Why I Hate Santa

Every year I hate christmas more and more. The lower-case “c” was not a mistake. I wish there were a name for the holiday with the shopping and busy-ness and stupid predictable movies that was different from the holiday I want to celebrate. I’m not going to tell you about the different holiday that I like, because this is a rant about Santa, not a preachy bit about what anyone “should believe” about Christmas.

I just saw a very tear-inducing video where the interviewer asked poor kids (I might was well say “poor”. This is my blog that no one will ever read, so there) what they wanted for Christmas, and what their parents wanted. Of course they were then presented with the gift they wanted, and then the gift that they said their parent wanted, and then Of Course they had to choose between them. And OF COURSE they chose to give the gift to their parents, AND OF COURSE they actually got to keep both presents, because of course they did . . . .

And I’m so annoyed by it. It’s freaking predictable christmas crap. If any of the kids were greedy fucks they were edited out of the final cut. And probably got the toy they wanted too. Did you think some little shit was going to ask for a bb gun and then shoot his eye out? Of course not, no one makes that kind of video. Maybe I should, just for spite.

And here’s the thing – the kids all wanted useless plastic crap. Like they REALLY wanted this useless crap. A giant Barbie dreamhouse, an Xbox, Legos (I approve of Legos, it’s a good toy-that-is-not-a-toy, but they are still toys) And the kids knew their parents wanted something of substance, something that would really make life better, and not just be something that would be given away next year when it’s no longer played with.

When the kids were confronted with the choice of their gift of the parent’s gift, I could see IMMEDIATELY that they understood like a smack in the face how valueless the things they wanted were.

The lesson the producers wanted to teach me was how good-hearted these poor kids were, that they would give up their most desired thing to make their parents happy. Cue sappy christmas music . . . But here is what I learned – When given the opportunity children can see the difference between consumerism-produced junk and things of real value.

Santa teaches children to want tons of things that are shiny new pieces of junk that will be in the actual garbage in a year. I’m a mom, I’ve cleared out toy plies after my kids grew out of them. Don’t tell me “Oh DONATE!” There was SOOOOOOO much broken crap that went into the trash. Don’t donate a Barbie that someone gave a haircut and sharpie makeover to, don’t donate a handful of assorted accessories from ten different toys, no one wants that crap! No donation place is going to take the time to refurbish a doll, and no poor kid in America is going to be grateful to get half a race car track with a car that hasn’t worked since your kid played “submarine” with it. Don’t kid yourself. The toy you buy this year is going to be in your actual garbage can by next christmas.

Do you want to talk about the environmental impact of that?

What about the social justice of the salary and working conditions of the factory worker who made it?

Think of the unpleasant hours in your house solving arguments over sharing, playing nice, stop touching your brother’s stuff, you’re going to break it and come clean this place up!

Is any of it really worth it? Really?

Lady in Red

She still couldn’t really believe it was happening. She looked at herself in the mirror hung on her bedroom door. the dress fit like a dream, shimmering lace over red satin – very Christmas-y. She smiled at her hair that decided to curl just right tonight, and she liked the way her face looked, perfectly blushed and shadowed. The doorbell rang.

Suddenly she felt like she might throw up as fear gripped her. What if they changed their mind at the last minute? In front of his parents? She gave herself a shake and picked up the fancy clutch purse.

She rounded the corner of the stairs and could see him standing in the front hall. He looked up and saw her.

Wow. His face was a light of infatuation. She smiled and left her nerves upstairs.

Her parents were somehow normal and shook hands and took pictures while her father traded Dad Jokes with Jon’s Dad. No morality warnings, no threat of hellfire in retribution for “impure actions”. Somehow her mother did not sneer, but the frozen mask of a social smile was almost as unnerving to her. His parents seemed not to notice.

Finally they were in his family’s car. He squeezed her hand and smiled. “Having fun yet?” She smiled back, “Yes.”

Stupid Crap You Shouldn’t Bother Reading

So the choir is singing and I decide I don’t like their tone. Most of the kids are singing the right notes, they seem to be having a great time, but their tone doesn’t ring, and the harmonies that they do don’t lock in and give anyone goosebumps. Be nice, I think, this is an elementary school choir.

