doubting thom

In a situation that feels eerily similar to the tyranny that TiVo used to exert over me–when I was unwilling to give the thumbs down to its suggested programs that I didn’t actually hate but didn’t really want to watch–I think Amazon.com has intimacy and control issues.

Specifically, the Gold Box (also known as “Thom’s Gold Box,” since Amazon insists on calling me by name every chance it gets, even on other people’s web sites, and apparently in an effort to lull me into thinking it’s my good pal: “Welcome, Thom.” “We have recommendations for you, Thom.” “Here’s the page you made, Thom.” “Thom, see what’s New for You.” “Thom, sell your past purchases and earn $654.10.” “We want you to assassinate the prime minister now, Thom.” and so on) simultaneously intrigues, frightens and frustrates me.

First of all, the deals just aren’t that great… I mean, 15% off a frying pan? Come on… I’ve got a fistful of Bed, Bath & Beyond and Linens ‘n Things coupons magneted (yes, I know, but it feels like it should be a real word) to the refrigerator that typically offer me at least 20% off a single item, with new coupons arriving weekly. Yet I keep looking at my Gold Box, thinking that some day, maybe, it really will offer me a widescreen plasma TV for fifty bucks, the tease.

But instead, like a trenchcoated man on the streetcorner offering faux Rolexes, it keeps pushing items from Amazon’s new jewelry store down my throat– “Psst, Thom, want to buy a pair of cultured pearl earrings?” Fully a third of the bargains it offers me every day consists of expensive yet inexplicably really unattractive jewelry.

Then there’s the paranoia-inducing Let’s Make a Deal approach the Gold Box takes once during each session– “You choose the store from which your next offer is going to come”–leaving me convinced that, in the same way I always get in the slow checkout lane, the better deal, the one I would finally have snagged, was in one of the stores I didn’t choose, while I got stuck with the goat behind curtain number two.

And, finally, there’s the alarming kidnapper’s tone it takes: “Choose this offer RIGHT NOW or NEVER SEE YOUR STRAND OF CULTURED PEARLS AGAIN!” “Now you’ve done it, Thom. Because of your carelessness, this wireless access point will soon be wearing concrete boots and swimming with the fishes!” I keep expecting to see, “We know where you live, Thom, and we’re going to come over there and take back the stuff you already bought from us.”

What a bully. I’d leave and find a new relationship with another online merchant but, you know, I’ve got ten new Gold Box offers coming tomorrow.

Here’s what I received for Christmas this year (in no particular order):

• From a co-worker, a boxed set of four pairs of beautiful hand-crafted chopsticks and rests from Pier 1.
• From another colleague, a very attractive red tin (with an almost enamelized appearance) of delicious French “cr
  

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Among the other precious, more positive moments of the last few days while I was visiting my family:

• Waking up Christmas morning to discover a dusting of snow on the ground and having flurries off and on throughout the day, despite an earlier forecast for rain, giving us a semi-white Christmas.
• Walking out on to the deck yesterday morning to discover an overnight frost had left millions of beautiful, delicate, six-pointed crystals large enough to clearly see their structure; I tried taking a couple of closeups with the digital camera (update: I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out; the image available here has been reduced in size by 50 percent and also saved at low resolution–since the original was 1600×1200 and over 800kb in size–yet still shows pretty good detail; the crystals here are on the wooden deck rail, and for the sake of scale the dark spot in the middle of the picture is a nail head.).
• Leaving my sister’s house Saturday evening after another ugly exchange that ended when our mother, on the sidelines, started crying, to find a crisp, clear sky so full of stars and the Milky Way that it made Mom and me both exclaim with wonder and joy (even though she gets to see those incredible night skies all the time).
• Dinner with the cousin closest to me in age–who also was my best friend through childhood–on Saturday evening, and getting a chance to really catch up on each other’s lives for the first time in a long time.
• Teaching my youngest nephew how to do a riff on the little drum set he got for Christmas every time someone said a funny line (I had so much fun with him and his drums that now I think I want to get a set and learn how to play).
• Holding my cousin’s beautiful baby daughter yesterday in church, and seeing that despite the latter’s mixed-race heritage and the overt racism I’ve sometimes seen back in my home town, my family and their friends all love her unconditionally.

Still, it feels so very good to be home (though I do miss Mom a lot, really enjoyed spending time with her, and regret that my sometimes rocky relationship with my sister affects her so deeply).

On Christmas Day, 28 members of the extended family decided to go in together (at $5/couple) and have someone drive to West Virginia to buy lottery tickets for the big Powerball jackpot; someone said that if we won each couple would get about $8 million pre-tax. I’d already spent a fair chunk of my half of Jeff’s and my millions and drafted my resignation letter, in my head, when I found out late last night that our numbers were not the winning ones after all.

So, it’s back to work on Monday. And no early retirement and a life of leisure jetting between our estates in California, Virginia, Edinburgh and a private island somewhere.

