My dad requested that I email him my last Christmas-related article, Yule Be Sorry, and afterward I realized it was time to write up a new one, especially after the conversations I've been having with folks lately regarding the myriad dangers of life during the holidays. So this little chestnut came out.

A Disclaimer: Just in case, I should say this: I love Christmas. Love it. I have enjoyed and looked forward to it my whole life -- even for the right reasons, for the family togetherness and warm feelings and purity of heart that I still actually believe in -- and what's more, I respect Christmas. That which I love, as most of you know, I tend to pick on. So take this as it's intended: a bit of jolly fun. Cheers!


Christmassacre

It’s official this year: Christmas has ceased being a simple holiday, or even a year-end blowout jinglebration. It has been showing signs of mutation for years, with mini klaxons going off from all over the world and being promptly smothered under stapled layers of cotton blend fake snow. We failed to recognize it and now it’s happened: Christmas has become a Flaming Calamity of Sudden Death.

It’s true. Christmas will kill you.

At first I laughed at the organic-food-buying, twenty-dollar-hand-sanitizer-using, triple-padded-baby-stroller-pushing yuppie moms I work with (and love) at my job when they launched into a heated discussion during one of my classes about the merits of real trees versus fake trees. It’s a war being waged bitterly here in Hawaii for many reasons, not the least of which is that, being a tropical island, evergreens are scarce, and have to be shipped in especially for ol’ Noel.

Sometimes, I’ve been told by the wife of a local shopkeeper, a shipment of trees has to be sent back because inspection will yield the discovery of a slug. Even something as seemingly innocent as a single slug is a hazard to the entire crate of trees if the menacing terrestrial mollusk is a world traveler and not a native to the Hawaiian isles. In such a case, the poor slug, and his entire forest, must be sent right back from whence they came, creating even more scarcity.

This means that real trees are ridiculously expensive, which means that people want them more than they would if they were affordable, which means that as the anticipation mounts and the day of joy and togetherness draws closer, riots bust out among the populace, from the lipglossed Zoomba moms to the bling-bedecked Samoans, that often lead to hair-pulling and ear-biting as Ben Franklins flutter through the air.

In my childhood, a real tree was imperative, no question, and we always enjoyed going as a family to the tree farm, picking out a favorite, brushing off the snow and dragging it home, repressing the fact that it would slowly die in our living room. Once it hit home that a fake tree was more economical since it generally gets re-used, as well as more tree-friendly since it means less real trees are getting sliced, I was happy to get a plastic falsie and slap a few “pine fresh” air fresheners in it, pretending they were ornaments.

Now, say the yuppie moms in my class, this omniscient and ever-elusive They are now saying that fake trees are worse for the environment than cutting down the real ones. Some deadly combination of plastics and oils and essence of Cthulhu seeps unseen into the atmosphere with each fake tree, and whenever one of those fakes are disposed of (since many people, it seems, don’t get the concept of buying a fake tree in order to use it, like, again) enough non-biodegradable poison is released into the world to kill a Care Bear on the spot.

What’s more, they add in scandalized whispers, the very material of the fake tree is a hazard to any child in your home.

“Well, I’m sure if you just wear gloves or wash your hands after touching any of the branches, you’d be fine...” said one of the moms, who was afterward chided for her ignorance. I mean, who would even think of touching their Christmas tree?

Wait, whatnow? I thought. Is it actually being said that you can die from touching a fake tree? Is this a put-on?

The argument, as always, went straight to the child issue: who could have something in their home that their child might get their mouth on and drop right down dead?

To which I can only say that, since things made from plastic are now lethal, they should all be put in prison for attempted murder whenever they purchase a chew toy or My Little Pony. Frankly, if you’re the sort of person or baby to spend an evening gnawing on the branch of a tree, you should seek help no matter what the tree is made of.

But all this is just the beginning of the new monstrosity that the holiday has become. Death follows Christmas before the motion-sensitive Pooh Bear Santas are even positioned around the crib of the baby Jesus. The day after Thanksgiving, while it used to be jokingly referred to as Black Friday, an exciting and dangerous time for such-a-deal shopping, the extreme sport of the suburbanite consumer, has finally earned the macabre implication of that nickname with actual death. Now, Black Friday is too mild a name for such a day, which shall hereafter be known as the Exploding Tantrum of Certain Demise.

