Saturday, May 19, 2012

Of Birds, Bees, and Dr. Pepper

An extraordinarily pleasant day. In the early morning, my wife and I made love and held each other as I fell into a deep and satisfying sleep, devoid of any nightmares and free of the disturbed, anxious unease that so often keeps me awake and staring at the walls and ceiling, thoughts racing. A peaceful sleep is a noteworthy phenomenon, and should not be taken for granted.

Just before sunrise, the need to pee compelled me to wake, shake off the cat and dog who never miss a chance to pin Nancy and I to the bed, and stumble into the bathroom. The window was open, and the birds were making their typical morning din, which is considerable. No discernible sun or lightening sky, but those birds always know when to make a racket, with their little birdy watches they know that the sun will soon be up. Those birds, they're wise...they know things.

Time for my typical morning panic attack, but today I was spared. Why? If I only knew. A few minutes later and again, sound sleep next to the woman I love. What a day! Another two hours of sleep, then up. Coffee. Took Annie for a walk. Later, I planted the vegetable garden in our tiny little plot; four tomato plants, one pepper plant, rosemary, and sage. While mulching (yes, I even mulched!), a little bastard bee stung my right hand. Quite a string of obscenities spewed forth from my gob, accompanied by a thick Boston accent (it gets thicker when in distress). Oh, no fahkin' way, ah fahk, ah fahk meeeee! 

In the afternoon, my father and I talked leisurely and drank coffee, with Annie in my lap and Impy warming herself in a patch of sun streaking through the kitchen door window. She sat there like a furry little Buddha, content and enlightened. Somewhere along away, I had a waffle. A waffle was involved.

It is early in the evening now, and Nancy and I are watching a documentary together. A few moments ago I said something and she laughed. How I love it when she laughs. Where did I find this woman? Well, I know where I found her, and she found me, but what archery! She has her own demons, and it pains me when she is fogged in by depression. She has more moxie than I, and puts up a better fight against it. I love it when she laughs and is happy, and when she gives me a squinty look after I say something stupid (happens a lot). Or when she gets pissed off at the television and yells at it (the new Dr. Pepper commercial really pisses her off, and I don't blame her).

You don't take days like this for granted. There was a span of several days last week when I woke up to a ferocious little mind-weasel gnawing at me; panic attacks and anxiety from the get-go. It sucks. The Blue Devil of self-doubt and loathing, suicidal thoughts, and numbing depression. And when you throw in a couple of epileptic seizures, you have a real shit stew. Did I mention guilt? Oh, yeah.

So when days like this come up, I treasure them.




Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Radical History of Mother's Day

The Radical History of Mother’s Day


By Laura Kacere
There’s a good number of us who question holidays like Mother’s Day in which you spend more time feeding money into a system that exploits our love for our mothers than actually celebrating them.  It’s not unlike any other holiday in America in that its complete commercialization has stripped away so much of its genuine meaning, as well its history.  Mother’s Day is unique in its completely radical and totally feminist history, as much as it has been forgotten.

Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society in fighting for an end to all wars. She called for women to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother, to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons.

Howe wrote:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
[Read the remainder of Howe's quote here
The holiday caught on years later when a West Virginia women’s group led by Anna Reeves Jarvis began promoting it as a way to reunite families after the Civil War.  After Jarvis’ death, her daughter began a campaign for the creation of an official Mother’s Day in honor of peace. Devoting much of her life to the cause, it wasn’t until 1914 when Woodrow Wilson signed it into national observance in 1914.

The holiday flourished, along with the flower industry.  The business journal, the Florists Review, actually admitted to its desire to exploit the holiday. Jarvis was strongly opposed to every aspect of the holiday’s commercialization, arrested for protesting the sale of flowers, and petitioning to stop the creation of a Mother’s Day postage stamp.

Today we are in multiple wars that continue to claim the lives of thousands of sons and daughters.  We are also experiencing a still-rising commercialization of nearly every aspect of life; the exploitation of every possible human event and emotion at the benefit of corporations.

Let’s take this Mother’s Day to excuse ourselves from the pressure to consume and remember its radical roots – that mothers, or rather all women, in fact, all people, have a stake in war and a responsibility as American citizens to protest the incredible violence that so many fellow citizens, here and abroad, must suffer through.

The thousands of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the devastating impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on our veterans are just the beginning of the terrible repercussion of war.  As we saw last week an announcement of an extension of the military occupation of Afghanistan, let this mother’s day be a day after Julia Ward Howe’s own heart as we stand up and say no to 12 more years of war.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/radical-history-mother-s-day-1336835841. All rights are reserved.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Of Broken Pecker and The Far Side

On Turner Classic Movies right now is a movie entitled, "Most Dangerous Game," made in 1932 with Fay Wray and Joel McRea. My father was born in 1932. I'm quite sure everyone in this movie is dead. Certainly the pets are gone. The story has a lunatic who lures people onto a tropical island and then hunts them. It's quite good. Great atmosphere.

