I Wish You A Messy Christmas

Mutant Sestina written by Erin Palette, Christmas 2008. Feel free to share this with all your friends, but please attribute it to me.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial- No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Fa la la la fuck it

Okay.

That's it.

I'm done with Christmas this year.

Even though I'm trying very hard to have a low-key, slackful holiday season, apparently that sort of thing is just not allowed in my family.

From morning until night in this house, there is enforced Christmas cheer. I didn't mind the first 18 hours of Christmas carols, but it's gotten to where I can't hear myself think anymore. All the baking was nice -- until I couldn't fix myself dinner because there was no counter space, the oven and microwave were in use, and I couldn't even get to the fridge.

And of course, we have the holiday arguing to go with the high-stress holiday. Yay.

Tonight, it finally got to me. I couldn't take it anymore. I knocked over a glass of cranberry juice onto the carpet and I just collapsed, bawling. It was one of those full-contact cries, with the shaking and the snot dripping from my nose and me making unfathomable noises as I gasped for air between words.

Because, you see, I was terrified that I'd spilled it onto my mother's priceless, hand-made Christmas tree skirt with the glitter and appliqué Santas.

I think my family has noticed that maybe, just maybe, their daughter doesn't love this holiday as much as they do, and needs a break from it.

I think their other clue was when I went to the refrigerator, pulled out the eggnog and sake, and started tossing back Nog-a-Sake's. (The trick is to mix them, otherwise the sake causes the eggnog to separate.)

At any rate, I'm done. I'm so fucking done with this high-stress, commercially bastardized holiday. I'm going to do a very large shot of NyQuil, and see if I can sleep until 2009.

Other than posting my Christmas poem on the 24th, Lurking Rhythmically is going offline until the New Year.

To those of you who DO celebrate this holiday, I really do wish you all a Merry Christmas, and I sincerely hope yours is better than mine. If you feel inclined to do something for me, all I ask is that you send me an email saying that you read this blog and you enjoy it.

Thank you, and goodnight.

Random Frothing

GAAAH WHY DID I CHOOSE TO WRITE MY CHRISTMAS POEM AS A SESTINA??

IT'S FREAKING HARD AND I CAN'T MAKE THE METER WORK GRAR RAWR FROTH AT MOUTH GNASH TEETH ETC.

That is all.

My Khaotica Karol

I was supposed to post this last night, but I passed out. Alcohol may have been involved, but until you find incriminating photographs you can't prove a damn thing.

Anyway.

My efforts at subversive slacking have paid off! I have convinced my family to forgo wrapping presents this year and instead use thoseChristmas gift bags that have become more common over the years. This has the following benefits:

• No paper waste
• No frustration in those of us who can't wrap a damn thing
• Huge savings in time and effort
• Bags are reusable

I'm not being lazy, I'm being "green", which is all the rage this year (and is coincidentally a Christmas color.)

However... the use of reusable bags has awakened within me a puckish spirit, and I'm actually going to spend some effort to make things extra-specially Eristastic. Specifically, I'm going to take this picture...

(Image courtesy of Justin)

.. print it out, and glue it onto one of the aforementioned Christmas bags. So help me, I may even use glitter and fake snow just to make it look extra-Christmassy.

I doubt my family will even notice, but if they do, I can always say that "Gold is one of the presents the Wise Men gave Jesus. Isn't that why we exchange presents on Christmas?" The KALLISTI would be a harder sell, but none of us speak or read Greek...

(Again, I have nothing against the holiday. It just bugs me that something which started (at least in the Christian church) as a simple religious holiday has sprung into this devouring commercial enterprise which lasts for three months.)

I will post pictures of my Khaos Kontainer if it turns out well.

The word of the day is...

MEDIABATORY
(adverb, from mediabation, root to mediabate)

Of, or relating to, the media's tendency to report the same damn thing over and over again when a story is breaking but there is nothing truly new to report. Generally used to suggest that the situation has shifted from reporting the news to masturbation of same.

Example: "The constant barrage of non-information regarding Caylee Anthony has become mediabatory."


Special thanks to Chris Bridges who coined the term at my insistence, as I was never particularly fond of "Newswanking."

