17 December, 2004
christmas in jail

... is one of my favorite bummed out xmas songs. i recognized it from the first sax notes, two rooms away. i sang harmony, too... knowing all too well the feeling of "spending new years eve in the clink". though not literally. it hasn't gone that far, yet.
the fact is, when the temperatures go way low and the sun only rises halfway in the sky for what seems like minutes, this glass is half empty. throw in empty pockets, and it's bars, bread & water, even if i can't reach out and touch them.
month seven in my spouse's self-imposed exile from "being defined by work", (even though things still break, fossil fuel/warm ass becomes a priority, and the taxman smiteth) transforms me into Walking, Talking ATM (this year's alternative to Elmo?)... and suddenly it's not the "most wonderful time of the year".
lunatics and fanatics in the White H0use, hordes of MeFirstGimmeGimmes, and ticking time bombs that i call my "cars"... well, there's a reason why i sing these blues. and am labeled holiday hater. thePrinceO'Peace is co-opted by gunslingers who say it's ok to hate people not like the one in the mirror (to which turning the other cheek is unthinkable)... somehow i'm missing the reason for the season.
i was standing in the queue at the PakistaniTobacconist, today, and this leathery cat with the complexion of a shriveled potato began to preach to me about cancer... all the while emanating this vaporous cloud of cheap, sweet wine that rippled off of his skin like heat mirages on tarmac in summertime.
"you pick your poison," says i, strolling away for my afternoon in the dentist chair.
which, despite multiple harpoonings, jackhammered fillings, and chuckling over politics whilst under the influence of lidocaine wasn't the ordeal that it could have been.
the ordeal reemerged with a trip to moms', who is determined to reprise the role of mistreated martyr to add to the spectacle of lights.
even so, there are occasional glimpses from the corner of the eye that remind me that there's more to this whole chain of events than upheaveal. even when it's seventeen degrees in the morning.

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