My Own Confusion

“People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.” Season four, The Summer Man

“Is that what you want, or is that what people expect of you?” Season four, The Good News

“Why does everybody need to talk about everything?” Season four, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

“I keep going to a lot of places and ending up somewhere I’ve already been.” Season three, Out of Town

“Change is neither good or bad, it simply is.” Season three, Love Among the Ruins

“I hate to break it to you, but there is no big lie, there is no system, the universe is indifferent.” Season one, The Hobo Code

“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.” Season three, Love Among the Ruins

“It wasn’t a lie, it was ineptitude with insufficient cover.” Season one, Marriage of Figaro 

“Why does everybody need to talk about everything?” Season four, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

“We’re flawed because we want so much more. We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what he had.” Season four, The Summer Man

“This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.” Season two, New Girl

“People want to be told what to do so badly that they’ll listen to anyone.” Season one, Babylon

“You want some respect? Go out and get it for yourself.” Season four, The Summer Man

” … Nostalgia: it’s delicate, but potent … In Greek, ‘nostalgia’ literally means ‘the pain from an old wound.’ It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards … it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels — around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.” Season one, The Wheel

“Mourning is just extended self-pity.” Season one, Babylon

Professor Hirsch, feedback on Seclusion (Draft 2 of Memoir)

My skin was crawling: an epidermal manifestation of my depression. I had lost my boyfriend, job, and apartment in the same month. I had become so pathetic that I could no longer stand to exist in my own skin.  The shattered fragments of my soul were staging a revolt in a desperate attempt to escape the hollow shell of my former self. I was molting. Half-baked explanations ran through my head during squirmy, sleepless nights.  

Actually, it was lice.

A Google search for “skin crawling” led me to the bathroom mirror to examine my head. The tiny white nodules dotting my scalp confirmed the WebMD diagnosis. My greatest childhood fear had come true. When I was in first grade, there was an outbreak* at school and someone told me that if you got lice, the only way to get rid of them was to shave your head. At age seven, a shaved head seemed a fate worse than death. At age 23, the prognosis was equally panic inducing.

The look on the doctor’s face as she combed through my hair with a tongue depressor was none too encouraging. “Oh, wow. Yep. Look at them all. Oh, yes. Definitely lice.” Without an adequate visual of my scalp, I was left at the mercy of my painfully vivid imagination. I envisioned a veritable colony of critters setting up camp on my head, multiplying at an exponential rate. The doctor sent me off to the pharmacy with a prescription for some shampoo and special fine-toothed metal combs, which I purchased in abject humiliation.

I spent the rest of the day doing damage control. I shampooed and combed through my hair, wishing a hasty death to the pests and their multitudinous spawn. I threw every item of clothing I had worn in the last month and all of my bedding in the wash and dried them on the hottest setting. Then I sealed all of my bedding in airtight bags, where I supposed I would leave them maybe forever. I put my combs, sunglasses, jewelry, and hairclips in the dishwasher and ran it on high. After eight hours of frantic cleaning, my despair had not diminished in the slightest. I had yet to comb a single live or dead bug out of my hair, and thus presumed they must be expertly hiding.

I did not just have lice, you see. No. I had a mutated strain of super lice. They were very sneaky critters. They had burrowed into the depths of my mattress, where they were lying in wait to attack after I dozed off. They were wedged into the crevices of the floorboards. They were hibernating in my pillows. They had evolved to survive the extreme temperatures of my shower, dryer, and dishwasher. The lice were not just on my head; they had invaded my mind.

At 4am, after nearly five hours of scraping my scalp with the metal-teethed comb, I broke down and called my mother, sobbing. I begged her to drive the three hours from New Jersey to Baltimore to help me comb my hair – right now. I told her I wouldn’t make it to the morning without killing myself. It was maddening. I was blindly combing for microscopic bugs in a mess of long dark hair. I had no idea for what I was even looking. Nothing was turning up in the comb except bits of flesh and blood from my now raw scalp. I needed help. I needed sanity. I needed Google.

