2769 Checkmate, Lincolnites!

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Trying to calculate when the comic will actually go live in advance is always troublesome when I try to set it a long time in advance because the server thinks it’s a different time from where I am and I get confused. I’ll probably have to check the upload at some point when I’m riding back from Xmas traveling. I was able to get this page done enough in advance that I won’t have to spend the entire night thinking about it, which hasn’t happened in years.

My last Xmases before my grandmother died were terrible. I was having continual mental problems, and general health issues, that were compounded by everything going on in the world. I didn’t get one last good Xmas before that er of my life ended. Which is fine. Some people never even get what I did, or never come home one Xmas, or any number of things that might happen. I was blessed for decades with idyllic holidays that many people wish for, and I should be happy with that. But it’s more honest if I say that I wanted one more perfect one to hold in my memory. I’m not ungrateful, but I am greedy.

What the holidays are for my family have evolved into a sort of disjointed series of events, which probably should have happened a very long time ago, but my grandmother held us all together.

If I had been a better human I should have started a family of my own and begun the process of spinning off into a new series of traditions, but I’m barely functional, and never have been exactly right. I’m somewhat better now, since my brain isn’t suffocating nightly and making me wildly unstable anymore, but it’s a little late in the game to hope for a Rockwellian future where my family gathers around the tree and venerates me in my old age.

I suspect there are many such cases. I am not alone in this less than storybook fate. Life is not cinema.

I’ll have dinner at my uncle’s, then the next day at my cousin’s, and then a couple of days later my Sister’s family will visit. That is Xmas now. It’s not terrible, it’s just different from what it was.

My nephew looks forward to seeing me since I’m a weird old guy who has lots of interesting things to mess with, but also is in touch with popular culture enough to easily drop down to his level and speak about what he’s interested in in a way that validates a very young person. It strikes me as strange now because I’ve become accustomed to not being liked generally. Working completely on the internet has completely distorted my view of reality to the point where I just expect people to hate me because on balance they do outside of my personal corner of the internet.

That’s probably indicative of larger issues than just the ones that pertain to me alone. I don’t have it in me to break it down with any degree of competence right now. I just have a vague, instinctive, feeling about it.

Anyway, I don’t think I need to be putting anything else down here. On Friday we’ll see where I’ve landed on everything I guess. For now, good tidings to you, and all of your kin. Until next time, God bless us, every one.