Cha Cha Hannukah

Surrounded by questions of whether or not I had a Christmas tree growing up, I started remembering Hannukah once again.  

I remember the same things I've told you all before...

And I noticed something else.

First, let's talk about the fact that eight gifts typically happen.  

It's one a night, and parents will generally pick which to give their child each night.  

Sometimes the gifts get a little silly by the end, and sometimes they get better and better.

My parents?

They showed us all the gifts at once. 

In a pile...

Mine would be one wrapping paper and my sister's would be another. 

They were in a pile and it was our choice which present we'd pick first, second, and so on each night. 

This was terrible.

We'd spend every night thinking about what the other shapes contained and whether we chose right, even though we'd obviously be getting the others open eventually. 

Sometimes it would be a miss, like a thing we didn't really care for or something decidedly useless...

Sometimes it would be something completely ridiculous on the other side of the spectrum, and I'd become a little concerned about who my parents had to kill in order to afford it...

Either way, having that pile to choose from and that interesting semi-roulette of Hannukah ended with conditioning me to realize that anything I'm waiting for will eventually come, whether I guess or obsess about it or not. 

It also did something else that is fairly important.

It made me no longer have a crushing sense of curiosity.  

I don't mean that it took the magic out of my imagination or made me want to know how things worked a little less.  

Not at all.  

What I'm saying is that situations that were labeled as dangerous in some way were no longer particularly interesting to me.  

Things that did not affect my life and that would not have anything potentially awesome for me or my loved ones were empty boxes which did not need to be opened. 

When friends saw a door saying, "Do Not Enter," it filled them with a NEED to open that door.  

I was freed from this need.

I no longer cared. 

I'm telling you...  This was freeing.  

A beautiful thing.  

The closed door was now nothing more than a door I did not need to open, so that I could spend more energy opening the doors which needed opening.  

Take this both literally and figuratively.  

On a completely separate note, I actually DID have Christmas this year.  

We had a tree in the apartment and everything.  

It was about four feet tall and we didn't actually have much to work with.

The only real ornaments on it are, oddly enough, mine. 

Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit...

Plenty of candy canes,
Batman...

The ribbon is Halloween ribbon. 

There were lips on there somewhere...

The topper was Trickster #1 from the Broadway show of the Lion King. 

And a bat. 

My Knight's family has taken me in as one of their own. 

I feel a little like a tiny kitten being taken in by a pack of wolves.  

They are very caring and were terrifying before I learned the ways of their people. 

...Like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  

This freaking movie.

I don't understand what the Hell I watched. 

My eyes themselves were confused and pained, yet entertained. 

Like watching an empty car explode.  

The movie was so charming and nice to look at that I somehow got through the implications of ...everything bad that could possibly happen to a woman.  

Like the main character himself, all was forgiven with a dance number and a song. 

In any case, we were given many gifts that evening and much joy was had.  

I felt like I was really a part of the family, and that was nice. 

Yay!

 

 

Getting Injured

I currently have a band-aid on each thumb as I type this blog entry.  

I consider myself a careful person, really... and I wouldn't call myself clumsy per se... 

But I'll let you kids decide for yourselves.  

I started young with the accidentally-hurting-myself-in-stupid-ass-ways thing.

My mother still feels guilty about an incident where I fell out of the shopping cart.  

Dude.  

Those things are, like, designed to avoid this.  
I still don't understand how I managed such a feat without breaking my legs in order to get out... 

But I clearly remember the milk isle zooming in toward my face: 

Obviously, I survived.  I probably lost a tooth though.  

I can say that, because I was generally losing teeth during these incidents.  

Considering all the oral surgery I wound up having as an adult later, it was probably for the best that I just get the baby teeth out of the way fast anyway.

I was walking along with a straw in a drink and a loose tooth to play with (do you see where this is going?) and not ONLY did I stick my loose tooth INTO the straw for fun, but then I tripped. 

This resulted in RIPPING THE TOOTH OUT OF MY FACE while also smashing the rest of me to the ground.  

Very efficient, really.

Doorknobs often had a similar effect.  See, I was "doorknob height" and wasn't always aware of my surroundings.  
I blame inner ear issues.  

Either way,

Lost at least one that way.

By now,  you've heard tales of how often I cut my hands open while carving pumpkins, or stabbing myself in the thumbs while sewing (often straight through the nail)...

But one time, I actually learned a lesson during a sewing mishap.

You know what?  I'm not gonna illustrate this one because it still ickles me.  

I tend to stick sewing needles pretty much wherever I can, with the (often very, very wrong) assumption that it will assist in my not losing them.  

So, I'm sitting on my parent's couch, sewing stuff.  

Probably making one of these: 

So cute. 

Such pain. 

And I put the needle in the couch next to me, just slightly, thinking I'll be able to pull it out by the thread later.  

