christmas

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Dancing Like a Sugarplum Inside my Head

Where did it come from? Why is it there? It came from nowhere and hung in my mind billowing like clothes on the line, the words playing over and over,

…a ripe jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. …a ripe jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. …a ripe jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. …a ripe jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

…the fragment just plays, wispy and light, over and over as I take a shower, as I blow my hair, as I feed the dog, as I clean the microwave.

It isn’t Christmas. I haven’t even thought of Christmas. I even remembered my dream right before waking and it wasn’t about Christmas. I have not listened to or read the Night Before Christmas.

So can someone tell me why the right jolly old elf is ripe and why he’s dancing like a sugarplum inside my head?

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Holiday Season

I’m learning how to be.  I’m seem always to be failing at it.  Maybe I need to change my standards.  I don’t know.

Last night was infiinitely better than yesterday.  I finally opened my mouth to the man I love and once we started speaking, things were better.  I find it odd to have roles reversed for me in this relationship.  In the past I was the one prodding and speaking and working to make the other say something.  I have now become the one who clams up.  Weird, this.

We cleaned the house and decorated for Christmas last night.  Then we wrapped too many gifts. The gifts are small, but we have quite a few of them to hand out so there was a lot to wrap.  It’s satisfying that it is done.

Portland is buried in snow. The city does nothing when it snows like this.  I find it completely frustrating.  I just left Boulder, Colorado, where it snows like this all the time.  The city plows the roads, puts down gravel, and gets on with it.  Portland just turns stupid.  We went to the mall today with a friend.  While there a customer service person at Ross accosted us upon walking in the door, WE’RE CLOSING!  We’re closing in TWO MINUTES!!  He was frantic.  This was four hours before the store was scheduled to close.  God forbid anyone is open past dark.  None of the stores salt or gravel their walks.  It’s slick, but not unmanageable.  I don’t get it.  People keep saying it is because no one here is used to it.  I say that argument is bunk.  People are from everywhere these days.  We drive in rain in Oregon; we can drive in snow if we so desire.  It would help a lot if the city actually did something productive like scrape and sand more roads, but to stop everything is ridiculous.  We did not even get mail today.

I have a wretched bladder infection.  Can you believe tha when I called my doctor.  The office was closed…of course, it’s snowing! Who goes to the doctor in the snow?  Foolish me to expect otherwise.  So the message at the office claimed it would forward me to the answering service.  Guess what?  The answering service never answered.  I called and called.  No answer.  I guess it’s too hard to answer the phone in the snow too.  Let’s hope it isn’t true that the climate is changing so drastically that snow will be a norm here.  If so, Portland might disappear considering no one can function when it snows here.

So today we are comfortably ensconced in our warm house.  I am grateful for the warmth in our home.  We are packing and getting ready for our big trip across country. I’m kind of scared, but excited too.  It’s a big step.  I hope our apartment works out.  It’s big by apartment standards, but so small in many ways.  The kitchen is wretchedly small. There isn’t even a counter.  We’re going to have to create our own.  Anyway, it feels better when I consider the prospect with Boyfriend, but I’m still sort of freaking out about fitting it all in and wanting to get the goods at Ikea to make it all fit.  We don’t have a lot of extra cash lying around.  Certain things simply will not work without Ikea to help us.  Yikes.  We’ll work it out.  I will definitely be glad when we are on the other side of the move and have actually had to do it rather than just think about it.  Soon enough.  For now, Christmas awaits.  Santa is coming to see Milla.  The tree is up.  Snow is falling.  It should be lovely.

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Racism is Racism is Racism is Racism

So Christmas morning, I got this lovely little story in my inbox from someone I work with.  It tells how she hung a bird feeder in her yard and the birds came and set up nests and pooped on everything so she couldn’t enjoy her yard anymore, so she kicked out the birds and got rid of the feeder and now everything is all wonderful again. She then likens the whole thing to undocumented immigrants and how wonderful life would be without them.

Fuck that.  And I got this shit on Christmas.  I couldn’t believe it.  So I wrote this in response:

I read the nice little informative story that is going around to the “good taxpaying American citizens.” What a friendly Christmas reminder how far from anything Christian anyone who believes this shit has become. Do you think Jesus would approve? I highly fucking doubt it. Jesus was like the undocumented worker, his parents searching for a barn in which to give birth. Or how about the story of Good King Wenceslas. Did you ever hear that one? You all probably hum the tune once or twice a Christmas season. I seriously doubt any of you know the words to the song and if you do, you clearly ignore them. You certainly do not know the true story behind the Good King. Good King Wenceslas was a king who took care of the poor. For this, his brother murdered him. How dare he share his riches with those who have less than he? But of course we don’t sing about that part; we sing about the good king who shared his riches with those less fortunate. We wouldn’t want to sing about the brother because he reminds us too much of ourselves.

How many of you, if actually faced with someone who needed something, would turn them away and say, “No. You didn’t fill out the proper paperwork so go starve. And by the way? We aren’t going to give you the medical care you need either. Who cares if your kid is dying of pneumonia because your kid is a little brown Mexican.” That’s what you are arguing for here. I don’t hear any of you screaming about the tax dollars that paid for me on the Oregon Health Plan when I had cancer (but of course, I am white and blonde so it’s okay to spend money on me). Your anger is displaced, and your argument is just plain stupid and wrong. You just want someone to blame because of your own unhappiness and it would be too hard to look in the mirror. You think shipping off some undocumented worker you never see is going to change anything for you? Get a clue-it won’t. Because the problem isn’t with the undocumented worker, but with this entire system. You sit there on your computer sending out your email in your warm house after eating your big, fat Christmas meal. How dare you? What on earth have you to complain about?

If you want to complain about how your tax dollars are spent, why not do something productive like helping to feed and clothe the immigrants who need it?  Do this instead of going shopping. Why don’t you lay your hatred at the feet of those who really cost you your tax dollars? Why aren’t you protesting this useless, lying war that costs us billions? Why aren’t you protesting the spending of billions on contractors to go and rape and kill Iraqis (oh but that’s okay too because they are Iraqi and don’t know any better. They’re just going to turn into a bunch of terrorists anyway so we might as well rape and kill their children).

Of course you won’t protest the real problems because it is easier for you to sit and point fingers at the Mexican family whose values are different than yours than it is for you to place the blame at the feet of capitalism or this administration or the Reagan administration, or hell, even the Eisenhower administration, whose actions are all more responsible for the financial state of this country than the minuscule dollars spent on a few undocumented immigrants. It is so much easier to blame them because you see that they live several families in a house and have lots of children and you don’t like that because it is DIFFERENT from you. You see that as somehow disgusting instead of seeing it for what it is: a better situation for people who had NOTHING thanks to their government and ours. But that would require too much thought on your part and thought is not part of the equation, now is it? It is easier to write some hateful fucking diatribe against these people on CHRISTMAS than to actually DO anything about it. Why don’t you admit what it really is that bothers you is that these people are different than you are? Why don’t you admit your racism instead of couching your hatred in some sort of moral outrage at how your tax dollars are spent? Be fucking honest, if nothing else.

I hung out a bird feeder last spring. The birds didn’t come and build nests and sing and poop like your happy little metaphor. Squirrels tore down the bird feeder and ate all the food. I’d say that is a more apropos metaphor for what is really going on.

Merry Fucking Christmas