Death will be my Christmas

“There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”  –Erna Bombeck

It’s 0140, Christmas morning.  I stopped being a child long ago.  There is very little of me left.

I like adulthood for being able to tune out Christmas music and ignore decorations.  The economy has so many people on edge that spray-snow-in-a-can optimism and cheer has dropped off.  Fatigue is in the air like burning tire smoke.  I want to take a chainsaw to the size of our criminal government, carve it down to something small and useful, like a pocketknife.

I went to the drugstore to peruse the As Seen on Tv crap.  Everything was still $19.99.  No Chia Pets!

No one needs a Chia Pet, that’s why it’s brilliant.  I don’t need one: I have dope.

I’ve smoked-out only once, “in moderation”.  I felt no happier.  I am going through the motions of being alive.

I saw a girl in the drugstore.  Tan jacket and ponytail, not ugly, not beautiful, but lovely.  Life.  I looked at her head, at the chestnut ponytail.  Life.  How pointless and precious.

I didn’t buy shit.  I had bought shit earlier, elsewhere.  I averaged approx. $50 per person times 5, an enormous sum for me.

I’d make it a thousand but I don’t have it.

I hate gifts, even getting them.  Let me explain.  I live in America, do you?  We can get nearly anything we want at any time of year (if you want pot all you gotta do is befriend 3 strangers).  Gifts:  if someone I know wanted something badly and I could afford it, I’d get it for them.  The people I know need what they want, they don’t waste.   I don’t like being forced to do anything; take something pleasurable like buying a gift for someone, and make it mandatory.  That’s hell.

You cannot opt out of the gift game unless you are a hermit.  I’ve tried.  It’s horrible to receive anything when you have nothing to give in return.  And yes, I tried warning everyone I knew not to give me anything.  It doesn’t work.

I have no useful advice for surviving holidays, any of them.  Enjoy what you can.

Death will be my Christmas.   Not suicide but natural death, I can wait.  I look forward to the change of pace and new environment, even in Hell.  It’s hell anyway to be alive yet numb.

Jesus Christ versus a pococurante

When I first saw him he reminded me of a failed auditioner for a boy band, mostly because of the his white t-shirt underlying a thin print-pattern shirt with open sides billowing as if underwater as he paced, seemingly lost.

When I saw him again he was loudly singing songs referencing Jesus. Those around him seemed disturbed by this, but he was in his own world. He was there because he had a problem with something, and because I was at work, it was now my problem and job to help. As I helped him he asked, “Have you been Saved?” I wasn’t looking at him when I answered, “Well, I’m working here…” Meaning “Fuck No”.

Up close, Boy Band’s face was smooth and fresh but his eyes were puffy and tired. He explained how he was now 25 and had done every drug possible and hit bottom before trying God. And lo, Jesus had Saved him!

While not technically a Christian myself, I believed that Christ Jesus had indeed helped Boy Band, along with the peer pressure of the church, but I didn’t think the experience made Boy Band any smarter or more lucid; whatever potential he had before frying his circuits with drugs would remain lost. Well shit, he was only 25. Why judge?

I was mildly insulted that a “ki-dult” (25 is the real beginning of adulthood) would preach to someone older (me) but Boy Band’s torpid joy seemed real enough, and those Saved early on have a much harder road ahead of them than those who convert later (after fucking and drugging, sins denied me due to hating people).

Being at work, I only offered grunts of acknowledgment. As a customer, Boy Band could say whatever he wanted, while I was a slave. No employee enjoys this imbalance but then, I really didn’t have anything to add to his sluggish exuberance. If I wanted to risk losing the job I would’ve told Boy Band my minority opinion, which as a fundamentalist/former-druggie-now-Saved he would’ve found unacceptable: Jesus Christ is the answer, but not the only answer, there are infinite paths to God.

Boy Band said he’d say a prayer for me that night.

That was yesterday and I feel no different. I hope the positive effects of his prayer are delayed because tonight is another lottery drawing and the pot is 37 mil.

** ** ** ** ** **

Christ alone will never do it for me. I’m personally offended that He would deign to heal broken hearts when He Himself never tasted the pain of a variety of human failures, including rejection from a woman loved.

Now older than Christ at the time of his exit, I await death with the curse of a healthy body. Suicide would just leave God with a way to change the subject for calling Him out on the many, many fucked-up and stupid ways things are run around here.

So I wait, while somewhere out there Boy Band plans to be a counselor helping drug addicts. I am confident God has a few surprises left for both of us. It’s why I own a gun.