day after turkey day

For some reason we had to have Thanksgiving with my second oldest aunt's meditation group. It was like 20 old ex-hippies that I didn't know all in one room. The last time I met them, I was 7, and I was into wearing jewelry I made out of beer bottle caps that I picked up off the street. I was going through a "I want to be American" phase, and for some reason, beer commercials represented complete unattainable American culture to me. And I remember one of my aunt's meditation "friends" making a face like somebody farted when I showed him my Miller Lite necklace.

For some reason, we had to go to this same guy's house yesterday for Thanksgiving dinner. Of course he is not married, of course he takes anal retentiveness to new heights, and of course I felt stressed out just looking at his uptight face, so I can't imagine how stressful it must be to BE him.

Their meditation teacher is some old white lady with long blond hair, who goes by a hindu name that she gave herself I think. She was in Canada yesterday, but we all had to talk to her through skype on the big giant plasma TV, and she lead us in a prayer. I'm not christian, but I know enough to recognize that she recited a very christian prayer. Like most non-christians who grow up in predominantly christian countries, I have an allergic reaction to christian rituals. My friend is even worse, he actually HATES christmas. Anyway, I don't know what makes her great, and why everybody has to show up at anal-retentive man's house just because she says so. Me and my mother were feeling a little out of place.

In fact, the whole ordeal put my mother in a bad mood for a little while. I guess she's allowed to be in a bad mood sometimes.

My correspondence with the Harvard professor (who is not "hot" and it's not like that, G) continues. I thought I insulted him by kind of sort of unintentionally dissing the University he is leaving Harvard for, but I was stressing for no reason. He sent me a very nice, detailed explanation of the program and department at this new school he is teaching in, and it sounds really good, and I just might add that to my long list of universities I am applying to.