CHRISTMAS AND THINGS

I haven't really given you an update about Christmas, by the way. Things were good and bad.

Firstly, I went to that dinner party with Laurence. We had a *fabulous* time. He has great friends, and we hit it off really well, and I have promised to have some kind of a party down at Gipsy Hill sometime in the near future and invite them all over.

I brought Laurence cookies, and he asked if we could bring them along to the party, so we did. Then he spent the entire time trying to eat them without anyone notice. I guess he didn't realize that I'd probably make *good* cookies.

One of his friends has a psychotic downstairs neighbor (the one who was hosting the party, actually) and so we swapped freakish living situation stories. And it turns out that when I've had a glass and a half of champagne, I start speaking with a British accent. It's not an intentional thing, it's just like...well, if I order a sandwich with tomatoes over here, if I say to-may-to, at least 50% of the time I have to repeat myself and eventually end up saying to-mah-to because they know what I'm talking about. It's sort of polite or something. So I'm in the habit of substituting words here and there to make my speech more understandable, but add alcohol to the mix, and I'm just doing it indiscriminately. I'm conversing with someone about something that happened in their "baaahth", and the next thing you know, I'm saying "baaahth" right along with them. I noticed it three or four times after the fact. I have no idea if they thought I was a freak or what.

At one point in the evening, we were talking about how little kids can't tell a joke. You know how that is--their jokes always go something like this: "There's this guy, and he has a train. And he says, no, no, the schedule--wait, I forgot, there's also this man, and he's got a parrot. And he's, no, wait, the parrot is blue. And then the guy with the train--no, wait, I mean, he used to have a car, but he wants to trade it for a train, so he goes to see the guy with a monkey--oh, wait, I forgot, there's also a monkey...."

So after talking about this, we got on the topic of the recent appearance of Eddie Izzard (who I love) on Jonathan Ross's Friday evening talk show. And I was trying to tell them about this line that Jonathan Ross had said in his opening dialogue, which went something like this: "Well, it's Christmas, the time of year when you fight over what to put on top of the Christmas tree. It's basically the same as trying to figure out whether to watch me or Graham Norton [a rival, gay, talk show host] on Friday night--you either go with the fairy or the star."

So I'm trying to tell this joke, and I end up saying, "So, like, you either go with the fag or the--wait, I mean, the angel--no, wait, I mean, er...."

This would fit under the "I am never drinking again" heading.

Anyway, the party was great fun. I ended up calling Laurence a day or two later and telling him that I'd like to meet up with him and give him more cookies, since he'd had to share the last batch. It turned out that he was just about to call me, to ask if I'd bake him more cookies if he bought the ingredients, because he was going to visit some in-law types for Christmas and wanted to bring them something. So we got together, wrapped presents, ate pizza, watched DVDs, and basically had a really wonderful evening. I adore him.

Then Christmas Eve came, and by now PMS had gone into overdrive. I met up with Matthew and dropped off his presents. He gave me a couple of presents as well, which were really, really nice. I hadn't expected him to get me anything, and I was really surprised. They were sweet and thoughtful.

By Christmas Day, I was a sobbing wreck. I am horrified now, looking back on it. I called up Matthew, and ended up arguing with him, and it was ENTIRELY MY FAULT. I'm serious, it was entirely my fault. Yes, yes, I know, he's done crappy things a lot. Whatever. This was bad of me.

The day after Christmas, I was back to normal again.

Here's too much information for you: oral contraceptives really balance things out hormonally. When I'm taking them, PMS all but disappears. But I stopped taking them quite some time back, because I can't afford to take them.

Oh, well. On the bright side, I probably wouldn't have snapped at my roommate otherwise, and honestly, I think it was the right move. I think he'll stop hitting on me now.

He'd better.

The other bright side is that in this country, you don't have to worry about important holidays like Christmas interfering with your full day of Nazi History Programing on television! No, it would take more than Christmas to get rid of grainy black-and-white films of bombers and speeches filling the airwaves!