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November 30, 2004
how much, how often
it's been noted that i have not been very productive in terms of writing. oddly, however, no one has noted my aversion to capital letters. i'm sure it's irritating someone, maybe to such an extent that they don't feel they can bring it up without getting upset, much the way i feel about sentences like, "Its like there trying to figure out what your going to do with you're web sight and it's contents."
well, a few things have been going on, i suppose, that account for the gaps.
first, and perhaps foremost, i've failed to make time to write, and i haven't been drinking as much. i'm a very particular writer. i like it dark, i prefer to have music to carry my mind. and i have to have enough time and space to be able to quiet the other parts of my mind, to not worry about the work i'm supposed to be doing, or the calls i should be returning, or how out of shape i feel.
for a couple of months there, beer was magical for me because it was a shortcut for that process - it could get my mind where it needed to be quickly and effectively.
the last week, actually, has been pretty good for me, starting with the events i talked about in my last entry. with a combination of blind faith, a bit of effort, and some increasingly important people, i feel like i'm back on a good path.
the other issue is that i've felt a momentary disillusionment with my blogging. it's not quite taking off as i had expected/hoped/fantasized. i know a handful of friends read it, but i realize that it's been a difficult mix, mostly personal stuff, with little of the entertaining writing that has seemed to capture people's interest more in the past. it is failing to spread like the glorious, illuminating and entertaining literary virus i had expected/hoped/ fantasized that it would become.
i was also a little disappointed that a broad appeal for reader participation last week was responded to only by the very kind Julie in British Columbia (YOU, my dear, get capitalization), and by a well-intentioned query from my very good friend Mara (crap - better capitalize her, too) regarding some new shoes i had purchased while in her company. i wasn't even sure if she was asking about the nice ecco grown-up shoes, or the much more exciting LeBronII's I bought. i can't gripe, because Mara has been a source of amazing support from the start, all delivered in that american-male-melting Australian accent of hers...
so, i agonized briefly about the need for this blog to be more entertaining, but i've realized i have to be patient. i have to write to write. that's what this is for, and hope that people will be curious to see where it goes, or will at least enjoy being a bit voyeuristic.
so, tonight, after another good running session with my training group, made so much easier chatting with and following the pace of psychology professor cum runner janay, i came home, ate a bit of salad, left again to research and purchase a whole new poop and pee solution for the damned, damned cats, and now i sit here, turning the tv off, returning to the comfort and focus of darkness in my living room, returning to the sounds of zero 7 and the garden state soundtrack, and returning to a few (that would be "five" in the metric system) harps.
with effort, and a few friends, old and new, i am finding my balance again. tomorrow, the ill-advised but revolutionary purchase of an iPod will arrive and become the musical pacemaker i've missed since my days in college. i am rededicating myself to the writing, and will start over the next couple of days, maybe recounting a bit of how I got here. i'll try not to be dull, and after a couple of bits like this, you will be rewarded later this week with a thrilling tale involving kilts, clippers, and grooming below the belt.
Posted by Rob at 11:16 PM | Comments (1)
November 23, 2004
the short, full day
my day was so simple. so much of it was not easy, but enough of it was special.
i couldn't get up this morning - it just wasn't going to happen. riding the wave has been exhausting lately. last week, i hit a wonderfully manic few days, and i tried to be careful, but a hectic weekend sapped my strength and my ability to ease the deceleration, to prevent or soften the crash.
i needed to play ball last night. perhaps i needed the adrenaline, the endorphins, the challenge. but the game, though indoors, was rained out. ancient gym, leaky roof. i started to go to the apartment gym to run on the treadmill, but that seemed intractably dull, so i didn't. i had a few beers and went to bed.
i finally got up at 4:15 this afternoon, only because the half-marathon training group was meeting at 5:45. thank god for that. nevertheless, even the drive there was an effort. i felt so on the edge of losing grip. when i got there, i felt lost and disconnected. i stretched by myself, until one of the people i've met and run with in the group, janay, started talking to me.
today was a hill workout, which sounded challenging. i told janay as we started running that i had reservations about how the whole thing would go, since i had only been awake an hour and a half, and hadn't even eaten anything. she asked if i was sick, and i waffled. i didn't want to lie, didn't want her to think i was contagious, and more so, didn't want to pass off what i felt as something less. "sort of" was the answer she got, and i mentioned that it wasn't contagious.
some time later, she reminded me that she was a psychologist, and that she couldn't help but put together some of the symptomology. she didn't slap a label on it, but it was a relief, of sorts, for her to acknowledge it and understand it. we talked a little about it, but i benefitted as much just from having a human being to talk to and listen to, and just to run alongside quietly with in the darkness.
