Disappointment At It's Finest

One of life's most enduring mysteries is finding the right words to best express whichever particular dissatisfaction is affecting me at any given moment. Perhaps that is the reason for my penchant for pedantic rhetoric.

Whatever the case, it cannot be denied that our ability to complain is a God given right. Also given to us by God was Jesus. When thought about like this, it could be argued that complaining is next to godliness, or at least God was being extra generous at Christmas time, for both Jesus and complaining are essential components of the holiday season.

Now I'll be the first to admit I know fuck all about Jesus and his adventures. All I can really recall is that he was once the target of a scheme by Vandal Savage, so he must have been pretty important.

What I think I have made clear is that I do know a lot about complaining and, well, tis' the season. This is because Christmas is a time of expectations. Not only do you expect to find a bunch of cool shit for your own self under the tree, so do you also expect great gushings of praise and adulation for your superior gift giving abilities. But it was the great philosopher who said "Let whomsoever is expectant of generalities be dealt with in specifics."

Sound crazy? Take a moment to think about it and you'll see this is more true now than it was in his own time. Truly a visionary.

But back on track. So let's get on with some of my All-Time Greatest Yuletide Disappoinments.

The Golphin - In a fit of selflessness (I was young and naive), knowing how my dad loved golf and my mom loved dolphins, I proposed to my genecist Uncle that we create the golphin, an all white dolphin with little depressions evenly spaced over the entirety of it's body. Months of secretive research went by, until at last, my uncle declared success. A great to-do was had by all during the Christmas morning unveiling. My parents left it to me to grow them in a fish tank as my uncle had instructed. You can probably imagine my excitement has they grew from microscopic size to almost an inch long, when they promptly died (as did my excitement). Years later I would realise how I'd been duped when I found out what sea monkeys were.

Omega Supreme - The ultimate challenge to Devastator's battlefield supremacy. Imagine a rocket ship and it's launching pad with a motorized tank on a track defending the perimeter. Now imagine that all these components combine together into a mighty robot that shuffles about your residence, with lights and noises going all the while. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, there is one thing that is not awesome... finding no Omega Supreme under the tree.

Anti-Depressants - In a move of dubious necessity, shortly after my dad died, my mom sent me to a child psychiatrist to find out what I seemed so sad all the time. When that yielded results that did not meet her expectations, she started sending me to medical doctors for diagnosis. For a time she was worried that I might have a brain cloud. The thought of living with such a woman for the more than another decade made me wish for anti-depressants. This, too, did not come to pass. Instead, I got six pieces of Lego, which prompted me to empty the contents of a bottle of Tylenol into my tummy. I didn't get a headache for six years.

End to Cold War - Not really a disappointment, but noteworthy nonetheless. In fact, this one paid off in a big way. I'll consider my time on earth well spent even if this is my only contribution to the world at large. I'm glad I asked for this, and considering the direction the world was headed in, you should be, too.

Many Happy Returns - Christmas keeps coming back, meaning the accompanying dispondency and disillusionment are an annual event. Knock it off already. It's too early in the day to say what disappointments are in store, but once I find out, you will too.

Dark Poetry

As the season of good cheer is now upon us, my dissatisfaction seems best expressed through one of iambic pentameter's distant relatives (2nd cousin by marriage, to be exact).

Nightblossum Bloodfang's Final Socio-Economic Lament

O to be a Goth
Draped all over in loose black cloth
Repelled by the light like a negative moth
Devoid of life like the planet of Hoth
Crazy from the heat like David Lee Roth
Rolling eyes at the priests of Thoth
A wooden stake to see me off
Into that gentle goodnight

Of ETERNITY

The Incredible Journey

Here's a joke:

Two dogs and a cat escape from a yard.

That's all I've got so far. It took me a week to come up with that. Anybody got any ideas on how to finish this one off?

The Future Begins Here

Many of you will have noticed that I have been drifting aimlessly through life for quite some time now. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It's quite common for people to be perfectly content living their whole life one day at a time.

