I'm Not As Small As I Look

The universe is full of irony and many monstrous pranks. Several years ago, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University reported that stars, planets and gases make up a mere 5% of the universe. They say that the rest is "dark matter" and some as yet unknown substance. How much space is taken up by sad, lonely, heartbroken human beings who have only a few years to master this wretched little game before it's time to return to the void? I'm sure that it's a very small amount; infinitesimal and of no consequence. Especially when compared to the amount of noble gases and matter out there.

But I feel bigger than that, much bigger. When I'm in pain, the universe is but a pea, or a puny nut, or perhaps a drop of rain. A contrary appearance is an illusion. Have you ever noticed how love punishes you for simply doing what it insists you do? You want to tell your lover how you feel, but doing that may make you seem needy. Instead, you want to be aloof and casual. That makes you more attractive. People don't really want to be with someone who really needs anyone. That alone is twisted, but it's only the beginning.

Before even leaving high school, you had better have learned that appearance and money mean everything, despite the heartfelt conviction of many that attraction is about, "Who you are on the inside." It's not. Prepare to be judged for your wallet, and/or your weight and looks. That's the way it is, and it matters not how much you like it or don't.

When you fall in love with someone, don't tell them. If you do, repeat it rarely (unless you're married) and, again, act like you don't need anyone. Is it a myth that some women like assholes more than nice guys? I'm sorry to say it, but no, it's not. Some women will enjoy the company of men who steal from then, insult them, and mock them. Kind men who empower and treat with respect may do well to get to know their hand.

I really hate generalizations, and none of this is true of all men or all women. As an romantic, what has me so disgusted is that some of these generalizations are true. These days I find myself alone, and I've made my peace with that, especially since I'm partly to blame. I have a tendency to try and talk girlfriends out of being with me, insisting that they can do better. After all, I have no money and I'm deformed. I have to accept that I have nothing to offer another human being. And that hurts, dear reader. Right now, I may as well be the universe, not simply a part of it. I ache at my memories of those I've loved.

But in my solitude I will not become bitter. I've tasted love, and the flavor of honey will stay on my tongue forever. Perhaps for an idealist, romantic love is best experienced in the mind, and that's where it should stay. For someone like me, with so little to offer, it is only in the realm of the mind that heartache and crass judgement can be avoided. I prefer not to be soured on something that has tested me severely, nearly driven me mad, but also filled me full of joy and companionship. Every time I fall in love I risk losing my affection for it. Recently, I fell in love with a girl named, "Amanda." Who knows.

Of Mitochondria, Dreams, Humiliation and Al Jolson

Generally speaking, I don't enjoy relating my dreams to other people. By "dreams" I mean the nightly cavalcade of bizarre, sometimes grotesque, images and feelings we fall victim to in our sleep. But last night I had a dream that was a fairly accurate depiction of something that happened to me while attending university. First, a little background on my dreams.

When I retire for the evening, I take my clothes off and put on a nightshirt. I'm not sure why, but I love this thing. After that I answer some emails, read, watch television and have a late night phone conversation with my love. With the exception of the phone conversation, this has been a regular routine for years. Habit helps to take ones' mind off of the ensanguined, wretched pageant called, "life." A therapist once said to me, "Habit is a gift from Heaven." I told him that I thought it was a pretty shitty gift, and that the saying is, "a banal platitude." In retrospect, I feel like a jerk for that, but I'm also partly proud. Aren't I complex?

Once I'm in bed and of a mind to finally get some sleep, I pat Toulouse (my familiar) and close my eyes. Even with as many as 2-5 lorazepam in me, sleep often evades me. And that is very bad for someone like me. I suppose it's bad for everyone. But my mind races and I think about one shameful memory after another. Every woman I've ever slept with is lined up, and they all get a chance to rank on me. They say terrible things about my body, mock me for coming too quickly, and make fun of my expression when I climax. In reality, I've never met a woman who would be such a jerk; I have high standards. But in my mind, anything goes. Although I did have a girlfriend who said that I scrunched-up my face and looked like I was about to sneeze when I climaxed. If memory serves, we both thought that was funny as hell. My brain is merciless.