we hit the point at which we were told to sprint up a hill, and i took the instruction seriously. i began striding, running on my toes, and the rest of the group quickly fell away. part of me knew that i was going way too hard, that i couldn't possibly sustain the pace, but i think i needed it, the release and the feeling of my body responding and feeling loose and free, and not just tired and lifeless. i paid the price later, but those few moments were worth it.
after the run, i felt phenomenally better. my body felt a bit more alive, and i was so grateful for the conversation. i drove up to meet francine to grab some dinner - i had had the foresight on my way to run to call her, to seek some company to help to dig myself out of this hole.
i stopped on the way to buy the new U2 album, "how to dismantle an atomic bomb." i've loved all their albums, but i think it's their best album in 20 years. it's an older, wiser unforgettable fire. the transcendent yearning of the edge's guitar work, of bono's voice, of the lyrics, that once filled every moment of every album, that faded some but still drove the later albums and made them special enough, is back. driving and listening, sitting here now and listening, some of the tracks pull so hard at me that, yeah, tears come, not for sadness, but just for the sheer, unbelievable, almost unbearable beauty of it. it's what music's all about - go buy it now.
anyway.
i met up with francine, had some yummy tortilla soup, some of her quesadillas, and we shared a piece of some pretty awesome cake. and we talked, for a couple of hours, and it pushed me a little further towards being better.
at 10, we left and went home. a day spent in fear of feeling empty, staying in bed, ignoring the world. 6 hours awake, but filled with the best my body could do, with music, with the kindness of a near-stranger, with the warmth of someone i've come to call a friend.
i know there's a lesson here, that the world is full of good things and experiences. i hate to feel so ungrateful, and i don't think i am. but i get tired. when you spend 16-18 hours awake, there's so much more space that is so often unfilled, despite your best efforts and intentions. it brings me back once more to hope, and in the ability to foresee something worthwhile in your day, in your future. that's what i'm struggling against. hopefully, these six hours tonight have refueled me enough to continue that effort.
so, gentle readers, i get some feedback from you guys, but most of it is via email or conversation. i look at the website of my Great Blog Mentor to the North, and she has really built a little community that interacts through her blog.
so here's my question for you. what keeps you going through the days? do you live out of habit, or are you able to foresee the worthwhile moments in your day? what are those moments? don't just sit there reading my blathering - share yourself.
Posted by Rob at 10:47 PM | Comments (3)
November 21, 2004
8 mile
saturday morning, energized by 3 hours of sleep and a bit of drinking the night before, I awoke at 5:45am, poked my contacts back into my eyes, and went to run 8 miles.
after my accidental foray into the sweaty arms of madness a few weeks ago, i've actually continued training for the freescale half-marathon in february. in fact, not until this last week did i discover that these people had actually paid $150 to be in this training group. so, i paid my fee, and now have the additional motivators of guilt and buyer's remorse to keep me going.
the previous saturday, i faced my greatest challenge, in a 7:30am six-mile run. to be precise, the waking up bit was the actual challenge, followed closely by my being on time. that done, running six miles was entirely anticlimactic.
sadly, the victory of conquering rosy-fingered dawn that morning was short-lived, as coach carolyn announced that the next saturday run would be eight miles, and would start at 6:30am. the terror of that would overshadow an entire week of my life.
nevertheless, i did it. i got up and showed up, even a bit early. again, i considered declaring a moral victory and going back home, but i looked into the faces of the supportive people i've met over the past few weeks. they stretched and chatted and smiled enthusiastically, with the same happy ignorance of their impending doom as on a dog being called into the car for a one-way trip to the farmlands outside of town.
i was ready. new shorts. new long-sleeve Nike dri-fit shirt. and i had peed twice in the last twenty minutes. a great mystery of my body, in which i have as of yet been unable to interest well-funded medical researchers, is in my urine-creating efficiency.
anytime i go running, here's the routine: pee before leaving work/house; get to running location, pee; run one mile... pee. we're not talking about some misfiring-nerve bundle false alarm. we're talking a good hearty making of pee, every time. and if i have to go at all, i'm useless athletically. i get all tensed-up in the... hipular area. i can't run smoothly at all.
but finally, on this saturday morning, i had anticipated the issue, and gone twice before leaving home. i felt good, in control, loose.
vasoline was offered to combat chafing, but i could not bring myself to rub lubricant on my nipples in front of 50 people.
soon, we were off, and i have to say, it was a beautiful thing. we ran along tree-lined neighborhood streets, in a misty darkness that was slowly and imperceptibly beginning to lift, indigo-tinted blackness losing itself to subdued shades of gray.
