Cheer Up, Everyone!
You know what seems to start earlier with each successive year? Not the inescapable presence of Christmas music, although they were already playing that at a CVS I stopped into this weekend, which, fuck you, CVS, I should not have "Silver Bells" clanging up and down in my brain even one day more than necessary. No, it's the pervasive feeling of holiday dread that seeps into the psyche of everyone who is not still entranced by "the most wonderful time of the year." (Yeah, CVS nailed me with that one too.)
You know what I'm talking about. You see it in the sagging shoulders of the woman wheeling her luggage to the cab that will carry her to the airport and all its attendant miseries. You hear it in the voices of the drunk couples who like to fight in the street but suddenly lack the boisterousness of summertime's shoutfests, as if they can't be bothered to fully engage in the kind of conflicts that passersby can enjoy without quite understanding. You read it in the resigned notes from friends and colleagues who you are making plans to "catch up with" during December. Everyone is going through the motions, and everyone knows it.
Why? Well, surely there's the recession. Nobody's happy. But there is also the recognition that the holidays suck; they are a dark vortex of depression and discomfort and loneliness and remorse, with the added bonus of hangovers and weight gain and the crushing feeling that you're doing it wrong—the holidays, that is, but, in a larger sense, life in general. Your heart hurts.
Some of your neighbors are already leaving for Thanksgiving, if they have not left already. You spot them near the elevator and pretend that you've forgotten something in your apartment so that you don't need to spend a short ride in their company expressing cursory interest in their plans. They are just as grateful to not have to talk to you. We're all wondering how we're going to keep it together until January puts an end to another year.
Well, buck up, people! I know it's hard, but I want you to delay your holiday dread for as long as you can. Drink yourself calm, ignore the imagined—and real!—slights, believe whatever lies that somehow convince you things won't be as terrible this time out. Yes, it's the most miserable season of all. Yes, it's a stark reminder that you're that much closer to death. Yes, the memory of your childhood glee is that much more painful when contrasted to your adult reality. But be easy on yourselves. It is not even Thanksgiving yet. Christmas is a long way off. Give yourselves a break. Come those weepy days of December you'll be glad that you made the effort.
It's going to be OK, Balk, really. Here, let me get you a drink.
I'm convinced that Balk is on the Jim Beam payroll.
I will never understand the failure of the bourbon industry to sponsor each and every one of his posts.
I mostly like the holidays because I'm happy to be home and see my friends and family. But this year, some mild dread has already been prompted by the dawning realization that I have come to prefer San Francisco over New York. Also, it looks like marijuana withdrawal symptoms maybe do exist, a little bit, after all.
THEY EXIST. FFS I am job searching and work in an industry that often tests prior to hire and I am flat out losing my religion. Pissing in that cup would be the sweetest christmas gift of all this year. Thanks in advance, Santa.
Ok… so is it across the street, or down the road?!>?
"Balk, humbug."
I feel like The Mysterious Mr. Balk is circling closer and closer to the archetype.
God help us if this turns into a redemption narrative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S50cf3xIb50&feature=player_embedded
Hey! Leave CVS alone! Of all the drug store chains in NYC, CVS is the most consistently decent place. Decent staff, decent stock, just decent folks.
In contrast, Walgreens is like a homeless shelter. Rite Aid is a mess. And Duane Reade could be decent if they didn't shoehorn their retail spaces into crazy configurations.
LEAVE CVS ALONE!
Time to get those SSRIs washed in.
"The Awl.com: We'll tie a ribbon around your neck so you feel better."
"Then choke you."
I'm getting you a Chia Bear.
There is good news! If you just give up all hope entirely and bottom out this year, every other year is awesome. Seriously. I have zero plans, and I know all my friends and family will not be with me on 'special days' but I still plan on having fun! Fun! FUN!
Or at least, getting drunkenly sad and drunkenly sleeping with other sad drunks.
I'm highly susceptible to earworms and Christmas music seems worse than other types in setting one off. You don't know horror until you spend a month hearing the chorus of Johnny Mathis' "Sleigh Bells" in your head for a week.
Sleigh Bells' version of "Sleigh Bells" should outstrip even that horror.
I am looking forward to the “Jingle Dogs” and “Jingle Cats” without irony!
Reason enough for the season for me!
I'm so happy this year isn't last year that I'll happily listen to grandma got run over by a reindeer on endless loop between now and epiphany.
Right there with you, carpetblogger. '09 was the shittiest.
Well, I hope you at least got a flu shot while you were there.
The overwhelming sentiment being: we're all scrooged.
I love the holidays. There is no better feeling than feast or famine drug use, law school finals and being reminded you don't and never will have any money. And lets not forget a couple back-and-forth trips between the painful-ghost-filled big city I'm sick of and the sordid medium-sized, down-market gambling town I grew up in filled with friends from a decade ago. Who has been ridden the hardest by life? Who is in jail? Who is selling the cocaine these days? I can't wait to find out! Jesus and Santa rejoice in Hell!
THIS-minus the law school bit. oh and these days, the drugs too. :(
"Jesus and Santa rejoice in Hell!"
is totally going to be my facebook update on the day i board the plane towards my small-sized, socially repressed rural mountain town for such a similar outlook to yours that… yes, sad faces all around.
this post was like you photo-copied my brain.
There is one thing and one thing only that the holidays are good for: reindeer steak.
The time we all compete for leaping space out the window is when CVS breaks out the Chipmunks' "Christmas Time is Here Again".
That one is actually my goto summer jam.
Me, I want a huuuula hoop.
I highly recommend mixing this up with a little Beatle Barkers:
http://ilike.myspacecdn.com/play#Beatle+Barkers:Love+Me+Do:788312:s41668492.11021790.19705744.0.2.25%2Cstd_40875c96424943f18fa0b2cbe36b1798
Pessimism is an ameliorant.
Don't worry; when you wake up tomorrow, it'll be worse.
Not to mention your chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
Oh wait, I have a gift for you; It's a rib steak from Gristedes. Happy Holidays, man.
And when you're a parent, you worry that you're doing it wrong not only for yourself, but for the little people whose amazing memories you're supposed to be making. PRESSURE GAH.
That slug made my day.
I can deal with Christmas songs playing in retail stores because I know they are trying to make me panic about not having started on my shopping . If they really think hearing "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas…" weeks before Thanksgiving will make me feel like buying things, well, that's their mistake to make. But what I cannot understand is nonstop holiday music in nonretail environments. I went into a sandwich shop the other day and found myself listening to Annie Lennox sing "Winter Wonderland" on a 60-degree fall day. I was the only customer. I thought about letting the proprietors know that they are mistaken about people's desires and expectations, and they'd really be better off listening to whatever THEY like. I refuse to believe endless covers of "Winter Wonderland" would be their first choice.