I'm not going to list every humiliating and/or sketchy thing I've ever done. But my gray matter is happy to run down that list every fucking night. And it's bad. Sometimes I say out loud, "Oh, please, no more!" Some of the memories are funny. Like the time I went back to a woman's apartment down in Brockton to spend the night. We were kissing, and it was very passionate and exciting. We had most of our clothes off, and we were both certainly ready, but at that moment I had to go to the bathroom really bad. It was no big deal, she just pointed me to the toilet across the hall. What proceeded was most-definitely a big deal. We went to Grimsby's in Harvard Square, Cambridge that night, and I had the black bean tostada, or something with a lot of black beans. Naturally, on my first date with a woman who was crazy about me I had a case of savage diarrhea. Details will be spared, but I produced a cacophony of farts, some extremely loud. The din also included the occasional splash in the toilet water, along with a grunt or two from me. I was talking to myself, as well. "Only you would get the trots like this when there is a beautiful woman practically throwing herself at you." And I shook my head in disgrace.

When I emerged from the bathroom, she was smoking one of her unfiltered Camel cigarettes. She didn't look me in the face, perhaps out of embarrasment for me. But 5 seconds later we were making love like crazed weasels. So it didn't matter. For some reason, however, the daft goblins in my head love to playback that night. Not the sex part, just the inability to stop shitting part. I think most of us have these strange PowerPoint presentations every night before we drift off. But I know it's worse for me. What with the other problems I have and all. But anyway, that leads me to the university story.

Back when I worked full-time nights (11pm - 7am) and went to UMass Boston full-time, I rarely got any sleep. I missed an exam on cell biology, so I rescheduled to take it in his office. All was going well as I took the test; I'm good at Punnett's Squares, surface area to body mass ratio, mitochondria, and all that stuff. It's a shame I amounted to nothing...back then I was working so hard to be something. Can anyone spare a violin? No? That's fine. Anyway, I finished the exam and found him in the next room. We spoke for about 10 minutes, about biology and gossip, and I felt compelled to ask him something about sleep. Since I had just gotten off from work, and was really feeling it (I hadn't slept in three days), I hazily asked the professor, "What exactly is sleep for, anyway? Why do we need it, and how does a lack of sleep damage cells?" He gave me a funny look, but I explained my interest. He decided to lend me a book from his collection in his office. He pointed to it and said something like, "That book there covers your question." But then, all hell broke loose.

I couldn't reach the book, and neither could he; he was even disinclined to stand up from behind his desk. So I grabbed a chair, stood on it (he let loose a barrage of "be careful" advice), and reached up to the book. It was tightly wedged between two other books. I pulled on it, and it started to move toward me. But the shelf, which had to have 100 books on it as it extended across the wall of his office, buckled and made a, "poink!" sound as it said goodbye to its attachment to the wall. Books went flying everywhere and I jumped off the chair and ran out of the way, a mere 10 feet or so. The prof never took his eyes off me, and I could see that out of the corner of my eye. Finally, I looked at him, but I wish I hadn't. His expression is burned into my memory. He looked like James Cann ("Sonny") in The Godfather. Specifically, the part where he finds out that his brother-in-law is beating his sister. It's the, "I'm going to kill the fucking bastard!" look. I tried to put the books back, but the shelf had ripped the anchor out of the wall. So I stacked his books and papers for him and then beat a hasty retreat.

My dream the other night was a replay of that event. And it was a real dream, not a slideshow before the dream. Cripes, at least in the retelling some of the details could have been changed! Like the part where I trashed the professor's office...could have done without that. I could have done without a retelling at all. How about a dream where I'm Sophia Loren's gynecologist? Or an alternate reality where Gore's victory in 2000 is recognized. I had a dream about Anne Coulter, but it just upset me. What I really want is a plane to fly into Congress while Bush is giving his State of the Union address. Is that sort of dream so hard to muster?

It says in the fucking Talmud, "A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read." I hope with ever part of me that that isn't true. Otherwise, I'll have to try and figure out why Al Jolson was giving Marcel Duchamp a piggy back ride through The Garment District. And hell knows the significance of the sloth eating the bean dip. I'm not deconstructing that, man.

Thank goodness for lorazepam.