the melody of quiet, friendly conversation lilted lightly over the soft rhythym of running shoes that padded on pavement like brushes played lightly on a snare drum.
within the first two to three minutes, there was a truly peaceful and transcendent moment where the approaching dawn seemed to gather its breath, and as the light began to assert itself, the shirts and skin of the people around me glowed briefly, beautifully, as if in moonlight.
i had to pee.
later, i spoke to a friend of mine who has run two marathons, and whose desire to remain anonymous in connection with bodily functions i horribly underestimated. so, we shall call her "heather" in order to annoy and falsely incriminate my friend heather. anyway, "heather" suggests that i simply pee in my shorts, as i run, like the professionals do. in fact, she told me, some woman that won the boston marathon apparently crossed the finish line with diarrhea running down her leg. in yet more unwanted, increasingly disturbing fact, heather told me she knows two other people who have, in clinical terms, pooped themselves with explosive diarrhea in the course of running a marathon.
boxing, cricket and curling make more sense to me every day.
anyway, as i began to obsess about the state of my bladder, my hips tightened, the rigidity spreading slightly to my stomach and thighs. this was not good. i began to plod. to make matters worse, i had failed to align myself with anyone for the blessed distraction of company and conversation that can make the miles pass so much easier. no one around me seemed amenable to conversation.
i began to run only in hopes of getting to a restroom, but there were none on the route. at one intersection, i saw a park restroom in the distance, but i was afraid to break for it, afraid that people would think i had gone mad. i kept running in hope. stupid, stupid hope.
finally, at the four-mile turnaround point, we emerged from the neighborhoods into a commercial area, and I dove into a convenience store.
a few minutes later, i was out the front door, and immediately began striding, a new man - Running Man, phidippides himself reborn, glorious and swift, with the theme from chariots of fire crescendoing in my head and in my heart. this continued for about 5 minutes, before i realized that i still had four miles left to run, and that i had exhausted myself from trying to clench my entire intestinal system into submission for 40 minutes. furthermore, i had overdressed, and my cool new Nike dri-fit long sleeve shirt became a wet, heavy, nipple-chafing runner's hairshirt.
i began to struggle, and continued to struggle, but i made it. the bathroom break put me right behind a group of women that included mo, the first person i had met in the training group. i chased them all the way to the end, though even in a sprint to the finish, i was unable to actually catch them.
eight miles is a long freaking way to run. it's not so much fun on a bike, or even in a car. as i drove home, i thought of calling heather as i had the week before to trumpet my accomplishment, then it occurred to me that i had run eight, but she had run 26. twice. and while that may say something about her sanity and/or deep-rooted psychotic need to destroy or punish herself in some way, it says little for my own minor accomplishment.
it occurred to me that i had not even run 3/4 of a half-marathon. then it occurred to me that as hard as the half-marathon would be, it was only, well, half of a marathon. running 13 miles would be much more impressive if it were called something interesting and independent of its relationship to the whole 26-mile marathon concept. it dawned on me that running 13 miles had been named a "half-marathon" by some prima-donna marathon runners who wanted to make their superiority clear. i'm surprised they didn't go ahead and call it a "Half-Assed Marathon," or, as my friend mara would later call it, the "Pussy Marathon."
the next morning, after some sleep and after my blood-sugar level returned to normal, i reconsidered, and i realized two things.
i realized the zen-like lesson to be learned in this experience: that the challenge is not in the absolute distance travelled, but in the struggle, in pushing your body and mind further than it knows it can go. it may be 26 miles, 13 miles, 3 miles, or across a room.
i also realized that while i might only run 13 miles, there's no way in hell i'm going to shit myself.
Posted by Rob at 10:09 PM | Comments (2)
November 15, 2004
today's minimalist blog
there was a small bird in the cafe this morning. i watched him as i bought my pumpkin bread (the end piece, of course). he knew he was trapped, but i think i was more worried than he was.
when i walked out the door, he flew out with me.
Posted by Rob at 11:08 AM | Comments (2)
time, upside down
i finally got the vacation i've been wanting, or at least the time off, with a four-day weekend. it is now pretty officially over, and there's little to show for it. it's 1:09 am on monday morning, and i can't really sleep, having slept until a little past 9:00 pm last night. there was just not a reason to get up yesterday. the sky was dark outside, no light to illuminate anything hopeful in the day. so i stayed in bed.
the weekend recap: wednesday night bowling with brian and shannon. brian bowled an amazing 154. pretty cool. went home, stayed up fairly late playing the exciting new video game, halo 2.