Come on, people! Two years ago, who’d have believed it? There are a thousand ways you could die at a Wal-Mart, but being TRAMPLED TO DEATH during a shopping expedition should not be one of them! Death. At Wal-Mart. Because they offered a real good price on the XBox. Because you can get a salad shooter at wholesale value. Because The Littlest Petshop, Pekingese edition, is forty percent off. So lets all run over this dude and squash him.

Even though this incident from last year should have been the “hey, chill out” for rabid, frothing consumers everywhere, this past Black Friday was still a hurricane of fisticuffs and riot police, all over Barbies and microwaves and Wii Fits.

Now, I admit, this doomsday talk all comes from a gal who -- only a few years ago -- recounted tales of Christmas terror involving evergreens infested with zombie spiders, blizzards of apocalyptic proportions and flaming pork roasts sailing out the kitchen window (which is just how my family rolls), so you can all trust me. I know the signs. I can see the oozing green tentacular horror that Christmas has become, and it will consume us all while snug in our beds, those visions of sugarplums only adding extra flavor to our tasty brains.

I’m not saying don’t celebrate Christmas, of course -- or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Nondenominational Yulething, as the case may be. I’m just saying that instant, salivating death awaits all who are unprepared. Arm yourself and your loved ones against jingle hell to the best of your abilities. Maybe hang a little can of mace where your mistletoe might be. Maybe set up some trip wire around your inflatable Snoopy Claus. Maybe practice that double tap and watch the chimney closely.

It’s always good to be Scout-style prepared, is all I’m saying. Especially since Easter is next on the list of overblown holiday horrors, and we’ve all seen the look in that bunny’s eyes.

This will be messy, unorganized, irresponsible, immature and possibly ill-spelled.

Everything is held together by these tiny little bits of thread, and usually it looks like it's all okay but I have to keep tugging at everything to keep it in place while gravity does its work, and really all thread is is little tiny bits of thinner strings twisted together, strings that are made of nothing but even tinier, thinner bits of string, and on inward until all you have is nothing, really. There's so much to be done. Ink the cartoon sleep eight hours look for apartments buff the muffin scan the painting feed the cat vacuum the floors call dad back go to work go to the dentist get a CAT scan learn to ride scooter illustrate the book. Where does anyone ever get clean clothes? I think they magically appear in my closet because I certainly don't wash them.

I'm tricking myself into chasing intangible things while I should be getting my tangibles in order. I'm impatient, not controlling my temper but not saying what I want to say when I want to say it like today on the bus that idiot guy sitting in front of me and spitting, actually spitting on the bus floor, like it's the ground, like he can just spit on stuff where people are going to have to walk or sit down and he was doing it the whole bus ride but my crippling fear of confrontation kept me from telling him off, no matter how I wanted to.

I was so mad that I pulled out a Buddhist learning book to try to get my temper under control but the first thing it said was to accept yourself exactly how you are, that it's wrong to turn to Buddhism to try and become a better person so I put the book down. Who doesn't want to become a better person? I can't love and accept that I'm ignoring shit that makes me mad and yet getting impatient with almost all my customers and if I can't help me and Buddhism can't help me, should I just stay this way even if it pisses me off?

But why am I even worrying about myself when not a day goes by that I don't have a new thing to worry about that has nothing to do with me? Mom gets sick and I have to list her symptoms over the phone while my father listens and rules out a stroke but advises me to dial an ambulance if it gets worse. I have to be out of my apartment by the end of August which is no time at all but how am I supposed to find an apartment when my two hands can't even find my ass? I have to finish the website, learn to update, print up a book, make more money, peddle to syndicates, get rich to finance the treehouse I want to build and the eight children I want to have.

The brother of this guy I used to write about a lot came in the store, and he remembered by name even though I never told him what it was, and he looks just like his brother only he smiles more so I was thinking of asking what went wrong with his brother and who he really is deep down and why doesn't he have any friends and is he doing okay these days and why hasn't he been to see me and why the last time he came in was he so cold to me, not smiling or looking at me or talking to me? But I didn't bother because those are the questions I always have about that boy's brother, along with why he seemed to like and hate and like and hate me so much more than the others. In the vein of boys I'm living down there's another who I thought I might check up on just now, before I wrote this, but I had to physically propel myself away from the computer to avoid doing so because that's how it starts, I wonder how he is, I'll just check, and then ten minutes later you're obsessing and feeling like you want to hurl in your commode and then hurl yourself off a cliff. I'm so much happier when I don't think about them, which is almost all the time, and each time I start, I remind myself that I don't want to get steamrolled again.

