Jumbo Jack Christmas dinner - Friday December 25 1998
Christmas made Kim nostalgic for her family. Unfortunately, she went from thinking about her existing family to dreaming about the family we should, according to her schedule, be starting. The most disturbing utterance on this subject was her saying she wants "at least three" kids. We have to talk.
In the morning Kim's mother called, expecting a blow-by-blow report on our opening of presents. So we acted like we were ripping into boxes, sifting through styrofoam popcorn and discovering all the presents we'd already unwrapped several days ago, mustering our best pleasure moans. It was vaguely disgusting behaviour, but I'm completely used to it by now. I'm glad my parents left us alone regarding this dreadful day. I'm so happy it's finally over.
I spent the afternoon precisely as I wanted to, watching teevee and walking (completely by myself) casually down to the beach to watch the waves. It was a wonderful day to be alive on Ocean Beach. People were having picnics on the sand and walking casually along the water's edge with pants rolled up to their knees. A good many surfers were out in the water, shielded from the cold water by protective foam rubber suits. A brown pale of pollution obscuring the La Jolla hills to the north indicated winds from the east blowing contaminated air out of the nearby industrial city of El Cajon.
Along Cape May Street both coming and going, I passed a group of young adults lounging in their front yard around a bottle of Champagne. I wondered if perhaps they had their own exclusive youth culture, if they were Ocean Beach's answer to Big Fun. Will I ever know? Will anyone?
Meanwhile, Kim was napping on the couch. She'd complained of being ill and had taken a powerful sedative.
When Kim awoke, we wandered the deserted streets of Ocean Beach with Sophie "the playdough machine" Schnauzer. A scruffy-looking couple waiting for a bus at the corner of Newport and Cable calmly shared a joint, perfuming the calm air with its scandalously illegal fragrance. Since our refrigerator and cupboard were bare, Kim and I were searching for a grocery store in which to buy food or perhaps a restaurant in which to dine. But nothing was open except the Revco drug store, a gas station, and the Jack in the Box burger joint. Our Christmas dinner ended up being burgers and fries. At least we weren't the only people getting Christmas food to go at the Jack in the Box.
Through the miraculous power of pay-per-view technology, Kim and I watched the movie Titanic. It was the first time I'd ever seen it and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But there were things that still annoyed me about it: the predictable Hollywood qualities of the heroes and villains, the unconvincing accents, and the casual manipulation of my emotions. I didn't want to shed tears about a romance, but how could I help myself? When the movie was over, I was left with a renewed sense of the value of love, but it was tainted with an equally-renewed sense of the selfishness of our species. For her part, Kim loves Titanic. But the last time she saw it, she was all out of love for her then-boyfriend Paul and was wondering if she'd ever experience love as she saw it in this movie. That's everyone's hope, isn't it? But then, at a community radio benefit in Ann Arbor she found me, by myself, sipping vodkatea and looking bored. And aside from the fact that we didn't pursue our instincts aboard an ill-fated steamliner, our romance wasn't really very different from that between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.