Ring Ring

An odd phone call was received at Casa Midnite today. The caller was my Grandmother. This usually entails minor dramas all about her, but not today. Today she was actually concerned about her daughter and grandson. Immediately I knew something was up.

Every year I am dragged to the wrinklies place for Christmas, and every year I wonder if cutting off my own arm with a rusty spoon will get me out of it. Now my Gran is a pain, but she is generally a pretty good gran. The old fella however is an arsehole. With a temper verging on psychopathic, delusional paranoia and a very outdated view of the world (he still thinks the Queen rules America).

Getting back to the phone call, it went something like this.

How are you? Feeling any better? They say this flu is a bad one. Your grandfather had a stroke. Are you drinking plenty? Remember to keep warm.

It was dropped into the conversation like a casual "it's raining here" piece of information, but the story unfolds. You see my lovely grandfather has verbally, mentally and physically abused my rather tiny gran for just about 60 years. So you would expect her to be happy about this, but she couldn't give a crap either way as far as I could tell.

Naturally I enquired as to the Doctors' prognosis. He hasn't seen one. Three days and no Doc. Why I hear you ask? Because he thought all the doctors were off for Christmas and she didn't correct him. Now to an outsider this might sound cold and heartless, but you have to understand that he is always right. If you correct him on anything, from the meaning of life to how many toes a koala bear has, he goes into a blind rage...which incidentally is what cause the stroke. So bad is his temper that he has been warned and cautioned by the police after he forced his way into another old couples' flat, to scream and shout at them about something he was completely wrong about, and has put himself in danger of eviction.

So my grandfather had a stroke for Christmas, a great present for the whole family.

A while ago, after the old tosser had pissed me off, I started thinking about family. They say you can't choose yours. I say that's bullshit. Just because he's my grandfather doesn't make him family. Almighty D is not biologically related to me, but he is my brother from another mother and I love him. I have collected a few people like Almighty D into my new model family over the years, and I am honoured to know them all. I don't always get on with them, that's what being a family is about, but they all make me happy and a better person.

So why not think of your own family, your new model family. Your true family. It's good to love your brothers and sisters, even if the law and biology says they're not.

Rebellion!!!

This year I have had enough.
Enough commercial exploitation.
Enough false cheer....and most of all

Enough of Christianity.

We are blasted with adverts encouraging us to spend more money than we have at Christmas. Why? To keep rich businessmen and women in gainful employment.

We are expected to smile and give a jolly "Merry Christmas" to all. Not to do so is so unthinkable you would be shunned and ridiculed for all time
Sorry I don't like you, so fuck off and die.

And worst of all, the whole concept of Christmas was invented by the Christians to convince Pagans that they were Christian. You see Pagans always celebrated the winter solstice, which marked both the shortest night of winter but also the end of the year...no religion involved. Then along came the Christian conversion machine and decided that Pagans should be Christian, mostly by convincing them that they already were. One of the Christian methods was to adopt a ritual or holiday, claim it was Christian and make up a history to back up this claim. Now I'm not debating the birth of Christ, but before the mass conversion of Europe, His birth was generally celebrated between mid October and early November.

I say dump the commercial X-mas and take back the winter solstice. Celebrate the end of a year with people you genuinely care about. Instead of gifts, give those special to you a hug. Give thanks to God, Allah, Obi-wan Kenobi...or who-ever, that the year hasn't been that bad and winter is almost over.

Rise up and take back winter, celebrate JCs' birthday actually on his birthday. We didn't hijack the holiday, but continuing it isn't right either.

Happy solstice to all and may next year be better to you than this year was.

what the hell?

Something rather odd occurred to me today. I decided, for the first time in ages, to have a look at a certain website for old school friends to reconnect. At first all seemed normal. Then a pattern emerged. Pretty much everyone, or at least everyone on the website, that I went to school with is married with kids. Now I'm quite comfortable with the fact that I am fast approaching 30, but I still consider that young and reckless. 30 is no age to be settled down and sensible. What happened to living life first?

Then I noticed something else, something a bit more personal. More specifically my exs.
One is married, another is engaged. OK, fair enough. Good for them. One has turned lesbian and has set up home with her life partner. What the fuck? While this isn't actually a big deal, and I'm very happy for her....this doesn't do a guys' ego much good.

Now I may be clutching at straws, but I immediately think of the film Good Luck Chuck. For those not familiar with this movie, it's about a guy who is cursed so that any woman he sleeps with will immediately meet the person of their dreams (not Chuck). Soon women start to take advantage of this odd dating service, and Chuck does his bit for woman kind.

Now obviously to believe something similar is happening to me is delusional. But hey, I'm young-ish, carefree-ish and if I want to delude myself then why not?

Then again there's a lot to be said for pratting about and "wasting" your life doing fun and meaningless things.


p.s. if you have more hair on your back than most people have on their heads, then sorry I can't help you.