A Novel Idea or Two

Yes, Anne, I do write other things besides this blog. I'm no one-trick pony. I'm more of a two-trick ferret. I find it difficult, however, to add to my novel, which I've been working on since 1997. It's science fiction and called, The Last American on Earth. If I get some balls surgically implanted, I may be able to screw up the courage to post a portion of it on here. I've written about 200 pages of scenes, but I have trouble bringing it all together. And it's heavy on the science, so I have done a lot of research on faster-than-light space travel, relativity, particle resistance and some other interesting things. Naturally, it's a tragedy, heavy on the dialogue and packed lovingly with irony.

Also, I'm working on a short story entitled, simply enough, Two Hills. Unlike Last American on Earth, I've kept the story simple. It's about a young gay man who seeks revenge on the person responsible for the death of his secret lover. The victim's father forgives the man who accidentally killed his son. But our protagonist simply cannot forgive, so he turns to the supernatural for help. When I'm in the right mood, I greatly enjoy writing this story. But it may never see the light of day. I respect my friends too much to ask them to read something that even I don't like.

My father wants me to write the screenplay for Patrick Suskind's amazing novel, Perfume. He gave me the book to read a while ago, and I put it away without reading it. I just recently re-discovered it and I'm sure glad I did. A wild, funky adventure. And it would make an outstanding movie, in the right hands. I may do that yet, write the screenplay, that is.

In addition to poetry, that's all I'm writing write now. Some of my emails are pages long, but that doesn't count. I have a little notebook of ideas, but most of them suck. For example, I wanted to write a musical about the Iran/Contra Hearings back in the mid-1980's. Perhaps an operetta! I imagine a comedy with a partially unsung libretto. At one point, there would be a magnificent show-stopper with Barbara Honegger, Oliver North, and Ronald Reagan himself. It would be great if I could squeeze in a young George Bush, as the son of Reagan's vice-president. I see him wistfully imagining what his presidency will be like; "I'll be king of the world some day, some day, I'll be king of the world SOOOMMMEEDDDAAAYYY!" Actually, something like that could write itself. Perhaps I could get Adam to write the music.

Pale Little Blog in a Sun-Drenched World

I just spent twenty minutes trying to sign into this website and access my blog. The password slipped my mind, and my computer crashed when I tried to set another one. Isn't that riveting! So now I'm on here and I've completely forgotten what I set out to post on here a half hour ago. I'm sure that it was in line with the every other jejune, insipid trifle on here.

Regarding this blog, I have a bit of a conundrum. Actually, the problem is with me, but it is evident on Zeitgeist Expatriate. I'm not right in the head, which is rarely a problem when it comes to writing; certainly not for a feeble scribbler like me. What concerns me is that I bounce between two mindsets, and they are not complimentary. Depression robs me of the ability to take an interest in anything. And my specific pathology in this area includes a strong desire to fling myself in front of a bus. I don't because I also find no activity worth doing. And nothing is funny, interesting or compelling in any way. And the anxiety is merciless. My muscles are sore from tensing myself up. Naturally, I almost never post anything when I'm in detached state, although it does inform my general attitude.

So on one side is all this depression, ennui, self-loathing and all that shit. On the other side (or at the other pole, as the case may be), I find that I read everything I can get my fat little hands on and write emails, posts, letters and even short fiction. So many things are funny and moving and interesting. I look forward to calling a friend just to talk about anything, and I have no problem telling them how much they mean to me. Most importantly, I'm not anxious or so ensconced in self-hatred that I want to eradicate my existence to avoid the pity and disgust of those I care about. Instead, I almost feel normal. Like a failure, perhaps, but a commonplace one.

Obviously, I'm describing bipolar disorder, something I'm diagnosed with along with borderline personality and post-traumatic stress disorders. So when it comes to this blog, I'm worried that my entries are of interest only to me. My logic is that hypomania lowers my standards for what is funny or interesting...or simply worth posting. That I have a strange sense of humor doesn't help matters.

What keeps me going is the knowledge that this is just a blog. If someone were paying me to write, the guilt and self-doubt would be insurmountable. I hope this makes sense, because if it does, it fairly-well illustrates my affliction. Not that you should care, but just in case you do. Every one of my friends has told me that they enjoy this blog. Usually they compliment my intelligence. It makes me feel good, but I know that it isn't true. That they are saying those things because they are my friends. It's appreciated, though. And the blog is fun to write.

