big thanks

I'm quite sad the holidays are over. They always come and go so quickly and you can't live like that forever, doing so many festive things all the time. I'm not really into one particular holiday but I do enjoy all of the things surrounding them. Where people are going, who they are spending time with, who's in town, who's not in town, which friend's parents house you will drink too many drinks at. I love buying people things and I of course love being gifted things but my friends are not the gift-giving type. Two years ago, I got my friend Sabrina candlestick holders. A pair. Green glass, nearly clear and very tall and long and cylindrical. I kept one for myself. In part because I wished to buy the one of kind candlestick holders for myself but also as a way of expressing friendship or something. Coincidentally, Sabrina gave me a tapered candle that came originally as a pair. She kept one for herself as a way of noting friendship. I should've called her when I burned the candle but I believe I lit it while in bed with someone.

One year on Ethan's birthday, I tried to take him to the top of the World Trade Center but my card declined so he paid. Afterwards, we went to the mall and had Shake Shack. I tried to pay for that too but did not. So on Ethan's birthday he gave me a view and fast food. I got Ethan a photo book that year. It may have been his first but I don't know if I'm just making that up but I really do believe it was his first. Two years later, I got him another photo book and then a Calvin Trillin book that I am now reading. He read it in a day and told me to read it. It's funny reading the inscription I wrote on the title page as if it was something he returned to me because he hated it.

I got my friend Rewa The Year of Magical Thinking for Christmas this year. I tried to get her to read it for a long long time but she refused for the same reasons I did. There was something too fashionable about it especially with the Joan Didion documentary being so popular and all at the time. I read The Year of Magical Thinking en-route to Wisconsin two summers ago. I bought it in Chicago and read it outside of my old school on the steps of The Art Institute of Chicago. I couldn't stop reading it and I guess that's when I let go of judging books by the people who read them. I read it in the car to Wisconsin and then again on the plane back to New York. I've sold the book to many people but Rewa for so long would not budge! So I force fed it to her in the form of a gift right before she left for a long flight to Lebanon. She emailed me recently saying "I will now listen to your recommendations."

I got my close friend Tess an original Japanese poster for Rosemary's Baby last year. I gave it to her at the Jewish diner we often go to early in the mornings. Thats changed now because Tess has a full time job and I'm waking up later these days. That morning I gave her the poster, she gave me this beautiful tacky lamp I'd been eyeing at a thrift store in midtown. Its a porcelain little boy holding a basket of giant eggs and is standing on what looks like maybe a cupcake. The shade is yellow and blue tartan. It's a great conversation starter in my living room.
My friend Morgan always goes crazy with the gift giving. Morgan will give you a gift because its been 7 and a half weeks since your birthday, which I guess to her is a reason to celebrate. Morgan one year gave me a camera and a long letter singing my praises. She also gave me expensive hand cream that year. I barely considered her a friend as we were still getting to know each other. This year she got me my favorite hair oil and a beautiful silk shirt that looks and feels the opposite of cheap. Trying to give Morgan a gift is a difficult task. She'll love and adore whatever it is you give her but there is a natural desire to really impress her. Morgan is fair skinned and lithe and dainty. She has long naturally orange hair and bright baby blue eyes. Her cheeks blush the exact color of her lips especially after a wine. She talks at low whispered volumes sometimes but laughs louder than anyone else when she means it. Everyone who knows Morgan hopes that she likes them. Her taste is incredible and everything she owns seems to mean something to her..so with that being said, buying a gift for the orange-haired pale-skinned whispering little tastemaker is a job that takes more thought than it does to buy your guy friend who will basically appreciate anything you give him because he is not-so-sentimental about objects the way you are.

My friend Bella is the most difficult to buy gifts for. Her best friend once told me in secrecy, If you didn't make it, Bella won't like it. Luckily, I do in fact have some creative capabilities but I'm not so good at coming up with ways to use them. I thought long and hard and tried to paint something for her but it was shameful. I tried to make a sculpture that could be a nice tchotchke on a windowsill but it just looked stupid. So while in her apartment one day, I stole the hair out of her hairbrush and put it in my pocket and walked across the street back to mine. I took the hair out of my hairbrush and plugged in my flatiron and sat for a long long afternoon straightening each individual hair and then made a little braid. The braid fell apart too easily so I just wrote her a long letter and glued all the strands to it throughout. Her best friend told me it was too creepy but Bella seemed to like it. That same year, Bella gave me the best gift I've received in a long time. It was a video she compiled of all the most important people in my life saying happy birthday to me. It made me cry it was so sweet, this nice little non-confrontational surprise party compiled into a 4 minute video. I went a long time without watching it but recently found it on my computer. It did in fact make me a bit weepy but not because of how heartfelt it was but because some of the people in the video are rarely in my life like they used to be. That's how life goes, though. People come and go and so do their gifts.
I rarely throw anything away especially not a gift. I have a tendency to apply sentimental value to most everything. I have a bag that is filled with foreign receipts and subway tickets and pencils and pens and candy wrappers etc. The bag is gathering dust and I feel little to nothing upon looking through once in a blue moon, but I just can't get myself to get rid of it. My dad one time was helping me move out of my apartment in Chicago after I had dropped out of school. I was smoking in the alley and upon returning saw him throwing a dried up dusty rose into a trash bag. I screamed bloody murder, That's the rose that Grimes gave to me after her concert! My dad laughed and said, Okay what? and broke it in two and went on going through all my dusty little treasures. Of course I survived and can live without the dried up rose that Grimes gave to me when I was 17 but you see, I'm still writing about it.

I keep letters for as long as I can. They seem to always disappear after a few years and moving around. I recently found a stack of letters that all my classmates in Hungary gave to me prior to returning back to Ohio. It's unfortunate that I can no longer read them. I used to be able to read Hungarian with ease and near fluency. That was only 5 years ago but when I look at them now, I can hear the words and their meanings in my head but I simply can't comprehend them. Despite not being able to read these letters, I of course will never throw them away. All the Hallmark cards with not a single personal inscription, garbage. At least sign the thing!

I will always love giving gifts and it feels good to buy expensive things for other people. I always find myself so broke around the holidays; buying people stupidly expensive photo books and perfumes and hand creams. Though at least I get to experience the pleasure of watching someone open something you deliberately went out and bought for them. It's obvious you can't buy love but you can in some ways buy them a big thank you.