The Boyfriend is temporarily living back at his old place with his roommates instead of with me so he can be closer to work and though he promises it's not because he wants to be away from me I'm still alone more and I used to be just fine with being alone now I want him around all the time but I couldn't really say why other than that he makes me comfortable, but what if it's not working out and he's ready to walk? That ridiculously handsome boy was back in the store with that lingering ice blue eye contact and it makes me so UNcomfortable but I still like it but there's no way I'd even be attracted to someone so handsome because I always make myself look like an asshole when I see him and with the Boyfriend I'm always safe and pretty and healthy and happy right in my own skin.

I finished my fairytale, the first draft anyway, and I can't show it to anyone before my sister sees it so she can tell me whether or not its crap and there's another impediment to my personal growth, that need to be validated by other people. My fantasy used to be to run off to New Zealand where no one knew me and start over and in doing so be perfectly independent and learn to be with just myself and to take care of myself but I can't even remember my own social security number, I can't fill out a tax form, I can't ride a scooter to get from place to place nor even translate the crazy bus schedule I should be using, and I need a big sister and a boyfriend and a mom and a dad to all read over my fairytale before I know if it's good or not. This fact just makes me want to go away even more, to suddenly move and tell them all after I get there and spend a year or so all on my own, taking care of myself, but though I tell myself it's because I'm not brave enough to do it I know it's really because deep down I don't want to at all, I enjoy depending on other people even though I get disappointed a lot, more than I ever tell them, the fact that I can still depend on them after that may be some convoluted form of bravery. Or stupidity.

What can I do but sort through whatever I can, piece by piece, whether or not I'm heading for disaster?



This was a big fat load of confession. I don't know if it really helped, but if you actually read all that, you've got a strong constitution. And you probably know more about me than I do.

How long has it been since I've written something here that was really worth hearing? I used to write all the time, introspective rambles to you, the void, that space between talking to yourself and addressing a crowd. I used to reach out my fingertips to those of you who are reading from the shadows, in secret, and wiggle them in a silent hello. I used to write letters to you, and sometimes you'd unmask yourselves and write one back.

Maybe I wrote more because I craved some mystery in my life, and each time you put something out there for anybody in the world to see, you get a surprise. There is danger, and inspiration, and magic in it.

A lot of people are gone since then, and I wonder about you who are still reading but not talking. What's happening to you? You, who are in New Zealand, you, who are on the mainland, you, who are on this same island, but as good as a thousand miles away. Even if we fought, even if we never clicked, even if it was just time for us to stop knowing each other, I miss you. Each person I've known has an individual flavor that they add to my life, and when they go, that flavor's absence is conspicuous. Sometimes I only miss it for a while, then adjust, and sometimes it comes back to me in waves, sometimes it's so powerful I want to write you again or pick up the phone or drive to your house in the middle of the night.

I don't say much now that really makes people think. I guess I put all my energy into making people laugh. This is a noble thing, I think, and I enjoy it, and most people would rather read a comic strip than a page long diatribe on existence and the need for affection. My comic has seemed to take over everything I used to write about, and the presence of love is currently negating my need to write long digital moans about the absence of it. Is this progress?

We're moving in together, The Boyfriend and I, into my apartment. Maybe I'm mostly doing it because I like his huge bed better than my little one. ;) I'm facing financial responsibility, my mother's empty nest anxiety and the threat of becoming a big girl, also the danger of the whole thing not working out. I have a good feeling about it, because someone has to.

I do this a lot. I'll start to write something and halfway through realize it's useless and a little silly, and just delete it. I don't think I'll do it this time. Plenty of things are useless and silly and are nice to have anyway.

It's funny... even now I'm thinking of more things to make you laugh instead of thinking about how to finish this. I suppose that means we know now what I'm supposed to do with my life.

I guess I just wanted to say that I love you. I don't think I say it enough so you know that I mean it.

I've been slacking off on writing for a while. I used to write constantly, dozens of pages a day, I had at least eight stories going on at one time. When I moved to Hawaii I wrote less fiction and more personal essay. Since starting the comic up, I've been writing less and less. I'm trying to get back in the habit.

I've started up another journal, specifically for articles I'm writing on living in Hawaii, from the perspective of a white chick. It's called Haole If You Hear Me.

I'll be posting new writing as well as a few of the older things I've written on the subject of Hawaii and being in it, and hopefully it'll be interesting and funny.

haoleifyouhear (that's me) will be adding all of you to the friend's list, and of course you don't have to add me back, but hey, it's always there to be read.