His conducting is very big and without nuance. I should give him a break, they are just kids, and keeping them together with a strong beat pattern is pretty much all they can understand.

The truth is, I’m jealous. Horribly, horribly jealous. So jealous that I can hardly stay in my seat. I want a chance to do what he is doing. I think I could do something really impressive. I think I can do better than what he is doing.

But I probably can’t. The supervisor has already interviewed me and she passed on giving me a job. 😦 . That really sucked. I don’t know where I went wrong and now I’m afraid to apply for any other position in her department because she will just skip over me because she has already made up her mind that I suck. I must actually suck, why would someone else get that job that I was PERFECT for?

I wish I knew which thing pushed me over into the NO pile. Was it my weak piano skills? was it something I said about my style of teaching? If they disagreed with my point of view, couldn’t they see how smart I was and how much I wanted this job that they could have told me, “We are looking for x, y and z.” And I could have had a conversation about how I could do that. But no, I don’t know what the people who hire want, and they won’t say, in case someone is smart enough to say, yes I can do that, and then they can’t or won’t. Other people suck.

Then why am I so intimidated by other’s opinions of my musicality when, without being vain, I could really do it much better than they. Or can I? The little Christmas group I got together was no great performance, even though everyone was happy about it. Maybe I do suck. I think I suck.

But teaching singers to form vowels in a way that makes voices prettier is not that hard, and something basic to me. But I haven’t been practicing piano in years – so whatever skill I had is gone. But I CAN play, and I should stop saying I can’t. I should stop saying I suck because other people are better than me.

Ack! That is what my daughter says – she doesn’t want to put herself out there because there are better performers out there than her. I should be brave for her sake.

But is sucks so hard when I fail. I have such a hard time with criticism of my musicianship that I spent years and thousands of dollars learning. It also sucks that I spent all that time and money on something and I’m not using anything I learned in my employment. Actually not even in my hobbies because I’ve let that go too.

This is a crappy piece of writing. This is a diary entry, it won’t entertain ot enlighten anyone, I don’t know why I published it here. This page is supposed to be for fiction. I thought I would possibly vomit this all out onto a page and put it into a character’s story. But I can’t think of a place to put it. I also wanted to hide my judgement of the person observed in fiction because I don’t want it to get back to him. Crap for that I guess. I’ve screwed myself there.

I’m ok with criticism in the comments here. It’s not at all what I mean this space on the internets to be. No need to tell me to commit suicide/die, wish violence on me or leave something unhelpfully simple like, “You are right, you suck as a writer.” The big D in my head has all that on constant repeat in my head.

This started out as song lyrics. Maybe. It might just be self-indulgent crap.

I feel so small. I want to sink away.

I tried, I tried so hard to fly, but all I can do is fall.

I am unimportant,

I hear “not capable, not able, doesn’t follow through, can’t do it, can’t do it all”

Can’t do it at all.

I feel small.

If I just give in to it, accept it embrace it, am I giving up?

If I don’t try to fly I won’t fall.

There is no one chance in life, every moment is a chance

Every one that I grabbed is the wrong one, or I grabbed it the wrong way

I’ve crashed and burned and people see how small I am.

Is this my truth or is it IT?

Is it lying to me again? If I embrace it is it true? Will it leave me alone if I am small?

If I don’t try to fly will he not make me fall?

Feel the they some say. Feel and move on. Let go.

When I feel it, it eats me up. I find more ways I’ve failed.

Am I feeding it? Will it stay forever like some mangy stray?

I curl up into myself.

Make myself small.

I feel small.

Hearts Pumping

“Can I talk to you a minute?” he says, gesturing to me. I nod and when he turns to enter the empty meeting room next door I feel my face flush. Why do I always notice how cute he is? Why are we going into this other room away from everyone else?

He faces me and the door at my back stands open. “So, the placeholder committee? How is that going?” His voice is steady and the question completely necessary. I give him a quick summary of events. I’ve got this under control. Why would you think this conversation would be anything else?

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

He walks into the side room to join the other two placeholder titles in the midst of our conversation. They greet him, but luckily I see someone I need to talk to and escape before I have to decide how to greet him.