I, however, am not one of those people. I am the kind of person who constantly worries about what tomorrow will bring and whether or not I'll have the ability to contend with it. I have a very poor ability to accurate gauge where my life is taking me and what troubles it may lead me headlong into. I am even less able to formulate appropriate and effective responses to said troubles. Needless to say, I am constantly wracked with a sort of nonspecific anxiety.

I recently, finally, came to the conclusion that I could no longer be content with merely persisting in the laissez faire fashion I'd become accustomed to. The time had come to actually do something about it. I was aware of only one course of action that would give me any edge over the future's ambush tactics. I went to see a fortune teller.

Fortune telling might seem like a load of hogwash to you. Personally, I've long had an interest in the mystic arts and am an amateur(ie. self taught) palm reader. Admittedly, my knowledge is far from complete, but I can easily identify and read the heart line, Lifeline, head line, Dr. Fate line, etc. My own analysis of my own hand, compared to the life events I've experienced, indicates a strong corrolation between the two. So you'll have to forgive me if I choose to believe there is some legitimacy to this stuff.

Of course, the number of fakers and charlatans in the fortune telling profession only lends much wood to the doubter's fire. Most of them are lazy immigrant housewives whose knowledge comes from internet courses and pocket books. So finding the right fortune teller can be it's own ordeal.

I was looking only for a gypsy fortune teller (the original, and still the best!). Unfortunately, these tend to be rare, especially here in the new world. It was my good fortune then (hmmm) that my local yellow pages were able to yield up one Ungorag Hegreblegsho. She was a hungarian national who had the misfortune(hmmm) of being in Poland right around the same time that Germany invaded. She managed to escape, despite having Reinhard Heydrich himself on her tail.

In time, she and her husband left the old country forever and arrived in america. In the decades since, they have lived in relative poverty in over two dozen cities until he died six years ago. Since then, she has been plying her trade out of the basement of an old brick building in downtown Kelowna. In total, we're talking about sixty years of fortune telling altogether. I had my doubts about finding a more accomplished professional in the field.

When I arrived at her fortune telling headquarters this morning, I found it to be much as you would expect. Dimly lit rooms were more like mighty mounds of dusty clutter, occasionally punctuated by a few traversable corridors. Stacks of moldy books and strange things that looked like abstract scuplture, but probably served some mystical diving purpose, littered the place. I even saw a skull with a candle on top, though I suspect that was just for atmosphere.

And cats! My god, the cats! Cats on the floor, cats on the ceiling, cat on my head, cats in pajamas, you name it.

Ungorag herself may well have been a walking stereotype, with wrinkled pruneface and missing teeth, hunched back, bandana atop her head and jingling tassles all over her colourful clothes. I had clearly come to the right person. I was further impressed when, rather than starting off with a bunch of small talk, we got right down to business.

We sat at opposite sides of a round table, a crystal ball between us. She required three objects of dear personal value to me. I provided her with my grandmother's mummified hand, a Jar Jar Binks toy from Taco Bell, and the label from the only bottle of Stein Lagos, a beer I'd invented in college and intended to market as "distinctly elvish". Though I strongly believed in the product, the project was shelved when taste testers were put off by my slogan. They said it made Stein Lagos seem gayer than Zima.

With the trio of objects arranged before her, Ungorag began to mumble and chant. Her eyes rolled back into her head, a clammy fog rolled in from parts unknown across the floor. Cats yowled to one another from room to room. Ungorag's chanting became louder and faster. Cats bolted from the room, knocking over shit the way the always do. Then the chanting and the commotion ceased as suddenly as the began. All was quiet. Until Ungorag spoke. Her head was tilted back as far as it could go. Watching her throat bob up and down as she spoke was both mildly disconcerting and hypnotic.

"You will have three great fortunes in your life. You have realized one of them already."