Love you guys!

I felt grumpy and dissatisfied all day today. I thought it was the Boyfriend I was dissatisfied with, because he was there, and that is often what girlfriends think. We drove home in near silence while I tried to convince myself to buck up and he tried to figure out why I wasn't talking. Back at my house I changed into pajamas and washed my face, hoping that would change my attitude. I blamed myself for feeling unhappy, because as I often remind myself, there is nothing for someone as privileged as myself to be grumpy about and it's so easy to decide to get in a better mood, that I always try to do that first. But this time it wasn't working.

I laid down next to him on my bed and talked about how sometimes when a person has an off day, they project this bad attitude which fills the people around them with the same feeling, so either they get grumpy too or they walk on eggshells to avoid a fight. Because I thought that was it.

He hugged me close and said it was all right, and he was glad I was talking to him because it scared him when I didn't. That's when I started crying. Because it wasn't this, this petty relationship stuff, that was driving out my crazies. It was big things, the world, the murders and beatings, the war that no one will end even though they can, the trees that are dying, the oceans that are dying, the hatred and the disease, the political figures all over the world who do not belong in power but will do anything to stay there and continue hurting people, the rich people who get richer, the poor people who get poorer, the bad things that happen to good people, as well as the good things that happen to bad people.

"I feel like everything is wrong," I said, starting to cry hard. "No one is changing it. Everything is messed up and no one is going to stop it. God, it hurts. No one wants to stop it."

I told him I've been distracting myself, even unconsciously, from all these horrible things that are happening, telling myself I'm just in a mood, changing the channel, anything, and it builds and builds and gets worse. As I was pressed to his chest and crying harder than I have in years, all these faces came up, women in cloths, babies, men in suits, and I was sad for them all, I was heartbroken for them all. I was shocked at myself. As talented as we have become at distancing ourselves from tragedy, we should be able to shake it off permanently. It just caught up with me.

"I love you," he said. Then he told me about good things that were happening in Africa, the UN including the dreaded Bush, forgiving billions of dollars of debt and starting programs for aid, more than anyone has done for Africa in many years, maybe ever. And he told me he was there for me, and was delighted that I would let him hold onto me while I soaked his shirt.

After crying your face feels tighter and your head throbs, but it's a good feeling, it's a feeling of release. The dirty feeling I had been building up was washed away, and now I can see that things may be getting better, slowly. And if not, we have each other, people who love us, people who will not flinch if your nose runs on their sleeve and will squeeze you even tighter if it happens.

We as people will never stop doing that. At least we have that.


I'm going to cook. That's another thing we all have.

O'ahu No Ka Oi (O'ahu Is The Best): This was a good day. I'm still buzzing from it, having only just washed off the whole beach full of sand stuck to me, now fresh-scrubbed and sitting at the table munching leftover pineapple.

For the first time, my day off coincided with both Lily's and The Boyfriend's day off (perhaps a contrivance of them each) and I jumped on the chance for us all to be together. The Boyfriend had made me another of his fantastic mixed CDs, this one mostly to show off both The Who and a group called Faces, which he wanted me to hear because he counts them as The Black Crowes' biggest influence. We listened to it on the way to Lily's house with our beach gear in the back seat, and then snagged Lily and shoved her in with it.

We went to Haleiwa, the amazing and culturally confused little North Shore town, to go to a restaurant The Boyfriend knew. Haleiwa is confused because half of it is made up of cool, fascinating, one-of-a-kind stores and restaurants that are well loved by locals, and the other half is geared toward tourists, kitschy, boring, super-white, with a lot of unnecessary aloha-ness. The place The Boyfriend took us to had, as all Mexican restaurants should, a family of chickens running around outside it. After lunch we went to Waimea.

Waimea is my favorite beach. It isn't the most beautiful like Barber's Point, and it doesn't have the calmest swimming like Ko Olina's Ulua lagoon, it doesn't have the most exotic marine life like Haunama Bay, or the best surfing like the Banzai Pipeline. I like it because it is simply what I think a beach ought to be: soft sand, no rocks, a deep dropoff and sometimes -- like today -- some killer waves.

Bodysurfing is one of my favorite activities for spiritual renewal. Bored? Confused? Heartbroken? Slave to routine? An afternoon diving your way through twelve foot waves with breakneck force and potential to kill will make all that seem petty. Half the fun is watching other people. They dive into the waves, they get rolled, they scream and laugh and shout instructions to one another, sometimes they act like a lolo and turn their back on the ocean, then you get to watch them get swept completely off their feet. It's refreshing and brilliant watching us -- and here you can say us because there is a real unity, simple, unspoken, grateful for the lives we are collectively risking -- really play with the ocean. And the ocean wants to be played with.

