too legit to quit

ARgh.

I had a dream last night that Amaris found my blog and ordered me to cease and desist telling the sordid tale of the incredibly true and heartbreaking story of the demise of our relationship. I was delighted when I woke up to find that it was only a dream. So worry not, dear readers, as the tale will indeed continue in due time.

Even though I've been found out before, and it was much to my surprise, I'm not too worried about it y'all. Besides, it's all true, so it's not like I'm making shit up (I don't need to!!). I guess it's still slanderous but, like I originally said: nobody is innocent and I can't afford to get all litigous.

Because I like to "torcher" my peeps: Putting the "fun" back in dysfunctional...

In honor of the pending Christmas holiday and the fact that I will be spending it NOT with my mom (where icky nasty bad disfunction abounds), and because I am thoroughly convinced that there is good dysfunction and bad dysfunction (the good being the ones with my chosen family - aka my friends - and my work family), I present to you some fond memories from Thanksgiving last.

I annually spend Thanksgiving with my "chosen family" instead of my biological family. This is a little bit selfish, since I have biological family in town and I'd rather be with my friends and where the food is better than going to my mom's or aunt's house for the holiday.

My chosen family pretty much consists of one of my dearest friends, Kara, her partner Patrizio, her mother Ellen, three of her four siblings (Audrey, Liz and the youngest, Mateo, who comes with his wife, Liz ), some Thanksgiving orphans who are also friends, "honorary" members of the family (such as myself, my partner and my daughter) and random other friends who either have nowhere else to go or don't want to go anywhere else. The total guest count is always somewhere in the twenties and everyone contributes to the meal (all are good cooks and none cut corners or buy pre-fab or store-made items), the fixins are predominantly vegetarian (about a third or so of the crowd doesn't eat meat), but with the requisite organically fed and conscientiously raised turkey as the star of the show.

This year, we brought: homemade bloody mary mix (with extra garlic) & the pepper vodka & garnish for said cocktail (garnish consisted of five inch wooden skewers speared with olive, hearts of palm, grape tomato and a spear of celery for stirring), carrot ginger soup (vegetarian, but not vegan), roasted beet salad with goat cheese and toasted pecans and topped with a balsamic reduction, and a dessert that disappears rapidly every year: a chocolate bourbon pecan pie. We also brought two bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau and plenty of games.

While I thoroughly enjoy the genre of family dysfunction, particularly in literature and film, I must admit to feeling partial to a certain flavor of dysfunction in my presence (let's just call it "good dysfunction") and avoiding the sort of dysfunction often found at the functions at my mother's house (we'll call this one "bad dysfunction"). Now, it could just be that these two types of dysfunction are actually one in the same and I have more teflon when I am in the company of someone else's family, as opposed to immersed in the dysfunction of my own family, in which it all feels so personal and harmful.

Regardless, allow me to share with you some of the dysfunctional highlights from this year's event:

• Botox - Outed at Last! Kara's sister, Liz, had previously confessed to her sisters and mother that she is regularly submitting to Botox injections (Liz is the middle child of the five, yet appears to be the oldest) as an attempt to curb her visible aging. Needless to say, the family is somewhat appalled and consider Liz vain. However, neither Mateo nor Liz's friend, Nathaniel, was aware of this indulgence until a somewhat lit Kara cattily outed Liz at the dinner table, just after Liz called her "ugly." Mateo stood, aghast, begging his sister to say it isn't so. After the initial shock from Mateo and Nathaniel subsided, Liz blew it all off in a "so what" sort of manner and poured herself another glass of wine.

• Liz (the sister-in-law, as opposed to Liz the sister) brought her mother, Marge, who was visiting from Alaska. Both Liz and Marge are deathly allergic to cats and Kara sequestered her new kitten, LuLu, and cleaned especially well for their benefit (this was, of course, something of a big deal as it was requested to Kara that the kitten be relocated to another house entirely in order for them to avoid an allergic outbreak). As we were going around the table proclaiming what we were thankful for, mother Ellen, a very political and left-leaning woman, lauds the "takeover of the Democrats" and stands and cheers. The rest of the room erupts in cheers and a raised glass. Except for Marge, who looks mortified at the taboo subject of politics being raised at the Thanksgiving table. She does not applaud. She does not raise her glass. Her sour expression speaks volumes and you can feel her discomfort.
  

• But that's not all! At some point during the giving of thanks, it is mentioned that there is gratitude that Ellen never married any of her less-than-desirable boyfriends of yore. Kara mentions her shock and awe when Ellen's boyfriend at the time bestowed upon her as a gift for her 21st birthday a "1/4 lb. bag of weed." Laughter erupts from the table and, again, poor Marge is horrified. One can practically read the thought bubble over her head proclaiming, "what kind of family have I allowed my precious daughter to marry into?" Shortly after this incident, Marge pulls the oh-look-at-the-time card and exits the festivities without even tasting the dessert. No doubt, she was thoroughly convinced that the frosted brownies were laced with hashish.
  

• After dinner, the remaining guests engaged in a lively game of Celebrity Password. Now, one of the problems of playing games with Kara and her family is that they can get really competetive. It's almost as if they are under the impression that there might be a giant cash prize awaiting the winner - things can get a little intense. And since Celebrity Password is played in teams, we typically do not allow family members or significant others (unless they are newly dating) to be on the same team. Audrey had brought her new beau, Alphonse, who was blending in well so far with this group. However, since Alphonse was not born in the U.S., his knowledge of American pop culture was not quite up to par for playing Celebrity Password. We explained the rules to him and he was in - a good sport, indeed. However, when it was his turn to give clues, he found that he didn't always know the people he was supposed to describe. This was driving the Botoxed Liz, who was on his team, batty and she wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it. Although Alphonse tried to describe several different names ranging from polititians to pop stars to historical figures to sports figures to local celebs, he was only able to get his team to guess one correctly. When his turn to give clues came around again, Liz, clearly in an attempt to offer support, says to Alphonse: "C'Mon, you can get more than one right this time!"