As it turns out, there are a number of services devoted to my very predicament - brilliant business models that profit from the temporary insanity that accompanies bodily invasions. These businesses thrive on the kind of absence of rationality that leads a person to justify shelling out upwards of five hundred dollars for a personal delousing. One company started by two mothers in Connecticut had a branch that serviced Baltimore. I was shocked when one of them sweetly answered the phone at 4:30 in the morning. She had the most comforting voice I had ever heard. It was going to be all right, she assured me.  Of course, I couldn’t do it alone - that’s why they were there. It happens all the time. Someone would be at the house tomorrow morning to make it all go away. In a fleeting lapse of relief, I fell asleep.

In the morning, I awaited the arrival of my savior. She opened a suitcase of potions, towels, bags, combs, and other lice-removing tools in my room, where we set up shop. You have not hit bottom until you are exuberant at the prospect of a stranger picking insects and eggs out of your hair. I was exuberant. First, she shampooed my hair with a special botanical blend designed by one of the founders, who was a Yale educated doctor. For the next four hours, she methodically combed through my hair under a microscope.  She found five dead lice and dozens of other nits (eggs). Finally she doused my hair in olive oil, which she assured me would drown a lurking louse.

I purchased an additional forty dollars worth of special shampoo and tea-tree oil linen spray. Apparently, lice dislike the smell of tea-tree oil. I imagined a legion of lice scurrying to my bedroom door, taking a whiff, and rolling out. Tea tree oil equaled lice kryptonite in my poor, deluded mind. I decided I would spray it on every textile I encountered for the rest of my life. I was instructed to use the shampoo twice a day and sleep with my hair drenched in olive oil covered by a plastic bag for a week. After she left, I sprayed the tea-tree oil on my mattress, new pillows, desk chair, couches, car seats, and all over the air throughout my house. I was satisfied that I had finally defeated the lice… for about an hour.

I was unconvinced. These were super lice, after all. They might have developed a taste for tea tree oil after all these years. They had been trained to swim through the olive oil and one particularly resilient louse could latch onto a single strand of dry hair where she would lay a thousand fresh sticky nits. I must keep combing. I combed until dawn every night. I couldn’t stop. Just when I thought I had scraped every square millimeter of my scalp, the comb would turn up dozens of microscopic white beads. More nits! Dozens of nits – no, hundreds. Perhaps the louse was hiding in my ear and had scuttled out to dump a fresh batch of eggs just now. I called Connecticut.

“They’re still here. She didn’t get them all. I need someone to come back”, I begged. “Dear”, she said soothingly, “that’s impossible. If you’re using the oil and shampoo, there’s no way they are still there.” I told her the comb was turning up hundreds of new nits.  At this point, she must have sensed that things were getting a little too Mommy Dearest down here. I was dangerously close to going off the deep end, if I hadn’t taken the plunge already. She agreed to send someone for a check-up the following day and, graciously, waived the fee this time.

A second visit from the lice lady confirmed that I was free from parasites. I tried to enjoy the news, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe she was new or had missed that sneaky bugger hiding in my ear canal. 

I decided it was time to seek therapy.

For three weeks, I had barely left the house. I had shamed myself into seclusion like a leper. I was a menace to society, spreading a parasitic plague to everyone I encountered. Furthermore, it seemed to me that everyone had lice. I couldn’t look anyone in the eyes – I was too busy frantically examining everyone’s hairline, looking for those telltale white seeds. For a long while, I shunned anyone with dandruff, crumbs, or fuzz in their hair, believing they had super lice, too, which, of course, had learned to jump from scalp to scalp. Yes, it was time to seek professional help.

It was the first time I had ever gone to a therapist. She was a sweet, middle-aged woman with her hair in a loose, grey bun. She nodded sympathetically from the opposite couch as I told my tale of woe. When I had finished, she was clairvoyant: see a dermatologist, then throw the combs away.

As it turns out, weeks of shampooing, scraping, drenching my scalp in oil, and then washing it out with Dawn dish detergent had really done a number on my hair follicles.  In defense of the barrage of products and physical abrasion, my scalp starting producing excess sebum – tiny white balls of oil and fat, which look remarkably like nits.

A conversation in the Twittersphere today reminded me of this poem/monologue. It was an optional monologue for The Vagina Monologues for awhile, but Ensler later moved to the collection “I am an Emotional Creature: the Secret Life of Girls around the World.”

