First, before I start, I think you should know I just spent almost the entire day alone. I say 'almost' because I left a party last night/this morning around 2:30am, so I had interaction with the late-night lingerers; a cab driver and a few other sloppy-unsobers as I stumbled into Walgreens for some snacks. I also ordered a pizza today, which means I had brief contact with the deliveryman. As he handed off my regular-crust Thanksgiving feast, our eyes met with a similar look of empathy. "I feel sorry this guy has to work on Thanksgiving...even if this isn't his homeland," I thought. And I'm guessing his internal dialogue sounded a bit like, "It's sad this poor, sloppy girl has no one to spend America's holiday with. And why would she ever wear that terrible sweatshirt - it looks awful."
"Happy Thanksgiving," we both said in unison before he turned around and headed back into the night and I turned around to eat off my coffee table directly from the box.
Leading up to this holiday, I was asked multiple times how I would be spending it. When I answered, "Alone," I was generally met with sad eyes and, "ooooh, why don't you come with..." and "My cousin always puts on a..." or "Are you okay? November is a hard month - high rates of suicide - call if you need to talk."
But the thing no one really seems to understand, unless they have spent the holiday alone themselves, is that if I'm going to be with family on Thanksgiving, I'm going to be with MY family. Big Thanksgiving family dinners are exhausting, and even worse when the family isn't yours, especially when the drinking and fighting start. If I'm going to be in the middle of a family fight on a major national holiday, I'm going to be in the middle of my very own, loud and inappropriate family fight until we drink an uncomfortable amount and pass out on the couch in each others arms, thankful we all have someone to fight with.
So I had my plan: Attend the artsy and hipster-ridden party my friend T threw in her West Side neighborhood Wednesday night, drink copious amounts of liquor, and then on Thursday, sleep in, eat junk food, wear sweatpants all day and avoid thinking of a) work and b) school.
My plan worked.
Maybe it sounds lame, but I woke at noon, watched "Arrested Development," napped, turned on "Beautiful Girls," spent time researching Martha Plimpton, made some coffee, watched "Space Camp," ordered pizza, spent time thinking about Tom Skerritt and then I watched "So I Married an Axe Murderer." Day complete! Now I blog!
My parents didn't call, but I didn't call them either. I received a nice text from a sister, a call from another sister and two calls from sweet Aunts. I suppose the Kevin McCallister in me still measures those things. Regardless, I am thankful. I am blessed. I love and am loved. Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you too share my blessings.
As parting words, I would like to leave a few discomfited quotes I took from the enormous breadth of boob-tube I watched, which I also feel best represents my 26th Thanksgiving:
"Yes, and I've enjoyed that. It's just that I was constantly being called to the phone, or I was asked a question, or I was being resuscitated and it was really hard to get a good work flow going."
"John Glenn winked at me!"
"I didn't say real astronauts, because at space camp, you are real astronauts."
"I believe most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare."
"I AM an undercover cop trying to look hip."
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