The Learned Loophole Lassoer/Hug Giver & The Unraveling Strip of Runaway Tinsel Trim (a random piece of holiday tinsel fiction)
Once upon a time in a faraway tinsel town, in a gaudily elegant enclave, there lived a happy go lucky piece of iridescent tinsel trim.
Her full name was Tenacious Stella Tina in Tinsel & Stilettos.
Tenacious Tina was no ordinary strip of sparkly tinsel, replete with less than ordinary aspirations and ideologies.
She changed rooftops/evergreen hedges and bar shelves/bottles often. And managed to do quite well as a dazzling decorative trim intern at the world renowned Sincerely Sparkly Holiday Décor and Dazzle Inc.
Successfully decorating the holiday season in quite a number of different venues and cities over the seasons.
Like any piece of tinsel, Tina in Tinsel encountered all sorts of loopholes/ screwy pieces of corrupt plywood/moldy moldings/polite potholes/warm embraces/comforting hugs/tipsy trippings/cold fireplaces/plastic & real fir trees and even the occasional competitive Urban Outfitter pink and aquamarine colored tinsel trees.
She managed to keep in contact with some of the precious encounters, others were sometimes forgotten about, some she left ,some wanted her to stay, some let go of her, some glittered down on her glaringly when she sounded dim, some adored her for the wrong reasons, while others just used her until she sparkled smarter.
Holiday decorations can be quite competitive.
Insecurity runs rampant it seems, even in tinsel town.
But most of the loopholes and potholes that happened along in tinsel studded Tina’s sparkle trimmed life were mostly just placed about by a higher authority without any known rhyme or reason, but ample opportunity for much else.
Tina in Tinsel missed many many opportunities and often wondered if any of those missed opportunities was actually destiny himself all dressed up.
As the seasons turned into other seasons, Tina felt some of her inner tinsel giving way without much pull and her stilettos were getting kind of wobbly. And it seems as though the laws governing tinsel like analytical loophole negotiating were taking a turn for rigidly stricter. Intricate loophole insights were dismissed and treated as a mere nuisance by higher ups. Concepts that were questionable had been ordained has hard cold facts.
The emotional tinsel and sparkle laws were changing and objectives and goals were getting hazier than a foggy shade of gray. And disconcertingly subjective too it seemed on a conjecturing level.
Tenacious Tina was losing core tear stained tinsel beliefs at every decorative loop turn in life.
Her once sparkly outlooks were dazed and almost confused and generally in a dizzy tizzy.
Why were loopholes losing their inherent value? How could she survive on the threadbare facts presented in colorless foreign languages with equally poor translations? She thrived on analytical & colorful hardcore source explanations not colorless mundane opinionated analysis not up for discussion.
Sincerely Sparkly Holiday Décor and Dazzle Inc. was in the midst of shifting its entire mission statement and marketing campaign towards the Midwest and the general target audience were the elderly Sadie’s and Dorothy’s and middle aged Barbara’s and Samantha’s and their laid back agreeable husbands and their school aged well behaved kids in suburbia.
Life was comfortable in sneakers.
Spartan & Sensible was the new Tinsel & Sparkle.
Tina in Tinsel was losing her old place and there wasn’t much room for potential in her new space. And her costume was starting to fade from lack of use. Her stilettos were not happy in their new position either.Her material costume was the only change she understood.
Inner life changes were not the kind of changes Tina in Tinsel processed very well if at all.
Trimming/streamlining/minimal effort and doing away with that which does not need to be addressed was the mission statement her company seemed to be adopting.
The sparkle / intrinsically tinsel outlooks and bona fide evergreen fir findings were being readily dismissed. Material focus was not encouraged.
Attempts had been made to classify some of the more colorful outrageous loopholes insights concepts under: faux colored paste sequins and tardy sage green plastic outlooks for sample sale use only. There had been subtle murmurings and hints to a general gradual shift from outrageous creative décor/ trim /glitter/ tinsel and color to mainstream holiday bake treats//paperwork/functional lawn ornaments /recipe gift sets and a concerted emphasis on customer feedback and mainstream satisfaction.
Tenacious Tina in Tear Stained Tinsel and Tottering Stilettos felt parts of her material namesake slowly slipping away into the past as she tossed her unstable stilettos into the trash can and continued on one barefoot in front of other splashing noiselessly in the warm rainy city sidewalk. Her tears blended in effortlessly with the raindrops . She secretly hoped the changes in store for her inner self had somehow managed mend with the teardrops and meld into the afternoon puddles.
She worried about the new space in life she was trying to conform to.
She wondered why she was trying to conform and how it even made sense.
What if one mundane, Monday morning she went into a bitterly bland faux fur like spiritual foreclosure seizure and tripped over a bake sale and tall pile of papers for filing and fell into a nearby polite pothole or lanky loophole.
Would she even know if she falls into the ambiguous medium sized polite pot hole named mediocrity?
Succumbing to the harsh light of the anti glitter glare and the fumes of ruined cake bakes/lady aide societies/customer service/sensible accounting rhetoric and related tedious tasks.
She imagined she would eventually lose all her carefully cultivated/hardcore caring tinsel outlooks and argument oriented sparkly perspectives in one fell swoop.
As Tina in Tinsel sat in the rain drenched park, stiletto less, watching her tinsel and sparkle material costume come apart at the seams, she tried to imagine what G-d had in mind when he created her.
Did he want her working for a friendly mainstream midwest holiday decor company.
A snarky funky caring downtown holiday decor company
Did he want her decorating and adorning vodka bottles on bar shelves.
G-d did create tinsel and sparkle for a reason.
What sobered Tina in Tinsel mostly though as she sobbed, shedding sparkles of tear stained tinsel all over the polite piece of corrupt plywood she was trying to decorate, was the hardcore realization that her “Learned Loophole Lassoer” won’t always be able to catch her and hug her.
And growing up /responsibility/hardcore change and other uncomfortable shifts of life were waiting right around the corner.
Whether she wanted to turn the corner was actually irrelevant.
The corner with all its changes was ready to come meet her all the way if need be.
She sobbed harder real tinsel tears, as she attempted to create her own loopholes and matching loophole catcher using the tearstained pieces of iridescent tinsel.
She didn’t have enough tinsel for matching “excuse filled” handkerchiefs.
As the tear stained tinsel pieces dried off, she broke off the piece of corrupt plywood and constructively spelled out “words can never spell how thankful I am for the loophole lassoing / locating/hard long hugs & especially for the tinsel dream catcher(ing) and insights”.
Tearstained Loophole Tinsel, it turns out was the perfect thank you card font.
The plaque remains on the Learned Loophole Lassoer and Hug giver's fireplace mantel to this day where it serves as a constant reminder of the importance of tear stained tinsel loopholes,and most of all the implicit importance of the Learned Loophole Lassoer and life photographer fixing tinsel outlooks/hug giving and catching and fixing the moments before all the tinsel wears off and there is nothing left to photograph. For all this Tina in Tinsel is especially thankful this holiday season.
Merry Christmas!
Inspiration can be found everywhere, you just need to know what your looking for. 