My short skirt is not an invitation
a provocation
an indication
that I want it
or give it
or that I hook.

My short skirt
is not begging for it
it does not want you
to rip it off me
or pull it down.

My short skirt
is not a legal reason
for raping me
although it has been before
it will not hold up
in the new court.

My short skirt, believe it or not
has nothing to do with you.

My short skirt
is about discovering
the power of my lower calves
about cool autumn air traveling
up my inner thighs
about allowing everything I see
or pass or feel to live inside.

My short skirt is not proof
that I am stupid
or undecided
or a malleable little girl.

My short skirt is my defiance
I will not let you make me afraid
My short skirt is not showing off
this is who I am
before you made me cover it
or tone it down.
Get used to it.

My short skirt is happiness
I can feel myself on the ground.
I am here. I am hot.

My short skirt is a liberation
flag in the women’s army
I declare these streets, any streets
my vagina’s country.

My short skirt
is turquoise water
with swimming colored fish
a summer festival
in the starry dark
a bird calling
a train arriving in a foreign town
my short skirt is a wild spin
a full breath
a tango dip
my short skirt is
initiation
appreciation
excitation.

But mainly my short skirt
and everything under it
is Mine.
Mine.
Mine.

Crystal (Black Girl) and Jess (White Girl) tackle issues of modern feminism

Crystal Says…

I’ve grown to really dislike talking about my non-existent love life.  Every time I’m asked about why I’m single, I feel like I’m a patient at some clinic, explaining my symptoms to a well-meaning but subpar physician who will inevitably diagnose me incorrectly.  But it’s far too seldom that I have the ear of an intelligent, attractive and generally reasonable black man.  So when the opportunity for conversation arose at my girl’s party, I made the time to catch up with an old friend in between tequila shots, “dougies” and sambas.

“You are really intimidating,” says the man who stands well above 6ft with dreads that fall below his broad shoulders.  If I were a patient, by now I’d have to believe the diagnosis.  It’s the same one I’ve received from family, friends, and coworkers of both sexes from nearly every race.  This time, rather than defend myself or deny it, I asked what I should do. “Nothing.  There’s nothing you can do.  You’re smart. Driven. Attractive.  Accomplished. Have an incredible personality. Would make your man a better person. You can’t do anything about it.”

It was really hard for me not to begin doing the things that have come to characterize the “angry black woman” construct.  Refraining from any hand motions, neck & eye rolls, I continued to press, but to no avail.  At one point, my friend pointed out the women at the party who did not seem intimidating.  Among the “easy to approach” women were: Asians (of many varieties), light skinned Black women, racially ambiguous women, news reporters, masters students, Center for Disease Control advisers, soon-to-be Google employees, skinny girls, thick girls, bi and trilingual girls, chicks in pants, chicks in sparkly dresses, dancing women and wallflowers.  Suffice it to say, this exercise did little to clarify what makes a woman unapproachable, other than, perhaps, a dark skin complexion?  Even then, the less politically correct description that more than likely expresses the sentiment better than “intimidating” is “too masculine”,  an age-old criticism of Black, particularly dark skinned women.

One of the most candid accounts of Black women’s undesirable posterior dates back to Jefferson’s 1781 Notes on the State of Virginia where he rants: “Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of color in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony which reigns in the countenances that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry form, their own judgment in favor of the whites, declared by their preference for them, as uniformly as is the preference of an orangutan for the black women over those of his own species.” Barring the glaringly obvious irony in Jefferson’s public commentary on Black women and private affair with one, I’m unimpressed by how far society has come in the past two centuries with regard to social constructions of femininity that have long excluded us.  Jefferson points to criticisms of Black women that are still popular today, though less acceptable to say.  While lightening creams are finally taboo here in the U.S, it pains me to hear my friends comment about trying to hide from the sun in the summer.  I’m disgusted by my students’ complexes about complexion, and turned off by a billion dollar Black hair industry that largely thrives on a deep-rooted identity complex.   

