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Alanis Morissette "Would Not Come" |
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Ho, ho, ho, homeslices...Merry Christmas Eve (or since this will probably get to you on Christmas or afterwards, Merry Christmas). Good lord, it's ALREADY Christmas... you'd think the Powers That Be would have a little pity on us Lemonters and accompany this blistering cold weather with some motherfucking snow...but no. Your testicles are going to get frozen off, and you won't even be able to make snow angels as it happens. Sorry, says God.
But alright, I'ma do my best to make this entry somewhat festive since a Christmas Day entry is so out of the ordinary. Before I get to that, I suppose I should do some review roundup. Let's backpeddle, Lance Armstrong style...
Okey doke, a few days ago, Corey came over and we had our general duke-it-out celebration that was once commonplace during the summers following sophomore and junior years of high school. We took our competitive streaks to the ping pong table, and it's funny, because mah ping pong ability keeps on wowwing all who behold it. Corey's ass was slain both games...his losing streak against me is also quite impressive...Anna Kournikova's record about matches his. Not that I'm a sore winner or anything. Moving on, we decided to battle at the pool table next ("Ooh...is Louis a poolshark?" Who remembers that? Anyone?), and this match was more grueling, we didn't really count the games we won, but as far as I remember it was pretty close to a dead heat. Corey ate dinner with us, and I underestimate how much I like having people over when I have dinner... I get kind of awkward trying to bridge the gap between my family and my homies, but Corey is like the studious bandkid my parents never had, so it's not hard to accomodate him. Post-that, Corey and I played two games of Playstation Jeopardy (during which we ate an entire tray of milk chocolates... this is a good time to admit that Corey and I are both pregnant), followed by a fucking third game where Mark joined in. It was cute to see my little brother pretend like he could read the questions. Kind of like watching Helen Keller pretend to read an eye chart. Corey and I sort of ran out of things to do, and so he left soon after. Corey and I also chatted somewhere in the middle of all this, and it's really good to converse with him, specifically because Corey knows how to be light-hearted but still sincere about things that a lot of people would deem "TOO SERIOUS TO BE SNICKERED AT". Come on, as if "snicker" isn't a funny verb in itself. Alright, moving on... Tuesday I crowned myself the most bored person on Earth, and to celebrate, I drove Laser, my chariot, to 75th Street. I've had a good feeling for awhile now that my mom is going to get me an Old Navy gift card, and so I had to prepare just in case. I browsed around, and I ran into Erin Perkey and Katie Jacobowski. They were searching for "boy things" and I was searching for "something to do" so we bonded for like six seconds. For kicks I dropped by Best Buy...I mean my car was parked like right there, may as well see what seasons of Sex and the City are out. Alas, the muse was nowhere to be found in Best Buy, and so I drove way back into Lemont, way down to Target. Surely there is a party there! Wrong again, Louis. However, I ran into Erin Perkey and Katie Jacobowski yet again there by coincidence (by coincidence I mean they just wanted to catch more of my sex appeal in action, and so they tracked my ass down. Yeah that's what I meant by coincidence). So that was Tuesday...
Wednesday was Monica's very special Black Christmas party. I went with Sarah and good-ole-Stanford-chico Brad Heinz to that festival of political correctness. Devin was also there, in addition to Katie Erk, Elyse and Dan, and a bevy of Oak Lawn folks. Kind of strange to have the Lemont kids and Oak Lawn kids altogether...there wasn't tension or anything, but it's two defined styles of humor merging, and so by default there was a bit of a turf war. One thing that sure happened was Catch Phrase, and that's a pasttime I could stand to revisit more often. I love Word Games so much... Boggle, Scrabble, Upwords, Text Twist, Racist Pictionary, you name it. Katie Erk ended up being the one that drove me home...she was gaining one hell of a headcold, and later this break we have a date at the Burlington Coat Factory where we can be thrifty and heavily coated.
