Out That Day

This morning I found my neighbor walking up and down the courtyard, loosely following a grid pattern. It is August, but she was wearing a Winter coat, which was totally justified; it's cold out there at the moment. As it turns out, she was looking for dog shit. Not just any, but the shit deposited by her own dog, Maya. Sometimes it's difficult to keep track. She was out there for quite some time, and I'm not sure she ever found it. This has happened to me before, but after a few minutes, I give up. Dog shit helps prevent kids from playing in the courtyard and making a lot of noise on these Summer nights.

I'm listening to Yael Naim's Paris at the moment.

Ever since I gave up the Vicodin and got out of the hospital, I've been a little depressed. That's natural, I suppose, given that I was taking enough of that stuff to kill a panda. Instead, I'm cramming tramadol down my yap, along with lorazepam, and that is helping. I've been sleeping a lot.

Now I'm listening to La Goualante De Pauvre Jean sung by Edith Piaf.

These days, despite the various and sundry problems with drugs and mental illness, I'm pretty happy. Although I do have my eyes firmly set upon the Void. It's hard to ignore it, like sitting by the sea. You have to look up every once in a while and take it in. I'm always doing that. Looking within or without at the Void that underlies life itself. I'm transfixed by it. Once you get that way, it's impossible, or near impossible (I don't know how) to get your eyes back onto life. The world is full of people who suffer from a terminal illness. It amazes me how many of us can look past that, and find (usually via ambition) something else to ogle and consider endlessly. I lack that ability. Perhaps I was out of school that day.

Last night the light, cool breeze moving through the trees, the starry sky turning beyond, and Linda and I in what felt like the beginning of it all. I'd like to know what it feels like to hear and feel that breeze, as it moves through you and the trees, and all those little leaves moving and whispering, and feel the presence of something more. Although, even when I know there is nothing more out there, It's still quite beautiful.

A quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.

Full Retard

I'm sipping my little sugar drink, Coke, while I answer emails from friends and whomever else may feel need to communicate with me. It's hard to think of any. Sometimes a friend or family member will ask me about this psychiatric drug or that, knowing for sure that I've been on everything at one time or another. It makes me wonder if any of these drugs have been beneficial. Perhaps in some way, as a tranquilizer, it keeps one out of trouble. But besides lithium carbonate, there are only benzodiazepines, like lorazepam. Nothing else has worked for me for more than a brief period of time.

I saw the movie "Tropic Thunder" this past weekend with my gal, and really laughed my ass off. Particularly at the retard jokes. As Downey says, "You don't go full retard."

That should be on the dollar bill.

Did McCain ad lift "cross in the dirt" story from Russian novelist?"

I picked this up out there on RawStory.com. Enjoy.

D

Senator John McCain (R-AZ), in a Christmas-themed December ad for his presidential campaign, told the following story: "One night, after being mistreated as a POW, a guard loosened the ropes binding me, easing my pain. On Christmas, that same guard approached me, and without saying a word, he drew a cross in the sand. We stood, wordlessly, looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas. I'll never forget that no matter where you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there will always be someone who will pick you up." "It just sounded so fake and so contrived, so I did a little research about it," said DailyKos contributor rickrocket. The research revealed a similar story by recently departed novelist and McCain favorite Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, recounting his experience in a Soviet gulag in The Gulag Archipelago, released in the United States in 1973. Luke Veronis, in The Sign of the Cross, recounts: "Along with other prisoners, he worked in the fields day after day, in rain and sun, during summer and winter. His life appeared to be nothing more than backbreaking labor and slow starvation. The intense suffering reduced him to a state of despair.

On one particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, no reason to keep on living. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.

Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.

Solzhenitsyn slowly rose to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inside, he had received hope."

Noble Calling

The marijuana is beginning to obfuscate the anxiety, to make it a lesser concern by giving it less focus. The lorazepam is washing away the edgy feeling, and I can sit normally and truly relax a bit. In a vague way, I'm thinking about making an appointment to see my psycho-therapist. Is there any way that can work? Can I reveal all these things I'm embarrassed to even think about, let alone examine with a complete stranger?

My brother argued that I do things to make his life better. I felt like dancing. That felt like the way to a cure. Because I feel so totally useless. But I do take care of my father, help Linda in the morning and usually cook dinner, clean the house, do laundry and all that. It's not much, but it is something. Plus, my family is growing larger and Linda's daughters, beautiful as they are, may need some muscle to rough up some stalker or something. What a noble calling! Oh, the things I would have missed had I died that day.