In the pilot episode of the YouTube sensation, Awkward Black Girl,  Jay’s boyfriend D dumps her for the second time because of her short, natural hair cut, “It’s just that, I feel gay. No homo.”  In a later episode, a male coworker holds the door open for the females but jokingly begins to shut it on Jay, remarking “Sike, you’re a lady… almost.”  The series is popular because its main character keeps it real and is relatable to so many of us, which makes scenes like those even more sadly amusing.  There’s nothing I can do about the fact that I can’t blush, and there’s not much I’m willing to do to acquire a ponytail that wiggles while I talk.  All of the other things that would make an “intimidating” girl less scary, I already do. Dance like a fool at parties? Check. Watch ridiculously “girly” bad television? Triple check. Say “like” in between words too much? Unfortunately, check. Misplace all but my attached head? Yup, do that too.  Yet, I’m still more intimidating than the trilingual woman who works at the Mecca of public health? Please.  And I only stand to get more “intimidating” with time which does not bode well for my future love life either.

If a college educated Black man who stands 6ft tall and reps a manly-man fraternity finds me intimidating, I’m probably screwed.  At least “intimidating” white women can date Black men for some solace?  As for me, I’m just going to ask any future love doctors of mine to replace the word intimidating with descriptors that are more telling.  If I’m abrasive, say that so I can improve.  But if I seem “too good” or “too smart” say that.  At least then it’s someone else’s problem and not an indictment on me.

Jess Says…

Bitch. Cunt. Whore. Slut. 

Our society has lots of uncreative, unintelligent, degrading words designed to tear women down. Men and women alike are guilty of this rhetoric, including myself. She won’t sleep with you? Cunt. She slept with you? Slut. She’s beautiful! Yea, but I heard she’s a bitch. She nailed that guy you’ve been eyeing? Whore. Whether the actual intention is to say something nasty, or it’s just a projection of one’s own insecurities, these words are damaging.  Don’t believe me? One in three women will be sexually abused in her lifetime, which includes your sisters, best friends, mothers, girlfriends, and daughters. “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Well said, Mr. Kipling.

I’m retiring a new word to the lexicon of verbal subjugation: intimidating.

I’ve been hearing this word a lot lately regarding my perpetual singleness. “Well, you’re intimidating,” say my best friends, ex-boyfriends, roommate, and, most painfully, my father. It’s uttered with the same matter-of-factness that I imagine someone might gently remind me, “Well, you have three heads.”

If you consult the nearest thesaurus, you’ll find some helpful synonyms for intimidating. They include, but are not limited to: 

 frightening, appalling, dismaying, scary, alarming, browbeating, daunting, terrifying.

You can imagine why I, standing at all of 5’3” with the exactly prescribed number of extremities and digits, might be confused by this terminology. Yet, for about ten years now, this is the word most commonly used to explain my D.O.A. dating life. 

Through years of pressing, “What do you mean?” when people apply that statement to me and other women I know, I’ve pieced together a modern definition of the term. Intimidating may now be used as a catch-all to describe women who are one or more of the following: 

smart, strong, willful, opinionated, gorgeous, determined, independent, powerful, beautiful, wealthy, a go-getter, outgoing, sexy, adventurous, outspoken, hot, successful, and/or selective. 

Essentially, the newest social construct of this word encapsulates all the hypocrisy that surrounds modern feminism. We tell young girls and women to work hard for and be proud of all these qualities, then paint them as flaws when it comes time for them to step into the still traditional gender roles of dating or marriage. Of course we want women to be CEOs and entrepreneurs, but who will watch the children? Who will cook dinner and clean the house? While women have risen to the challenge of fulfilling all their vast academic, social, and economic potential, men have yet to collectively step up to share the domestic burdens, nor or they entirely comfortable with relinquishing their economic control in a relationship. So, it should come as no surprise that when I paid for dinner two weeks ago on a date, he said he felt emasculated and never asked me out again. Another man’s profile listed “power” as a turn-off. When I questioned him about it, he responded by telling me I was fat.

Calling women intimidating is to take every wonderful quality for which they have worked or with which they were born, and shroud it in negativity. After maybe the hundredth time I heard it - and I shudder to admit this - I started contemplating how I might make myself less “scary.” Perhaps, I could refrain from using those “SAT words.” I should limit my diatribes on the shortcomings of education policy and instead talk about, like, shoes or Kim Kardashian. Maybe, I should just drink a little more and talk a little less. I should stop talking real-estate and start talking throw-pillows. I should giggle enthusiastically (whether it’s funny or not). I should wear shorter skirts and lower shirts.

