December 29, 2009 - life goes on - b/d #51

another birthday, more horror. i hoped to some non-existent universal entity to end my life, but alas woke up again. i so wish i felt like living. i imagined using a bathrobe belt to string myself up in the basement but those ancient supports would never hold my ass long enough.

then of course the guilt: the first voice i hear this morning is my daughter's wishing me a happy birthday. guess if i pulled the plug, i wouldn't have been here to appreciate that! no matter how horrible i feel inside. :)

i took this last week of the month off from work as leftover vacation days don't carryover; i should have just gone to work. i cannot listen to the husband for 1 more minute - dude, there's nothing i can do about your license, you've said all this resentful crap before about state agencies, judges, local government - it's like watching a favorite movie again and again. what starts out like cool heaven turns to shitty hell after the third showing.

he's not speaking to me right now, something that happned last night - and i hear him starting to cough inside. can't be on the pc when he gets up, that means i actually have a secret life away from here and reality.

help. i felt the blackness coming yesterday and it scared me. i'm about 2 weeks post-period and have been sugar-raging for a week. going to pick up a nice cake today for the birthday.

Nation...every day I want to die.

It took every bit of will this morning NOT to drive into telephone poles all the way to work. I remembered something that just tore me up with guilt. In 2001, my daughter was hospitalized twice for depression (she was 14 years old). During one of those admittances, she was calling home 2-3 times a day, saying nothing, just crying. At the time, I know I felt that the in-patient placement was the best place for her - but now, almost 10 years later - I'm hysterical that maybe I handled it wrong. Couldn't I have at least tried to comfort her over the telephone? I remember 1 call in particular, she asked me; "don't you want to talk to me?" while crying. I answered her, "you're not talking, you're only crying. No matter what I say, you only cry." I am such a horrible mother. How cold that must have seemed to her at the time; it feels so heartless to mes now! What made me think of that today while driving to work? I swear things pop in my head like punishments.

I just hate being alive; I'm constantly reminded of what a poor excuse for a human being I truly am. Uselsss, worthless, quite beyond hope.

Nation...it is time to Bring Back the KRAMPUS

Krampus is the dark counterpart of Saint Nicholas, the traditional European gift-bringer who visits on his holy day of December 6th, a few weeks earlier than his offshoot Mr. Claus. Like his American descendant, the bishop-garbed St. Nicholas rewards good kids with gifts and treats; unlike the archetypal Santa, however, St. Nicholas never punishes naughty children, parceling out this task to a ghastly helper from below.

Known by many names across the continent, such as Knecht Ruprecht, Klaubauf, Pelzebock, Schmutzli and Krampus, this figure is unmistakably evil; he often appears as a traditional red devil with cloven hoof and goatish horns, though he can also be spotted as an old bearded wild-man or a huge hairy beast

On December 5th and 6th, in Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Germany and other regions of European, children greet kindly St. Nicholas with his bag of toys and sweets only to find the Saint's devilish assistant trailing behind. Hideously costumed as a devil or wild man with a whipping switch or chains, Krampus comes to frighten mischievous children into contrition.

Back in America, the rise of a new Father Christmas icon, a modernized St. Nicholas called Santa Claus, plays a central role in recreating the 'traditional' Christmas, a mildly pagan if nominally Christian holiday. The American St. Nick no longer brings his infernal assistant, but instead incorporates some of the elements found in Krampus and his ilk.

This traditional American Santa Claus places coal in bad children's stockings and is occasionally depicted as a punishing figure, sometimes even with a whiff of pagan horror. And like Krampus, Santa seems to knows everyone's moral state, as famously described in the 1932 song 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town': "He's making his list, checking it twice/ Gonna find out who's naughty or nice."

But over the decades Santa Claus seems to have lost his punishing edge. In this age of crass consumerism few if any children receive a lump of coal or prunes in their stockings, or a gift of cleaning supplies under the tree. Are not the services that Krampus provides sorely needed in this land of spoiled and dissatisfied children?

I'm SO ready for Krampus!