the next day, i had a noon appointment with the therapist-head-shrinking person. mom had also called wanting me to meet her and my stepdad for lunch. here's a tip - don't see the same doctor as your parents, who enjoys shooting at birds and such with your stepdad. i tried to be vague and say i had a doctor's appointment. my stepdad has the good sense and taste to know when i don't want to talk about something, but mom pressed on as she will, noting that our mutual doctor was somewhere in kansas shooting more birds. so, on her third relentless line of questions, i told her that i had been to see a therapist.
why not want to tell mom about therapy and medication and such? because of her version of self-help, which on thursday included distilled versions of news stories about antidepressants making teenagers suicidal (I'm 35), and the interesting and entirely revelatory factoid that medical journals are apparently reporting (Christian) prayer as an effective method in addressing mental disorders. this from a woman who wouldn't know one of jesus' disciples if he came up wearing a nametag, showed her his bit of the new testament, and kicked her in the shins. not to say that such an event would be a complete waste of time, because i'd love to see it. and i'd laugh, and laugh, and laugh...
thursday night saw me actually exercise, meeting vicky to play ball out at ut. then home, for more halo 2 (more on that in blog to come).
friday, lots of sleeping. i eventually went down to fado's to meet friend jennings, where we met up with some of his friends and jane, one of mine. getting ready to go out, my "livestrong" yellow wristband broke, splitting down the "s" as I pulled it over my apparently sizeable paw. i think it was an omen.
despite the vast quantities consumed, and going to bed at about 2am, i was out at run-tex by 7:30 to run 6 miles. i briefly considered running the nine mile route, and might have, had it not been for the post drinking and sushi, um, gassy problem. running in a pack for an hour does not present a lot of opportunities to, err, handle such issues, and it has a debilitating effect on the smoothness of one's running. again, more than you probably wanted to know.
i felt good after running, but by that time, my body was thoroughly confused. beer/no beer. food/no food, sleep/no sleep, and exercise/no exercise for the last week wiped me out. i finally got motivated to go to the big "opium den" party last night with brian, shannon, and josh saturday night. it was interesting, it was posh, it was eccentric. but my heart wasn't in it, and i had a difficult time connecting with people, especially since i wasn't really drinking, and i didn't want to be an appendage to the people i knew all night.
i got home at about 3:30am. played halo 2 for half an hour (a minimal video-game-playing record for me), and went to bed. and never really got up.
i know the depression is a dead horse at this point. look, i'm working really hard on it. i'm spending money, i'm looking back into meds. friends are trying to help, most particularly just by virtue of their time and affection. but i still can't find meaning and reason in the things around me. i have to go to work in the morning - i don't want to let down my friends and coworkers anymore than i probably already do, and i don't want to get down to losing a job. again. but what else is there out there, and why? hope pans out one of two ways, with no guarantees. fun ends, and usually leaves only memories.
i know how this sounds, how redundant a theme it is in this blog, and i know it's not a very interesting read, but this is the logical conundrum that plays daily in my head. this is the battle i'm engaged in. people say i gotta get over it, shake it off. that's what i do everyday. the downside you see is the result of the small percentage of time that i can't ignore it or keep it pushed back. what is meaningful? what am i chasing? i am aware of the zen approach of appreciating just "being" - but i'm not wired for that to be satisfying enough. i know things could be worse, but there's no meaning or joy in that sort of relativistic crap.
ok, i shouldn't post this, but i need something to show out of the last four days, yeah? well, this, and the other bit written at fado's friday night. that's to come...
Posted by Rob at 01:09 AM | Comments (1)
November 10, 2004
walk with me...
...and prepare to ramble along... the latest gap in writing has ended, thanks to the reintroduction of my favorite creative catalyst (that would be a nice cold lager and lime, for the new reader). but it's been awhile, and the thoughts have piled up in my head, so i'm not even going to attempt any structure here...
i'm still here.it's been a fairly busy few days, and i think the longest gap in my blogging so far. it is not evidence of a decline, but simply of circumstance and maybe a bit of uncertainty.
i'll catch you up. friday night, i hung out with brian and shannon and josh, at brian and shannon's crib. they have this completely amazing home they call "the hobbit hole." the house is essentially built into a mound of earth - the front door opens to a long concrete hallway into the home proper, which is entirely underground, which makes it incredibly energy-efficient. the entire house is kept cool by a single window-mounted air conditioning unit. despite being underground, the rear of the house is almost entirely windows, set slightly below ground level, so that every room gets an ample amount of light. pretty killer.
anyway, shannon is my karaoke sun-sei, teaching me the ancient art of karaoke. i drank many harp, and sang many songs, from "kung-fu fighting" to some silly song from "dirty dancing", to "sexual healing," which i discovered i can perform much better than i anticipated. soon, very soon, people will hear exactly what i can do.