Oh, hell no.

Any man who is insurmountably frightened or put-off by a woman’s best assets does not deserve her. And since she probably has a job, she can reasonably afford to scare-off as many potential suitors as necessary until she finds the one who thinks she is not intimidating, but incredible. 

Perhaps my father’s explanation was the most clairvoyant: “You’re not like, ‘Fuck me and give me babies!’” No. No, I am not. 

Rodney’s Response…

Jess, I think that you hit the nail right on the proverbial head when you say that “men have yet to collectively step up to share the domestic burdens, nor are they entirely comfortable with relinquishing their economic control in a relationship.” And for this very reason, the combination of say, opinionated, willful, independent, powerful, and strong, translates to some men to some of the terms that are synonymous with “intimidating”— frightening, scary, alarming, browbeating, daunting, and terrifying.

I believe that a lot this has to do with the idea that “traditional” gender roles of dating or marriage have so little to do with forming equitable partnerships—and unfortunately, so many of my peers haven’t been reared or socialized to understand that if you’re pursuing an equitable partnership in your relationship, traits like intelligence, ambition, and determination are ideal. 

Of course, the opposite is also true: if men are telling you that you are too “intimidating,” to me it suggests that these men don’t possess characteristics of strength, intelligence, etc. that you might be looking for in a partner.  As you note, you’re not the “fuck me and give me babies”-type, and after all, do you want to partner with someone who is attracted to the “fuck me and give me babies”-type?

So, you’re absolutely right that it’s incumbent upon the male to see “incredible” where another might see “intimidating.”

As a society, however, we need to bring men up to understand that these “intimidating” characteristics are not “scary” but are to be valued. We’ve done a much better job of empowering women to break traditional gender roles, but haven’t been nearly as successful with doing the same with men. Then again, I’m not so sure we’ve really given it the attention required. It’s visible in an array of male-female interactions, from romantic relationships to in the workplace.

Crystal’s framing of the college educated, black manly-man can be interrogated a bit further—the “manly-man” is a traditional gender concept, in fact, it is worse, as it is a hyper-masculinized portrayal of manhood, and it has to be deconstructed.  But that’s something that has to be done on a societal level.  I’m not so sure that an “intimidating” white woman can date a black man for some solace. I’m not sure that I agree with that—but I agree whole-heartedly with her point that society has progressed so little the past two centuries with regard to a definition of femininity that includes black women. 

Problem: Lately, my creative juices have not been flowing as fast and furiously as I would like. I’ve been whining about lack of creative outlets and time, but the crux of the matter is that I prioritize work tasks, which are frequently anti-creative. 

Solution: Every day, I will spend a minimum of one hour cultivating my creativity. I think an hour is a long enough time to do something productive, but a short enough time that I’ll be able to stick to it.

Creativity Cultivation

I love this list of ways to harness creativity. I’m going to concentrate on suggestions #1, #2, #7, and #8, because they’re most aligned with my personal creative goals.

1. Keep Learning: Classes/Lessons/Conferences/Talks/Panels

2. Be Insatiably Inquisitive: I think this ties in with the activities of #1, with an added focus on questioning/analyzing. 

4. Surround Yourself with Creative Works: Museums/Plays/Concerts/Hack Days

7. Seek out Natural Beauty: Explore/Hike/Wander/Get Lost

8. Unplug regularly: Phone and internet off for creative hour, unless required for the activity (i.e. online class)

Creative Works

In addition to bulking up those neural connections through creative curation, I may also use The Creative Hour to actually work on creative projects. Some suggestions:

- Write an essay/scene/song/story

- Rehearse a play/scene/skit/song

- Take a series of photos

- Draw, paint, or make a craft. 

This may seem like an exhaustive set of guidelines, but I do my best thinking through writing, and mapping out these details is my way of holding myself accountable.

I would love to say that I’ll blog daily about my Creative Hour, but I don’t want to commit to the time of logging everything.  I can reasonably commit to a weekly recap. 

I encourage you to take on The Creative Hour challenge with me in 2012. Everyone is creative. 

I just came from the mall. Fellow Americans, we need to talk about this.

