I recently acquired a seasonal position for this print on demand company. People logged onto a website, chose a template, added words and pictures then send it off to us where we printed their custom-made Christmas cards, blankets, pillows, and other collectibles. Because of the Christmas season, there were hundreds of thousands of Christmas Card orders, thus the company’s need for extra help to make sure the cards were printed correctly. I made sure that all the verbiage was legible, within the guidelines of the template, and all of the pictures submitted were of adequate brightness, contrast, and resolution.
The job was simple enough and paid pretty well, but the thing that got to me was looking at hundreds of families each night. I distinctly remember during the first two nights that I almost had to go to the bathroom so nobody would see me weep. At first, I thought they were “test” families or models of some sort. It took me a while to realize that these where actual families; real people, with real jobs and real kids who had a little extra cash, and they decided to send in pictures to us to put on Christmas cards to send to their comrades. And those families were just beautiful. They were of every size, nationality, gender, and age. It was this parade of people walking in love and commitment, and I was just overwhelmed with these immense waves of happiness, pride, and jealousy. I imagine a lot of those emotions are tied in with my upcoming Saturn Return and recently “waking up” and looking at my life with a fresh new perspective. Not too long ago, I found myself making my morning cup of tea and looking around and saying to myself, “How the fuck did I wound up HERE?” HERE being in a less than desirable place that I wanted to wind up in by the time I reached this age. I would rather be in a relationship with kids in front of our house taking pictures for Christmas cards as opposed to sleeping in my friends' extra room in her house while scrambling around trying to find extra Holiday cash to make it home to Chicago for Christmas.
I keep going back to when one of my parents once told me that they never thought that I would wind up with anybody. Who says that? Who says that to their own child? I have been trying to joke it off ever since and just put it in the category of “Shit My Parents Say,” but lately, I think I have been giving it more weight and drama. They don’t see me with anybody. WHAT THE FUCK? How do you live with that? And I have clearly been internalizing it all these years, manifesting itself into my horrible choices in psychopathic lying partnered men. Not one of them worth the sperm their mothers should have swallowed.
Ok, that’s harsh but... I don’t have the best record in choosing single, truthful, conscientious men.
And then these cards. These fucking Christmas cards with these shiny happy families. There is not one single, solitary good reason why I couldn’t be on one of these cards with my own shiny happy family. Not one. And I'm just furious at myself for being so affected by this world and believing all of the negative bullshit thrown at me, personally and socially. I’m have been “Minority Velcro”... walking through this world, attaching to my consciousness every nigger, faggot, fat, ugly, indigent, old, unkempt, midget, poor, and/or whore thrown into the air by the world at large... by my frenemies. By my family. By my own parents. How did I let this happen? Why didn’t I have the wherewithal to tell them all to kiss my big, Black, nigger, faggot, fat, ugly, indigent, old, unkempt, midget, poor, whore ass? Why did I let this happen?
I would rather be in a relationship with kids in front of our house taking pictures for Christmas cards
Well, I did. And while I would love to whine and complain and get really upset over the fact that I never had the support system that I wanted or needed to help me become the person, the man, that I have always wanted to be; the beautifully flawed financially lucrative Daddy Bear I DESERVE to be, that’s all for naught. There’s no conceivable reason why I can’t rule this world. Not one. Outside of my own (dis)belief systems emboldened by this cacophony of impotent negative energy from people I really shouldn’t even be paying attention to in the first place. I harken back to the song “Alla This” by Ani Difranco, where she croons, “I will look at everything, and I will vow to bear in mind / That all of this was just someone's idea, it could just as well be mine.” If there is ANYTHING positive that came out of Donald Trump becoming president, it is the firm and absolute belief that ANYTHING is attainable, NOTHING is out of reach, and the ONLY thing separating me from titans of industry and world leaders is time, effort and opportunity. I used to view him as holding this omnipotent space in the human experience, but now through all of his shenanigans, I see he’s just a regular dude with a lot of suits trying to figure shit out like everybody else. Well, hell, I can do that. So can you.
You live in a big city, and you see all these big buildings and these billion-dollar corporations, you watch awards shows where all these people are lauded over for their talents, are given idols and satchels of gold for their contributions and a trillion-dollar machine that keeps those images going. It’s so easy for your eyes to be dazzled at what you think is some spiritual-based Social Darwinism being played out like the most intricate ballet when in all reality it’s just this cutthroat game of Monopoly being played by cruel and cowardly White men willing to execute anyone bold enough to say, “Hey, I don’t see anything special here. I think the Emperor’s naked. The Emperor’s naked! Hey! Black people! Gay people! Women! Native Americans! Asians and Mexicans! Even the fats and the femmes! The Emperors are fucking naked! You can run this world also if you want to! There is no difference between you and them! All of this was just someone's idea! it could just as well be yours!”
All of this was just someone’s idea; it could just as well as been mine. I can have a family. I can have a career. I can have financial stability. I can be on a cheesy Christmas card. Why the fuck not.
I will maintain the truth I knew naturally as a child I won't forfeit my creativity to a world that's all laid our for me I will look at everything and I will vow to bear in mind That all of this was just someone's idea It could just as well be mine -Ani DiFranco
The back of those cards usually has a fun summary of all of the notable events of the past year, graduations, marriages, births, and such. So as I sit here in the unseasonably warm winds of Chicago as the mighty hurricane of 2019 dwindles down to manageable guffs of wind, let’s take a look back at the… Breeze. This would be on the back of my 2019 Christmas Card…
Greetings Friends and Family! What a whirlwind year this had been for Breeze Vincinz! The year began with Breeze feeling like a refugee and fleeing his home of twenty years in the bosom of Hollywood, CA to the rectum of Santa Clarita, CA, where he was adopted by a lovely Negro family as their defacto Father/Brother/Funny-That-Way-Uncle. Slowly ending his tenure as a rideshare driver, he focused his attention on combining stories of his more memorable stories into one “RideShare Memoir” scheduled for release in the spring. In the meantime, he acquired a temporary position as an Advertising Assistant for a prestigious real estate company with hopes of it transferring into full-time work later on. Nope.
But while working at a major convention and being housed in a five-star hotel, experienced a sexual encounter so phenomenal, so astonishing so… beefy… that it rearranged the way he saw the world, the way he saw himself. This, along with his attendance of ONYX Blackout, a convention of all the ONYX chapters, began his transfer from dour refugee to King-In-The-Making. His Rideshare Memoir is scheduled for release in the fall. His spiritual mother, Toni Morrison, passed away. His best friend and other half of his heart Calvin McFadden passed away. He started the process of connecting with his estranged best friend and even more estranged brother. He interviewed as a graphic designer at a catalog company and took several tests gauging his Photoshop skills in hopes of again obtaining full-time work. Nope.
He built websites for politicians, lawyers, accountants, non-profit organizations, and a music company along with a seasonal position as a production artist to go to Chicago to be with his mother for Christmas, something he has not been able to do for three years. Expecting freezing temperatures that would match emotions from his family. He was surprised that both reached record levels of warmth. Planning on attending an end of the year bar night presented by Onyx Mid West chapter, he is eager to have another phenomenal, astonishing… beefy… experience that will continue his journey of positivity into the new year. There are three rules to happiness: Someone to love, Something to do, something to look forward to. Well, he loves many people, but let’s go with Dean (!) here and his lovely adopted Negro family. Something to do: take over the world, why the fuck not! Something to look forward to: his Rideshare memoir will be out this winter. Breeze is happy.
2019 was a good year.
コメント