brawls
Well, probably not. I'm sure those experiencing house fires or violent crime or tsunami clean-up had worse evenings. But for me, getting nearly thrown out of a bar because of a fight with your sister is as bad as it gets.
I try not to be involved with scenes of any kind in public, especially loud, teary exchanges at joyous occasions. I tried to nip this particular explosion in the bud, but once my sister's avalanche of emotions start rolling, it's impossible to stop the resulting destruction. So somehow an innocuous comment about her being intimidating to shy boys like Richard turned into an all out verbal war at the bar, minutes before midnight, while people were shoving in around us for their champagne toast and screaming out the countdown and blowing their noisemakers.
Of course the fight was about Richard. What else? All manner of related topics, like my selfishness, my lack of regard for family, my immaturity (ha!), etc etc etc. It's hard to remember specifics, and when I do they seem hardly worthy of an all out brawl, but there you go. Our "last new years together ever" - as she continuously reminded me in her melodramatic way -was completely ruined. "Happy fucking New Years," she said, tears streaming down her face, shortly before I stormed off and escaped to the bathroom, then a couch in the corner.
I was content to sit on that damn couch for the rest of the night, miserably watching all manner of hideous couples making out. But no. The queen of confrontation wouldn't let it lie. She eventually sought me out and forced the fight further, refusing to leave my side, demanding that we resolve things and have a good time. Too late for that, I told her, which sent her off into another rage. How can getting angry at me for my incapacity to have a good time after a huge row help the matter? I will never understand her logic. At any rate, there was lots more shouting and crying, to the point where the people around us started to back away and a bouncer came over. Lovely.
Somehow I managed to anger her so much that she stormed off, to my immense relief, and I had another half hour or so of solitude on my sofa, where I sat wishing I was at work. Yeah, I would have rather been at WORK! How pathetic is that! At least then I would have been getting paid, and under the delusion that had I gone out I would have had a good time. The thought that I nearly sacrificed my job to go out was also quite grating. I worked a mini miracle getting the night off. We were all mandated to work, no exceptions, yet somehow I managed to sweet talk my way into a last minute reprieve, with lies of New York. Regardless, I was bound to face shit when I went back the next night, as no one was to know I was given permission to not turn up. And the last thing I needed was all those annoying pricks having an excuse to needle me even further. Grrr.
Anyway... after about half an hour longer on the couch, Sandy returned much calmer, offering to forgive and forget and move on, saying our relationship was worth more than this, blah blah blah. What relationship? Seems pretty shit and deteriorated to me. I didn't say anything, just let her hovel. I did desperately need the loo tho, so I got up and went, with her at my heels. As I came out, she dragged me back to the bar, where Sabrina and her boyfriend were seated. I spent the rest of the night standing behind them in silence, watching the jewellery channel, being harassed by drunk idiots and bartenders for not being happy. I would have called a cab to take me home if only I had money, a phone, and/or my house keys.
At closing time, we were kicked to the curb, where she desperately tried to contact a cab company. Unsurprisingly, all were unavailable. Hmmm didn't see that one coming. We stood outside, freezing our asses off, for half an hour. Meanwhile, Sandy, who had actually been such a good girl all night on the boy front, refraining from even sizing up prospects, sidled up to some guy we vaguely knew from church who is now a local newscaster. We had never actually met the guy, but our mothers know each other. So she introduces herself, explains the connection, and a little light turns on in his creepy eyes and he fixes us with his creepy beady stare, and starts to drunkenly chat us up. Ugh. He went from one to the other in turn, as if unsure which held the highest likelihood of hook-up. Ugh. At one point he actually reached out, grabbed me by the arms, and started rubbing them! "Let me warm you up. You're freezing!" Ugh!!!
I left him with Sandy and returned to Sabrina and her boyfriend. At some point the guy actually had the gall to ask her back to his, and amazingly she accepted, tossing over her apartment keys and leaving the three of us to continue to stand there in the cold waiting for a ride back. Good old Sandy.
No sooner do we get a cab than Sabrina gets a text message from my sister, saying "Help me." We concoct some elaborate scheme to go rescue her, but she calls back to say she's fine after all and doesn't need rescuing. Sabrina hangs out for awhile at the apartment, just in case. She was going to spend the night, but after the whole debacle of an evening, all of us were alarmingly sober, so she ended up driving home. I stayed up for awhile, eating shit food and watching shit TV, and just as I was dozing off, Sandy stumbled in, cursing herself for being such an idiot.
Turns out the creepy guy was really creepy; big shocker there. But even worse, he was a horrible kisser, something Sandy could not forgive. She told me the whole sorry tale, and I couldn't help but laugh, it was so ridiculous. Then he phoned, much to her horror, and she let the answerphone pick up and we giggled as we listened to his desperate saddo message. When he phoned again half an hour later we were laughing uproariously. The battle wounds from earlier in the evening were more or less healed. When we woke up a few hours later, deperately thirsty and headachey, I made a huge breakfast and we watched crap reality television and a documentary on Johnny Depp *swoon* and a romcom. Sisters again. For now.
So that was my new years. Joy. Christmas was just as fun. It started out so nice. At one point, the four of us were actually sat in the living room, playing a board game, reminiscing and hearing tales of our parents' pasts. Wow. But on the day itself, it degenerated into horror, as I shared the joyous (ha!) news of my impending nuptials. Evil grandma took it amazingly well. Aunt and uncle didn't know whether it was good news or bad. Sandy helped clarify later in the kitchen, whispering to my aunt about how horrid it truly was. Grrr. Uncle was sick, and thus grumpier than usual, taking it out on grandma, leaving me to try to smooth everything over. It was just awkward and painful and I ran out of energy to deal. I'll spare you any further detail.
Work has been painful. Like, physically so. I'm exhausted and nearly didn't make it in one day because I couldn't face it. I worked on my day off to make up for the fact that I didn't go in on Christmas Eve. It really took its toll, however, and I was tempted to just take a day off on Wednesday instead. They wouldn't care, or probably even notice. My mother went ballistic, however, and despite my mini tantrum, I ended up going in. Grrrr. Since then, it's been a daily struggle. The only good thing has been I seem to have charmed the female supervisors and become something of a favourite with one of them. She keeps stealing me for her section, and trained me to do small parcel tossing, which might be a promotion of sorts. I was also given a pair of sturdy white grip gloves, which is a definite step up from the disposable plastic ones we've been using all along. The white gloves are reserved for permanent staff, and I'm the only casual employee to have a pair. Woo hoo!
These are the things I get excited about these days, if that's any indication of how pathetic my life is. That and Sims, which I purchased with a mixture of thrill and shame with one of my gift cards. Even that has been a bit of a disappointment. Blah. I need the next month to fly by. I need to get out of here.