I usually groan or cluck dismissively when people ask me what I want for Christmas, because I really dislike this grossly distorted ritualistic trading of stuff we call “gift-giving.”  I would estimate that somewhere in the realm of 90 percent of these so-called gifts are merely economic exchanges.  I’m not saying this to be a grinch, but because I think, as a society, we need to reconsider the definition of the word “gift.” 

What do I want for Christmas?  

I want to spend time with you.  I want to celebrate your presence in and influence on my life.  I want to laugh with you.  I want to press you closely and be filled with warmth by your familiar scent, touch, and love. I want to be silly with you. I want to remember with you. I want to learn something new with you. I want to have an adventure with you. I want a lovely note that reveals just how well you know me. I want a better understanding of the delicately woven strands in the fabric of your soul.

What? Oh. An Amazon.com wishlist? With hyperlinks… yes, of course. 

The sad truth of the matter is that what I really want for Christmas, or my birthday, are not socially acceptable “gifts” because they don’t much help the economy.  And nothing says “love” like retail and two day delivery.

In my family, the adults (as defined by possession of a college diploma) participate in a Secret Santa exchange every year at Christmas. We alternate between donating to charity and buying gifts every other year. Personally, I’d like to skip the gift years altogether and just stick to the charities.  None of us really need any of the “stuff” on our lists. Years ago, the list-making used to be the best part of the whole affair. Some memorable highlights include: my uncle surgically inserting every list item into fortune cookies, my aunt writing her list on a golden ticket and wrapping it up in a homemade label with a bar of chocolate, clever poems and songs, my aunt’s “Mission Impossible” presentation, and my Mom’s puzzle (assembled to reveal a list). Every year, everyone tried to top each other, and it was my favorite part of the holidays. Lately, because people have more kids, longer hours, and generally less time, we’ve downgraded the ordeal into a list of hyperlinks, or, in the case of my uncle, just one hyperlink to his favorite socks. It’s not the same.

Most of my favorite gifts did not come from a store. In fact, some of them were probably not considered “gifts” by the givers, and a few of them have come from strangers.

At Homecoming this year, I had the opportunity to meet with a former professor, who had agreed to write me a letter of recommendation.  It also happened to be my birthday, so after we sat down, he put his hands behind his back and told me to pick one. I chose the empty hand, but he gave me the present anyway: a little bauble from a vending machine. It was a “crystal” pendant on a black necklace. Since it was a bit small, I tied it to my wrist. After a few months of showering, yoga, and general life-living, it’s been reduced to a ratty piece of black string. I love it. Every time I glance at my wrist, I remember that someone believes in me, and that is a gift. 

When I was younger, Pop and Grandma took us three oldest grandchildren into New York City to go to dinner and see a Broadway show every year for our Christmas gift. It was a time-honored tradition and these trips are surely the early roots of my love and adoration for the theatre and all things Manhattan.  The true gifts here, though, were the car-rides.  We three climbed onto the smooth leather seats in the back of Pop’s car and immediately checked the seat pockets. Pop always had three or four varieties of Nips hard candies tucked amongst the maps. The sweet coffee flavor is forever linked in my mind to smell of leather and the sound of my grandparents laughing. When I miss my grandfather, I buy a box of Nips. This is a .99 gift I can enjoy on any old day.

I have a box of notes and letters in my childhood bedroom.  When I visit, I stay up late and re-read them. They date as far back as 7th grade and the authors range from coaches to boyfriends to directors to best friends to passing acquaintances. Letters are lovely little Delaurians, reminding us who we were and why we are.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate giving or receiving gifts. I just don’t enjoy the forced social and monetary constraints of giving gifts at the holidays. Personally, I’d rather give a gift on, say, July 17, just because I saw something while I was out and about and thought you might love it. There’s an authenticity in that process, which I think gets lost in the practice of listing as many people in your life as you can afford to spend money on, then frantically scouring websites and stores to find something that is appropriate to their tastes and your budget. 

This year, I was delighted to see that my brother caught on to the crazy:

Brother: Wanna just skip gifts this year instead of exchanging giftcards?

Me: Sure lol. We can go out for drinks.

Brother: Sounds much better.

It does. And it’s just what I wanted.