WHAT'S SO LONELY ABOUT SPENDING A THANKSGIVING ALONE, ANYWAY?!?: Of Cioppino Over Turkey, Long Hikes, Solitude, and Movie Dates with Oneself

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm not a Thanksgiving guy. Haven't been for some time.

The simple truth of it is, well, I quit looking at the holiday as anything more than a day off long ago because, well, when your family has spent so many years spread out all over one gigantic continent, it ceases to hold any other importance.

Back on the ol' family farm, back when I was a kid, the day meant something: mornings full of deer and squirrel hunting, afternoon meals with every second- and third-cousin within 200 miles, afternoon football games in the apple grove. But I'm no longer a kid, the farm's long gone, and the bastard we sold it to cut down the grove to make room for his Arabians...

My family, for the most part, quit celebrating the holiday a few years ago. My mother, in fact, had a monumental revelation: she's never liked spending all day cooking while everyone else lounges around, doing nothing and waiting to gorge.

This year, she and my father went to Denny's. Gotta love 24-7 roadside dining. Instead of some overblown feast, they went on a short vacation, just the two of them.

As for me, well, dating a few members of indigenous tribal organizations over the years, and a few foreigners to this country curious about why Americans drape themselves in ancient English Puritanism in the guise of Native American feast, probably hasn't helped, either.

* * * *

I do give thanks on Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong here.

I just prefer spending the day doing my own thing, alone.

This year, for instance, for my feast, I went for a culinary form of gratitude to the numerous immigrants who helped build this country, who've helped feed the world by coming to this often hostile land to raise fruit of the chaff and vine, pull fish from our coasts, and who helped better diversify America for the better - as opposed to those pesky religious nuts near Plymouth Rock, who came here to conquer for a damning White God as British exiles.

Rather than turkey - not being able to eat beef, well, turkey's already a staple of my diet - I went with a meal more fitting to a John Steinbeck novel than to a Cotton Mather sermon. Cioppino, a seafood stew originally developed by Italian fishermen along the wharves of 1800s San Francisco, seemed way more satisfying and spectacularly American to me than the usual dead bird and stuffing.

I put the seafood, broth, and veggies on to simmer over low heat shortly after breakfast, turned on the stereo, and cleaned the kitchen table to the sounds of The Knux and Positive K.

Trust me. My spending a family holiday in solitude is a good thing. Spares folks the embarrassment of having to watch me attempt to dance in a bathrobe.

* * * *

People often ask me if I ever, well, just shut up. I do, offline, tend to talk a lot. But in truth, I can go days without saying anything to another human being, without speaking a word. And I'm one of those people who revels in days like that, the solitude, the alone time...

Hell, I'm a loner.

While the immigrant stew simmered, I went for a seven-mile hike, watched all sorts of wonderful subtitles - for - my - uniligual - ass films I'd been meaning to see for years (from Srđan Dragojević's Bosnian War classic, Lepa Sela Lepo Gore, to Volker Schlöndorff's exploration of Nazism, Der Unhold, to Bruno Barreto's Brazilian political thriller, O Que É Isso, Companheiro?), before, finally, dining in workout sweats, in perfect, contemplative silence whilst reading last month's Harper's Magazine.

Completely alone.

Reminded me of those chilly November mornings as a kid on the farm, sitting in a tree stand, shotgun in hand, meditating on all sorts of adolescent things (mostly girls) and listening for the sounds of broken twigs and crunching leaves.

It was a perfect Thanksgiving, really.

At least by my standards.

- EPILOGUE -

"How do you do it?" she asked. "How the hell do you cope with being alone on Thanksgiving?"

This was her first holiday away from her family and, despite spending Turkey Day with a friend's family, she felt so horribly, miserably alone. She couldn't afford the plane ticket home, couldn't afford to miss what could be the biggest opportunity of her life.

Her first big photo shoot in two years, scheduled the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Fate is sometimes nothing more than a tiny plate of food during someone else's feast. Not that she needs to lose weight.

"Well," I typed back, "I kinda like the peace and quiet. Life's too hectic not to have some downtime from the world."

"You're one of the strangest people I've ever met, you know that? It's kinda cute but, dude, hella freaky sometimes to read about."

