Santa Died for your Mastercard

Earlier this week I saw an article about a man who erected a statue of a crucified Santa on his roof and handed out Christmas cards to his friends with the title “Santa died for your Mastercard” (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071223/santa_crucified_071223/20071223?hub=TopStories)
…. While I’m not one for such overt gestures of raging against the commercialism of Christmas I certainly appreciated the sentiment involved in this man’s personal Christmas mutiny. Perhaps it because I’ve spent a little too much time over the past few days in suburban shopping centres or perhaps it’s because my credit card is close to being maxed out that I was starting to feel like a grumpy sod. I guess on the continuum between fully fledged, carol-singing, Christmas loving people and someone that erects a crucified Santa outside their house I fall somewhere in the middle … there is just something about force fed saccharine Christmas cheer which makes me feel a kinship with the Santa crucifier. So I made a pact with myself to appreciate the real moments, the things that brought me Christmas cheer:

• The smell of Frankincense! The smell of Frankincense is what I look forward to most in my annual “lapsed catholic” pilgrimage to church.
• Having a champagne breakfast with the family that involved so much food and champagne that I was ready for a sleep by the time the relatives showed up.
• My great-aunt announcing that she will be having her 90th birthday at McDonalds this year and upon being told this was not appropriate announced that seeing as she’s lived ninety years she’ll bloody well have her birthday party at McDonalds if she wants to!!! (she’s totally my favourite relative)
• My sister and her husband in their own personal revolt against useless gifts and Christmas commercialism have organised a family excursion to the new Andy Warhol exhibition complete with tickets and promises of a fancy lunch on them… what an awesome present!
• My hot new purple dress and fantastic red-wine coloured rug especially chosen to be resistant to red wine stains (I know this last one kind of goes against my whole anti-commercialism rant but schmeh …. I do like pretty things….)
  
  Christmas presents for friends and family = $150
  Ridiculous amounts of food = $100
  Appreciating the good stuff = priceless
  For everything else there is Mastercard*
  * Okay I know this is cheesy as hell but I couldn’t resist
  

Mindfulness Tips for Dealing with Shopping Centre Car Parks at Christmas Time

This year I’ve been learning about a technique called mindfulness, this has involved going to some classes and workshops and reading some books. So what is mindfulness? Well…. my take on it is that we have a tendency to get stuck in our heads which stops us from connecting with what’s happening in the present. It’s about observing when your having thoughts without judging them… there’s also breathing techniques and other stuff thrown in for good measure but it’s mostly about paying attention to the moment, observing your thoughts without being critical. This explanation does little justice to a thousand years old Buddhist approach to life.
Anyway, this is somewhat relaxing when you take the time to sit and do it but let’s face it it's not that easy when your frazzled, pissed off, or just generally busy doing things other than observing…. So I thought I would give an example of how I applied my newfound mindfulness skills to my shopping centre visit yesterday….

Mindfulness Tips for Dealing with Shopping Centre Car Parks at Christmas Time

1. Drive to shopping centre, notice that you are thinking you are an idiot for leaving your Christmas shopping to the last minute, don’t judge this thought or get caught up in the thought simply observe that you having the thought that you are an idiot…
2. Become aware of the sensation of hot air blasting on your skin from your “air conditioning” as sweat trickles down various parts of your body…
3. Think about that “DVD” you watched on “The Secret” (http://thesecret.tv/) and remember what a lot of bollocks you thought it was but decide to apply the “principle of attraction” to getting a good car park anyway….
4. Spend the rest of the trip visualizing self pulling into a car park next to one of the entrances 5. Pull into major shopping centre car park and start the hunt….. see a car pulling out of your dream car park, place indicator on….
6. Observe a feeling of smug exhilaration …. thank the universe and suddenly believe that “the principle of attraction” is not crap but your newfound guiding principle in life…
7. Observe someone else take your car-park…
8. Observe a feeling of rage and a desire to ram the fuck out of their car… observe how this rage feels in your body as you tense up and clench the steering wheel, breathe, allow the angry, angry thoughts to swirl in your head, observe them…
9. Spend fifteen minutes searching for another car park…. Observe the feelings of rage slowly subside noting that negative emotions are transient states….
10. Close eyes and extend peace, goodwill and loving kindness to all mankind except for the son-of-a-bitch who stole my car-park he can go to hell…..

Scratching an Itch

So... hello there... is this how we greet each other in the blogosphere as you can tell I'm all very new to this. I've spent the past year lurking around the pages of a few good friends, some acquantances and lots of anonymous strangers and have become kind of fascinated with this form of "getting it out there", whatever "it" is .... it's given me food for thought, made me laugh, helped me get to know some people I know even better and been a bloody excellenct source of procastination.... it's also given me an itch

An itch... not a nasty, embarassing rash kind of itch but more of a slow burn that spreads across the body... a desire to write has come over me because I used to write all the time and not the kind of writing that requires logical arguments and pre-determined formats but random, creative writing... you know poetry, plays, journalling and the like.... I could just sit, get lost in it, enjoy it but nowadays I'm not feeling the love.... to the point where I'd rather do just about anything (and I mean anything!) than sit down at a computer and write.

So I'm not quite sure what my writing will consist of but I'm kind of excited to take that first step in finding out ... I'm imagining just a collection of my random thoughts and observations ... stuff that doesn't make it out of the mouth (and generally for good reason) but swirls around in the head and food there were definitely be a weekly post dedicated to food.....

Heres a link to a utube video that inspired the title of the blog "Following my own tracks" by The Whitlams: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S93lQ0YnZpg&feature=related

I feel inside out never thought i'd doubt my ability to work it all out
Going forward to fall back
Working hard to relax
I never thought that i would be following my own tracks
It's going 'round... It's going'round... It's going 'round

Well bye bye....