The Twelve Days of a Guy Friend Christmas: Day 8: A Lovely Mismatch

Day 8, the tag: To Bigfoot.

(No, I don't have radically disproportionate feet. They're a size 8/8.5 depending on the shoe, and I'm 5'8".)

Before I go on, can I just say how wonderfully humorous it is that my phone keeps autocorrecting "Irish" to "Krishna?" That sort of rules.

But I digress.

As one might guess, The Offbeat Drummer doesn't *always* match clothes-wise. In fact, the LESS I match, the happier I am. Lord knows I try, and I'm not colorblind, but I usually see no value in compiling an outfit where everything is perfectly coordinated. In that respect, yes, I'll admit to a bit of zaniness and take cues from my could-give-a-shit fabulous rock star friends. About as far as I'll go is, like for the last time I went out with Guy Friend, I matched my handbag with my belt with my boots, which left me panic-stricken and questioning my sanity (I mean, more so than usual.). It's not unlike me to walk out the door in color combinations that resemble something coughed up by someone who's had too much of Willy Wonka.

Guy's gift today literally SCREAMS "Annie." 2 pairs of very funky socks. They're awesome. I adore them. So excited when I opened them late last night (yes, I cheated again on EST), I had to text pictures of them to my friends, who uniformly agreed how incredibly awesome they are. I haven't said anything to Guy about them yet. I feel as if he'll view my genuine enthusiasm and gratefulness as feigned, which it's truly not. It's like how big a hole for a well have I dug myself into, and is Guy willing to throw me a rope and pull me back up to ground level by his side, or am I best left in solitude to ponder my wrongdoing? He's not typically a grudge-holder, and is guilty of the crime of douchebaggery himself, but dare I say, I was way more douchey.

Kate says I put too much stock into words, because I'm a writer, and that *I* mean what I say, whereas Guy Friend doesn't know *how* to use words to convey feelings, but I should, rather, look at his actions and beyond his insecurities to accurately frame a picture of how Guy feels. I wish it were that simple, but Guy is kind of Captain of the Conflicting Cruise liner with the helm aimed right at me, the Big, Frightening, Impenetrable Iceberg.  Kate, on the other hand, is never wrong, and I know how Kate sees the situation between Guy and myself.  I know how I would interpret Guy's actions, but then what if I'm wrong? I'm usually wrong. I'm probably wrong. Right?

I can be as randomly moody as Guy, which creates (needless) tension in our friendship. He would probably describe himself as very even keeled and patient, which is true to a certain extent, but he is easily agitated. Late New Year's Eve night, I was still in the middle of ripping him a new one, ignoring his random attempt to make up earlier in the day. In any event, he never did call me on New Year's Day, so I assume he's still stewing over either our argument a couple days ago or my mean texts, or just generally didn't want to deal with me, any of which case I'd totally understand. I knew he had to work yesterday, I believe, but otherwise probably had yet more family to contend with for the rest of the day.

New Year's Day was....colorful. We had my aunt & uncle over (my dad's older brother and his wife) and my brother over for dinner. My nephew passed, as he was really sick at home. Stories about the extended Miklasz clan and the generations who have preceded, are, to us younger folk, hysterical.

I never heard back from Guy after I sent him this text, minus my parenthetical back stories:

"It sucks that I'm not even sure who's mad at whom between us at this point, because you missed my dad's family, who went from the stripper aunt (My great-aunt Louise was an "exotic dancer" who married my big band clarinetist, relatively well known uncle Wally, my Nana's younger brother, who's real last name was Marynowski, but he used the less-Polish stage name of Moran. The family only found out she was a stripper after my aunt's mother passed a club that had, in front of it, a giant cardboard cutout of my great-aunt, as she was a featured performer and I can't remember what my uncle said her stage name was), to my uncle being stationed at Roswell in the 50's & alien conspiracy theories (Uncle Jerry is very...vague...about what he saw in Roswell, but claims the aliens were long gone by the time he was in service, which we all wonder about), to the guys in my family fucking around with people's prosthetic limbs (Which would get tossed around! Have they no shame?) to stealing people's dentures (Rumor has it one cousin stole another's dentures and made her sell lemonade on the corner to make the bedentured cousin earn back her teeth.)."

Yes, my dad's side of the family is pretty fuck nuts, which I love, but very artistic & musically gifted, and in general terms, quite literally everyone was perpetually fueled by booze, though the consensus is that the clan was, as a whole, a gaggle of happy drunks, and people still shake their heads and wonder how *I* could have ever developed a drinking problem and wound up a little fuck nuts myself. I can't imagine, with DNA such as mine. Am I ashamed of the stock from which I was conceived? Hardly. The law of averages would seem to indicate that I'd fit right in with the rest of the fuck nuts.

Tonight is dinner and merriment post-holidays with SuperJuls, and not a moment too soon!  I'd wear my Super Funky socks, but I'm sort of rocking the going-to-Houlihans-look in Earth-toned bland.

I'm trying to teach a friend how to make a mix CD for someone. It's harder to explain and compile than you might think. You have to have an amassed library inside your own head of lyrics-known-by-heart regardless of the flow of melodic content. It's all about what you're trying to say, not how you say it. Guy's always prided me as a relative savant at this task, and I'm happy to make suggestions to my friends when they're on their own, but I guess it's a skill I take for granted. I, of course, perfected my ability at throwing together a mix under the helm of Best Male Friend.