Christmas Letter – 2002

This was a little letter I wrote to all my family and friends for the Christmas of 2002. here ya go…

Well, another year and another wretched Christmas down… or almost down. Either way, I’ve found some time between downloading pornography off that most wonderful of inventions, the Internet, and well, nothing really, I do nothing but download porn off the Internet. OK, so porn is not what the rest of the world wants, but, with a little luck Pres. Bush and his best mate Dicky will actually read my letters and make December 24th the National Porn for Lonely and Miserably Sad Bachelors Day so that we have things to celebrate (GO Sarah Scream!) as we sit alone in our empty suicidal apartments… uh, did I say suicidal, I meant unkempt, yeah, that’s it I swear. Anyway, I’m just kidding (Mom) so I hope no police show up at the apartment (I’m pretty sure some of the stuff on the internet violates some kind of law here in Connecticut). But I digress, as I usually do, into much more fun things than those that I’m supposed to be doing.

So, without further ado…

I’ve decided to write a Christmas news letter for all of my adoring fans, or the people I’m trying to get presents from. I know I’m not the best communicator in the world and perhaps changing my number 14 times on purpose might have given some of you who used to call me the wrong idea, but really now… is it so hard to hire a private detective to track down the ones you love? I didn’t think so. If you had, this is what you might have found out:
1. I was married.
2. It was annulled.
3. I moved to Connecticut.
4. I bought a ridiculously out of my price range car (please send cash).
5. I logged more hours on the internet at work than any other sorry bastard.
6. I displayed a picture in a real art gallery (of course it was one that I took).
7. I had issues with my sexual prowess
8. I found out that I am, in point of fact, NOT gay, but that with sufficient alcohol intake, most any man can enjoy the love of another.
9. And that’s about it.
So, now that we all know my dirty little secrets, how ‘bout some of yours? Huh? How about that? All right, forget it… Christ.
Some of the above is true, some of it isn’t, but I’m not in the business of spoiling a perfectly good surprise. By the way Becca, the medium sized box wrapped in red with silver polka dots is a brown cotton sweater bought on sale at discount clothing outlet by, you guessed it, NOT Santa. And not me either. And the spot on the front of it, just under the neckline that is sort of frayed, is from that dickhead holding a cup of coffee with way too much cream in it spilling crap all over it as the person who gave it to you (no names here, cheap bastard) was ripping it out of his frail aged hands. God, that ass must have been like 80 and by the way, rolling over someone’s foot with a motorized As-Seen-On-TV Rascal by a pissed off Senior Citizen is NOT in the Christmas spirit.
Now, you may have noticed that no one is getting presents this year. It’s not that I’m cheap; I’m just tired of having people complain about the presents I give. When I was with Jody I swear there was always something wrong with everything I gave her. It was never good enough or nice enough or bought at the right store, blah, blah, blah! I’ll tell you what, that kind of shit doesn’t do a bit of good for a man’s esteem. “Josh, I can’t believe all you would get me for Valentine ’s Day is a black eye! I’m calling the shelter.”, or the ever popular, “Damn it Josh, I swear if you try to give me a fat lip for my birthday, I’ll call the cops on you!” Things like that don’t show how much you love someone. Things like that make the other person question their value to society. For God’s sake people, to call the police because of a gift given in love; what have we become, animals?
I guess it’s a good thing I got rid of her. I’m doing much better with the medication my doctor has prescribed me. The voices have almost stopped entirely. The only time I hear them anymore is when I’m awake. And sometimes when I’m sleeping I guess, but that doesn’t really count because I can’t really get up and stab anyone anymore now that I’ve got the straps on the bed. They’ve also gotten much nicer to me. Now instead of telling me what a worthless piece of shit I am, they say that my nose is “bulbous”. I’m not even sure if bulbous is a real word (the spell checker doesn’t have any complaints), but if you are in doubt, you should check with my sister, Tabitha. I’m pretty sure the voices in my head got it from her since she told me that a while ago. Speaking of Tabitha, I’ve heard she’s found someone that can deal with her. I would like to extend my most heart-felt congratulations to her and her new beau (side bar, keep up the good work dude, I’m fairly certain that in most religions the more you suffer here on earth the better the next part is, whatever it may be.).