Stuff that I am working on

I'm making a list, and ch-check-checking it twice:

1. The continuation of my Witch Children story. No, I have not forgotten. The holidays have just eaten my brain, is all.
   
2. A super-secret project wherein a friend of mine wants to adapt an idea I had into an MMO of some sort. Right now I'm writing the backstory and series bible. I can't tell you what it's about, but it is code-named "Jews In Spaaaaaaace."
3. Seriously, that's the working name. If this ever gets off the ground, we'll probably call it something sensible, like Diaspora.
   
4. A Christmas poem which I shall include in all my holiday correspondence this year, because the economy is shit and I am broke. So, yay! You get more words from me!
5. It's better than socks, though. Amirite?
6. There is NO.... rule 6.
   
7. Also working on various commissions and such, as well as the next part of Curse/Or.
   

Dear Santa: Please bring me for Christmas a quiet place where I can write and not be interrupted. No, I can't use the library, I like to write in my underwear.

Doc Rotwang gets it

"It", of course, being a Yule-Jim, the official processed meat snack of Khaotica.

Doc Rotwang -- he who Wastes the Buddha with his Crossbow -- has perfectly embodied the spirit of Subversive Slacking through his yearly ritual of going to see The Nutcracker and, well, being generally trippy about it.

An example from Crotch Monsters on Parade:

After the intermission, we find our protagonists (but not the titular one, who is no longer invited or something) in The Land Of Sweets. Drosselmeyer introduces Clara to some folks and Clara recaps Act I for those who didn't bring wives. So the Sweetsians--I guess we can call them that--put Clara in a chair, and show her some dance routines.

It's not clear why they do this, but I like to think that it's because they peg the girl as an experienced, accomplished regicide who enjoys the tacit protection of an eye patch-wearing badass planes-hopping spellcaster, so they decide to play things safe by keeping her entertained lest she start throwing footwear and the halls begin to echo with the ringing of blood-stained crowns striking the flagstones and THAT, my friends, is a pair of NPCs to use. We're still a gaming blog, after all.

Please continue to his blog to read the rest of this excellent post wherein he savagely subverts ballet into a wonderful Discordian experience.



PS: If he used a machine gun, would it go "Buddha buddha buddha?" Just a thought.

Khaotica 2008

It's that time of year again, isn't it?

All the running and shopping and baking and decorating and singing and crafting and wrapping and I don't know about you, but I am fucking exhausted already and it's only the first week of December. The real, true, DefCon-5 spirit of conspicious consumption hasn't even started yet. I halfway expect that by the 20th, the convergence of easy credit, bad decisions, and the failure of the banking sector will collapse into a singularity of debt so great that come the new year everyone's credit rating will suffer an etch-a-sketch reboot as the entire industry shits itself to death.

I sound bitter, but I'm not. The only way my credit score could get any lower would be if I handed it a shovel and told it to start digging its own grave, so really I have nothing left to lose from a complete economic collapse.

But I imagine the rest of you are stressed out about this, and it's no wonder, since we've only just finished an election that started two goddamned years ago. I think it's safe to speak for most people when I say that we are now officially tired of looking at The Big Picture and really want nothing more than to sink into the couch and watch mind-rotting Reality TV shows until the Superbowl, whose crass media orgy will force us out of our blinkered solipsism as we realize "What the hell is this garbage, and why am I letting it play with my brain?"

But we can't do that, because it's Christmas. That time of year when we have to be cheerful and merry and generous and AAAAIIIIIEEEE CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!

If I have to "Smile! Show that Christmas Spirit!" one more time, I swear I'm going to start strangling people with their own appliqued sweaters. And I know I'm not the only one.

And so today -- because today is a Friday, and therefore Sacred to Eris, as well as the 5th, which is the holy Erisian number -- I shall give to you this season's Khaotica assignment. I have learned well my lesson from last year, which was "Thou Shall Not Needlessly Complicate an Erisian Holiday", and so for this year I'm just giving one assignment for the entire Khaotic season, then standing back and seeing what folks do with it.

Just to be safe, I will repost last year's Khaotica Klauses because I don't expect everyone to follow a back-link:

After you perform your assignment, I want you to report back and tell me the following:

1. What you did.
   
2. How people reacted.
   
3. How that made you feel.
   

Simple, no? Now here's what you DON'T DO:

1. DON'T do anything illegal, or encourage anyone to do so.
   
2. DON'T mock people's beliefs.
   
3. DON'T be a jackass. Making a fool of yourself is fine; making fools of other people is not.

Are we clear? Fabulous.

