All I Want for Christmas Is the Emotional Detachment of Dudes

Well, I think my gift/shipping cost ratio was about 3:1 but I’m finally done with my Christmas shopping.

And man, I am so emotionally drained right now. It is at times like these I wish I were a dude. Why does Christmas shopping have to be such an existential exercise? Maybe some women don’t feel that way, but I feel like there is this crazyass sweet spot of cost, showing you know the recipient, being creative in the way you want to contribute to his or her life, AND not accidentally offending someone that you have to hit, or else you are a Christmas-gift-giving failure and THAT IS A LOT OF PRESSURE.

Let’s take even my mother for example, since she doesn’t read this, unlike many of my gift recipients (if they have realized I started blogging again). Gifts I have considered for my mother in the last 24 hours:

• spices for Indian food (actually got her those from Spice Station this afternoon);
• salt and pepper mills, except I already bought her the spices so I really can’t pay $90 per spice mill, you ridiculous people at Crate & Barrel/Williams Sonoma, and also will my dad eat milled salt? my dad has eaten the same breakfast for 35 years and has probably eaten Morton’s iodized salt since birth, and, dammit, maybe I would have thrown caution to the wind but a quick text to my sister reveals my mother has a pepper mill already that goes unused;
• actually, this list is making me relive the pain of the last few hours but if you imagine many variations of above and factor in shipping time frame, I think you get the gist (In case you are in suspense, I will tell you that after finding that most of Williams Sonoma and Crate & Barrel’s bread mixes and whatnot were already sold out, I went straight to the awesomest source without a 50% mark up because of the name (looking at you, Ina Garten and Thomas Keller), King Arthur Flour, and bought my mother a lovely assortment of bread and scone mixes that I know she’ll love and not be offended by in the slightest. BOOYAH!).

Hm, and now I have no idea where I was going with this. Except that I am glad that’s over and I’m ready for the fun stuff about Christmas to begin! Apparently, based on that photo, I have been ready since mid-November in Hong Kong!

Hope you are having a stress-free holiday season so far, as much as it can be! And if you already celebrated your winter holiday, like Hanukkah, hope it was happy!

p.s./update:

After I published this entry I remembered the second half of this post was about how in a relationship I am pretty sure I have a 12:1 thought:text/email ratio and dudes are 1:1. I am grouping this skewed ratio with the 3:1 ratio in personal appearance spending between the ladies and dudes and crying UNCLE. Except that I’m not really. And won’t ever. Which is probably why I lost steam and couldn’t remember where I was going with this two paragraphs ago. Enh, oh well!

Big Boys & Girls Club

I’m really not sure what inspired the gentleman who, until this evening, has quite literally been a gentle man, a Sikh, I think, who says “hello friend” and who runs my local convenience store (Oh yes, I am doing my grocery shopping at convenience stores. Did I say changes are afoot? Well, they are slightly delayed.) to suggest that I purchase a penis enlargement pill for my boyfriend (I suppose he assumed I had one) for his birthday (if I did, his birthday would be in September).

I had never before noticed the wide variety of manhood enhancement offerings hung on tiny hooks near the ceiling next to the phone cards. Or I had only subconsciously registered them, the way you vaguely process your spam until something jumps out at you that connects with real life. And usually you laugh.

Which is what I did. Laugh. Uncomfortably. And tried to extricate myself from that conversation with my non-organic half-and-half produced by GMO cows and two times the price of Trader Joe’s half-and-half as quickly as possible.

I am still trying to decide what to make of it. Weird.

In other news, I went to UniqueLA this weekend, which was great and inspiring except: (a) it gets more overwhelming every year, (b) I realized three of my favorite crafters were at the Renegade Craft Fair instead, and (c) you know who you can buy Christmas presents for at a hipster craft fair? Fellow hipsters, that’s who.

Finally, when do you think you are too old to rely on your parents? Not for money, although goodness knows in this economy lots of people have had to and there’s no shame (just unnecessary guilt) in that. Or not even just in this economy; coming up with a down payment can be brutal. I mean, I am still single, and even when I have had a “serious” relationship I don’t want to rely entirely on my partner for support. And my friends are awesome but they all have their own lives and I have to be selective in when I elect to burden them with my problems. I am 33, almost 34. Is there some point where I have to stop asking my parents for emotional support and advice?

I try to support my parents as well. I think I lent a hand in convincing Dad to go to France with Mom, a dream of hers. I know I’ve supported Mom through challenging conversations and ordeals. I know I was there for Dad as much as I could be during his heart surgery. But the bulk of the supporting comes from my parents.

Is that not OK any more? When am I too much of a big girl to ask for support? Is 40 the line? Or are they always Mom and Dad?

Classic FW

Oh, hello! It has been a while, eh? Let’s not dwell on why, shall we? Big changes are afoot and this hiatus is coming to an end!

Speaking of words with h, i and a in them, I just got back from Shanghai! And Hong Kong! But I lost my phone, which is also my camera, so all my photos are gone! Which sucks terribly, yes, but in fact, is, as my co-adventurer friend Mike would say, classic FW:

This photo I stole from Mike. I do not know what kind of wacky kids Christmas display we ended up at in Hong Kong (in one of the NINE BILLION malls in Hong Kong; seriously! there is a mall in every metro station, the bus stations, every business center, every 100 yards practically. Even the Peak has a mall!) but there were weird pop-art statues, a million name tags on the ground, some of which contained curse words, and one of which was for a “fatwest.” My new nickname, quickly shortened to “FW.”

When I confused a restaurant opening I was at with a bat mitzvah? “Oh, FW.” When I spilled my coffee/water/whatever on myself? “Typical FW.” I don’t know why I don’t find being the butt of so many jokes objectionable. I quite enjoy it, actually.

And Hong Kong and Shanghai were amazing. I actually forgot about work for the most part for the first 7 days, in large part due to having no real working internet and no cellular reception. I ate Thanksgiving dinner at M on the Bund. I ate dumplings from street vendors and bought a purse at the fake market that I immediately regretted purchasing and which made everything in my suitcase smell like fish. I went to a bar called Chillax. I marveled at the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum’s statistics that 900,000 HOUSEHOLDS have been relocated into new housing over the last few years. That is nearly FIVE MILLION PEOPLE. Just moved! Can you imagine that here? Nutters.

AND I came home to chilly fall weather, the first night of Hanukkah, Christmas lights up everywhere, holiday party invitations arriving in my inbox, just general happiness. I’m going to hold onto this feeling, and try not to let the daily slog steal it away for as long as I can. Maybe the jet lag haze will help keep the onslaught of reality at bay. It certainly helped my lock myself out of my apartment at 4:50 this morning. Classic FW.