I thought hard about this. It occured to me that when my Grandmother(not the one I wrote a letter to some months back) had died, the one who's hand was now on the table, she had left me a considerable inheritence. I was young at the time, though, and squandered this wealth. Nevertheless, this must have been what the old gypsy was refering to. I told her of those circumstances, and she agreed that had been my first great fortune.

"What of the others yet to come? Can you speak on them further?" I inquired. This, after all, was basically what I had come to hear. There was a low gurgling in the back of her throat instead of a proper response. Confident that we had not yet finished here, I waited patiently. Finally, an answer came.

"You will discover a thing of value if you watch and listen with care. You have twice passed over this treasure, but a third chance you will have."

Of this, I did not know what to think. I simultaneously cursed myself for missing this thing twice while wondering where to concentrate my attention so as to not miss it this third time. Without knowing the nature of this treasure, it was hard to think in specifics... which was the condition that brought me here originally. Uncanny! I encouraged her to speak more on the subject.

"You will soon meet a person who will be of great influence should you cultivate their friendship."

It was not clear to me if this was the treasure I had missed, or another great fortune due to me. I pressed her for clarity on the matter.

"Difficult to see. Always in motion the future is."

This struck me as unusually profound. Before I could inquire more, she had already moved on.

"You have been involved with several loves. In all, your conduct has been perfectly blameless. Regardless, you had trouble with your relations as a result."

I nearly fell over, even though I was sitting. She had very nearly exactly described the situation with my sister and the circumstances that lead to my being kicked out of the house. I wished suddenly that I'd brought a tape recorder. Ungorag didn't need to tell me of my blamelessness in the matter, I was already convinced of that. But it would help me out considerably if word of my innocence got to my mother's ears from lips other than my own. I told her the details, and she declined to speak to my mother in person. I asked how this situation would resolve itself.

"Your relations will be prepared to treat you with great unkindness, but if you show them only resolute conduct, you will daunt them."

Sounds cool. Next stop; Resolute City!

"You have had an enemy who had caused you much grief."

No question. Roddy McAmsterdam.

"His efforts to do you harm will go too far and recoil apon him. Else, you will live beyond his death."

Her words that I would outlive this foe only confirmed my suspicions of their identity. Roddy's brain cloud meant he had only a short time left to live. Still, it seemed he was not yet done with me, and would be yet one more thing to be attentive for.

"Ere long, you will meet someone who will fall in love with you, if encouraged."

I wondered who this might be briefly, then realised that I hadn't met this person yet. I wondered if there'd be room for her on the pile of laundry between me and Stephanie. The revelations were coming in fast, now, as she was speaking again before I could enquire on any one subject.

"A friend has done you wrong for a wrong you did first."

This sounded like Marshall to me. I hadn't seen hide nor hair of him in quite some time. Even his acts of vengence apon me had ceased ever since I slipped off the "Blogs of Note" list. She paused long enough for me to enquire how to fix things.

" A thing once done cannot be undone, but it may yet be mitigated."

I felt like I'd heard this before. It didn't really matter as long as there was still cause for optimism. This was good, for I still felt guilty and responsible for the whole mess. I leaned back in my chair and let out a sigh of relief. As I was leaning back, my eyes drifted up to the ceiling, right to the spot where her own eyes would be looking. And I saw a bunch of notecards glued to the ceiling! The lettering was large for her old eyes to read, so the words were easily discerned by youthful peepers. All the answers she'd been feeding me could be found up there. I'd been had. I confronted her with the evidence.

"The spirits put them up there!"

I stormed out of there in a huff. All that time and energy wasted. As I swiftly made my way down the street, no better off than when I'd arrived, I realised that I had no proof that spirits hadn't put the cards up there. So now, instead of just plain not knowing what the future held, I now had some idea of what the future might hold, but with no way to know the accuracy of what I knew.

I couldn't decide which was the worse situation to be in. I knew what to do about it, though; Go home and go back to sleep.

