You can’t fart while hanging upside down, & other reflections on a very Hagedorn/Mazzocco Xmas

My dad has this inversion table that you hang upside down on and that's what he yelled at my mom one day from the other room. Through further research I am able to confirm that the above statement is true. I got probably the best present ever this year. My niece Hayley made me a picture frame with a poem inside it about believing in yourself and she sewed buttons on the handmade paper. The best part was that she wrote me the sweetest letter in 14 year old hand writing with txt abbreviations that told me that she misses me and is sad that I am so far away but that she is happy that I love it in Cali. She said that she wants to move there with me some day and that she looks up to me more than anyone and that she feels like I am the one that understands her the most even in her "disfuncktional times." I am completely biased but I truly believe that I have the three most beautiful nieces in the whole wide world. They are hilarious and a little quirky too which is an added bonus. They get that from Auntie.

I will be in the ATL for approximately 8 days this Christmas. I will put money on the fact that I will go to the mall 6 out of the 8 days while I am here, including the flea market which is the redneck mall extravaganza. Lurlene's Secret here I come. They sell trashy lingerie at the flea market right nextdoor to the Confederate Flag Outlet which gives me a measured amount of dark glee. It's the same warm feeling I get inside when I see a really ugly dog. I am swimming in a sea of consumerism I feel. I just got back from a place where most of the people don't have enough food to eat and all I can think of as I look around me in the mall is that I am not as pretty as all the girls I see on the advertisements, and that I need to stop eating and buy something sparkly to make myself more attractive to men that I don't want in the first place. This is the battle my nieces don't even know they are fighting. Yuck yuck. I have every confidence that they will win. They are fighters. It comes from the Wrestlemania that ensues over such things as borrowing clothes and sharing bathrooms when you have 3 sisters. Last night Ericka had Hayley in a hammerlock over a black cardigan. Needless to say we were late to church.

I compulsively check my myspace when I am here. I don't know if it's because I have been away for a month, which was kind of nice, or because I crave some kind of connection to my peers and friends back home. I have officially cut myself off to once a day. My nieces got a karaoke game for Christmas and I have learned many lyrics to some songs that I never really listened to. Hate Me by Blue October is all about my boyfriend Punk Rock Bill and I's relationship. Right now my brother-in-law is playing a warcraft computer game that has a woman that sounds like a Speak and Spell. Or as I like to call them, Speak Like the Devil. Very crazy. More reflections to come.