Undeniable Charm

Oh holidays.  I am working through them.  I will be at the factory until Christmas Eve.  I will be about the only one.  Almost everyone is using leave this week, but someone needs to be around to make decisions if anything needs deciding.  The house repairman comes today and tomorrow, so even if I took off, I'd have him in here banging around and asking me questions.  There would be no leisure.  So I will go to an empty factory and take a two hour lunch and play ever so briefly at the Christmas season.  I haven't avoided it.  After Friday night's bacchanalia, I went out Saturday with a friend to a dinner of bacon wrapped shrimp and spicy sticky rice, lobster tail, and a filet on the veranda of a very nice restaurant.  The holiday crowd was all about.  Later, we went to the Boulevard for drinks at a bar I rarely (as in once or twice in my life) go to.  They served us scotch over a big ice cube at least four inches tall.  It is, I now know, a wonderful way to drink it.  The barmaid didn't know us and pretty much ignored us preferring to spend her time dawdling with the ones who tipped her well and often, I presume.  So. . . I thought I'd make an impression.

"Hey!  How do you make the big ice cubes?" I asked rattling the glass.

She stepped away and the brought back a plastic ice cube tray.

"We got them at Target."

"Wow.  High tech," I said.

"Not so much," she grinned.  She'd remember me now, I thought.  Maybe I'd get my drinks a little faster. And indeed, we had little trouble getting the second.

The Boulevard was packed with a more beautiful crowd than the daytime crew who come by cruise ship.  It was a fashion show, really.  I was glad I had put on a cool shirt and skinny jeans and the pair of dark blue Timberland moccasins I had never worn.  No matter, though.  Everyone was with somebody else.

"How do they do it?" I asked my friend.  "Everyone has someone no matter what they look like, no matter how boring they be.  They are like Xerox copies.  Really, how does it work?"

"You're asking the wrong guy," my buddy replied.  "What the fuck do I know about it?"

Yesterday afternoon, I ended up on the Boulevard with the same friend.  He had some presents to buy and I was killing time.  It was a festive day, it seemed, and I bumped into many people I knew.  Twice, standing on the sidewalk outside a store, I was asked, "Are you waiting on somebody inside?"

It was an odd question, I thought, but then I realized they were curious to see who it might be.

"Just waiting," I said provocatively.

I wanted to go into Restoration Hardware and look at the chair I had bought that had yet to arrive.  Two chairs, rather.  I wanted to see if I had remorse.  When I saw it, I was happy indeed.  I sat in it and was glad I bought them.  There was a table and lamp sitting with the chair, and I thought it the perfect combo.  I would get them, I thought.  The woman who had sold me the chairs was working and came over with a wide grin.

"How do you like your chairs?" she asked.

"They haven't come yet," I said.

"Really?"  She went through a list of reasons, but I told her they had been shipped now and I was expecting them any day.

"How much is this lamp?"

Jesus Christ, it was a fortune.

"I love that lamp," she said.  "I bought one of the floor models.  Let me look it up and see if it is on sale."

It wasn't.  But it would be, I said, eventually, and I would wait.

Back on the street, it had begun to sprinkle.  It was time to market for dinner with mother anyway, so we said goodbye to the holiday crowd.

Dinner with mother was a diet dinner, the one she has paid so much money for.

"I've lost eleven pounds," she said.

"That's only one hundred and eighty dollars per pound," I joked.  "And you get to avoid the holidays, too.  What should we do on Christmas since we aren't buying presents and not cooking a big holiday meal?"

Christmas day was looking pretty boring and bleak.

"I can make a pork loin," she said, "and I got you a few things."

"Well shit. .  . I thought we said we weren't going to do that?"

I had looked forward to not shopping for things she could buy herself or for things she wouldn't but wouldn't appreciate anyway.  I would have to do some shopping after all.

We sat down to our skinny meal at the dinner trays in front of the t.v.  There was no reason to set the table for the little plate of food and the glass of water.  I went through the pay-per-view movies and saw Woody Allen's "Magic in the Moonlight."  I played the trailer.

"How does this look?" I asked my mother knowing what she would say.

"Sure.  I don't care."

I poured a scotch and lay on the couch.  The cinematography promised so much.  The movie delivered so little.  It was without a doubt the most boring Allen movie ever made.  It might be THE most boring movie ever made.  Nothing at all was right about it.  Somewhere near the end, my mother woke me up to tell me she was going.

"Oh, shit," I said.  "I fell asleep.  What did I miss?"

"Nothing.  Nothing happens.  It is a pretty slow film."

I walked her to the car.  When I came back inside, it wasn't even eight o'clock.  A little Cervantes, I thought, before I fall asleep.

It was the shortest day of the year, the first day of winter.  Now the sun will begin to return.  The daylight will stretch out before us again.  That is the thing about the holidays and the coming of Christmas.  It is a descent into darkness, the close, quiet nights.  It is why people alone have a hard time, so much darkness, so many expectations.

But winter is starting out warm here after a long stretch of cool days and nights.  It is moist and uncomfortable which mitigates a lot of things for me.  As I say, I'll be at the factory while people slosh around in unseasonable weather.  But now there are presents to purchase.  I'd rather go shopping for myself.  Yes. . . it is like that.

Walking to the Boulevard yesterday, we passed a black and tan convertible BMW Alpina sportster.  I am not into cars, but I am into aesthetics.  Shit, this was a car to die for.  My buddy's birthday and Christmas almost coincide.  He stopped to look at the car.

"You should buy one for your holiday present," I said.  "What do you think it would cost?"

"I don't know.  Over a hundred.  It is beautiful."

He can afford it, and I hope he gets one.  He is turning fifty.  That's what rich men do when they turn fifty.  It will bring back his youth, right?  It will at least get him started in the right direction.

Me. . . I might be able to buy a used Vespa.  I thought the idea was pretty cool until I saw that car.  Now it just seems pretty lame.  Shit, goddamn, motherfucker. . . I want that car, too.  I'd be one cool cat in that car, no doubt.  It is just one of the prettiest things I've ever seen.

"When I was young," I told him, "I could have all the fun in the world on no money.  Not as much now.  I need to write a movie script.  I think I need lots and lots of money.  I'd love to be driving that car."

"Your politics shift with the wind," he says.

"Yea. . . it is part of my undeniable charm."