Christmas Eve continued to be relatively peaceful and uneventful. The traditional family get-together at my sister’s was surprisingly drama-free and a genuine treat. Afterwards, my oldest nephew–he turns 18 in three weeks–and I stayed up talking until the wee hours of the morning, which was somewhat evocative of the times I would come in when he was very very young, and he would sleep with me and keep me up late asking me question after question: “Why is the sky blue?” “What causes disease?” etc. Now, though, instead of question and answer we just talk pretty honestly about our individual lives–his girlfriend, my boyfriend, our relationships with my sister and his mother, our mutual love for technology and gadgets, politics (he’s a rabid “Young Republican,” his only significant flaw), etc. He’s also discovered this journal, and I suspect we may hear from him. Hey, Matt.

Christmas Day itself was strange and not completely enjoyable, though there were some relatively pleasant or at least innocuous moments throughout. Overall the day was pretty sad, obviously, with my Dad’s absence so clearly felt; in the late afternoon my mom, my sister and I visited the cemetery. Additionally, earlier in the day the sniping at me already had begun, and comments about my perceived lack of filial and fraternal responsibility and duty–vis a vis home visits, family vacations and holidays–peppered the day’s conversations and became the focus of a late-evening discussion.

And today wasn’t much better, unfortunately, resulting finally in my deciding to leave my sister’s house around 4:30 because I just couldn’t stand listening any longer to her constant angry, bitter carping at my brother-in-law, my nephews and me.

The evening back over at my mother’s house has been very pleasant and relaxing, though. After a quiet dinner at home, Mom, my nephew and I visited my dad’s sister and her husband for a bit, and then came back for a peaceful evening together at home.

Yes, I’ve been a bad boy and haven’t posted much lately; it’s been an extremely hectic couple of weeks, with a fair number of evenings away (for example, we saw the extended versions of Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers at the Uptown before seeing The Return of the King Monday night at a theater in Arlington). Work also has been at least as hectic and stressful as usual, if not more so; even though most of the students are away on leave these two weeks, the work hasn’t slowed down at all, and I’ve barely had time to read my email, much less catch up on other blogs or post to my own.

Last night I picked up another rental car–still no new word on the Prius–and this morning I drove down to be with my family for Christmas. A few hours after I left, Jeff flew out to California to spend Christmas with his family; he’ll be back New Years Eve and we’ll at least get to spend that evening and New Years Day together.

The drive was fairly uneventful. There was fairly heavy rain off and on, and I passed one particularly terrible accident on the other side of the road, but traffic was light even in Arlington as I was leaving during what normally would be rush hour.

Once in my home town I stopped to do some very last-minute shopping for my mother. Despite her protestations that she is easy to shop for, my sister and I agree that she is the single most difficult person for whom either of us have to buy gifts. She insists on being surprised, so she will not offer any suggestions or wish lists, and does not feel that gift certificates or other cash-like gifts show sufficient thought. At the same time, over the years she has developed a list of things that are not acceptable: tschotchkes, foods, fragrances or any personal supplies or, with a few exceptions, clothing. Fortunately, I have gotten some of those latter exemptions, since she has mentioned several times that she likes my taste in clothing for her. Still, every year I get very stressed out trying to find something for her.

This year I was surprised to get a phone call a couple of months ago to the effect that we were going to draw names for gifts with one side of the family. This was something I’d suggested again and again over the years to try to make the gift-buying process less painful and Christmas more enjoyable. To my horror, however, I found out that this new process this year was expected to be in addition to rather than instead of the normal gift exchanges. Fortunately, I got my sister’s name, and she truly is easy to buy for.

This afternoon we got together at my sister’s house with her family and my aunt and uncle for what has become a traditional Christmas Eve luncheon of take-out Chinese (the only ethnic food available in my hometown). Tonight the entire family (both my maternal and paternal relatives) come to my sister’s house for munchies and fellowship, and then most of the family will go to a late church service; I still stay home with my youngest nephew instead.

My mother and I will stay over at my sister’s house tonight so that we’ll be ready when my nephews awaken in the morning, and then my sister will fix breakfast for all of us, along with my mother’s parents, her sister and brother-in-law. Christmas dinner will be a fairly new tradition of steaks cooked on the grill (since my sister does so much to put together the Christmas Eve party, we finally convinced her to stop preparing a full Christmas dinner by herself as well, and this is the compromise).

Friday or Saturday my mom wants to go shopping for a headstone for my dad’s gravesite. I’m not sure why she wants to do this over Christmas, given that she’s waited this long; maybe it’s because I’m home and she wants to include me. It’s going to be a very weird Christmas.

Some years ago, I became involved with a straight married man. After the relationship ended, though, and our paths no longer regularly crossed, I never heard from him again, despite my attempts to contact him and even though he had claimed even after we stopped “dating” that he would never be the one to let the friendship component go. I’ve never written here about that experience and hadn’t even spoken or thought about it for several years.