saturday was low-key, but at night, i went to play pool with morgan. as trivial an event as it was, it was a sign of the rebound i'm experiencing. i'm normally extremely competitive, overly competitive, even at things i'm no good at. put me in a beach volleyball game against the US olympic team, and i'll hate myself for losing.
where does that come from? childhood, expecially in junior high and high school. even back then, i believed, even more than the average child, i think, that i was destined for greatness. but i wasn't well accepted, especially when my parents illegally shipped me to the eanes school district in an attempt to avoid the onset of busing in my 6th grade year.
my parents took me to and from school. sometimes, i'd have to wait for hours after school for them to pick me up, since, obviously, the bus was not an option. across from hill country middle school sat a large plot of undeveloped land, owned by the goethe family. it was an anomaly, crowning a hill bordered by subdivisions, duplexes, a school, and a strip mall.
it didn't take long, sitting for those hours alone in front of the school, to notice the beautfiul girl on the horse. every day, she rode the property on a chestnut arabian.
already, the daily teasing, frequent public humiliation and semi-frequent beatings had done a number on my personality, on the natural openness and social boldness i had shown as a child. but in the early fall evenings, with the cold creeping in and the other kids long gone, i could still be myself, and it didn't take me long to cross the street to meet and talk to elizabeth.
she was a couple of years younger than me, but she had a presence over and beyond her blossoming good looks. we talked every day, her in a t-shirt and jeans and shoulder-length light brown hair, on her horse, me leaning on the chain link fence. we talked easily, comfortably, daily, for months. it was a connection that in those difficult days that made everything ok, that made some sort of sense at the literal and figurative end of the day.
february came. in sixth grade, you've moved past the tiny generic valentine's day cards that you gave to male and female classmates alike. mom, still at that point thinking first of my heart above all else, thought a box of candy would be nice, and she bought me one to give to elizabeth. valentine's day at the fence...
sorry, that's a tangent. why am i so damned competitive? certainly some of it is inherited from my mother, a portion due to a certain very asian sense of pride, and the rest arising from my mother's hard-knock experience of moving to this country and struggling to succeeed, conveyed to me by some sort of lamarckian evolutionary process.
but so much of it came from my own struggle to be worth something in a place where everything told me i was worth nothing. junior high is bad enough that way. not trying to reserve any particular hardship for myself, but out in westlake, i'm confident, junior high "goes to 11". it's one more than totally crappy, you see.
i had to push myself in everything i did. i couldn't keep up with what it would take to impress these people. i wanted their acceptance at a minimum, their respect beyond that, a revolutionary despite everything, and a leader to them in spite of them all. i learned that by being harder on myself than anyone else could be, i could protect myself in a way. by being my own worst critic, i took control. but if it was never enough for them, it certainly was, and has never been, enough for me.
rewind. so, morgan and i went to play pool. lately, i've been disillusioned by the failure of the universe to yield what i wanted, maybe some of the things i've felt i needed. i've felt that i've tried, but i've felt that the universe has thrown some things back in my face. last week, i bottomed out, emotionally and physically.
i should not sound or feel so put-upon by the universe, and that's exactly what i realized late last week, with a bit of resignation. things are what they are. jennifer gave me a friendly whack upsidedahead. that helped. and yeah, giving up helped. being disappointed again last week helped, got me again to that point of a simple decision - die, live feeling this way, or live trying.
playing pool saturday night, i let go. i didn't drink, amazingly. it was a struggle letting go of the need to be amazing, better, or even just OK. and i ended up playing pretty well.
last night, i went running, and i didn't have to be at the front, didn't have to beat my best time. i met a nice young college professor and new mother named janay, who helped me through a difficult run. i ran with her, at just a steady pace that would get me to the finish, not at an ever-changing, ever accelerating one.
tonight, i went bowling with shannon and brian, and for the first time ever, did not get angry at myself for my performance in an activity i participate in no more than twice a year.
are ya still there? it's been a long, meandering path. thanks for getting here with me. there's more to tell about the past few days, but maybe i'll separate them into hopefully more coherent posts. the bottom line is that i'm ok, i'm better. to an extent, i'm accepting my place in the universe right now, such as it is. but there's a freedom to that acceptance, and maybe a bit of hope.
i'm trying to get myself back to some better, healthier, stronger, and yeah, more attractive shape. i'm placing my hope in myself, and in the unspecified potential of the future, and not in the face of every attractive woman i see. i'm done going to the fence, hope in my heart, and a heart-shaped box of russell stovers chocolates in my hand. no more chasing the beautiful girl on the horse. no more damning myself, hating myself, for failing to gain everyone's acceptance and love. no more being the child waiting in the falling darkness for something to come. let something come find me.
