Smooshed in back of taxi next to my sister and mother. Jamie, my soon-to-be brother in law, is in the passenger seat, wine drunk, glorious, making friends with the taxi driver. Jamie has this way about him. Talking about driving being a sense of freedom, about areas of London, about the taxi company he used to use as a kid… now they're on to the driver's wedding in Glasgow, how Glasgow is different from London, a million other things. Jamie is interested in everything, passionate about everything, looking for friendship and flowing energy and joy in every single thing.
Night with family, big bourgeois family of red wine and Surrey suburbs and month-long holidays in Costa Rica. Love them so much but what is there for a scraggy limping bartender like me to say to all that, slouching and stumbling from one day to the next? They talk of honeymoon and minimoon plans and I slurp tea, sit in dark crow thoughts, feel my lids drooping.
I needed a week off to sleep before coming here. I close my eyes and I'm back on the bar, bodies pressing in at me, mind taut with tension of getting everyone served. Open eyes. I'm just in the dining room, I'm off, relax. Eyes close: I'm back in the thrumming black of the bar, customers groaning all around.
But then we eat mince pies and play board games, and I wake up a little. My team wins both rounds, my cousin's fiancé who hates to lose loses twice, and I try really hard to be magnanimous. I fail.
Then midnight taxi ride hurtling into Central London, Jamie quizzing driver, and I snooze. And back to play with cats, make a brew, suck a strepsil, and fall to bed.
Night with family, big bourgeois family of red wine and Surrey suburbs and month-long holidays in Costa Rica. Love them so much but what is there for a scraggy limping bartender like me to say to all that, slouching and stumbling from one day to the next? They talk of honeymoon and minimoon plans and I slurp tea, sit in dark crow thoughts, feel my lids drooping.
I needed a week off to sleep before coming here. I close my eyes and I'm back on the bar, bodies pressing in at me, mind taut with tension of getting everyone served. Open eyes. I'm just in the dining room, I'm off, relax. Eyes close: I'm back in the thrumming black of the bar, customers groaning all around.
But then we eat mince pies and play board games, and I wake up a little. My team wins both rounds, my cousin's fiancé who hates to lose loses twice, and I try really hard to be magnanimous. I fail.
Then midnight taxi ride hurtling into Central London, Jamie quizzing driver, and I snooze. And back to play with cats, make a brew, suck a strepsil, and fall to bed.
First Christmas Eve I haven't been drunk since I was 16. Coming up on 250 days straight blogging. That's really something.
I will sleep now. Already it is Christmas.
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