Ginger Krinkles Read Free

don’t like me either.” I waved my hand, palm up. “Exhibit A. This windshield looks like a transparent Jackson Pollack painting. I give you Bird Poop, Number 14. Would it have killed my sister to give me a Crate&Barrel gift certificate?”
    “Is that what you really want?” Lauri asked me.
    “Stop. I’m warning you, do not start with me.”
    As we drove down Mission Boulevard into Pacific Beach, gray waves pounded off to our right. I turned down a side street lined with funky beach houses that you would wish your ancestors had had the foresight to settle in seventy-five years ago. “Every winter solstice I search the sky for a winking star,” I told Lauri. “I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight: that I could just cash in all the gifts and not spend time with my family. Their eyes actually twinkle during the holidays, as if they are juiced up on some IV drip of Comfort and Joy. While I am nothing more than a shortchanged zombie, who gets a placebo in my IV. I want Comfort and Joy.”
    Lauri laughed.
    This miasma is nothing new. “Growing up, I always got in trouble at choir practice for singing the wrong words,” I told her.
    “ We Three Kings of Orient Are, smoking on a rubber cigar,
    It was loaded and exploded, shooting us to that yonder star.”
    Lauri hummed backup for me.
    “December needs to come with a warning. Whether you celebrate the season or not, beware: Anticipation is a wily witch who loves to introduce you to Disappointment, the BFF of Jealousy.”
    “Jingle Bells, Batman smells,” Lauri sang. I pulled up to the curb. Blaring harp music came from my phone.
    “That’s my meditation app. I’m working on my stress.”
    Lauri picked up my phone. “It hasn’t seen you for four days.”
    “I know. Even meditation is disappointed in me.”
    She laughed.
    I shooed her out of my car in front of her yoga studio, Yogasm. She opened her doors two years ago, and let me name it. I highly recommend having a yoga instructor for a best friend. You can say stupid things like, “She helps keep me grounded,” whatever that means. Truth be told, she does keep me grounded, if that means that she puts up with me and still wants to be my friend. She can be very annoying in her perky perfection, and I feel like I am a good friend to put up with that—I do allow her to try to convert or save me, or whatever it is those “living in the moment” folks are trying to pull on the rest of us weak-willed anxiety-filled. Plus, she lets me go to yoga classes for free.
    Her yoga studio is always busy and people love it, but I just wish it would take off. It’s a lot of hard work for very little payoff. Lauri always acts like she doesn’t mind and tells me she “enjoys the moment” (see?) and trusts in the universe, and other hogwash about not stressing out, so I guess I have to worry for her. I glanced up at the sign again and smiled. “Yogasm would be the perfect franchise,” I told her, just like always.
    “Please come,” she said, as she folded her hands and bowed her head, just like always. We both laughed.
    “I always do,” I said. She tilted her head and looked at me.
    “Thanks for the ride. Are you sure you can’t come to yoga? I’m focusing on JOMO today.”
    I sighed. “Do tell.”
    “ JOY Of Missing Out,” she said. “Give yourself permission to not feel like everyone else. Take time out and away from the rest of the world and discover your own bliss.”
    I mouthed along with her. Co-create the intimacy you want with your breath. “Good thing you’re my best friend. And look at you, just standing there beaming at me like I’m something special.” I held up the back of my hand as if to smack her. “Why I oughta … ” Still nothing, but her peaceful, loving smile. That kind of serenity can’t be bought. Pity. I’d ask for it for Christmas.
    “Bakasana off,” I warned her. “You can take your pity and pigeon pose it where the sun don’t shine.” She was still