Merry Xmas!

Merry Merry Christmas! Speaking of stuffed: I have feasted on kimchi, asado (my dad made Argentine-style short ribs on our backyard grill), meatatarian lasagna, broiled mushrooms, tofu stew, scallion pancakes, Italian marzipan cookies from Nino the butcher's wife, almond cookies with powdered sugar and cinnamon from the Greek neighbors across the street (whose eldest son Elias went to jhs with my bro, and whose second son Chris indecently flashed me in the 9th grade)... I kept eating even when I wasn't hungry. It was just because there was food around and I was trying to pack it all in before I return to my austere Boston life of veggie burgers, cabbage, and rice.

Xmas Eve we had our cousins from my dad's side of the family over to our house, and we did Secret Santa. I've been coming down with a cold, so I wasn't much help to my mother, who sent me upstairs to sleep on the heat-activated granite bed (you're literally sleeping on a slab of stone). This morning we ate organic challah (holla!), hardboiled eggs, and (for me) kimchi, and headed off to Xmas Mass at St. Anastasia.

I dread going back to St. Anastasia. It reminds me of my traumatic elementary school days, and of course I come face to face with this every time I walk into that church. In the front row, I saw Mrs. Pryor, my fifth grade math teacher. And then two rows from me, in walked Michael S, this kid I had a crush on on and off from second to sixth grades (of course, he wouldn't give me the time of day). Time has not treated him kindly; all during Mass, as we were belting out the "Gloria" chorus of "Angels We Have Heard on High," I kept staring at his big, SHINY bald spot. I mean, the thing was literally catching the light and glistening back at me like a newly polished bowling ball.

So as I went up to get my Communion wafer (I only eat it once a year, so I forget that it gets stuck to the roof of your mouth, so you spend the whole time kneeling in the pew trying to pry it off with your tongue instead of doing the Hail Mary's), I saw this girl Jen G, who was something of a frenemy during those formidably forgettable years (incidentally, I think she's good friends with Heather from Princeton). I remember she used to put on heavy makeup before heading off to her weekend fencing classes.

Do I ever say hello to these people? Hell's no; it's too mortifying. While part of me wants to say Boo-ya, losers--look at me, I left Queens and you guys all stayed; a larger part of me shrivels back to the four-eyed, brace-faced bookworm I was in grammar school. Like, some fifteen, twenty years later, and I'm still afraid that the kneeler in my pew will make a squelching noise, and one of them will turn around, point at me and say "Patricia farted!" like they did during Assembly (or rather, like I did, this one time when I sneezed and accidentally passed gas at the same time, which took me three months to recover from socially). It's funny how these long-past insecurities tend to rear their ugly heads at any given moment.

Anyway, we came back, ate more leftovers, opened presents, and I continued running around the house with my little nephew, who babbles nonsensical sounds; probably as a result of cognitive dissonance with English, Korean, Konglish, Polish (the housekeeper), and Trinidadian pidgin (the Indian-Caribbean nanny) all being thrown at him. Poor kid.

Tomorrow's the big talk with my sister, moderated by my parents. Wish me luck...