Lily refused to go in, and advised me not to do so, for her sake. The Boyfriend echoed her advice but asked that, if I should drown, I leave him my Bone comics. I jumped in.

Ashley Bliss, as well as my sister, has been bringing up the concept of what heals. What is it that makes our bodies and our hearts and our souls and our minds feel better when they need it? What mends the cuts and breaks, physical or otherwise, that we collect through life? We use medicine, touching, food, music, books, pals, goldfish, voodoo. And sometimes I use gigantic crushing waves that pound me into the bottom of the sand then suck me back out to sea only to roll me and kick my ass again. It's dangerous and it's scary, and you get salt water up your nose and in your eyes, and you have three seconds between the time you see the wave rising and the time it hits to decide how you want to enter it, and choosing wrong can have you eating sand. The whole experience feels great.

The Boyfriend came with me for a while, once the ocean had calmed itself temporarily, and we rode a few small waves until the bigger ones came back, at which point he took off.

The waves were the biggest I had ever been in. They were petrifying, large, powerful, and I hit the curl wrong and ate it a few times. I struggled to stay on top of the wave -- the place where you can ride it like a rollercoaster all the way to the shore, harmless and exciting -- but I kept rolling too far beneath it and getting swept. Once I was pounded so hard into the sand that I thought the tiny grains had cut into my thigh and would leave little scratches behind. A huge wave was building and I heard someone shouting, "Go under, go under!" and I saw how I had to hit it: just into the tip of the wave, right beneath the curl, I'd dive in and it would propel me toward the top of the wave where I could ride it.

I love Hawaii.

I got out when the seawater in my eyes got to be too much, and I flopped down on a towel next to Lily and The Boyfriend where they were happily sunning themselves (and where Lily had stolen my new book, which I hadn't even started yet, the wench). I had, seriously, about two pounds of sand in my swimsuit. After I shimmied out of it we drove Lily home, listening to the mix and grooving in the car (which occasionally required me to steer while The Boyfriend played air drums).

At the apartment, he and I made lime chicken with pineapple and rice, shagged, then parted ways so he could get up early for work tomorrow.

I'm out of the bath, munching leftovers and talking to you. Today was a great day.

How was yours?

I love you.


( Just in case you didn't get it last time... )

It is one in the morning and I am lonely.

My sister is asleep, though I accidentally called her and woke her up. My boyfriend is at his own house, also asleep. My fish are winding down and sleeping beneath their false fern. My cat is curled up on my sweater. My mum is sleeping in her room next door. My father, back in Ohio, is not up yet. Even the loud, drunken idiots next door have settled down for the night.

Lonely lonely lonely.

I stayed at home from work today because my allergies were so bad that I kept hitting my head from sneezing too hard and was beginning to lose my eyesight. I made use of my time at home. I painted with my new paints on my new small canvas piece, and I'm going to give it to my sister for helping me with my rent this month. I inked two drawings then drew two more. I broke my Finn statue for the second time, attempted to glue him together, sneezed and broke him again. I made spam fried rice. I did bicycle crunches. I thought about rolling up my coins, but didn't.

What is this inclination we have to fill our lives with noise once we become used to it? Up till a few months ago, I was alone all the time. I had hours and hours of By Myself Time and I never got this itch. Now all my time is split between work, family, boyfriend and comic strip, and if I ever do get a few hours to myself it's a rare liberation. I've become so used to being with someone, being surrounded with people who want my company (never mind that there are only three or so of them, quality not quantity, after all) that now, when everyone else is at rest in their own little spaces, my space seems entirely too spacious.

There are issues I'm dealing with these days that are too adult for me. What happened to last month when I first came to Hawaii as a young girl and all these grownup things were far into the future? Oh... that was two and a half years ago. Actually. Hey.

But I remember it, nights like this, and I was right here, typing on this little screen (on a different computer, in a different bedroom, in a different house) and saying pretty much just what I'm saying now.

Lonely lonely.

But you were listening then. And you listen now. You occupy this space in my life, this square foot of words and pictures, and you've been with me for a few years now, listening to these words. There you are: the only bit of elegance, propriety and wit I can manage to scrape together out of my life, in this square foot.

And because of that (which I didn't even realize when I started writing this) I'm not so lonely.