(no subject)
So it's Sunday evening and I'm writing in from my mother's place, a small farm house a few miles of dirt road from Chelsea, MI. I've based my nomadic reacquaintance with life in North America out of this humble house for the last eight weeks, though I've been all over the state and managed a couple of excursions out to such Meccas as Cincinnati and Minneapolis. I'm still recovering - it's been dark for an hour - from a hangover I'm blaming on a compulsive smoking habit that's been ruthless when given some space to work. Last night's session was brought on by an afternoon of cookie baking and Sandi Patti style christmas hymns, the classic example I often give of why i get so shitty and depressed this time of year. I've spent years cultivating a kind of happy rage from within, a directed scream, some bizarre lifeforce that keeps me driven and often disheveled. But the cooking, baking, frosting and sugaring of cookies in cute bell and tree shapes required an enormous effort of restraint for me. I never notice it at the time, I always think I'm relaxed and finding some space where I can enjoy this kind of family occasion without being annoyingly hard-core about it all. But after a time I start to fidget and I can't really think right. When I finally leave the house I usually end up screaming in the car, as a release, banging my hands on the steering wheel and then laughing. It's always been this way. Afterwards I meet Jill for the requisite liquor binge and chain smoke.
I haven't been home at christmas since 1999. I worked hard to manage that. My yearly visit to the family was usually in the summer, so as to avoid the seasonal plans that have built up all this stupid christmas angst of mine. When I was younger there was always a week long micro-managed plan that was necessary to accommodate the 4 or more families and various divorce decrees that legislated the holiday visitation schedule. Sure, we kinda pretended that all didn't exist once we were older, but the tradition of alternating christmas day versus christmas eve visits, with the multiple fancy meals and evenings of watching step-cousins open toys one by one, stayed strong until one half of my weirdo family unit broke apart a couple of years ago. But yeah, I'm back here to stumble through the holiday season again, just like old times, but with a section of the plans cut out due to my mother's divorce, a new element added in with Kimberly's family, a neice, an ann arbor house-sit for solace, and the awkwardness that family conversation is when you've basically been missing for about 10 years. It's strange, I thought the surrealism that runs through my life was somehow linked to Belgium, but it must be in my head somewhere.
So hello there... I'm in a good mood now that I got that out. I'm going to attempt to laugh at the folly that is the holiday season because any time I've tried to make it holy, or even just "special" because of the time with family and friends, I've failed. I'm a new-years, halloween kinda guy I suppose. I did attempt a photo shoot of all the psycho xmas consumerism as Woodland mall a couple weeks ago, but that just annoyed me more. The ode to the Jews in the form of a giant wooden draedal (that can't be spelled right) was amusing but the rest just made me sad.
So now that I've shared my humbugness and told of issues best kept to myself I'll wrap up this little epistle with some concrete news:
I'm back in North America until the fascism becomes unbearable. Or until we all decide to bring down civilization for good. Ahh.... 'twould be so much fun...
I'm moving to Oakland in a month, to live amongst those too poor for San Francisco proper.
I'm not nearly as distraught or issue-ridden as the above few paragraphs might suggest, I just suck at writing without recipients - and I needed to vent.
May your celebration of the birth of an obscure jew two thousand years ago, which oddly coincides with the ancient observance of the winter solstice, be pure, holy, joyous, wild, fun and full of love. I mean it.
Be careful not to wear that "peace on earth" embroidered sweatshirt to the mall though, we don't want none of that traitor pinko commie shit in our public space.
May our chopping down of millions of pine trees please the Goddess. blessed Yule.
With laughter, madness and abracadabras...
John Ryan
I haven't been home at christmas since 1999. I worked hard to manage that. My yearly visit to the family was usually in the summer, so as to avoid the seasonal plans that have built up all this stupid christmas angst of mine. When I was younger there was always a week long micro-managed plan that was necessary to accommodate the 4 or more families and various divorce decrees that legislated the holiday visitation schedule. Sure, we kinda pretended that all didn't exist once we were older, but the tradition of alternating christmas day versus christmas eve visits, with the multiple fancy meals and evenings of watching step-cousins open toys one by one, stayed strong until one half of my weirdo family unit broke apart a couple of years ago. But yeah, I'm back here to stumble through the holiday season again, just like old times, but with a section of the plans cut out due to my mother's divorce, a new element added in with Kimberly's family, a neice, an ann arbor house-sit for solace, and the awkwardness that family conversation is when you've basically been missing for about 10 years. It's strange, I thought the surrealism that runs through my life was somehow linked to Belgium, but it must be in my head somewhere.
So hello there... I'm in a good mood now that I got that out. I'm going to attempt to laugh at the folly that is the holiday season because any time I've tried to make it holy, or even just "special" because of the time with family and friends, I've failed. I'm a new-years, halloween kinda guy I suppose. I did attempt a photo shoot of all the psycho xmas consumerism as Woodland mall a couple weeks ago, but that just annoyed me more. The ode to the Jews in the form of a giant wooden draedal (that can't be spelled right) was amusing but the rest just made me sad.
So now that I've shared my humbugness and told of issues best kept to myself I'll wrap up this little epistle with some concrete news:
I'm back in North America until the fascism becomes unbearable. Or until we all decide to bring down civilization for good. Ahh.... 'twould be so much fun...
I'm moving to Oakland in a month, to live amongst those too poor for San Francisco proper.
I'm not nearly as distraught or issue-ridden as the above few paragraphs might suggest, I just suck at writing without recipients - and I needed to vent.
May your celebration of the birth of an obscure jew two thousand years ago, which oddly coincides with the ancient observance of the winter solstice, be pure, holy, joyous, wild, fun and full of love. I mean it.
Be careful not to wear that "peace on earth" embroidered sweatshirt to the mall though, we don't want none of that traitor pinko commie shit in our public space.
May our chopping down of millions of pine trees please the Goddess. blessed Yule.
With laughter, madness and abracadabras...
John Ryan