i'm dreaming of a hypocritical christmas.

i'm feeling a bit jaded. so take this with two advil and comment later. (;

it's minnesota. it's two days from two-thousand-seven, and the grass outside my patio has the temerity to be GREEN.

we've had a few days of icy windshields, and some frosty lawns, and even some large, fluffy, beautiful snowflakes.

but the weather is being pretty damn hypocritical for a minnesota winter, and withholding the cold and snow that makes me love the state.

of course, being a minnesotan, i can glance outside, sigh, and continue with my day, because that's what being minnesotan is all about. usually.

and if any of the rest of this post makes any coherent sense, let me know. my man dan made me some kickin' coffee this morning and i'm kind of punchy. (;

***

perhaps i get frustrated this time of year because my workplace celebrates the holiday with wild abandon--cookies and gift exchanges, toasts of non-alcoholic bubbly--all while taking phone calls from the most ungrateful, ill-mannered group of public i've ever encountered.

for almost three years at work the holidays have been a time of overtime with a thin veneer of joy. here's why:

people forget that they are speaking to other people.

other people who are working double time and triple time, staying later than late trying to patch up a human error committed by one of their teammates, who probably ran out of coffee and wasn't able to run for a refill. other people who arrive at work three hours early, other people who are trying to make ends meet. other people that you probably brushed elbows with, at wal-mart, while edging in for the same cabbage patch doll.

i'm in a different position now; i no longer have to assist people on the phone who preach the Golden Rule to their kids but don't practice it with the rest of the planet. i still work a ton (workspeak: sixty hours or so) during year end (workspeak: December 15th through January 30th, no time off and weekends optional) and i help out a lot with my client service coworkers, because i cannot stand to see someone go without assistance. props and thanks to my mom and dad, who would give their last shirt to their neighbor.

at any rate, most of the people in my exceedingly short-handed office don't see their family a lot during the time of year when family is touted as the focus of the season. if our customers knew what the stress level was like in our office, would they take pity? would they not raise their voices, when they call about a problem that can be fixed? would they edit the swear words from their vocabulary, and perhaps treat their fellow humans with a bit of respect?

yesterday, at the height of the week's strife, i turned a corner to run into one of our managers, heidi. she was carrying a sheaf of files and paper, and from her direction, had been in a meeting with some irate client.

i'd never seen this bubbly girl cry. and i suddenly also knew what the term "big, fat tears" defined. i stopped in my tracks and asked if she was okay, if there was anything i could do. she shook her head and choked out no, she'd be fine.

the problems that cause people to explode like this, they are minor. the compassion that the season preaches gets lost.

my rule of dealing with an angry client is to remember that there are worse things that could have happened than the post office losing their payroll package.

i think of dan's brother, corey, and having lost him is much, much more terrible. it's not that i do not treat my clients with respect; it's just my way of keeping a calm head, when dealing with a ready-to-detonate person.

***

on top of the stress of work and being home long enough each day to shower and make sure the cats have kibble, my mom had a cancer scare, which has since been alleviated and found to be a fatty deposit. thank heavens for fat. never thought i'd say that again, except when i slip and hit the ice and then am thankful for the deposits on my ass, which protect said tailbone.

however one of my cousins is still in hospital, after a week and a half. she was being treated for an infection, and when rushed from the northern hinterlands to the Big City, it was found that she had cancer. they removed part of her stomach, her uterus, a lot of her colon. there are still three more tumors there. she's not much older than me; it's kind of scary, and it's much worse than anything that happens at work.

it's not that i don't care about my fellow man. i do. i have been in those shoes before, so frustrated that i can't do anything other than search for my tissues and a hershey's bar for solace.

i guess it just bothers me that halloween has passed and yet people wear the same hypocritical mask: love thy brother, love thy church, love thy family, but do not spare the verbage when you're angry.

my parents always used to preach the whole "do unto others" policy. dan's mom had a little plaque on her wall about not bitching about someone else until you have walked a mile in their moccasins. there's the wiccan rede: do unto others, an it harm none. the three-fold law: what you mete to others will return to you three-fold.

it's all the same message, backed by a god or quip-creator.

i'm not pissed off at the people who call and whose invoices pay my salary; i'm annoyed with their behavior. in therapy we talked about that difference, how you sometimes have to separate behavior and being.

i'm going to generalize here: everyone on this planet has the capacity and the ability to be hypocritical. and if they haven't been, yet, they will be, at some point, about something.

i know i have. i know i will, in future. it's inevitable. it's the two-faced nature of humanity, the yin and yang, night and day. if you walk far enough in one direction, there is the chance that you will meet your self, coming the other way. you might not recognize your own face, but it's you, meeting in the middle.

and if that is the case, i'd hope to meet me with open arms, and not show the same hypocrisy for which there is the potential.