Posted by Rob at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2004
minimalist blog of the day
i found a chocolate chip in my drawer.
it tasted funny.
Posted by Rob at 02:47 PM | Comments (1)
mental health for everyone
As our relationship entered its death throes in early 2002, Chandra begged me to get back into therapy and onto the medication I had stopped taking when my insurance ran out. The pills had run out days after I was laid off my job in February, the victim of a reduction in force of one. My health insurance, such as it was, lapsed at the end of the month, creating great concern in my parents, who nevertheless continue to toe the conservative line on national health insurance.
I was living with Chandra, working hard to find a job during that vast employment drought of 2002, paying some rent, and trying to make myself a little useful with small household chores, like installing a sink, building a pergola, learning what a “pergola” was, and installing garage doors openers, drywall, microwave ovens, etc., all of which she graciously accepted in lieu of rent in some months. On a steady diet of unemployment checks, I was making my credit card payments and still paying for the brand new, gently pre-owned Lexus LX-450 I had bought in December, believing that I would not only continue to be able to afford the payments, but that I was soon to embark on a life that necessitated a big, lumbering SUV.
By July, the relationship was over. There would be no immediate or foreseeable need for a big, lumbering SUV, and I was quickly a homeless, jobless guy in a Lexus with unemployment running out and a need for serotonin-balancing meds. I was finally directed to the county’s mental health clinic over on the east side of town.
The wait at the clinic was the worst I’ve ever seen in the medical industry, or even in the car repair industry. I could easily go there and wait for half an hour to see the administrator downstairs, before being sent upstairs to wait two or three hours for a 15-20 minute appointment with the psychiatrist du jour. Apparently, the thought of having less than completely sane people sitting and staring at each other in a small waiting area for hours failed to disturb the county or the psychiatrists that worked there.
So, for months of visits to the clinic, I had Catch-22 in hand, dragging myself through the classic with difficulty. Two years later, I still have not finished the book, or even motivated myself sufficiently to rent the video. I tried to stay pressed to the storyline, but it was difficult reading about crazy people when you were surrounded by the real thing.
One day, it was the guy in the Confederate flag cap, who looked as if he were carved out of a single piece of stained sandstone, that was lecturing the waiting room on exactly how to kill a man with a single, hopefully provoked blow to the throat.
“They don’t tell you about it, but they can teach you how to kill a man if you hit him right here.” He demonstrated with a quick jab at his own throat, and the large woman that was his primary audience recoiled slightly, her eyes wide in terror. “They taught me how to do it, but I had enough of that shit.”
Another day, I was swept into a small crime drama. A woman in the primary waiting area sat clutching a giant brown plastic trash bag, which contained possibly food, possibly clothes, or possibly the still-warm remains of her ex-husband. At some point, she got up to go to the restroom, and left the bag resting right next to the door. Nearby, a mother and her son, who sported a trucker’s cap, discussed loudly the fact that his sister had run off with the disability check, and that they’d kick her ass if she tried to come back home. Resting quietly in agreement on that point of family business for a moment, their eyes came to rest on the plastic bag.
I kept my head down, reading and re-reading carefully one paragraph of Mr. Heller’s masterpiece. But I saw out of the corner of my eye the mother walk casually over to the bag, pick it up, then stuff it into her own massive canvas tote bag, not even examining the contents first.
When the bag’s owner emerged, she immediately began screaming that her bag was gone. I knew the scene was about to become ridiculous, but, egged on by a mix of a desire for justice and a desire for mayhem, I looked up just enough to catch her eye, then twitched my head in the direction of the mother and son.
Just then, I was called by the administrator, and I slapped the book closed and hustled away, as I heard the Springerian ruckus behind me erupt.
On what would become my last visit to the clinic, I was scheduled to see a nurse practitioner instead of a psychiatrist, presumably because all the psychiatrists had killed themselves and/or each other, or left to join the circus. I may have seen one psychiatrist twice. Jeopardy has less turnover than this place.
After another interminable wait, I was called into an office, where I waited a bit longer. Finally, the nurse practitioner appeared and introduced himself, but I was in shock - he didn't just resemble, he was sometime David Letterman star Larry “Bud” Melman, the short, white-haired, goggle-glassed old man who played the blinking straight man to a number of Letterman’s gags.
Nurse Larry Bud plopped down in the chair in front of me. Wide suspenders over his short-sleeved white dress shirt kept his black polyester long-waisted pants pulled across his wide, not so-long waist, where they were free to bulge as if he were in the middle of his period and retaining just a whole lot of water.
Nurse Melman studied his fingernails for a moment, perhaps running through the vast pharmaceutical database shielded behind glasses that seemed as impenetrable as the Oval Office’s windows, and that had the same horribly distorting optical effect. Then he reached into his desk, pulled out a small tool, and proceeded to clip his fingernails.
