A Mad Men Christmas

I still haven't gotten my Christmas edition of Playboy, but I will stop at the local mini-mart, an independent, sleazy sort of place, and see if they have it there.  But I am still in the spirit of a a Mad Men Christmas.  So is the New York Times.  See here. 

It was all real and true.  Life was different.  Not better, maybe, but certainly. . . something.  I really can't believe how pretty the women were when I look back at photographs.  There weren't the number  of processed foods that there are now, and perhaps that made the difference, though many men had big bellies from drinking beer and eating baloney sandwiches, and not many of them thought about living to be seventy.  And I remember the dark hollowness to many things, but that is what made the cocktail and the cocktail party such a delight being little bundles of light and distraction in a blank sea of emptiness. 

I was a little surprised today to find that my idea of how Santa Clause came into being was all off if CNN is to be believed (link).   In my version, he was definitely more European, but CNN's version has him a creation of the Knickerbocker Society in New York City as they tried to tame the old tradition.  Old St. Knick, it seems, was an actual Turkish monk who died on December 5.  I am not certain I believe them, though.  The telling seems somewhat Grinch-like to me. 

Of course we'll always have a Charlie Brown Christmas to put us in a mood. 

I, for one, plan on a spending the rest of the season like Mad Men.  I will say, though, that the cocktails may be much better. 

The house repairman came yesterday before his appointed time, and I was not finished with my morning rituals.  We are more like friends, though, and so we sat and talked for a long time about our own particular troubles.  He thinks I am a cocksman for some reason no matter how much I try to tell him otherwise.  I guess that is what married men think about all single guys.  No matter how many times I tell him embarrassedly that I am not like that, he replies, "Bullshit.  You're getting it all the time."  He is projecting his desires of course, and I tell him that such things are not easily had, especially when you are an emo like me.  Against the background of cut flowers, antiques, and fifties jazz playing softly across the house, you would think he'd believe me or think that I was gay.  But nope.  He thinks I'm screwing all the women I take pictures of.  I tell him I've never done that, but it is unimaginable to him.  I understand, of course.  I was married once myself.  And he is in an unhappy marriage.  His wife left him last year, moved to another city and took a bunch of money, but they have a small daughter together and she came back.  "She still won't sleep with me.  Can you believe that?  I tell her that I am going to sleep with another woman. . . is that what you want?  She never answers.  We sleep in separate bedrooms.  Would you do that?"  I tell him that as far as I know, that is like about fifty percent of marriages in America.  It is nothing strange or unusual.  I know many couples who stay together "for the children," but I think it is more than that.  For the women, it is usually the financial stability.  For the men, it is the fear of being alone.  Oh, they get mad and think, "I'll show her, I'll fuck everything in town," as if that is something that will make them happy or more attractive, but deep down they know that they can't win that game.  There is no "getting even" in that sense.  That game is rigged.  And sleeping with many women does not fill a hole at all but eventually leaves you feeling hollow and empty.  There is no real pleasure there, I think, but the momentary one.  There is not enough sex in the cosmos to fill that void.  It is best, I think, to live with it, to let it scar over and be forever there.  There is no vengeance that will make it better, no rational thinking that will make the emotion less hurtful.  Not for men.  Not for me, anyway.  There is only the stoic acceptance and the trying not to think for the millionth time that you are somehow terribly flawed and perhaps unworthy of the thing you desire, of thinking that there is a god that hates you for some reason you cannot comprehend.  And somewhere deep in the brain, men understand this and understand that living with someone in a flawed relationship is easier than the other, that living in your own head trying to figure out why the night is so dark and devoid of anything that might succor you, might hold you close and tell you it loves you.  Better to tinker in the garage or stay longer at work and to show yourself as a couple to friends who are couples. 

That is what I tell him.  He tells me how beautiful his wife is.  "She used to be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader," he says, and I am astonished.  Life is so utterly surprising. 

He will be here soon.  He says he will come today and on Christmas Eve.  It is not my desire, but it is good to have the house repaired and cleaned and decorated.  He installed a new microwave yesterday and I have just used it for the first time heating up the coffee that is going cool in the pot.  And the gifts are arriving, too.  I just got the Norton two volume anthology of the Religions of the World from Q.  I will jump into them tonight.  I also got in the mail my annual AAA membership card from my mother.  And there were other presents, too, all of which break my tender heart that sometimes presents itself as a cold, hard stone. 

Much of Christmas giving, though is like this:

We can be emotionally assassinated in the most subtle of ways.

I go to the beauty parlor this afternoon to see my little Russian Jew beautician.  She will ask me about a girl I knew, and I will tell her that has ended.  She thinks herself a psychic therapist and will tell me all the things she can think of to make me feel better.  She will tell me about her own life and troubles and tell me of her hopes for the future with this man or that one, but she will say, she has her son and that is where her love lies.  It isn't much wonder what fucks kids up, really, so many parents using them for their emotional safe harbor.  It is a lot of unconscious pressure for someone who still isn't very good at wiping his butt.  But there it is. 

The weather is warm and gray and humid and not at all like Christmas which is O.K. with me.  I am not against the season at all; I just don't want to feel like I'm missing anything.