• And there was also the moment during the drumroll part, just before dinner was served, when Patrizio was moving all swiftly and shit all about the kitchen like a whirling dervish or something and he opens up the oven and somehow the shelf was not secure and he goes to pull out Audrey's root vegetable hoo-ha and the shelf got all diagonally topsy turvey and the roasted potatoes that someone else made (maybe Liz?) did a little flippity flip and landed in the root vegetable hoo-ha (hey! you got your root veggies in my potatoes! well you got your potatoes in my root veggies! let's make a candy bar! ok.). Suffice to say, the original chefs of the dishes getting all comboed up were not the least bit pleased about this fusion. Dudes, have another bloody mary, it coulda been SO much worse!
  

• Lastly, there was the tipsy Ellen walking around with her dry vermouth on the rocks while the rest of us were having vodka martinis (the logical follow-up to bloody marys) and talking about how she loooooooooooves dry vermouth and it's been so long since she's enjoyed just a simple dry vermouth on the rocks. Ah the memories, she tells us. In fact, she continues, she used to drink vermouth when she was preggers with Mateo, then she'd go and throw up so it wouldn't hurt him. Mateo's facial response to this was priceless.
  

The Incredibly True and Heartbreaking Tale of my First Hollywood Breakup, Chapter 5

Part A: Ta-Ta exotica

While the film budget for interesting, yet predictable, mainstream film is in the black due to housing the cast and crew in a quasi-luxury hotel and filming overseas, it is time to move the operation to the city of Lost Angels and start dropping some serious cash. Amaris is now the master of her domain in her editing suite situated on a well-known Hollywood production lot. Only she no longer has the aide of local islanders working for the illusion of a salary and a boost to their resume.

Part B: Welcome to Los Angeles, Population: 3 gazillion people and 6 gazillion cars

Amaris must hire two assistants and find a place to live temporarily, until post-production is complete. Moving the production to L.A. means no hotel and no per diem. But, no biggie. Amaris lived in L.A. prior to moving to Portland to be with me and had many connections there - she arranges to live in the guest rooms of several of her friends for one-week intervals and has a three-week span in which she is house-sitting for a friend who is out of town working on a film. Housing arrangements in place, she sets out to hire assistant editors to aide her in keeping her editing room in tip-top shape and all editing operations running smoothly and on schedule. After interviewing several candidates, she is frustrated that none of them meet her expectations. She needs to hire two assistants - stat - and has no prospective candidates.

Quelle horreur!

Part C: Blame Canada

After frenzied efforts and much networking, she is nearer a solution. She learns that her dear friend, A-J, who lives in Portland, is in L.A. on holiday. A-J was, at the time, a working artist/photographer and freelance events promoter. A-J also had experience as an assistant editor. Boom! He was hired. A-J began work immediately and Amaris continued to pursue some leads to obtain an additional assistant. Another editor friend of hers, Kurt, recommended an assistant he'd worked with recently on a film that had shown at the Sundance Film Festival. Her name was Hester and she was, in addition to highly recommended, available and experienced. She aspired to be an editor someday and was eager for this opportunity. Because Amaris was on the verge of falling behind schedule, Hester was hired immediately to help Amaris and A-J on this interesting, yet predictable, mainstream film.

Amaris was flying home to Portland on the weekends, but was spending long hours each weekday to stay on schedule preparing a preliminary cut for the director. Due to the extreme work load and long hours (totally common in the film industry), she and A-J and Hester took all three meals together. Suffice to say, tempers would occasionally flare - usually between A-J and Hester, who quickly grew to dislike one another.

Amaris would typically phone me in the evenings to catch up and ask about life in Portland. She seldom had much to report beyond the status of the film and its proximity to completion. She didn't really have time to go places and do fun things... it was pretty much all work, all the time. When she told me that A-J and Hester weren't getting along, I had to wonder about this Hester chick. EVERYONE gets along with A-J! He's charming, witty, fun to be around and brilliant. What's not to love? Besides, his Dutch accent was somehow simultaneously amusing and dreamy. I liked A-J and liked hanging out with him when he was in Portland. I asked Amaris about Hester.

Part D: Type-3 Cryabetes

"She's alright. She seems, on a personal level, a little emotionally immature and conflicted, but, professionally, I have no complaints - she knows her job and does it well."

"Conflicted?" I ask.

"Well, you know. She just doesn't seem to know what she wants and is sometimes mopey and sometimes really chipper. I'm not sure what to make of it. You're going to laugh at this, but I think she might be a dyke and not know it yet."

I laughed. It seemed like Amaris arrived at this conclusion frequently. "And what makes you think that? Is it the googly-eyed way she looks at you when she comes to you with a question?"

"No, it's nothing concrete that I've observed, just something I sense," she explained.

"Is she cute? Is she smart?" (I knew what Amaris was attracted to).

"She's okay, I guess." To me, this meant that she wasn't cute at all and that Amaris was probably being polite, most likely because she felt sorry for her for whatever reason. Amaris went on, "she's pretty smart, though, and knows a lot about music, which is kinda cool." Amaris worked in an indie record store when she was in high school. She knew a lot about all kinds of music and I learned a ton from her as a result.

"I don't have anything to worry about, do I?" I asked her, teasingly, having no idea whether or not this faceless emo gal might pose a threat.

"Not even," Amaris assured. "I'm totally happy with you and you know that. Besides, she's not even remotely my type."

We hung up the phone and I suddenly found myself very worried.