She told me she still had my cell number in her phone, that she'd been trying to call me all day. It was then that I realized that, yes, indeed my phone was off and there were quite a few missed calls logged in the damnable thing.

Without missing a beat, I cleared my throat and waited for an incoming call. I guess I am a strange dude - for a moment I'm actually annoyed that a hot (chica, you know you are) fashion model is bothering my solitude, wanting to call and chat and have somebody other than her roommate's cat to keep her company...

"Happy Thanksgiving, Jason! Haha, thought you wouldn't really answer."

Call me an asshole, but I almost didn't.

- # # # -

THE PERPETUAL CURSE OF THEPERPETUAL EX-OTHER MAN: Of Strange Women, Nosebleeds, Morning Bitchslaps, & Tom Waits During Sex

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Mark your calendars, because this doesn't happen too often.

I ran into a situation this weekend so fucking batshit, so completely and utterly strange and drama-filled, that I'm not sure I'm able to find any words to describe it.

Other than something like, Jesus H. Christ! Now that, dude, is fucked up.

Oh well. Lemme give it the ol' college try...

* * * *

It started out with a simple, awkward-as-hell run-in with the Fruitcake Sex ex-fling on a frozen sidewalk in the middle of the night, with her current boytoy. That one cruel act of fate beget an awkward breakfast Saturday morning, just the two of us, and my inviting the pair to a friendly dinner at my apartment that afternoon.

Things were fine until, well, my Inner Asshole realized that the new beau - one of those lazy, wealthy Limousine Liberal, Trustafarian types - was both a nosey bastard (the guy routed through my bookshelves, CDs, and DVD collections like a cracked-out raccoon - totally unacceptable) and extremely intimidated by yours truly (he kept reminding me how rustic and Southern Gothic I seem in person - apparently, he'd heard a bit about me.)

Things went downhill after dinner, particuarly after the second bottle of Chardonnay.

How a conversation about how all three of us liked listening to Tom Waits after (and sometimes during) sex quickly devolved into a melodramatic circus of hurt feelings, bruised egos, periodically crying/pissed ex-flings, and, yes, even the panties she left in my apartment last December ended up getting thrown in her face after Mr. Novelist Wannabe found them in my bedroom closet is beyond me.

Confused yet? Don't worry, join the club. I'm still confused myself.

* * * *

I can't even begin to explain the impromptu make-out session in a crowded bar late Saturday night, eight hours after the fucked-up dinner and after the Local U's home hockey game, the one where I literally walked into the place where she and the beau were having drinks, grabbed her by the hair, and shoved my tongue down her throat - five feet away from the guy.

Yeah, an asshole move. I know. My bad. Had nothing to do with being possessive, or jealousy, or anything of that sort. I did it, my own bruised ego and drunken rationale aside, to see if I could get the guy to take a swing at me.

The guy pissed me off to the point where, yeah, I just wanted to have a good brawl with a dude with a law degree who grew up in a Gated Community somewhere back east.

Those guys are like punching bags for the working class. Seriously. But the fucker, well, just stared like a goon, fumed. He wouldn't bite.

I didn't expect for her to grab my hair, shove her hand down my pants, and kiss me back. I think, yeah, she expected her pussy of a beau to be just a tad bit more possessive - you know, do the Boyfriend driven into a Jealous Rage thing - than your average bar stool warmer.

Anywho. I left without a word...

Didn't think anything more of it, went back to drinking and skulking alone, went home and crashed.

And then, Sunday morning, I answered a knock at the door, only to find a red-eyed, angry young woman standing there, alone.

She kissed me and then - out of the fucking blue - slapped me so hard that my nose bled for a good hour after she stormed off.

Didn't offer an explanation, didn't say a word. Just a kiss on the lips and a firm open palm to the cheek.

* * * *

Like I said.

Not sure how, really, to even begin describing this weekend...

Enjoy the Tom Waits video. For some reason, that's all I've been listening to for the last few days, and I'm feeling, somehow, like somehow I'm up Shit Creek again.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: Of the Global Economic Collapse, Mexican Revolutionaries, Insomniac Ponderings, And Making Out with a Stranger

"Es mejor morir de pie que vivir de rodillas."

