It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like..

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like..


It’s Beginning to Look a lot like...

A conspicuous consumerist landscape wrangled around the fervent insecurities of the general population of intelligentsia sprinkled with erudite automatons and the thwarts of pesky and preoccupied plebeians. An atmosphere of high anxiety stimulates the desires and anticipated obligations of the humanoids that run around trying to attain some type of material acceptance and certainty. The expectations are high and smelly with the odor and luminance of high glycemic index food stuffs, cheap petroleum trinkets and icky chemical fragrance burning off into the night like a dying fire full of bacon grease. The season of over consumption and slothfulness comes in full speed and stride while tightly creating a plastic atmosphere of reciprocal altruism, forced holiday spirit and tolerance for the slow and slightly unintelligent people that simply take too long trying to pay for their purchases in line.

The candy coated red and white consciousness of the cold and wet streets leave a sense of something more to be desired. Into the fog droves of people trudge along to their boxes with screens while waiting so desperately to return their “cozy” boxes with screens and lay around like a cooked turkey with diabetes inducing cranberry sauce. What has become of the community and sense of love that were taught to us in our childhood? Several freezing underdressed people at the bus stop rub their hands together and look at their white breath as if it were the ghosts of holidays past escaping into the ionosphere with reckless abandon. Drink up! They say as the cold freezes the minds and motivations of the overworked working class. Drink these spirits to feel the spirit. Fill thine bellies with wine and copious amounts of simple carbs to simply give you enough numbness to make it through the drudgery of obligatory meet ups and office parties. You have made it through the sleazy and  awkward work conversations before and you can surely do it again with even more fake interest and disconnection.

Do you want that gift you can barely afford wrapped? Did you forget the honey baked ham? The voice in the back of your head tickles you with anticipation and anxiety that makes you believe you are missing or forgetting something. How bloody inconvenient. How treacherous of task list that pulls at the strings of your own well being. ( A state of being transient and amorphous in its own regard.) It will all be over soon you tell yourself as you sit in the bumper to bummer traffic mess waiting for the light to turn green. The panhandlers play your guilt harp like a virtuosic cherub. How could you not give that person a dollar or so? You dig into your crusty pockets to try to scavenge some loose cash. A quarter and a nickel will do. That’s the spirit. That temporary helper’s high dopamine rush will surely do you good with your self esteem and for sure give you some positive points with the man upstairs. Onward and upward through the twisting neighborhoods of inflatable snowmen, cheap manger scenes and icicle lights that illuminate the unkept porches of the middle to lower class soon to be retirees.

Buy this! You’re a pro at spotting the perfect gifts. An intuitive type of laziness arises in the most opportune time to grab the objects that make you think you care. You spend your hard earned overtime money to grab that extra special thing with that extra special bow. You know yourself that you are going to get it wrapped at the counter. You look at your rectangular device and peruse through the contemptuous feed of holiday selfies, annoyingly cynical statuses and political rants as you wait for the precious gifts to get the final tape down of wrapping paper. You’re ready to take on the next escapade of consumption. Onward through the gloomy wet weather to the next overcrowded store. But it’s mom and pop shop you like to tell yourself. Better than those corporate monster franchises. After all you are more special and unique than you think. Aren’t you?

Perforated cards of holiday charm litter the mantel of your fireplace. The Wilsons made another fantastic family holiday card again. Who do they get to photograph them? How Splendid. Your Aunt’s hauntingly endearing card tickles your cringe muscles and twists at your acuity towards grammar and punctuation. It’s the thought that counts. That’s what they always told you. Later you realize you didn’t send anything out. How lame and peculiar. But you’re busy! Completely understandable. Basking in the gratitude of the loving support of family and friends, you go towards the fridge to find a snack. The inside guts of the fridge contain nothing more than a few beers, some orange juice and some questionable eggs. All this time you spend your money on gifts and forgot to think about your little self. The last time you went to the grocery was a couple of weeks ago. You scavenged like a buzzard nibbling at the free holiday cookies at work and frequenting gas stations to scarf down an assortment of protein laden sugar bars and potent energy drinks that allowed you a small window of time to complete the consumptive holiday feats. Like a blur, you remember everything you have been neglecting. Your car, your body, your family, your friends. Alone at last in a lonely lapse.

Tinsel cinnamon scents send your senses for a spin.
The allure of cocoa motivates you for that sugar rush.
Always chasing that high from moment to another. Sure you can get sad. What a time to be alive!  To drive from point A to point B. To spend your hard earnings on things. After all, you are stimulating the economy. Milking that sweet teet of consumption and satisfaction. Think of the looks on their faces when they see what you got the. How lovely. How gratifying. A momentary reason to be alive. A sense of purpose aligned with a sense of hope and dare I say faith. Tryptophan and Dopamine slowly drift one to a state of contentment and lustful laziness. A quick move to the warmth of the covers as the sleet and snow fall on the forgotten lawn mower left out front by the porch. Visions of not working float through your head, while your motivation to sleep with temporarily pacify the dread. At least for awhile you don’t have to force a smile as you slowly surrender the sheep in your head. Like a hermit crab you descend into your blanketed shell. Waiting to ascend into dream land. Waiting to eat more and lay around. What a life to live. How beautifully profound. Tis the season to be jolly and all through the house, only a few creatures are stirring in the depths of the poorly insulated and luke warm epicenter of a half payed off mortgaged shack of a house.

DG