Then I couldn't find it.  

...

Yep.

Cue a few days later where I'm on the same couch, trying to get something that has fallen behind said couch, getting up to sit on my knees... on the couch. 

Right. 

Our needle friend is promptly found.  

It goes up into my thigh. 

Let me clarify... 
It's not like, poking from the side into my thigh.  It's going from the top of my knee UP into my thigh-meats, along the thigh itself. 

Oh my fuck. 

There are no words to describe the combined horror, shame, pain, disgust and so on that I experienced in this moment.  

*ahem* 

Moving on.

Did I mention I've managed to STAB myself?  

Some were small, like the x-acto knife at art school.

We were snowed in, so there was a moment of, "Whelp, glad I didn't cut off my thumb.  Wouldn't have been able to get to a hospital in time to save it.  Whoops." 

Instead, I merely jammed it into the tip of my thumb.  
There's a vein at the base of my palm that had flipped out during this process.  
This happened a decade ago and it still puffs up if I'm stressed.  

...

Probably a terrible sign.  

Still, not as bad as the time I stabbed myself in the shoulder while working retail.  

See, I was diligently cutting apart and collapsing boxes for storing them in the back.  

"The back" was basically a hallway with shelves of walls filled with random crap to sell.  

Knowing we were the only two in the store, and knowing I had gone back there, I guess my work-buddy forgot.  

She didn't see me sitting in this hallway cutting boxes with the box cutter.  

She walked into me, kicking the box away.  

This was fine except: 

I remember thinking, "Oh, that didn't happen.  I'm just holding the box cutter slightly PAST my shoulder.  Here, I'll pull it awa- ...  Oh crud."  

My coworker wanted to rush me to a hospital, but, being me...  

Nope. 

I just wanted to keep on workin'. 

I still have a scar from it, but obviously I was fine.  

Well, obviously I'm fine NOW in any case.

...

Shh.





 

 

Lost Like This

My sense of direction has never been fantastic. 

It is the real reason why a smaller campus is nice for me, though I'll admit that I've certainly gotten lost within small campus areas too. 

…Okay, within buildings.  I've gotten lost within a building or five.

Like, this one building on the smaller of my college campuses might as well be like that Escher painting. 
 



Once, as an undergrad, I got lost on the other side of campus because I had gone to the other dining hall. 

I had to call my friend from home, who had been there maybe once, to tell me how to get back to my dorm.
 

Of course, I had gotten stuck in my own dorm at one point before that… 
 

This one Summer, I was taking a class for college at my old high school.  

I figured, "Yeah, I remember this place.  It'll be a breeze getting around."

First of all, that saying, "You can't go home again" can mean a lot of things. 

In terms of my old high school, it means some major renovations were being made and the entire thing not only looked very different, but was actually being gutted at the time. 

So, after my class, I go to leave.  
I remember that the doors lead, you know... out. 

…And, technically speaking, they did. 

The problem was that "out" did not mean out to the parking lot. 

Out, in this case, meant out into a wasteland of mud and construction equipment. 

I like to think the equipment was just as confused as I was.
 

It was also raining, hence the dirt being mud. 

I turned to go back inside, but the door was locked. 

…

The door that I had just gone through was locked to the outside. 

I imagine I looked like this, trying to get back in:
 

With no other choice, I turned to see if I could some how climb may way out, back into society. 

I began to sink into the mud.

Not only was it really, super gross, but I also was working under the assumption that I was going to die there and be buried like some horrible time capsule. 

"This seems to be a college girl.  What was she doing back then in the 2000s wandering around a high school?  We may never know…" 

I actually don't remember how I got out, but I know that I was very distraught and disturbed when I went back to my parent's house. 

The sandals I had been wearing were given to the gods as sacrifice. 
 

I don't know why I thought that would be easy.  

I mean, even when I WAS in high school, I never knew where I was going.  

I'd carry around my schedule every day and ask my teacher EVERY DAY how to get to the next class.  

I was late most of the time, so I stopped going to my locker at all, except for before and after lunch.
 

I'd switch my school bag with my lunch box, then my lunch box with the other half of my school stuff for the rest of the day. 

Of course, this brilliant process is why I often did my homework, yet managed to not have it to hand in.

Middle school was even worse, because even if I had known where my locker was, (which I never did) I wouldn't have known the combination to my lock anyway.
 

I still have dreams where I'm lost and looking for my damn locker. 

I get lost in wide open spaces too.  I get lost in stores and panic the moment whoever I'm with is behind a display or something, thinking I'll be lost forever. 

Panic probably doesn't help the lost thing… 

I've learned to at least ask or pretend to know where I'm going until I figure it out, but I still feel like I'm always wrong about which direction I should go. 

…There's a metaphor in that, I'm sure.