Oh, to feel lonely during the holiday season. There’s a cure for that, and it’s made by Smith & Wesson. I’M JOKING!!!! if you can’t laugh at real life suicide statistics, what can you laugh at!? Anyway, after a long weekend, I’m all caught up again.
And to be perfectly frank, I wouldn’t NEED a gun to commit suicide as I believe it’s currently happening – slowly – via daily classic holiday song interpretations.
There’s no place like home for the holidays – the carpenters
every single day i find a new excuse to sit in my empty apartment alone with my cat, illegally downloading the newest episode of that show everyone is talking about so i can finally have an informed opinion about the subject (and as things go, now that I’m finally doing this, nobody seems to be having those conversations anymore…). The connection keeps resetting itself on my stolen wi-fi so i begrudgingly move myself to that uncomfortable position hovering over the sink by the windowsill where i get the best signal. I’d buy my own wireless but with my terrible paycheck and addiction to scratch offs, i can’t seem to find the discretionary income. So i must resort to this sort of chinese acrobat routine to get my fix.
So, in lieu of making it just another day, i book a flight back to my parents house, or ‘home’ as they call it. The flights always get more expensive, and the hours get more demanding at work which result in fewer trips for less amounts of time. I remember going back for christmas and staying well over nine days a few years ago, and now it’s just a four day weekend, and then back to the daily grind.
but as they say, there really is nowhere else like your home for the holidays. Hungry man dinners and ‘it’s a wonderful life’ on tv christmas eve just don’t provide you with the appropriate amount of warmth that we as humans require at a time like this. No, the only thing that’s going to heal any wounds is the gentle nag of your mother to go out and push the freshly driven snow off the walkway so she can get the mail, and the century old tinsel dangling from that dusty old fake tree that’s been up in your attic longer than you’ve been alive.
christmas songs have been playing since well before thanksgiving, and though you’re not there to hear them, you know they’re playing on constant repeat until midway through march when it’s time to take down the decorations. you’ll be long gone though, having fought the traffic all the way back to LA. Pushing yourself through the busy lines of holiday travelers and increased security check points. the extra little brush against your nether regions feels like an tiny gift left under the tree as they wave you into the private screening room. they ask you to remove your pants and shoes as they butter up their powdered latex gloved hands, you already anticipate that warm feeling you’re going to feel inside..as they feel inside.
if your friends are anything like me, you’ll get a good laugh at how pathetic their lives have become over a couple few pints of beer at the old bar you used to frequent. You’ll laugh at how you’ve all changed, yet are still so much the same, and secretly you’ll envy their insipid (yet, slightly more gratifying than your own) lives. and if you’re really lucky, in the spirit of holiday cheer that guy you never really liked and his beautiful wife and children will buy you a shot as they walk out of the bar throwing wads of money that would equal your monthly salary that they received as bonuses this year for jobs well done as they return to their successfully tailored lives.
it’s not all doom and gloom though. if you’re a lucky one you’ll notice that cute girl from high school that kind of got around is sitting at the end of the bar, and even though she’s become much less attractive after two divorces, about six hundred thousand cigarettes, and a couple kids, she sure seems sweet on you. so you scoot your way to the end of the bar and get yourself some real holiday cheer. go ahead, it’s christmas!
but make sure you get a tetanus booster and full physical when you get back into town. i hear they’ve been giving those away in the holiday spirit as well.
Dorothy was right…there really is no place like home.
boy do i miss that place.