- Gen. Emiliano Zapata,
Mexican Revolutionary Hero,
Wearer of "Cowboy Stuff"

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- It's three o'clock in the morning.

And I'm neither drunk nor sober.

I'm simply enjoying a cold November storm, in fact, a lovely late night stroll through the rain, my gray Stetson sagging beneath the weight of a thousand cold water droplets.

Smoke from my thirtieth Marlboro of the day forms wispy plumes around the brim, water seeps down my jeans into my boots, the baptismal waters of a man deep in thought liberating the soul as Ariat heels clickclack down miles of sidewalk.

Good God Almighty! I say to myself, eyes closed, leaning against a telephone pole, There's just nothing quite as liberating as a man's thoughts, alone, in the rain.

Personal freedom, just like money, seems to be in short supply these days.

* * * *

I'm thinking, for some odd reason, about a different approaching storm - the shit blizzard of a failing global economy that, yep, my country's elite and their backroom financiers have unleashed, a Pandora's Box full of sub-prime demons, bailout monied monsters, and reckless, destructive capitalist devils of all shapes and sizes.

And, for some reason, General Zapata popped into my waterlogged head, a ghost from some long ago learned history, ¡Tierra y Libertad! now less of a rallying cry and more of a ominous echo against the bad debts of the Gringo Nation.

Hey, these things happen, market collapses. Especially when things like consumption as status and not of function has been encouraged for more than two decades...

Well, goddamn, you've gotta quit reading so much, dude.

Yeah. Head like a slingshot, really. Put the right pebble in, pull back, and release. It's self-loading.

* * * *

Suddenly, from nowhere, they're upon me. Two very drunk women, bundled in Northface jackets and impromptu rain gear, stagger out of the shadows from a side street, their heels clicking away an off-key collegiate chant.

"Ooooh. It's a cowboy!" One girl says.

"Ah.... ah... A CUTE cowboy!" The second girl says, too drunk to realize that the cute cowboy is right in front of her.

I stop, tip my hat, smile. A welcome disruption.

Some things, well, are just too damned depressing to dwell on for too long. And I don't know of a single straight guy or lesbian who doesn't appreciate being called cute by two mysterious, albiet drunken, hot women in skirts at three in the morning, either.

"Mr. Cowboy, I love your BOOTS! I, like, love, ohmygosh, cowboy stuff!" The first girl says.

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

The second girl bums a cigarette and begins what I call the Wasted Girl Play - the attempt to indicate, through wobbly eyes meant to be seductive, the convienient throwing of dead weight meant to be a casual arm around the waist, that, if I'm willing...

"I LOVE cowboys! When I was in Texas once... And I hooked up with a cowboy. I like... reVERSE COWWWgirl...."

The first woman, by the look on her face, is both the more sober one and the one most embarrassed. I laugh and discreetly slide out of the way-too-desperate girl's grasp. The first woman, too, bums a cigarette.

" We're kinda fucked up, sorry," The first woman says.

"It's okay. Happens. So's the world, if fact."

Again, I laugh. Another welcome distraction.

* * * *

The first woman and I chat - turns out she's been sobering up for hours as her now babbling friend had been getting more and more wasted - for a bit, over cigarettes, as the second woman rambles on, in fact, to the same telephone I'd been holding up before I'd surrendered it to her.

Also turns out that her father just found out he's being downsized after Christmas - hefty early retirement buyout from the sounds of it. He's been with the same firm since before she was born and, well, he's already put her on notice not to expect as much help with college expenses as she'd like.

So, she explains, she figured she'd better go out and get drunk with her whore of a roommate before the real world kicks her family in the ass.

* * * *

"Um, this is kinda silly, but can I try it on?" The first girl asks.

"Try what on?"

"Your hat. Looks Mexican or something. Like gunslinger, you know?"

I take off the hat, start to plop the soaking wet thing atop her head. And then, well, I don't know if it was the soaking wet hair, or the way her shivering skin shuddered beneath a cold street light, but I asked for something in exchange since I'd be giving up my shelter from the storm...

She didn't even hesitate. I guess, well, either I'm a good salesman or it was merely a good deal worth taking advantage of, when the money's getting tight.

And by kissing a stranger, yes, by even embracing and turning a peck into an impromptu make-out session, we were able to both share warmth and the brim of an old Stetson in the middle of a November rain. A hot mouth and a warm body beats shivering in the cold alone.

