to be. Damn. I really had some fun plans for that big red bow. 🙂
I managed to avoid the ex-lesbian-lover’s male roomate most of the holiday (bliss). Of course, this is because my mom is convinced that Christmas is actually a form of slavery for women. And she likes it that way. To be spared the unending guilt that would come from leaving her on her own to cook meals over the past two days big enough to feed two hundred people, I helped. This essentially meant shackling myself to the stove and sink for the past two days. I’m not a huge fan of cooking even in small doses, though sometimes it’s fun… but two days straight of peeling and chopping and mixing and stirring and arranging and washing dishes and re-filling glasses and mugs of coffee and trays of goodies has left Vikki one very tired little girl.
And as I suspected, it’s the promise of tomorrow’s sensual shopping spree that kept me from slashing my wrists through unending refrains of “oh, is that how you cut the cheese? I always do it this way…” and “oh, I thought you would at least put a few doilies on the tray before adding the goodies” with extra-special choruses of “here, let me show you how I normally stir this”.
My mom, like all moms, can be deadly annoying. But we did manage to have some good talks, not the least of which about that period in her life when she changed from Cosby-mom to the lesbian version of Tina Turner. I had a real hard time as a kid dealing with those changes in her life, and it caused a rift between us that even once mended was pretty tough to discuss. But this holiday we talked about it and for the first time I understood a little better the place she was at in her life, and why she needed to do the lesbian thing for a while. It was an identity crisis writ large, having a great deal to with with sexual identity but also just her identity as a woman. She’d submlimated her identity for the roles of wife and mother for so long that it just kind of came bursting out of her at the end of my teenage years. I understood all too well because the last eight months have been the same for me – all about identity, sexual and otherwise. Finding out who I was.
It made me feel closer to her than I’ve felt in a very long time. It was one of the nicest Christmas presents I’ve ever received.