On To Christmas

I think that what I am most grateful for during this time of forced and artificial thanksgiving is myself: Horseface Steve. I'm grateful for all of the things that have been given to me, especially material blessings. For, as we all know, the path to true happiness passes down the electronics aisle at your local bankrupt retailer, skirts the Auto Mall, and ends at a big house in a nice suburb with good schools and attractive streetscaping. If you don't have all of these things, or at least a clear path to purchase or steal them, you are in a world of hurt.

I'm also grateful for those members of my family and friends that can do things for me: Horseface Steve. I'm not quite as grateful for people that don't make my material world more comfortable, and everyone else pisses me off. I'm not going to touch the topic of doing something for someone else with a ten foot pole. That's right off the table.

Finally, I'm grateful that I have been able to live a successful and gratifying life with no need to connect to a God, Higher Power, or Great Spirit of the Universe. Praying and meditating are joy-killers and unproductive. Spiritual principals take the focus off of me: Horseface Steve; and are consequently not worth my time.

On to Christmas.

What If Grandmother is a Mean Drunk?

Over the causeway and through the red light,
To Grandmother's condo we go;
The car is old,
My wife has a cold,
The kids are a pain in the ass, oh!

(Editor's note -- I'm not in the mode to try to come up with rhymes today -- I have to spend the day with my in-laws).

Over the causeway and through a stop sign,
To Grandmother's trailer we go;
She's a drunken hag,
My mother's a nag,
My sister's another no-show, oh!

Over the causeway and off of the road,
To Grandmother's nursing home;
She's throwing a fit,
My daughter's a bitch,
The turkey's under-cooked, oh!

Over the causeway and into a tree,
To Grandmother's funeral home;
It couldn't be worse,
Unless I get drunk,
On this Thanksgiving Day.

Actually, my day will be just fine. I hope that yours will be, too. But if it isn't that's OK. Don't get drunk. You'll get through it. It's just another day. Maybe if you're a Pilgrim or an Indian living in Massachusetts it would be different. Probably not. I bet there were Pilgrims sneaking off to have some moonshine.

What if Grandmother Lives in an Apartment?

Thanks: An expression of gratitude; grateful acknowledgement of something received by or done for one.

Thanksgiving is a time when loving families get together in a spirit of peace and unbelievable love for a great big Lovefest. Everything is wonderful because everybody loves each other so much. There is so much love in the air that the Love Boat spontaneously blows up. Those people only wish they could love as much as families on Thanksgiving, especially alcoholic families, who almost have the market cornered on wonderful family reunions, where everything is sure to go well. Relatives travel from far and near for joyous reunions and intimate sharing of all of our deepest, most profoundly personal affairs.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Unless you come from a family where nobody likes anybody else. Sometimes the distaste is right out in the open and leads to arguments and fistfights and cutting comments dripping with bitter sarcasm. Or a family that isn't that close, where nice people sit around uncomfortably pretending to have strong feelings for people who they would rather not be around. Forced love is almost worse than open warfare. Not everybody is close. That's OK. It's not a character flaw if you aren't crazy about your brother in law that you see once a year, on some day of Mandatory Cheer.

You're not alone during the holidays. Don't believe all of that happy go lucky horseshit that you see on TV. Better yet, turn off the TV and go take a walk. Burn off some calories and some edgy, angsty fear.

Take it easy. It isn't going to be that bad

Chronic. Progressive. Fatal.

Chronic: Suggests long duration or frequent recurrence and is used especially of diseases or habits that resist all effort to eradicate them (chronic sinusitis).

I think when I start up my heavy metal band -- the one that's going to be cheered by tens of thousands at Wembley Stadium -- I'm going to call it The Chronic Progressive Fatal Quartet. If I'm going to make my living playing death metal I better let everyone know what's coming.

While I'm sipping coffee at a meeting, my disease is out in the parking lot doing push ups. One handed push ups, with a pile of bricks on its back, while suspended over a pit of Indian spitting vipers. My alcoholism keeps on coming. It's very macho. It can take a lot of punishment. It does not discourage easily.

It's not easy watching the end game. All active alcoholics take a tremendous emotional beating. We all know fear, what it's like to be irritable, restless, and discontented. Most of us take a lot of physical punishment: hangovers and cirrhosis and drug overdoses and the like. Some of us take it all the way. We just give up and let ourselves die. No one can help us.

Slow Motion Suicide. Which would also be a really cool band name.

Routine: A regular, more of less unvarying procedure, customary, prescribed, or habitual, as of business or daily life.

Luckily for me, I'm a routine guy by nature. In fact, capitalization would not be inappropriate in this case. Call me The Routine Guy. I have been known to floss in the jungle, take ice cold showers if the hot water is out, and eat a yogurt every day. Would it kill me to not floss today? It might. Under duress, I would consider using a different brand of floss or flossing right before bed instead of right after dinner or trying a different flossing technique, but I will, I must floss. Do not get between me and my floss.

Fortunately, I have been able to translate these almost dangerously compulsive habits into a strength of sorts. There are no stray pieces of spinach stuck between my back molars, for instance. This is a good thing, particularly if you have to look at me for any length of time, which many people consider unpleasant even when they don't have to ignore the occasional piece of vegetation. My nickname is Horseface, after all.

I'm totally off track this morning. See what the topic of flossing does to me? The only idea was to talk about how important it was for me to develop a healthy routine in my recovery program, and I picked up the thread of flossing, so to speak, and I was off and running.

This will all make sense tomorrow.

I Need More Stuff

Stuff: Worthless objects; refuse; junk.

My skepticism with The Promises is burning with a white hot heat today. I'm choking on the idea that I can be happy by dedicating my life to the happiness and well-being of others and by continuing to foster a deeper, more profound relationship with my concept of a Higher Power. It feels like I have a big chicken bone stuck in my craw. Not a little stuck, either, but wedged in there sideways and caught on my epiglottis. I'm horking and hacking and it's not going anywhere.

Surely I can be happy by pursuing my own wants. Things. That's the key. If I just keep accumulating more things then I will discover the meaning of life. I will break through and experience nirvana. You don't have to do all of that yoga crap or experiment with transcendental meditation to discover where happiness resides. It's stuff.

I can see that in our society that the happiest people have the best possessions. A good indicator of satisfaction is the size and cost of one's automobile. You are very happy if you have an expensive car. You will become more miserable with a small car and the pain will increase as the thing ages. If you take the bus, you might as well give up and resign yourself to a life of misery.

Get more stuff!

Laser Beams of Ire

OK, I've established the fact that I don't like anybody but I want them to love me. In my opinion I've made a compelling case, with airtight logic and a simplicity born of an almost otherworldly intelligence, common sense, and insight. The general population is highly flawed and patently offensive, justifying my distaste. Other than that, they're OK. They just need to make some improvements.

Unfortunately, the vigor with which I pursue my vendetta against my fellow man almost always slops over into my own personal space, which is where it becomes a real problem. It is, as I hope I have made clear, all about me. The emotional energy that I expend shooting laser beams of ire against mankind ends up bouncing off some kind of force field and hitting me right in the eye.

I can't dislike people. It isn't right and it isn't fair. Everybody is fine, doing the best they can to maneuver through the minefield that's life. Just because I manage to get through a couple of days without stumbling onto a buried explosive -- despite my best efforts to detonate every bomb within a hundred miles of my current location -- doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing.

Clearly, I don't know what I'm doing.