Tonight I give thanks to all my friends who advised me about penis dysfunction. My pecker is on the fritz, and it could be low testosterone or psychiatric medication or pain medication. Damned if I know. What I do know is that I'm not happy with my broken arrow, and I'm waiting for the testosterone shot to kick in and turn me into a human dynamo. Sex personified, with a fedora. Until then, I'm going to keep boring my friends with my tales of woe. If your hypothalamus, thyroid and genitals are working correctly and your hormones are in balance, thank your lucky stars, Friend-O. I'm a sexual milquetoast right now. And there is depression and lack of energy and...blah.

All this means that, in addition to using testosterone shots, I'll have to go into the endocrinology clinic and see my team of endocrinologists and urologists, all working feverishly to figure out the riddle between my ears and legs. This team includes medical school students, with a very high number of women students who have decided to major in Schlongology. Usually one student asks if he or she (always a "she") can take part in my examination. My doctor firsts asks me if it's ok if an adorable woman looks in on my genital examination and hugely embarrassing question and answer period. Always, the answer is, "Yes, it's okay." Why? It's a teaching hospital, and that's how the kids learn, and my penis, no balls, and hormones are nothing if not a unique specimen worthy of scholarly attention.

It's usually pretty cold in that clinic office, but I don't mind if my penis is shriveled up like the head of a frightened turtle. No, the big fear is getting an erection during an exam. This has never happened to me, but I live in fear of it. Given my medical condition, I simply have gotten used to answering sex questions and being looked at down there, via eyeball, MRI, and Ultrasound. Probably X-Ray specs, too...the ones that they sell at the end of every comic book, next to the sea monkeys.

It's stressful, and questions like, "Are you able to have an orgasm?" and "How often do you have sex and/or masturbate?" have me glowing red like a hot coal out of embarrassment. All the heat in my body escaping through my face. It creates an environment not conducive to sexual stimulation and a subsequent erection. Thankfully.

And soon I'll find out the fate of my thyroid. The plot thickens.

So I have the libido of a 90 year old nun with a massive head injury...big deal! So it takes me 3 hours to have an orgasm...no problem! I'll just pop, "The English Patient" or "Dances with Wolves" into the DVD player and have sex while watching a movie. When the English fellow finally dies, or when they shoot Two Socks, that's when I should be about ready to explode. Although those probably aren't good movie choices.

But what great friends I have. I'm a bit obsessed with my hormonal imbalance, as it leads to exhaustion, depression, and the aforementioned problems with sex. So I seek out advice from a friend who is a FTM transsexual, and others, who comfort me and laugh at me, lovingly, and buck me up. Thanks, really, my friends...you know who you are.

In other news, tonight I'm going to share my five favorite Far Side cartoons. It's good to laugh. Or so they say. Here we go...

#5
*This actually has a pretty good story. Apparently, a lot of people were offended at the
 idea of Jane Goodall being depicted as a chimpanzee slut. Actually, she thought it was
 hilarious and even wrote the forward for the 5th Far Side book. It's worth mentioning that Gary Larson
visited Dr. Goodall in the field, and was attacked by a chimp that anthropology majors certainly
remember reading about, 
Frodo. He got some sort of revenge by beating the bag out of Larson, who suffered bruises and a couple of cuts, but was otherwise fine. Post-chimp attack fine, but fine.

#4

#3


#2


And numero uno!


Good night, all.

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Saturday, May 05, 2012

Of Sleeping Cars and Mama Nancy

The Imp In The Closet



The closet is eight feet from the end of my side of the bed. We use a blue curtain to cover the closet doorway. It's nice. If I were to go over and spread the curtain "door" open, I would find one of my cats, "Impy," sleeping on a chair that I have stored in there. Without fail, every time I open wide the curtain, there she is, bleary-eyed in the dark and blinking at the light I'm letting in, no matter how dim. And then she'll peep at me. It's a noise that is not easy to describe. It would present a challenge to any wordsmith. Perhaps a musician could describe it. The best I can do is to simply say that it's a classic caterwaul, with a question mark at the end instead of an exclamation point. If Kim Kardashian howled, it would sound like this cat. It's been described as, "pathetic," but met with exclamations of, "Jesus Christ!" and, "What the Hell, kitty?!" It's loud, and Impy is small. It makes an impression. She's got style, this cat. I'm proud of her.

And every time I look in the closet (half the time just to see her and give her a pat), she does it. 

I've been looking at, and thinking about, this closet quite a bit over the past week. No renovation is planned, and there nothing worth considering about the closet. No funky smell, no guilt-inducing clutter, no childhood "monster in the closet" memories. I don't scare easily in my own flat. There was a time when my wife and I heard someone or something scratching at the wall in the apartment next door. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, literally. Goose flesh. But the closet is just the place to hang my shirts, store a chair, and pat Impy

I keep thinking about that damn closet because it makes me think of suicide. Of hanging myself, like two people I once knew who did that very thing. There may as well be an "Exit" sign over it. Green or red, your choice. I'll never give in to suicide. I've made promises to all the right people that I'd never try that again. Still, it's difficult to stop thinking about. It is, after all, a solution.  

Another solution to racing, negative thoughts that scream and whisper in the night, throughout the day, and particularly in the early morning is to take Annie for a walk. A lovely distraction. Or kiss my wife, whom I love more than any other. 

That fucking closet. What a great cat that Impy is, always guarding the exit and ready to screech at me in case I decide to give in and do the dangle.