Drunk Girl No. 2? As the telephone pole proved to be too sober for her, she fell to her knees just in time to puke up all sorts of foul stuff, including what looked like semen.

Right in front of an ATM machine, down the street from a real estate office.

Land and liberty, General Zapata's fighters used to chant. There are, of course, still other things in life that are free, are open to better negotiation and barter and open free market exchange than our countrysides and our freedoms.

And yes, it is better to live and die on one's feet, even in the rain, than it is to live on one's knees spitting up a stomachful of vodka and jism.

Even in hard times, a fair trade in an open, honest marketplace, where each party uses the other for something in exchange for something, beats the alternative.

* * * *

Hey, chicks dig the hat. And the "cowboy stuff."

What more is there to say, really?

Really wish I'd bothered to catch the woman's name. Or to have given her mine.

That's a market where I'd consider investing again.

- # # # -

PRESIDENTIAL ERECTION 2008: Voter Independence, Political Ideals over Parties, and Other Dispatches from a Media-Construct Battlefield

Left-libertarianism combines the libertarian premise that each person possesses a natural right of self-ownership with the egalitarian premise that natural resources should be shared equally. Left-libertarianism holds that unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in common, believing that private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an equal amount, or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from natural resources.... Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner edited a primer, The Origins of Left - Libertarianism: An Anthology of Historical Writings. This text places Hugo Grotius, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Spence, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and Henry George in the left libertarian tradition.

- TEXT COURTESY WIKIPEDIA
GRAPHICS POLITICAL COMPASS

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- You know, it's funny.

I've somehow managed to confuse (and piss off) a lot of folks, simply because, well, for as much as I sometimes ramble on about politics, I've never really made it clear what, exactly, my ideological views are or which party I support.

My bad.

Personally, I prefer the term Sandburg Socialist, since that great Midwestern bard not only influences my writing, but whose ideals also serve as the basis for my political views. And, no, I don't fit either the graph above or the wholly separate, more theoretical wiki definition, either.

I always figured people would pick up the clues I've been dropping on this site for years...

Nothing personal. I'm a Man Without a Party, militantly nonpartisan. And there was no chance, period, of me voting for either Millionaire Right Authoritarian Guy. I swing for the opposite corner when voting for president - it's only in local or congressional elections that my sense of populism kicks in and I'm willing to compromise for the sake of regional stability.

If your choice won, good for you. Here's a cookie. If your choice lost, well, good for you, too. And you get a cookie as well. Hey, I get a cookie as well - I voted and, yep, my choice even got something out of it.

I voted based on principles. And I've done so, well, for most of my adult life. I don't give a shit who won or lost the White House. Democracy isn't a football game - unless you choose for it to be. Though, in all honesty, given the Hank Junior performance on CNN election night and the fact that this election season led to all candidates spending nearly a third of the GDP (exchange rate) of Afghanistan on marketing...

I was shocked that anybody thought I was a Democrat or a Republican, actually - seriously, I keep forgetting that most folks read or hear "Left-leaning centrist" and think "Democrat." And wow, a lot of folks not only think I look like a cop, they also think I apparently vote like one. Just because one reads the word Libertarian on a computer screen does not mean I ever considered voting for the Republican Reject Party candidate.

And, yeah, it's been quite enjoyable hearing about it and seeing some folks' reactions. Don't worry about offending me - hell, I've got skin like a rhino's ass when it comes to political barbs. Gets the adrenaline flowing, it's good for you.

Again, sorry if I confused you. And kudos to the slightly more than 60 percent of the eligible voting population in these United States that actually voted for something, anything.

Even the 500 or so folks who showed up in protest throughout the Rust Belt to vote for the real winners this Fall - baseball's Philadelphia Phillies. Now that's a protest vote.

Yes, I really did vote for one of those candidates down in the Green Zone in the graphic above. Took the Political Compass survey a few moments ago and, well, guess what - that's where I fall and, nope, despite a Democratic Party win, still the same.

And, no, I never considered either major party an alternative.

* * * *

Needless to say, there were some seriously funny quotes this Election Cycle about my presidential choice and political views:

"Wait... am I drunk or did you just say you're centrist because you're between an anarchist and a socialist? Dude... that's ...that's fucked up..."