He asked a few questions, namely: he noted I had worked for the insurance department almost a decade ago. How was that? Would I consider working for the state again?
From these two questions, he arrived at a diagnosis. “Well, it seems like you’re doing pretty well.”
No wonder people here never seemed to get better, only angrier. “Well, but then, you haven’t really asked me how I’m doing, have you?”
Larry Bud was clearly unprepared for any input from the patient. He looked up at me for the first time and put the fingernail clippers back in the drawer. He asked a few questions about the medications I had tried. I told him that any medication that had no effect other than leaving me almost totally unable to taste food would certainly drive me to kill others or myself.
He pondered this, disappeared wordlessly, then returned with some papers. He handed me a poorly copied flyer and began discussing the alternatives… lithium being right up there as a strong possibility. Lithium. I knew only the following of lithium: that it was a primary ingredient in notebook computer batteries. Cool. I knew a friend in law school that was on it. I remember having to go get her apartment manager to let us in several times when she wouldn’t show up at school, answer the phone, or the door for up to a week. I knew the Nirvana song, knew it was a Nirvana song because Kurt Cobain had been on lithium at some point. We all see how that went.
My eyes began to blur, and I felt my lips tighten. I told him I’d just like to try a higher dose of what I was taking. He shrugged, I picked up the prescription from the office with the parrot in it, and my patronage of the county mental health system was over.
Walking out, I looked down at the vial of pills in my hand. The $26 check I had written for it would surely bounce. I walked out past the people waiting, yelling at the receptionist, smoking and mumbling to themselves outside the door. Perhaps they glanced up as the alarm on my Lexus SUV beeped loudly, perhaps they wondered about it, but perhaps they knew it just didn’t matter.
Posted by Rob at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2004
"AMERICA HAS SPOKEN"
Country claims "to have been drunk at the time"
Minutes after President Bush declared that "America had spoken" and named him "the undisputed high muckety-muck of the United States for the next six years," a spokesperson for America told reporters that America does not actually remember what it said, and that it had "thrown down a lot of beer at the time."
"Essentially, the vote was sort of a late night drunk call, and she didn't mean what she said," spokeswoman Sarah Tonin, claims. "America was a little sauced, and the polls were closing down, and she was alone, and she sorta missed the blind faith certainty of the Reagan era. Sure, they had some bad times, but on the other hand, Reagan was able to do a better job of selling a lot of people and allies on his invasions. Libya - you know, actually a threat, actually linked to actual terrorist acts. Grenada - come on, they had it coming, and everyone knew it."
Bush strategist Karl Rove countered America's claims, saying, "Nonsense. Reagan was the Mack Daddy of American Diplomacy, but President Bush has done far more using far less truth than either Reagan or his father ever did. America knew exactly what she was saying."
Meanwhile, numerolinguists at the Boise Community College Extension, who study the relationship between numbers like those generated in an election, and actual, verbal meaning, have translated both the popular vote numbers and the electoral vote to be congruent to the word, "Meh...", which is an expression that relates closely to "ahhh... not so much..."
In a related story, Jeopardy King Ken Jenning's amazing run almost came to an end Tuesday morning. Baffled by Jenning's seemingly endless store of arcane knowledge, the show's producers began posing questions about the future, and about what they had eaten for breakfast. Jennings answered 32 of these questions correctly, but judges initially failed to accept "Who sucks a tremendous amount of ass?" as an acceptable response to "The presidental candidate that will be declared winner later."
"The answer could have applied to either candidate," said show host Alex Trebeck following the taping. "But the key was the word 'tremndous.' The judges agreed that while Kerry sucks ass, only Bush truly sucks a tremendous amount of ass."
"Oh, I know exactly who the hell I was talking about," claims Jennings.
Posted by Rob at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)
electing
so, i went to the home of another chet link tonight (and i certainly mean no disrespect to this great person by that descriptive). she threw an election watching party.
i went to the doctor this morning at 10AM (diagnosed as "alive"), then took my state-allotted two hours to vote (free cookies!), and used the balance of that two hours and my lunch hour to bake a pecan pie for the party.
so, i appeared at the party with my pie, and with 12 harps and a bottle of rose's sweetened lime juice, and with my notebook. the more i drank, the more i observed, until that inevitable point of diminishing returns...
bush 95, kerry 77 (according to abc)
i don't know much about politics, or how that there electrical college works, but i've always been able to translate most life events into basketball terms.
my guess is that at this point, the bush team is hitting well over 50% of their shots, mostly short-range jumpers and lay-ups, rather than relying on three-poiint shooting.
