Peaked

I haven't been very keen on the holiday season these last few years. The brother dying really fucked up my festive nature. It's not easy to find a complete set of squirrel-skin stockings and I can't for nothing figure out where he put our old ones.
And making new ones?
In this economy?
Well, I'd just as soon not celebrate at all.

Sigh.

The house doesn't feel the same without Jake's nasty-ass holiday venison & beer farts. A traditional roast just doesn't have the gas.

(Unsigh.)

Working in the shipping industry has allowed me to fill the loneliest holiday hours with hectic hilarity. Double overtime and triple shifts. Can't remember the last shower that didn't involve a nap. Shots of 8am whiskey and bologna breakfast sandwiches. For one month out of the year, everyone smells as bad as my dead brother.

It reminds me of home.

Work and work and work until exhaustion. Work until the thinking goes away. Work until every part of my body feels as broken as my brain.
I work until I feel like I've done something.

I miss my brother. I don't talk about him often anymore. I usta did, back when. But then he got all quiet while I lived without him for a while.
It made me sick.
Everyone shouldered their own grief while mine galloped along on its own. And when it returned it was a relic; a who's who of who isn't who anymore. And the others, well, the others don't much like me as of late so it shouldn't make a lick of difference that I still like the dead one better anyway.
(Plus, Mama means a lot to me, and even Jake, in his grand crown of fuckitude, could see that ya'll judge her like you're Jesus recoming. We've ALL fucked up, ya douchebags, quit acting like your Mama did you worse than YOU did you.)

I can pallet-stack my cynicism. I can unload a trailer full of bitterness. I can pick-off sarcasm. I've labeled all of my misgivings with an Early A.M. sticker and sent them out before the rest of the world arose. I have absolutely no problem pointing at my fuck-ups and declaring them to have missed service.

I am a fucking misload.

This may come as a surprise, but I don't often fit in. I know, I know. Seems weird to me too. But it's true, I've always been a little to the distant side of normal.
I s'pose that's alright with me. I've never noticed, having been way too busy dancing to the music in my head. And then one day I looked up mid-twirl and they weren't laughing at me anymore. Well, they were still laughing at me. But I was laughing too. 

And skipping.
And dancing.
And singing.
And working.

Work and work and work until elation. Work until satisfaction sets in. Work until the sweat smells as bad as the memories. I work until the music stops and my head is quiet. 

Sometimes I find myself on the clock for 24 hours in a row and it doesn't even bother me a any more than a tick on a dead buck.
Probably bothers payroll though.

I see the normal ones, shaking their heads as if they might swish away my crazy. The whispers swirling around in a convoluted web of incomprehension. The "Whys" meet the "Whatevers." The "Weirdos" tend to overwhelm the "AttaGirls." I know people don't understand why I work, and work, and work. But some do.

Some do.

I tend to scare people away easily. I know, I know. Seems weird to me too. But it's true, people can be a little put off by my intensity. (BECAUSE THEY ARE PUSSIES.) I s'pose that's alright with me too. I've been able to keep a ring around myself to keep distance from the people that are just stopping by to witness the freakshow. 

I get a lot of day-trippers. Seasonal workers, if you will. 

They come because the job looks quick and easy and then they crap out when they realize the work is never really done.

Yep.

 That's a fucking metaphor.