Yule Be Happy Or Else

I started out Christmas Eve morning with snapping at Chef, aka The Boyfriend. Like most computer geeks, he is concerned with my limited ability to  navigate the Net and offers little suggestions, like getting a Hangout account, or trying more complicated passwords. Being an old and tired person, I poo-poo a lot of what he has to say, only to turn shrew when I can't remember a password and am unable to retrieve it because I foolishly moved to another country, switched browsers AND changed my phone number. I already had a headache when I woke up this morning, having spent a nightmarish broken sleep in which my worse imaginings were brooding and lurking, namely, that the "joke" gift he put in my stocking is indeed the ONLY thing he's giving me for Christmas. OK, he supports me at this time and he's offered to buy new tires for the car I drive, but this is probably one of the things that clearly marks our differences: I believe in gifts, stuff you can unwrap, and he thinks a candy bar with hazelnuts (which I'm allergic to) given a month after the day counts as a lovely birthday gift. (Granted, he also gave me a card, also one month after the day. The card was sweet--it would have just meant so much more if it had arrived in a timely manner and I hadn't had to cry to get it.) For the record, in his defense, he did buy me a birthday cake from a very good place and didn't complain too much when I chose one that was pink. Is it churlish of me to mention that I had been looking forward to making one myself?

In Girl Land, a place I rest my soul in, boyfriends may give only one gift but at least it's wrapped and thoughtfully chosen. It doesn't have to be expensive (I am forbidden from even joking about pretty sparkly things) and I have resisted peeking in that stocking to see what is in there. I fear it is a Dollar Store purchase. I am proud of my noble choice to eschew peeking, while I am very sad that any part of my brain is actually concerned about this. What if it is truly crap and I open it in front of his kid and burst into tears? Or worse, get angry and silent because anything I say will be fight fodder for life?

I know a lot of guys just don't get the whole gift-giving thing. Chef himself has suggested that I return the gifts I give him and "give the money to the poor."  Who thinks like that? Wasn't our leftover Halloween candy enough? (Kidding: I have donated  many household things Chef doesn't like to several organizations.) I've been gathering little things for him, magpie-like, for months. If he mentioned he wanted to try a certain spice, I bought it. If he needed an item of clothing, I looked around to match his specifications. Gifts are a physical reminder that we do indeed pay attention. I love pink, I love Hello Kitty, I have marked preferences in perfume. Not hard to shop for. So why am I so afraid that this dear, thoughtful, gentle man is going to give me a cheap wrench? And worse--why the hell does it bother me so much?

Moving On

Just a quick update--with a thousand more to follow--I am still alive, in great health, very happy, and in the process of relocating to the US. Once there, more shall be revealed. Let's just say It Was Time To Go.

Life Lessons Straight from the Bowels of Satan

Those of you who know me and love me know that there are two constants in my life (three, if you count being chronically single), namely, I am always starting a new job, and I am always moving. I do change jobs a lot, usually every two years or so, and it always happens that after the first year on the job I am moved to teach a different subject, or another level, keeping me in a constant flux of developing curriculum and teaching plans. I would like JUST ONCE to teach the same subject two years running so that I don't spend September in a panic trying to come up with a year-long teaching plan based on materials I haven't written or which haven't been ordered yet. As for moving, that comes with the change of jobs, or in the old days when I had a child with me, dependent on which school she was attending that year. Since I live sans wheels in the form of my own car, this has limited our housing options quite a bit.

Given this, as well as a huge hit of heartbreak, it should come as no shock to anyone that I am moving again. Yes, I'm giving up my lovely sunny one bedroom flat on upper northwest Beijing to move smack dab downtown. The reasons are myriad, but include the fact that I have lost a temporary battle with the Health Gods and am having difficulty coping with the lack of grocery stores on this side of town, as well as my ayi's difficulties in getting over from the extreme east side of town to this neck of the concrete jungle known as BJ. Having the unnamed auto-immune disorder apparently wasn't enough--I sprained my knee again and also dislocated my left shoulder. It's been popped back into place but the agony of sprained muscles, torn tendons and strained ligaments remains. It's been over a month but the alternate numbness, tingly, and searing pain in three fingers of my left hand is breathtaking in its variety, as well as its tendency to flair up at night when I'm sleeping.

The only thing more wearisome than having ill health is reading about it, so enough of that. This, in a nutshell, is why I've been silent. I have veered this year between extreme happiness, having too many wonderful projects, to being alone and in pain and in the dark. But that is life, sometimes, or at least its my life sometimes, and I just have to deal with it. I don't call people at three a.m., because who the hell wants to deal with my shit at that time? Conversely, I'm silent on the subject during the day, because who wants to bring anyone down? But it's there, lurking under the jokes and the pain, the knowledge that I got myself into this situation and will get myself out again, but that it's increasingly difficult to remain upbeat and positive when you're not cute and young anymore. Yet this is the pay off too, when you get to a certain stage in life you learn to relax and forgive because that's what you just have to do to keep positive and upbeat and keep moving on. I really don't know if I'm going to end up a bag lady on the streets who can't button up her own cardigan, or if there's going to be a miraculous last-minute intervention when one of the products I've written will actually sell and get me money and kudos and financial security or if miracle of miracles I actually meet someone who thinks I'm cute and funny and who wants to hang with me the rest of my life--or if this thing that hides in my cells flares up and sniffs me out like a candle in the wind--I honestly don't know. Perhaps that's just as well.