But I recently discovered in my log files some searches for his name, his nickname, and other phrases and information that taken together only he and I would know, so apparently he had discovered this journal and was checking to see whether I’d ever discussed him or our relationship.

I hadn’t–and even now I find myself hesitant to say anything that might identify him too closely, so I’ve not discussed where and when we met, for example. And even after his visit and discovering I hadn’t betrayed his trust or violated his privacy, he still hasn’t contacted me.

Which now, surprisingly, feels much more a relief than a disappointment.

As long as I’m ranting about the contents of today’s mail, let me also note that I’m not surprised that cable rates seem exorbitant (disclaimer: I subscribe to DirecTV rather than cable), as apparently the cable companies need all your money for their direct mail campaign. Today alone I received two separate (and different in copy and design) mailers exhorting me to subscribe to Comcast’s cable services. Did someone there think that if the first one didn’t sway me, the second one in the same day’s post just might? And this is in addition to the one I received yesterday, and the other two or three I received over the past week. I seem to get at least one a week. I mean, even AOL only sent me a single CD during the past several months.

Just got home from work, and found in today’s mail The Citizen, Arlington County’s official quarterly publication. This one is labeled “Fall 2003” and includes a calendar of “Events Just Around the Corner,” the first page of which runs from the Lonesome River Band’s performance on Saturday, November 22 to the Metropolitan Chorus’s “A Season of Joy” on Sunday, December 14. Wonder if I can still get tickets? Similarly, I don’t want to miss the first two “coming” County Board meetings scheduled for November 15 and December 6.

Over at Pixie with a Crash Helmet today, Cornelia asks “What was the best thing your parents ever did for you during Christmas?”

This dovetails with a conversation I had earlier today with a colleague about family idiosyncrasies vis a vis Christmas gifts. In that conversation, though, we were discussing some of the less positive things our parents did for us during Christmas.

First, though, this disclaimer: My parents have always been wonderful, extremely loving and caring, and generous. On the positive side, my parents always listened to what I wanted and acted upon it (within reason), even when they probably thought that my wishes made little sense, seemed outright bizarre, or simply might not have been “typical” (heh, I’m still amazed that as a teenage boy I received a Cabbage Patch doll for my birthday one year, and two stuffed Ewoks for Christmas another; even now my mother happily indulges my elf and fairy fascination, pointing out or purchasing new items for the collection). I’ve already written about the year that I asked for a calculator for Christmas which, due to the high cost of even the simplest such in the mid-70s, would end up being practically my only gift. My parents explained that I wouldn’t get lots of presents that year, I said I understood, and indeed I got the calculator and only a few other small items. And along the lines of Cornelia’s story about Santa’s snowy footprints, my parents would enlist the aid of our grandparents who lived next door to foster the illusion of Santa and the Easter Bunny–doorbells would ring and we’d rush to the door to find Easter baskets but no one around; we’d hear sleighbells and stamping, allegedly coming from the roof; etc.

But what I tend to talk most about–and my sister and I have continued to tease our family about this and similar actions–are the other, unintentionally cruel, less generous actions. For example, one year my sister wanted an Easy-Bake Oven, which she got… but which we were allowed to use once, apparently because my dad’s childhood of poverty had him worried about the amount of electricity consumed by the lightbulb that provided the heat for cooking. Another year I received a racetrack that because of the time-consuming setup and large area of floor it covered was only ever permitted to be set up and used once as well. Similarly there were the Creepy Crawler machines and Spirographs and their ilk that, once the initial supplies were exhausted, were never refilled to be used again.

The other cruelty perpetrated on us, about which my parents later expressed strong regrets, was that when my sister and I awoke on Christmas morning, even at a reasonable hour, we weren’t permitted to go to the living room and see our presents until our grandparents and aunt were telephoned, awake, dressed and had arrived at our house; I realize now it probably was never more than 20 minutes to half an hour, but as a kid every minute was a tortured lifetime. Later, once my sister had children and began holding Christmas at her house, my parents and I would spend the night there–even though they lived a short walk away–and the boys were permitted to go downstairs once they were all awake, with no more waiting until all the relative had arrived before even being allowed to see the tree and gifts.

Finally, though, I want to comment on the deftly positive way in which my parents dealt with the issue of Santa. Santa was never portrayed in our family as a purely benevolent gift-giver–my questions to my parents very early about why some kids, like us, seemed to be favored when many other good kids at church or school received little or nothing from Santa elicited the explanation that Santa was really just a glorified delivery man. Yes, the elves built some of the toys, though Santa purchased most of them from the department stores–after all, we’d seen them there and wondered why the elves would waste their time–but that parents had to pay him for these gifts the same price they’d pay in a retail store. So while Santa did the work of acquiring, wrapping and delivering the goods, Mom and Dad really had bought them for us, which was why the poorer children got less; it wasn’t that they were “naughty” and we “nice,” or that they somehow deserved less, their parents just couldn’t afford as much. In the end, this made the reality of Santa much less critical, disbelief less painful and deceptive, and fit with what the real world already looked like to me.