meanwhile, the bush defense is closing down the kerry three-point shooters, possibly by using a combination zone/match-up/misinformation defense.
bush 102, kerry 77
again, the bush team is doing a good job of exploiting the weaknesses in kerry's zone defense, and they're penetrating just enough to hit the mid-range jumpshots. again, it's fundamental basketball, relying on good, high-percentage shooting rather than rash drives to the basket or low-percentage outside shooting.
but, there's lots of time left in this game. i think the nba scoring record for the regular season was set on december 13, 1983 (oddly close to the electoral college vote, i think) - detroit 186, denver 184, in triple overtime. again, i'm no poliotical pundit, but i see this game surpassing that record for excessive scoring, in regulation time...
i'm listening to people talk, and i feel kind of bad for them. they're all kerry supporters, or at least anti-bush. this bush administration has been so incredibly bad, and then their incredible badness has been so further incredibly exaggerated and blown up to be so unbelelievably bad, that it's opponent has by some relative virtue become a flawless miracle waiting to happen.
some people seem to be confusing the end of the bush era (until the next one, anyway, when george prescott bush gets a few corporations behind him), as the beginning of the new renaissance, a golden age for all mankind. apparently, as of january 21 of next year, or even as of tomorrow morning, if kerry were to win, the epcot world of the future will erupt in all its general electric glory, ushering in the era of milk and honey, of unrivaled peace love and understanding. hovercars for everyone!
note: becky armendariz-klein is the dan morales dan morales never was, but still not the dan morales we hoped dan morales would be, and she still is getting her ass kicked. i remember comijng back to work downtown after lunch one day, and seeing morales and some folks walking back down lavaca from lunch. i accelerated and circled the block just to yell at him to let him know exactly what an incredible prick he was. good times.
8:03 - peter jennings just announced that they were not ready to make a projection in a key state. hooray for restraint.
someone just asked what the yellow states are. i believe these to be the states that have simply decided to cede themselves to china at this point...
there's a guy here named ron. he's ubercool. he has john lennony-fresh glasses on, with one red lens, one blue. he says the 3D effect causes him to see both red and blue states as one political machine: "two puppets on the hands of one devil." i love this guy.
i just realized who's house i'm at - another woman i've dug that dug chet at some point. jesus fucking christ... i need more beer...
new mexico has gone to bush. listen, it's all about getting the vote out, and while there's a sizeable hippie liberal contingent in new mexico, the average 1967 volkswagen microbus is not the most reliable transportation... i'm just sayin'...
9:15 - is that bill russert with some kind of etch-a-sketch, or is it john madden with a telestrator? is it monday night?
9:25 - pretty cool that a dude named "obama" can do so well in illinois. like, what if some dude named "shitler" beat out eisenhower in south dakota? that would be impressive. still, if i were obama's coach, and he only beat alan keyes by 60 percentage points, obama would be running some extra laps after practice.
10:47 bush 207, kerry 199
if i were coaching this game, i'd still be happy - it's close, and with california and other key states still out, it's like i haven't even brought michael jordan into the game yet...
why isn't nbc letting anyone skate on the states?
you know, if bush wins, it's just a sign that people haven't been pushed far enough, that they we haven't progressed enough to honor truth above our desire for drama and our blind faith in the home team. both parties fall prey to the same weaknesses. we need to be fighting with truth, not lies and exaggeration. u2 says "the truth is not the same without the lies you made up." in this case, the truth is the same, but the lies just distort it further and discredit the truth itself, and those that would tell it. michael moore has done us all a great disservice.
alan simpson? get him off! he's not even a sitting senator! he's only sitting on his ass in his drawers somewhere in wyoming. hey, jennings, next time lead in with an explanation of why i give a damn what this skeletor-looking motherfucker thinks, OK?
minutes after 11:00PM -
Fox News: Bush 210, Kerry 144, a difference of 66 votes
CNN - Bush 197, Kerry 188 - difference of 9
NBC - Bush 207, Kerry 199 - difference of 8
now, at this point, no one can cry foul, that Fox is somehow affecting the west coast or hawaiian votes. but i still find it odd. for the sake of keeping people watching, why does fox want to effectively tell bush folks that it's safe to go to bed?
people in ohio are apparently still in line to vote. come on. you're in ohio, it's freakin' cold, and the rest of the country is waiting on your hick ass. if i'm in ohio, i'm stalling just to mess with people...
ok, it's all i can take. way drunk, way angry at my own life, compounded with the election results. fittingly, the comment from abc's linda douglas: "what's amazing is how well the democratic process is working tonight."
indeed. good night, oh silly world.
Posted by Rob at 01:27 AM | Comments (1)