Thursday I did some last minute Christmas shopping with my mom. I still had to buy my Secret Santa gift for my little cousin Jack (how is it that I always fucking draw the kids' names that are five years old and younger?). I ended up buying him what could be the best little-kid game of all time, Guess Who. I have beef with the updated version of Guess Who, however. First of all, the characters' names are changed. The beret-sporting Maria is now Ashley or some other gay girly name. Secondly, the characters' faces have been re-drawn to be much more cartoonish. Their faces are comparable to those seen on Dexter's Laboratory or any other Cartoon Network show that runs solely on the power of A.D.D. Moving on... I ended up skipping Elyse's Christmas Eve-Eve party because of a nap I wanted to take. However, I did wake up to a phone call from Kimmie, who said it was time to go out to a movie for some pre-Christmas chill time. We (along with Sarah)decided to go to the Seven Bridges' IMAX theatre for a showing of that movie The Polar Express. We were super-looking forward to it, only to find out upon arriving that the fucker was sold out. We couldn't just turn back, so we decided to see Meet the Fockers...yeah, that's right. The timetables weren't showing the correct movie times though, and the woman at the ticket booth instructed us that "the wrong times are up because we're not open on Christmas Eve..." or something like that. So I nonchalantly remarked, "Oooh, so it's like a guessing game with the movie times." THEN the ticket booth girl stares me RIGHT in the eye and says, "Well, if you want to know movie times, you can just ask me, then you don't have to guess!" And she fucking SMIRKED at me! Look, ticket whore, I understand you have like eleven illegitimate kids to raise and you've spent most of your money on bad weed, but guess what, there's no reason you should be emotionally attached to the movie timetable unless your ancestors died building it. That doesn't seem to be the case. I wish I had made a smart-ass remark back to her, something along the lines of "Oh, please, I LOVE guessing games. Pictionary, whatever." I told this to Sarah and she added with, "Yeah, you name it... Guess The Move Times too..." Holy LOL. Anyway, I watched the Focker movie, and aside from some ridiculous plot twists and the beginning that seemed to shout "Put on your seatbelts, this movie is going to suck", the movie was pretty funny. I'm usually not fond of Barbra Streisand, but I think her character was my favorite one in the movie. On the way home, Sarah nearly barfed for whatever reason, and since by this time it was after midnight (and therefore Christmas Eve), Kimmie and I celebrated with the holiday classic "Lose My Breath". What, you think that's not a Christian song? Uhhh, who do you think the girls are referring to when they say "Baby boy"? Put two and two together, losers.
And today was a low-key Christmas Eve, starting off with the unwrapping of our Secret Santa gifts. My mom got me a specialized Street Fighter controller with a Chun Li hologram on it, and my cousin Drew sent me a bunch of chocolates plus a 25 dollar gift card to Borders. Maybe this time I'll actually buy a fucking book there. The rest of the day was lax... I ended up re-exploring my old computer and playing about (seriously) 8 games of 1995 Jeopardy. Okay, that version is tough. I breeze through newer versions, but the decade-old version is just...well its difficult. I like it better that way though, I actually learn some things playing that version. This is all so eventful to you. I went to Christmas Eve mass in my spankin' new lavender shirt, bringing the luxury back to Christmas Eve. At home we had our newly annual steakfest in the dining room. I don't know what the world's obsession with steak is; if you ask me, food shouldn't be that thick or tough. Even at it's tenderest, steak seems like too much. Funfact of the day for you: steak doesn't get digested in humans. Did you know that? Just call me the answer man.
Ahhh, and here we are. It is now 12:05. Christmas Day. The holiday season just fucking flies by, which is kind of sad to me. I remember back in like third grade when Christmas was absolutely the coolest, most anticipated thing of the year. Back in the days when I would get like...Tomb Raider 3 or a new handheld Jeopardy game (no joke!), that made my whole YEAR. The concept of receiving these immaculate, pristinely wrapped presents and getting exactly what I asked for but still being so excited anyway was just...the epitome of what life was all about back in those days. Family get-togethers seemed like royal occasions of rambunctiousness and fun...and nowadays they're kind of like...awkwardness and even boredom sometimes. We used to have a tradition of having a family get-together on Christmas Eve and then another get-together on Christmas Day. On C-Eve, my family and all my extended family would unwrap the presents we got each other (a tradition that was halted a few years ago). I brought up those old days to my mom just the other day, and she said, regarding the two days in a row of family get-togethers, "Yeah...that was always too much." I like how it's only now that I realize during those precious old times of ripping apart presents from my godmother and seeing all my relatives that my parents probably felt what I feel now. When did this huge transition happen where all the sudden tradition turns into just...repetition? I seem to remember a certain Joni Mitchell singing, "It won't be long now till you drag your feet to slow the circles down..." in "The Circle Game". I suppose my take on Christmas just proves what's so awesome and what's kind of sad about growing up. You learn reality, you learn what real fun is and what you love so much about being yourself and being around the people you love...but you lose perhaps some of the excitement that comes with discovery of little kid things, like the grandeur and bigness and COOLness of Toys R Us and Nickelodeon. But I'm happy to move on. I'm happy to say I've been there and other places...but I think I'm just as happy to say there's so much more to come. I couldn't even tell you what's coming up next. It's that good.
But candy canes are still pretty delicious. Gotta love that. Anyway, hopefully next entry I can reveal my big songs-of-'04, my most pivotal cd purchases, my favorite '04 moments, and a general shout-out to the people that have made the last year so up, down, and all-around. Mark is grunting that it's time for bed, so unfortunately I have to halt this entry here. Guys, have an awesome Christmas... in your growing up and learning what's what, you can still love what you've got and indulge in a little Christmas gift-opening while you're at it. In each full year, there's new qualities about ourselves and new people around us to celebrate, so I suggest we all make this holiday call some attention to those things. I love you guys so much, and thank you for reading.
"If we took a holiday,
Took some time to celebrate...
It would be...it would be so nice."
Word. Xoxo,
Louis.
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