Sammy’s Third Annual Holiday Message

I think of all the sad and pathetic things my 11-month long (11 months!) bout of unemployment has caused, the story behind this picture of Sammy is amongst the saddest.

I’d never sent out a holiday picture before Sammy came along because I had never loved anything enough to picture it and share it with people (well, I think I might have briefly flirted with the idea of sending out a pic of my tattoo the year I got that, but never got around to it. Because I never loved it as much as I love Sammy). Now, selecting an image and getting it all dolled up in the holiday-themed embellishments offered by the online photo people is the highlight of my summer (I’m organized and do not have a life – I get stuff done early).

This year was different, of course. First off, the pic was taken on my iPad, not on my regular film camera (yes, I still have one of those. I have a landline phone too. Luddites Forever!). I’ve taken a ton of pics of Sammy but for financial reasons the film rolls remain undeveloped. Thankfully, I caught him at a good angle (he is watching the pigeons) while my iPad was switched on and decided to go with this one for the very few I would have to have printed out this year, just for the English contingent (because they do not – and cannot – know I am out of work, so I have to keep up at least a semblance of normalcy when it comes to them). But even though I got fewer printed out this year, I still had to cut as many financial corners as possible so the paper quality is much lower this year. And I usually avoid a Christian-based greeting (not out of political correctness but out of atheism) but this year I couldn’t even be arsed with that.

But I wanted everyone else to see it for Sammy’s annual message. Which, coincidentally, has been every year on December 17. Well, a coincidence this year because when I got up this morning, after my daily online job hunt was over, I decided I should get around to doing it. I checked the last two postings, to see what they were titled, and discovered they too were posted on December 17 (I am sure last year I did that on purpose but I have no memory of doing so, but last year my life was relatively calm and I wasn’t an unemployed mess). But it is just one of many coincidences my life has been riddled with recently, the freakiest being that the guy whose Craig’s List ad I answered (something to do with BBWs and pearl necklaces) turned out to be someone I used to work with! Freaky because I have literally only worked with about, maybe, 100 people, tops, in my seven years in Vegas, and maybe only 30 of them were men.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so to make this even more pathetic, I no longer have access to a scanner (one used to sit on my desk, back in the halcyon days when I had a – gasp! – job!). So, yeah, the above is a badly positioned, iPad-taken picture of a poor-quality photo that came from an iPad picture!

But what does that matter because, in the end, it is a picture of my beautiful boy who has kept me going through these miserable months. I hope this picture of him brings you as much joy as the real version of him brings me. And I hope your holiday season, however you celebrate it, is filled with delight.