the thing about me is i cant handle certain situations.
the thing is, is when there is something eventful or traumatic or important going on, i always think the best thing i could possibly do in that moment is say or act out something wildly inappropriate. i can't explain it but its thoroughly genuine. i always think this will make things better.
(excepting certain occasions* where i can react in no way other than laughing uncontrollably.)
other times however, such as this new years eve when my cousin christine and her husband mark decide inexplicably to travel to my parents house and stay the weekend for the new years holiday, i will inevitably make a series of strange and uncalled for executive decisions. this of course, sounds crazy and it gets crazier and i react in the following ways:
1. christine and mark arrive at the house. no one is downstairs. i see them approaching through the front door window. instinctively, i run upstairs and shut my door and pretend i am changing when the doorbell rings.
2. i come downstairs to say hello three minutes before i know my friend and gay pothead accomplice jonathan will be pulling into the driveway. hello i sAY, HOW ARE YOU.
3. i return to the house high and with the intention of leaving shortly and also taking a chinese bussing system to new york city. me and jonathan are sitting in the driveway and we see my big hairy uncle looking tipsy and mildly confused and wild in the front yard. he comes to the window. i am sure he smells pot. i wonder if he likes to smoke pot.
4. christine is pregnant he says. "oh" i say, then "OH!". my pothead accomplice and i walk slowly towards the font door.
5. inside i am shown a sonogram in a picture frame. "OH!" I say, then "conGratUlATIONS!"
6.my gay accomplice and i go into the computer room to record a "televison show". we have to stay for dinner. it is new years eve. my mother comes into the computer room. i whisper "i cannot handle this. we will eat dinner. we are going to a gay party. we are already late. i need to go to new york." my mother concedes to the terror in my eyes. "we are not all baby lovers" i tell her, then "you are in a safe place."
7. my brother, my gay pothead accomplice and i sit at a card table next to the kitchen table: dinner time. "have you ever been to the red fez?" i ask my brother (who is asian and doesn't drink**) "no" he says.
"whAt is the red fez!?" my mother asks excitedly, thinking this is a good idea. "its that middle eastern gay bar where all my shit got stolen last new years," i reply.
(silence)
8. everyone sits down. christine drinks o'douls. she is 3 months pregnant and i think the o'douls is a little premature of her. later i will tell my mother i thought drinking was good for pregnant people, mostly so that she remembers to be afraid of any pregnancies i might be capable of achieving later on. everyone else is drunk or drunk-ish, thank god, excepting my gay accomplice and i who are very stoned and my brother who is asian.
9. "who will say grace?" i ask, attempting to recover from the gay bar comment. i often think of asking this question at the dinner times but always end up deciding it is too inappropriate and awkward...until now. "why don't YOU do it?" my mother asks, once again thinking this is a good idea, as if she has chronic amnesia (which i often think may be the case). "ok" i say and chug my glass of wine. everyone holds hands. i am blanking on a good sermon so i start singing.
10. "New YoRk, CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE oF, THERES NOTHING YOU CAAANT DO000" the hands are dropped. my gay accomplice looks to be plotting escape maneuvers, so i spend the rest of dinner trying to make him the center of conversation/ tie his personal experiences to the topic of conversation***.
11. i think people having babies freaks me out.
*such as the event of my friend shitting herself on the way to my birthday dinner...while riding the metro...in paris
**and has spent the holidays playing an asian anime video game where asian anime people stand in cafeterias and schools-- (this is all i have seen happen in the video game)
**for instance, i loudly fake concern over jonathan's broken elbow (his left arm is in a sling) by asking "Jandy! HOW did you BREAK your ELBOW!?! MY GOD, what EvEr HAPPENED???" this is very fun, because then jonathan must relate the story wherein he is wasted and his gay accomplice (my gay accomplice once removed/ second gay accomplice/ gay accomplice-in-law) convinces him to slide down the banister going into the subway in new york. jandy mounts the banister only to fall eight feet of humiliation onto his ELBOW. only jandy is too embarrassed to lie there and goes home to sleep away the pain, only to awake and find out he has to take the train to boston in order to get ELBOW surgery. i usually try to get him to include the part where his parents are "mega pissed." this makes me seem like a better child for being merely emotionally scarring & inappropriate as opposed to physically and expensively.
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