A few minutes later I have to face him. We are both part of this organization. He knows it, I know it. We also know that he is married now, he broke my teen-aged heart, and it is 20 years later, water under the bridge and gone to sea. So how come I can’t stop staring? How come I keep thinking about what his lips feel like? I met his wife, she is lovely, and his kids, great kids. He has been working at this life for as long as I have been working at mine. I’m not going to rock his boat.

Why can’t I stop imagining rocking his world?

The Distraction

The Monitors are beginning to notice – we’ve got to do something big to distract them.

Why? Things are so calm, even people who don’t know are coming around and questioning the council.

But we aren’t ready yet, we don’t have a plan to take down the top.

We don’t need one, that’s the point. Change things here on the ground, in the here and now. Leave the Council to manage whatever it thinks it has authority over. Be easy, Das. He embraced my shoulder and walked away from me.

He was so focused on this way, no rebellion, no rising up, just do the right thing and carry on. It was working, but it would only go so far. The monitors around school were beginning to be on to them. They were staring just too long at students who were somehow not quite consuming what the council was issuing. But just a loose group of students were too easily removed if the monitors caught on, they needed a distraction.

So began the planning of the Senior Prank. What to do that even he would participate in, and still get the monitors convinced that they were still rebellious teens that needed discipline?

A truly devious plan was found with a little internet research, and a few tweeks to make it our own and on an early spring day the trap was sprung.

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

He ran into the Dining Commons. When he saw the chaos he wished they had called sooner. The kids were a pushing, shoving, shouting mob. Chairs were tossed aside and kids were standing on tables shouting and pointing phones toward the center. Good god, there would be no getting ahead of the story now. Why hadn’t the monitors alerted sooner? Why hadn’t the cellular screens engaged?

Kill him! Kill Him! Get up! Fight fight fight!

Oh this is bad, trash was being tossed and a student was shoved off a table. His whistle screeched, but it didn’t cut through the noise. He rushed to the edge of the mob, a single person in a suit jacket preparing to break into a fighting angry mass of teenage angst and fashion. He grabbed a handful of school-colored hoodie and pulled. This student face shifted from excitement to alarm when he saw that it was he.

The Principal! He yelled. Wall is here! He reached out toward the nearest student and grabbed for his attention. Principal! he yelled, and a few more kids noticed. They pulled back and began to make way for me.

He reached out again and pulled a student blocking his way, and the space of a few more bodies opened up. It didn’t close back in, did that mean the police had arrived on scene? That wouldn’t look good either – the principal not having it under control when the body cams arrived.

Around him, half the crowd cheered and half howled in dismay, punctuated by sideline coaching. Get up! Get UP! This had to stop, he blasted the whistle into the nearest ear. A hand jumped up to cover it, and almost slapped him across the face. But it had the result of clearing away the front row of gawkers.

In the middle of the chaos sat three students around a square table covered with an elaborate map dotted by resin figures an dice with too many sides. Blood rushed to and from his face, drowning out the sounds as it gushed past his ears. When he came to himself, Get out. GET out. Get out! Get OUT!

Some were laughing to the point of insensibility at their own cleverness as they disbursed. Other faces reflected his horror or showed abject fear of the rage that leaked through cracks in his facade as they scrambled to gather the game pieces and go.

A D-20 rolled to a stop against his shoe. He lifted his heel and ground it into fine powder.

The school being attacked . . .

He looked out of the window and saw the cloud in the Northwest. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes. The focus brought the shape of wings out of the dark blur.

Damn.

He crossed to his desk and pressed the third button from the left under the lip of the big desk. He heard the metal storm shutters close over all the windows and the air vents close and lock. He put on the headlamp and turned on the muted blue light. It was enough to show him the way out of the room.

Drills

“Yoo-hoo dear, we need to have an emergency drill this week.” The timbre of her voice shouldn’t exist. There were no chalkboards anymore, how then could her voice grate like fingernails over something that hadn’t been in use for decades?

“Oh yes, thank you for the reminder.” He turned to look at the weather through the dirty window. “Has it stopped raining?” These drills are ridiculous. The children were standing in lines outside ready to be mowed down by gunfire. They should be running and scattering toward the woods.