Incidentally, I'm not really manic or depressed right now. I'm sort of in the middle. As I sit here grinding my teeth and anxious as hell, I wonder if I'll ever be better. There was a time when I could say, "hello" to a neighbor without my heart racing. A time when mental illness didn't have me avoiding contact with people out of fear. And fear of what? Sometimes I feel like a vampire in a place where the sun never sets. Existing primarily in the shadows and unseen.

A fat little vampire wearing glasses.

God Brings Out The Worst In Us: Let's Fire His Ass

There aren't many things of which I'm certain, but I happen to know that there isn't a god, or gods. And there is no hell, heaven, paradise, Hades, Elysium, purgatory, or any of that bullshit. People believe in this sort of thing for many reasons, but the absurd appeal boils down to just three things; a desire to explain the unknown, a thirst for justice, and a fear of death.

There are many things about the universe, the planet, your body, and even your girlfriend that are a complete mystery. Religion puts a face on the unknown, and a robe, and sometimes a beard. There was a time when people thought germs simply spontaneously generated, no questions asked. God decided where and when to place disease and infection. We stood helplessly by and had to accept it. A French fellow named Louis Pasteur put that theory to rest. God no longer resides under a microscope. But people are determined to find him or her (or them) in every sooty nook and cranny.

Science replaces "common sense" and superstition every day. And those in search of a laugh sardonically question religious mythology with a scientific mind. A paper written by a thermodynamics professor entitled, "How Hot is Hell?" falls into that category. I suppose this sort of thing might offend those of a religious disposition. I've gotten to the point, however, where I don't care. The religious fanatics who run the world, from the Evangelical Christians to the Muslim "Islamofascists," have made it clear that they don't respect my lack of belief in god. In fact, both groups are aggressively attempting to hijack control of every government and institution on Earth. If you think I'm being paranoid, you're not paying attention.

Clearly, I'm indicting a whole batch of people based on the internecine predilections of a fanatical few. But how "few" are these fanatics? They seem to enjoy greater numbers now than ever before. Here in the United States, the "Radical Right" made up of Evangelicals and groups like, "Moral Majority" hold fantastic sway over our humble little republic. That's why we're grappling with evolution and sex education in our public schools, two things that any reasonable person would insist be taught. And how could any logical person insist on placing the Ten Commandments in front of our nation's courthouses? Besides being a violation of the separation of church and state, any thinking person should have some issues with this thing. I won't pick it apart here, that's been done on the Internet 1,000 times over. But I feel compelled to mention the Second Commandment, which states, "Do not fashion idols or any likeness of what is in the heavens above." Given that a statue of the Ten Commandments is an idol, it's ironic that we wish to break the Second Commandment by putting up monuments to the Ten Commandments all over the place! Organized religion is always lampooning itself like that. This celebration of the absurd goes on in all religions. Promising a reward of 70 virgins in paradise to a Muslim suicide bomber? Wow. I have to hand it to them, though, they really know their audience; teenaged males.

There are plenty of good god people out there. They are reasonable, compassionate, reliable and disinclined to hurt me for not believing in their god. Honestly, though, I've come to the conclusion after 30 something years that religion is essentially a confidence scam. An institutional hoodwink that has been around so long that people mistakenly assume that it must be worth keeping around. Aside from food pantries and a few homeless shelters, it's not. The government can easily do what the churches do. After that, revoke the tax exempt status that these bamboozlers enjoy and let them sell their product like every other drug-dealer. They are simply too dangerous to enjoy this favored-dealer status. The product they sell robs people of their ability to reason, to the point where they believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and that pre-marital sex will result in your torture for all eternity. And compassion goes out the door for the victims of this scam, as well. Imagine picketing the funeral of a murder victim, like Matthew Shephard, with signs that read, "FAGS BURN IN HELL, MATT BURNS IN HELL." Or how about speaking as a fetus to a woman going into an abortion clinic, "Don't muder me mommy!" People are normally compassionate and thoughtful. Religion has the power to rob people of it.

Just say, "No!" to the sky-king advocates and con-artists. Tell them you see enough of god's work on CNN's coverage of the middle east.