Christmas Resolutions: Read More Essays, Watch Less Reality TV
Last night I read Jonah Weiner’s profile of Jerry Seinfeld in The New York Times Magazine. To digress before I even begin, I also read that really, really long article about the avalanche at Tunnel Creek, which took up an entire section of the paper. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that The New York Times is going to start selling long features on tablets for something like $2.95. All I can see is that they better make them better written, less repetitive, and actually interesting, or the business model will fail.
Which leads me to a third tangent, which has something to do with New Yorker articles being almost unfailingly enjoyable to read, even if they’re about an avalanche at Tunnel Creek. An exception to the rule is Zadie Smith’s latest essay in the magazine, on Joni Mitchell, which was almost jaw droppingly terrible. Am I wrong? I get that Zadie Smith wrote one decent book, but will the passes never end? Or am I just a philistine? I don’t have anyone to talk about this with, so I need to chat for a second about it on the blog, apologies.
But getting back to Jerry Seinfeld. In the article, he came off incredibly endearingly. He has that thing that many artists—Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen come to mind—are born with, which is that he has a compulsion to create almost constantly. It’s a blessing, and a curse—a gift, and an unquenchable, all-consuming hunger. Even though Jerry Seinfeld is worth an estimated $800 million, he still spends the majority of his time doing stand up, perfecting his routine.
“When he can’t tinker, he grows anxious. ‘If I don’t do a set in two weeks, I feel it,’ he said. ‘I read an article a few years ago that said when you practice a sport a lot, you literally become a broadband: the nerve pathway in your brain contains a lot more information. As soon as you stop practicing, the pathway begins shrinking back down. Reading that changed my life. I used to wonder, Why am I doing these sets, getting on a stage? Don’t I know how to do this already? The answer is no. You must keep doing it. The broadband starts to narrow the moment you stop.’”
I don’t think I’ve ever read a better excuse for blogging if you’re a writer.
To go on a fourth tangent before I explain why, the quote reminds me of the documentary on Joan Rivers on Netflix, which is a must watch if you love hilarious mummies.
But back to the blogging. Writing, as I’m sure you’ve heard, is a craft. But seriously, it is. When I first started writing, it was so difficult to even get a sentence out that I would clean my entire house before I sat down at my computer. But now that I blog all day, every day, writing professionally is almost as easy as spitting out nonsense about fucking Christmas characters. The idea part is where the difficulty lies. Am I making sense? I hope no one is reading this.
But what I mean to say is that if you’re a writer, established or not, and you’re not disciplined enough to write by yourself every day, then the only solution to improving your skills is to blog. You start to get an audience, to whom you feel responsible to entertain, which makes you write something every day. And, you have someone to put all of that nervous compulsion. The fear of failure stars to dissipate when you fail so much every day, and still have people giving you feedback.
Which brings me to the fucking point, finally. Jerry Seinfeld’s compulsion gives me an excuse to be blogging on Christmas Eve morning, when everyone else is spending time with their families, or sleeping, or eating, and doing whatever the fuck else you’re supposed to do on a national holiday besides sit in front of your computer.
But I feel like writing about what Caleb and I got each other for Christmas, because it’s funny.
I wrote about this last year, but Christmas hasn’t been great for me since I was roughly 17 years old. Around that time, my family had a “We Need To Talk About Kevin” moment, which caused a huge rift between my mother and her siblings. Christmas, formerly raucous, bursting affairs, transformed into cold, tiny, gray ones. My mother retreated so far into herself that our house became impenetrable to the outside world. On Christmas Eve, rather than having 100 people over for dinner, we had just ourselves—six very angry people, and two adopted Asian baby girls.
Most adults have a traumatic rifts from their childhoods. Their families dissipate. They can’t get home for Christmas. A tree becomes a waste of money. Presents, when bought, are either alcoholic, or last minute purchases from Christmas fairs or speciality food stores.
Christmas as a joy, I’ve recently realized, returns when you start your own family, even if that family just consists of a boyfriend, a dog, a cat, and a bunch of close friends. With two people sharing the burden of expenses, a Christmas tree is affordable. You want to make your loved one happy, so you plan out their presents in advance. Because they make you happy, you feel healthy enough to spread the love around, especially to your formerly bereft family of origin.
This year, I spent weeks getting excited for Christmas. I carefully chose out a present for each of my five siblings, and my parents. I listened carefully when Caleb was speaking to me—not a usual habit—and ascertained, through subtle hints, what he wanted.
I bought him a red Christmas sweater from Barneys, and a gray cashmere wool hat. I bought him a book about black holes. I bought a photograph of us kissing at a wedding, and framed it.
He loved them all, I think.
Caleb also listened to what I wanted for Christmas, but my messages were not so clear. I was so consumed with what to buy other people that all I asked for, from anyone, was running clothes.
The first present Caleb handed me to open was a large box. “You might love this, or you might hate this,” he said.
It was a pair of bubble gum pink Juicy Couture sweatpants. My first temptation was to say, “What do you think this is, 2001?” But I said I absolutely loved them, and went to the bedroom to try them on.
I emerged looking something like a Kardashian, and something like Violet Beauregard at the chocolate factory.
My ass looks so “juicy” in these sweatpants, that if I wear them outside, I am sure to get raped by a construction worker.
The next present I opened was about the size of the box of wine glasses I had my eye on the other day at Williams & Sonoma. I have this thing with wine in that I only enjoy it if it’s served in a big, fancy, crystal glass. Unfortunately for me, I’ve broken every wine glass of the type in our house. “Is this wine glasses?” I asked him.
Caleb disguised all of my presents so that I wouldn’t guess what they were. The Juicy Sweatpants, he put in a box with five magazines, so I would think they were something heavy.
“They’re not wine glasses,” he told me of the relatively light package.
“So I can just drop them on the ground then?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
I threw the box on the ground, and nothing broke. The present inside turned out to be a pair of gold Vince Camuto pumps that I will wear on New Year’s Eve.
Wearing them together with my Juicy Couture sweatpants, I looked like a Kardashian circa 2006.
The next package he handed me slipped right out of my fingers, and onto the ground. Upon impact, something audibly broke inside. “Oh shit,” I said.
It was the Reidel crystal wine glasses, both of them snapped at the stem.
The final present was a pair of running clothes, which both my sister and my mother have already informed me that they bought for me. Before I even found out what they were, I was already making a mental map of how I would return everything, and in what order.
It’s not that I don’t love my presents. It’s just that Caleb, a well intentioned man, did not realize that the final combination of presents—sweatpants, running clothes, broken wine glasses, and sparkly gold heels—he gave me makes me feel like a lazy worthless piece of garbage who doesn’t have a reason to get dressed, like Kim Zolciak from “Real Housewives of Atlanta”, Whitney Whatley from “Big Rich Texas,” and any Kardashian on an airplane. All of the reality tv shows I watched came to life this Christmas, on my very own body.
I’m never watching any of that shit again. Not.
The lesson to be learned is that men should not buy women clothing, unless specifically instructed. And women should not lay around the house in their sweatpants all of the time and watch reality tv, because it gives men the wrong idea. And Christmas, no matter what, is really about the joy of giving. Nothing made me happier than seeing Caleb depart for work this morning wearing his new red sweater, his gray hat, with his book about black holes in his bag for lunchtime reading.
Merry Christmas!
