This may sound morbid (when do I NOT sound morbid these days), but I, like many others, have grown to hate the holidays.
Nothing against Christmas cheer, but this time of year has a strange effect on people. If you are a reasonably happy sort of person and you have cute little kids around that you enjoy having there, then this time of year is a happy, giggly mess of feelgood emotions. But if you're just another jaded, frustrated, morbid fuck like I am, this time of year is a real fucking downer.
I traced the impetus to this sad train of thought to the sudden death of my grandfather on Dec. 23, 1982, which places me at 12 years old. My first meeting with Death and I wasn't really impressed. My grandpa was a very successful alcoholic, who was for the most part, was a jovial guy. Not your mean, abusive drunk, rather a funny but underlyingly sad drunk. I remember being 4 or 5 and he would call me George: "Hey George...go get me another beer" or "George, change the channel to 9 for me, k, pal?" He did it so much that I didn't question it, I was George. If he was really drunk, I got called Charlie and again, being the wickedly smart little bugger I was, I went with it. I remember decorating the Christmas tree and listening to the John Lennon tribute on the radio cause they started doing that around the time he died (which is another story in itself that I will tell later..) My aunt kept calling for my mom who hadn't come home from work yet. She gets home and gets the call and starts sobbing. My mother NEVER cries and to see her sobbing like a kid scared the hell outta me. I thought she was joking. But she wasn't.
So began the end of my innocent happy holiday days. Ever since that year, it all kind of deteriorated. The teenage years of the 80's when I wanted to dress like Denise Huxtable from the Cosby show and they wanted me to dress like Laura fucking Ingalls. They'd get me stuff like panties and socks or bras that didn't fit. One could simply look at me and know at a glance I wasn't a B cup, but dammit, if they said I was a B-cup, then to hell with my C-quickly turning into D-Cup titties..
Then was the cunty little practice of getting me something that they KNEW I would despise just so they could go "Well, if you don't want it you ungrateful little bitch, then I'll keep it". THEN WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU JUST BUY IT FOR YOURSELF???? Years of watching my family drink themselves into fights and bad games of Pochino, all the while sending me to make drinks and tend to the brood of kids they weren't paying attention to..
So now I get ready to swerve into age 35 and wonder what the hell is left? In the last couple of years, I have developed somewhat pagan leanings and the concept of Yule appeals to me. From the darkness the light returns and grows stronger. I dig that. Makes alot of sense. More sense than living in an apartment on the 6th floor when I was 4 and wondering 1) How did Santa deliver presents to you if you only have a radiator?, and 2) Did Santa have keys to everyone's apartment in NYC and how did he know who's was which and 3) Did he use the elevator or the stairs? and 4) Where did he park the reindeer? These are the things that kept my tiny mind spinning on Christmas Eve.
For the last 8 years, by celebrations consist of stringing those cool white icicle looking lights in my space, with my pointsetta and my big white candles. Instead of buying useless shit that I know the people I'm giving them to will never use, I make things..jewelry, collage boxes, crocheted stuff, hand painted things. The few people in my life who are truly enlightened really love the gifts cause they know it was made just for them. And I don't feel like such a materialistic whore. But that's just me.
If any of you are feeling the same, take some solice in knowing that time flies and before you know it, it'll be Valentine's Day and a whole new reason to want to wretch...
PEACE, LOVE and BEATZ!!