So now that I’m seeing a professional about the voices, the rest of you can stop bothering me. And not just about the voices, but about the unabashed alcoholism that has rattled my world since my girlfriend and I broke up 7 years ago. I know, I know, it’s been a long time… so fucking what? Everybody I know was born a long fucking time ago and no one is like, “Enough with the birthdays already, Damn!” And you Steve, who are you to talk about “It’s been long enough dude, put it to bed already.” If I have to hear your stupid story about the time you and your wife met one more time, I’m going to go over to your “New” house that you’ve had for 5 years and slit my wrists and any other life pumping artery and bleed all over your “new” white carpet that came with the house you bought 5 years ago. How’s that sound? Huh? Well then, shut up. I’ll get drunk and puke and cry about Elizabeth every night if I want to and I don’t really mind that the bottles for the pills I have to take say: “ DO NOT CONSUME ALCOHOL WHILE TAKING THIS MEDICATION” because it helps me go to sleep… until 3 pm the next morning… er… afternoon… whatever!
Oh, everyone at the bars say “Hello” by the way. So, you can see that this year hasn’t been as bad as my doctors have lead everyone to believe. In fact, aside from the issues with my sexual prowess, I’ve found this past year a real delight. One of the things I found most enjoyable about this past year was the time I was able to spend with those less fortunate than me. It’s absolutely amazing just how sad some other people’s lives can be. For example, I was out with some people that I’ve been paying to be my friends and, can you believe it, they didn’t have leather interiors or ass warmers in their cars. Even worse, their cars weren’t even imports! GHASTLY isn’t it. Though, when I think about it, the whole lack of prowess thing was kind of a lie, or more like stretched truth… ok, fine, here’s the truth:
It’s 9:00 pm on a beautiful clear night and I start to make some phone calls to see what all my friends are up to for the evening. Sure enough, most of the checks I wrote them haven’t cleared yet and since that little check bouncing party I went on last year, they aren’t too forgiving. I think one of them said something to like, “Yeah, right I’m gonna hang out with you with out having the cash in hand and the pope is right here on my balls!” At first I thought he was telling the truth so I offered to come over and take pictures of the pope, his funny hat and Jeff’s balls, but instead he just said, “Seriously Josh, if you come over before the check clears, I’m going to have the restraining order reinstated. Dude, seriously.” So, kidder that he is, I figured I would try some others but no luck. Anyway, there I go again getting in to that little devil, the details. So, it’s 9:00 pm on a rainy dark night and I find an ad on one of my favorite porn sites for Net Hookers. Now, how can you beat that? I’ll tell you how, you can’t! So I do some fancy chatting and convince them that I’m a safe and normal person and the time I spent in prison was for drugs, not felony assault in the 1st degree on the doctor at that not-so-nice hospital. Who knew that they might do a background check on some guy trying to get a little action over the Internet? Then I confirmed they weren’t part of some zany FBI hidden camera comedy show and what not. They weren’t. What they were was a bunch of really HOT 19 year old babes just waiting for my call.
And some other stuff, but anyway, when she got here, you’d have thought I just won the lottery or something because she looked just like Anna Nichole Smith (before she got fat) and she was hot for me. Well, to make a long story short, we’re breathing heavy and everything else when I discover that the medication to make the voices go away also has the wonderful side effect of making some other things go away, think diamond, wood, roll of quarters… yeah that’s right, someone in some stupid pharmaceutical company thought it would be a funny little thing to do to me. Well, we’ll see just how funny it is when the bomb goes off right behind their little Natural Gas pumping station. Uh-huh, that’s right, what do you think they use in their little Bunsen burners? Take that for fuckin’ wit’ my lil’ Bunsen Burner! HMM!
So, I think I’m getting past all the ugliness of that little episode and I’ve finally accepted that I’m not going to get my money back from the whore store. If anyone really wants a present from me, feel free to swing by and let me kick you with my golf shoes on, maybe even in the groin, or perhaps for those that really want something special, I could whip up a little bit of a bite your ear off type thing or something like that. So, a merry Christmas to all and to all a good damn night!
Love or, if I’ve offended you, piss off,
Joshua Taylor