If Wishes Were Fishes

Probably the most common thing you'll hear around the yuletide season, aside from some form of holiday wellwishing, is constant bemoaning of the increasing commercialization of the year end festivities.

While I have never really had much in the way of interest for the troubles of others, that doesn't necessarily invalidate those same complaints. Indeed, it does seem that the true meaning of Christmas is lost amidst the barrage of joyous advertising.

This, coupled with the stress of finding that perfect gift for everyone on your list, and the aggravating evil of holiday shopping itself, leaves one wondering if there is anybody left who truly enjoys Christmas besides the children.

Many are the people who say that Christmas is all about the children anyway. I say that this kind of thinking is actually a by-product of over commercialization. It seems to me that people who think Christmas is for kids are largely thinking about the giving and recieving of gifts, a condition brought on by the annual holiday advertising blitz. Unfortunately, the only people who get pure, unadulterated joy from this aspect of Christmas, for reasons stated above, are children. Seriously, have you ever met a kid who gave a rats ass about how much time, energy, and money you spent on getting them just the right thing?

If one were to look into the facts surrounding the origins of Christmas, they would find that it is not about children at all, or at least not exclusively. I checked my sources and even the most cursorary glance at "A Very DC Christmas (Chapter 12 of "A very DC New Testament")" reveals that Hawkman did not risk all to save the baby Jesus from the nefarious plot of Vandal Savage (masquerading as one of the wise men) for the sake of children alone. He did it for all mankind; those living and those to be born to future generations.

Still, it cannot be denied that one of the principle joys of the holidays is bearing witness to the "spastic delight response" children emit when exposed to "new toy stimuli".

I once had a roommate who went by the unlikely name of Kondor Blacksmith, who worked for the postal office. When kids sent christmas wishlists in envelopes addressed to "Santa", the postal employees considered that licence to open and read the contents, since they weren't really going anywhere. Usually, a good laugh was had by all at the absurdly materialistic and greedy nature
of the children's desires. Sometimes, though, a latter to Santa of such unusualness would appear, that Kondor would bring it home to share with us. I found some of these amongst my Christmas decorations yesterday, making my pitiful attempt to festivize the place. I used to put these on the mantle; now in a heap on the floor will have to do.

Anyway, in the giving spirit of the impending season, I thought I'd share some of these Christams Wishlists with you. Enjoy!


Dear Santa,
I hope things are good for you and Mrs. Claus, too. Things aren't so good here. Please send me a time machine for Christams(sic). I would use it to go back to the time of the dinosaurs because I don't think I would last 15 seconds there.
Rueben, age 5


Dear Santa,
What do I want for Christmas? Anything but another Liberal government!
Tabitha, age 8


Dear Santa,
My Mum's boyfriend is in jail right now because that's what I wished for last year because I said he raped me. Well, all I want for Christmas is to set the record straight. He just jizzed on my bumhole. He didn't put his turgid rodsteak in there or anything. I'm not sure if there's any distinction in the eyes of the law or not. At least my conscience is clear.
Donny, age 6


Dear Santa,
I've always asked for gifts in the past but this year I have just a small favour to ask and I hope you can help me out. Please ask the genie to let me re-do one of my wishes. I realise I wasted one by wishing for a shark for a foot.
Kari, age 14


Dear Santa,
How are you? I guess Christmas must be like halloween for you because you get goodies at every house you go to. That's nice. I hope you don't get diabetes. For Christmas, please give me a vagina. The other girls all laugh at my wee-wee.
Tom, age 10


Dear Santa,
Merry Christmas Santa! I hope you get lots of presents too! It gets snowy here. I want to taste a brain. Please send one so mom can cook it by dinner time.
Danielle, age 6


Dear Santa,
I don't want anything for myself because my Mom and Dad aren't happy right now. So I'll tell you what they want and maybe you can make that happen. My Mom wants a white Christmas and my Dad wants white supremacy. Please help.
Constance, age 9


There you have it. Maybe next time I will relate to you some of my own Christmas memories.