Christmas is just another (holi)day on Stuart St.

Rage lurks right under the surface of my pleasant calm.

Despair links inextricably around all my edges.

Torrents of tears threaten to never cease should I relax my vigilant dam.

I walk down the street, Stuart, to my favorite new coffee shop this big ‘c’ day, planning to catch up on my blog. I pass a decoration that infuriates me. I see myself tossing splatches of red paint all over the bubbling round surface; I visualize myself driving a post deep into the ground in front of the monstrosity or maybe through it unevenly deflating it, with a picture of a murdered Iraq child fluttering over the stake.

I can’t imagine what the people inside this large, warm, comfy, ritzy house can be thinking. I wonder if they have children. I wonder if they have a soul. I wonder if I will knock on their door.
They have bought this display, paid money for it, undid all the various excessive packaging, blown it up, hooked it up to electricity, and are actually exhibiting it on their front lawn.

It is about 5 feet all around – an almost round fat bubble of thick clear unrecyclable plastic inside of which is a snowman, also plastic, with tiny balls of white plastic being blown and tossed around. It is so white, such an unnecessary use of electricity, such an unnecessary use of oil, I am enraged.

I have to turn it into a war protest so strongly, when I pass it again on my way back home, I see it deflated, listing on its side, blood & bits of brain floating where balls of snow previously danced. I see the haunted, pained, troubled eyes of the child whose legs have just been blown off, whose arms have been ripped from it's small torso, whose head has been split open.