“Not as such.” He groaned inwardly. If he ran a simple fire drill the parents would bury him in emails accusing him of everything from ill-manners to genocide for making their children stand in the rain.

“Fine, lockdown at 10:45.” It might as well be 1960 again with these drills. “Duck and Cover”. Wouldn’t save you from a nuclear missile, wouldn’t save you from an armed intruder.  

The bell rang, saving him from her gosh-darned cheeriness.

What Did I Call?

The Principal opened the lower right desk drawer. The purple glow of a swirling vortex reflected off his skin. “Higer-priheh” he intoned. Ğérhonts rose in a mist that smelled like yesterday’s sloppy joes. “Kaghlos meldh-ĝhor,” he coughed and spat. The phlegm glowed slightly on the wall before disappearing into it. He wacked him on the face with his meet’er stick. “Why am I here, sub-creature?”,

“Priheh-Ğérhonts, guarder of the crossing, best beloved of all the dead–”

“Cut that out! I’ve been perfectly happily asleep for an eon, and now I have a worshiper again, I’d like to be done with you.” Totally against its intended use, he wacked him with the meet’er stick again.

He cleared his throat and got to the point, “Since I summoned you–”

“Hrrumph” said the Elder-spirit, waving his stick at him again.

He dodged the stick and continued, “the students are playing a new game on their phones–”  Ğérhonts looked blankly at him. He cleared his throat and tried different words. “The students seem to be able to throw fireballs and other spells from their totems. This is not usual in this realm. Umm, is this because we . . . ?”

Ğérhonts started to chuckle, then laugh and then roll on top of the vortex drawer in glee. “You thought you could dabble in arcane arts and nothing else would come through? You are not even mensdeh! You are a baby in an adult’s body! You summoned an Elder-spirit with no training, no protections, not even a slóugos to hold a torch for you. The door did not shut, He. The door did not shut!” Ğérhonts sank back into the vortex in a paroxysm of hilarity and the drawer slammed after him.

“Ğérhonts! Ğérhonts!” he shouted and threw the drawer open again. His hip flask and stash of dry erase markers stared back at him mockingly.

Status Quo Report

Requests for residency have increased by 4.02% this quarter. This follows a trend from last quarter when the increase was 3.7% Existing facilities have absorbed this increase by reducing the number of nights a transient person may stay in Council supported housing. After 25 days a vagrant must secure their own housing or be evicted from Council Concern for Mendicants. (CCM)

Incidents of assault by street dwellers is up 2% from this time last year. Law enforcement presence will be increased in this area, and quota for citations and arrests will be increased by 10%.

Upon the success of the Architectural Design to Reduce Loitering Initiative (ADRLI) the council will be installing textured concrete forms in public spaces where addicts are known to frequent. Curfews will be strictly enforced, and anyone lurking about after curfew will be arrested and their possessions forfeit.

Looking forward to the warmer months, all public fountains will be salted to prevent bacterial growth, and theft of the community’s water.

In the beginning of the winter weather 10K winter coats were made available through social services. There have been reports that many of these coats, generously given by the council, have been found shredded and soaked in urine. This program will not be renewed.

Emergency room visits are down, but emergency response teams have found complainants to be DOA in 7% of calls. This has never been tracked before, EMT’s don’t declare time of death, but this reflects the number of bodies found cold and stiff by first responders. Many of the deceased have no family or means of support so they have been cremated and dispersed into the sewer system.

Number of students on free lunch has continued to rise, but we have been able to reduce the cost per student to $.98 per meal. This savings will be passed on to the Election Reform fund.

Attendance at public schools are up. The office of truancy has been working closely with the office of welfare to reduce the money received by families of children with more than 2 absences from school in a month.

Compulsory factory training has been a big success. Attendance is up 20% in the past three months.

Longer prison sentences have been implemented. Since this has begun the re-arrest rate has dropped by half. Visits at prisons have been limited to lawyers, parents, siblings and spouses; not girlfriends, regardless of pregnancy attributed to a convict. Children of a convict are not permitted to visit. Convicts are not permitted to have marriage licenses issued to them while serving time and all conjugal visits have been cancelled.

For our God says, “Take care of your riches on earth. My love for you is revealed in your prosperity. Your poverty and vice is a sign of my disdain.