- Obama supporter

"You voted for the Socialist? I shoulda known you were a Commie..."

- McCain supporter

"Dude, you're the reason she took down the Obama stuff and voted for Nader? God, I knew it - you're a Republican, you fucker."

- No, it's called choice.
I just helped her find more options.

"Aren't you guys supposed to be like, not voting? Fucking French faggot. This is America. Leave."

- McCain supporter and
Obviously not a Log Cabin Republican

"Fuck yeah, dude! ... FUCK! Can I write down that "Camouflage in the Capitalist Kingdom" shit.."

- Intentional Nonvoter.
Steal it, man. Hell, I stole it.

"Man, shit. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not crazy and not the only one refusing to buy this bullshit anymore."

- A Guy Who May Just Vote
Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich in 2012

"Jason - Ohio could fall because of your callous disrespect for this country with those stupid posters. This is not FUNNY!"

- Ex, Obama Supporter

"Man you're still the same arrogant fucking righteous prick ... when it comes to politics. Fuck you and that wacko Liberal Socialist bullshit."

- Another Ex, McCain Supporter

By the way, Ohio folks cast roughly 85,000 independent or small party votes for a Third Party President this cycle, somewhere between an estimated one and a half to two percent of the ballots cast for that office in the ol' Buckeye State. I'm far from the only one. It's nothing new.

Camouflage. Capitalist. Kingdom. And there are quite literally millions of us out there, who will never, ever vote for Thing 1 or Thing 2. Don't feel bad - it's the American Way.

* * * *

Oh well... Thank all that is holy that we - as well as the citizens of the world - survived another run-of-the-mill election year in the United States.

God bless America! Hosanna in the Highest! Let freedom ring! Hell, Yes WE Can't! or whatever the Obama folks were screaming all day... so exciting, so riveting, so...

Damn, something about Election Season just...

... Just...

Wow, sorry about that. Don't worry, the bastard pops up whenever I get excited. Six, seven times a day. It doesn't bite, no, but watch your eye.

And your back. Once slipped into an awkward position with someone, yeah, it's no fun taking the chick you're seeing down to the local Urgent Care because she told you to go in easy and then your arms gave out, thought you may have accidentally torn...

Horrendous experience. Forgot her purse, thus had to call one of her roommates. The official story the roomie got was, well, she'd slipped in my shower and somehow landed on the plunger.

Oh wait...

I forgot, we're not talking about Erection Reasons, are we? Sorry. Distracted. Cute girl just walked by in front of me. Dead ringer for the girl I was just talking about.

Damn, why do presidential races in the country always remind me of somebody getting fucked in the ass? Oh, that's right. Voting for the President, in the United States, usually turns out to be much dirtier and less seductive, at the end of the day, than your average guy-girl anal sex mishap story.

If this had been a midterm election year, I probably would've thought about that time after an all-night house party, walking into a kitchen, seeing two lesbians tossing dildoes at a blow-up doll. Like lawn darts. I laughed, one of the women went sidearm my way, and I caught a hard shot right in the ol' nutsack.

Hey, don't ask me. That last one just popped into my head.

* * * *

God Bless America, you dirty, dirty girl. That's right, spank me. Like that. Slowly, gently... Ow.

And here, have another fucking cookie. All outta strawberries and melted dark chocolate. Just, please... no crumbs in my bed. Frankly, if the ball drops this time, well, you get to clean it up and wash the sheets in the morning.

You know, let's not ruin that audacity of hope afterglow or whatever they call what we just did to Democracy.

It feels so, you know, dirty. But we'll always have the memories.

- # # # -

EPILOGUE: Yes, I know I promised a lot of folks I'd abstain from political writing during the 2008 Election because, well, I tend to irritate people on the Right and Left equally with my crazy "cynical idealist" politics. But, Good Gawd, what the fuck just happened? Don't worry, folks, I'm putting the Political Blogging Beast (HA!) back in the box - she's all yours again.

Congrats to ya'll Obama folks and McCain folks, too - voting is, after all, the ultimate sign of courage in this world and it's nice to be reminded that even dirty-politicking has become truly about the campaign and not skin color.