Khaotica 2008: Slack Subversively

We're all tired, but everyone is rush, rush, rushing because that's what we do at Christmas. Forced exertion which benefits no one? False emotions? Eating, driving, buying irresponsibly? There could be no surer Sign of Greyface than to take something which is supposed to be joyful and beloved and turning into a mirthless chore to be endured.

Your assignment -- which I shall be calling a Khaotica Karol because it amuses me -- will be to find some way to slack off, yet in a manner that both encourages others to do the same and also manages to stay within the spirit of the season.

Obviously, this will be easy if you're a bachelor, and much harder if you have a full family, but remember: Eris fucks with us all equally. Those who have busy families will find their Subversive Slacking all the sweeter for its rareness.

Some examples to get you started:

• If you live with a young girl, give her a new infant doll and tell her it's Baby Jesus, and that he's just been born and needs to sleep. So does Mary, in fact, so it's her job to keep everything quiet so that Mother Of and Son Of God can get some rest. Shhhhh. (Normally, I'd say that giving a dolly like to a Jewish girl would only up the Discordian factor, but the fights that would ensue from this will definitely harsh thy slackness.)
• Make up a story about Nelson, the Narcoleptic Reindeer. Act it out. Kids can be amazingly quiet if they think they're fooling adults by pretending to sleep. Bonus points if they actually manage to fall asleep, but even quiet giggling is a win.
  
• Buy Christmas-themed (or flavored) alcohol. Get drunk in the spirit of the holidays. Or, to steal from Lewis Black: NyQuil comes in two colors, red and green. It's the only thing on the planet that tastes like... red and green! And red and green are what? Christmas colors! That's right, NyQuil makes a dandy eggnog. Oh yeah, my friends bitched through the whole party, "This tastes like shit!" But at the end of it, we had a fun sleepover.

I look forward to seeing what people do with this. Or even if they do it. For all I know, I may be the only person entertained by all this.

A Plath of Destruction

Sylvia Plath took her own life on the morning of February 11, 1963. Leaving out bread and milk, she completely sealed the rooms between herself and her sleeping children with "wet towels and cloths." She then placed her head in the oven while the gas was turned on.

...or did she?

No! At the moment of her death, she was secretly rescued by a secret organization of time-travelers. Her body was revived with 41st century science, and a simulacrum -- exact in every detail -- was substituted in her place.

Upon waking, Plath was told that she had been selected to join the August Principia of Chronal Transmigration, a scholarly and monastic order dedicated to the preservation and repair of the timestream. Having been given a new lease on life, she would begin a career of of study, cataloging and filing reports. With the medical advancements of the 4th millennium, she could easily expect to live for several hundred years.

Free from her troubles for the first time, and facing an eternity of bureaucratic servitude, Neonate Plath promptly said "Fuck this noise" and stole a Chronal Calibrator. Not knowing how to operate it properly, it sent her hurtling across time and space.

Lost in time, but free from society's grasp, the normally reserved Sylvia Plath became the ravenous libertine that lurked beneath her repressed exterior. Armed with fantastic devices and an exhaustive knowledge of history, she has become an agent of chaos, cutting a swath of debauchery across the 4th dimension as she fights and fucks through time and space.

A poet no longer, she is....


Sylvia Plath: Warlord of the Steppes
She was surveying the horizon while while sitting on the naked, saddled body of Genghis Khan doing a horsie impression. "No cheek from you, Ghengy, or it's off to be gelded!" she laughed, merrily tugging on the rough hemp rope that was tied around his scrotum.


Sylvia Plath: Sacker of Rome
"Jesus Christ, you bore me, Julie," she snarled, tossing a plate of figs at the former Caesar. He tried to dodge, but the wires ties to his pierced nipples were firmly attached to anchors sunk deep into the marble. "At least your girlfriend here will entertain me," she said, turning to French kiss Cleopatra.


Sylvia Plath: Agent of Biting Social Commentary
"Where's my money, BITCH?" she roared, still high on Everclear and Crystal Meth, as she pimpslapped Archduke Ferdinand backwards into his carriage. "I swear to God, you little weasel, if you don't pay off your bets I'm going to have a filthy little Serb shoot you in the neck."


Stay tuned for more exciting titles in the Sylvia Plath: Libertine series!