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician

Less than a week ago, I'm not sure when, Linda brought home a book from work. She does this now and then, taking books from the "free table" that she thinks I might enjoy. So far, she has judged my interests well. The newspaper at which she works receives numerous newly-released books of all kinds, to be reviewed and written about, naturally. So many hopeful books, looking for careful consideration by a professional journalist. Some get that consideration, most don't, but all end up at the free table for employees to take home. And then some make their way to me. It's like being a member of a book club better than any other. It's not Oprah Winfrey picking out a book for me to read, it's someone who is very close to me, and loves me, and whom I love back.

The latest novel that I can't seem to read fast enough is entitled, "Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician" by Daniel Wallace. It reminds me of Ray Bradbury's, "Dandelion Wine" although I'm not sure why. Both are given to writing caliginous, poetic celebrations of the ordinary, as if we are living in a world of dark magic. In a very different way, "The Terror" by Dan Simmons also engages the reader with the notion that there are great forces at work in the universe, that we are not alone, and that even if there is a god, he or she or it may not be what you had in mind.

There is nothing supernatural out there, in my opinion, which may be why these books are so compelling to me. Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician is one hell of a novel so far (I have yet to finish reading it) , but the magic therein feels as if it comes from the characters themselves, and not from a magical universe. It's full of eternal mysteries, but it's not working to solve any of them, at least not without creating more mysteries in the process of answering one.

These are beautiful romantic fantasies that offer up truth with little concern for the facts. Again, I'm fond of stories told in this way. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the neighborhood children fill their days by playing, in an attempt to kill their boredom and spend their imagination with the easy ability of a child given time with little to do. We all remember "Boo" Radley, who the kids elevated to mythic status, mostly via Jim's story-telling and Scout's earnest desire for there to be more in the world than meets the eye. So a mentally-ill man, who happens to live in a house the children also find creepy. Or it could just be that way because, in the mind of a child, it should be that way. Evil should look evil. Good should look good. And Radley displayed all the aesthetic inclinations of being evil. The omens and signs are there to be read.

Again, we all know what happens. "Boo" Radley saves Jim's life, and Scout learns the lesson that things are not always what they seem. But even before Radley played the hero, he was very valuable to those kids. The natives on Skull Island had King Kong, and these kids had "Boo" Radley. Something or someone to add a modicum of mystery and magic to their plain lives.

What a thing to have! As an atheist and existential nihilist, I can't have such a thing. Those are just labels, self-applied, but they simply mean that I do not believe in god, or that life has any purpose except the one we provide for it. And it ends at death. Science has mysteries unending, but they are cold to me. The Void makes frequent appearances in place of god or heaven. When I look up at a night sky and sees stars, I see the Void. Others may see god. After death, there is that Void again. Others may see an afterlife.

But before you really start answering these questions one way or the other, when you are a child, the world is a mysterious, wondrous place. And these books help me remember a time when I seemed to be living in a different world, and was, in a way. Of course, the world has changed little and it is I who have done most of the changing.

But I have found fear again. Not a fear of physical pain, or of heartbreak, or for family members' health. Those are all normal, I think, and come and go for everyone. The fear I speak of motivates to paranoia. I'm afraid that I am a grotesque parasite living off of a healthy world that exists apart from me. I'm on disability, and the student loan people are after that with a vengeance, but they will not succeed. And I living in pubic housing. Yesterday, I went to a food pantry to get some pasta, coffee and cereal. I'm physically able to work, but it's true that mentally and emotionally, I would not last long in anyones employ. So I'm stuck, unable to work but in grand self-loathing because I do not. Do those who love me, who are close, resent me for not working? I suspect that they sometimes do. Getting up and going to work all day is hard for everyone, and I admire them for that. I'm also endlessly grateful for all the help I get.

Usually, in the course of my day, I have a very hard time just walking into a store or calling my doctor for an appointment. For every time I talk to one of the living, I feel that contact is a conduit to a place of judgment. To be judged, you must be seen and/or heard. And then I go through manic phases where I post near nude pictures of myself, or kick the front door apart. Every time I think of my manic stupidity, I wince.

All day long I'm trying to scatter nasty, self-hating thoughts away, like pigeons as you walk through a public park. My conscience never stops whispering into my ear, "You are a sycophant. Good for nothing. Weak. Everyone is ashamed of you." It goes on all day, every day. Some days I ignore it well, most days it whittles me down to size to one degree or another.

Just last summer I tried to get back to work, at a newspaper, no less. I even went to the interview, and with the help of a friend, had my first assignment. Naturally, I backed off, ran away, defeated and pitiful.

These days, I read a great deal during the day, and do chores, go to the market, walk the dog, that sort of thing. If I'm useful and kind, and a good partner, maybe the self-loathing will dissipate, to any degree less that it exists now. I'm also writing (besides on here) for various left-wing political groups. It doesn't come as easily as it once did, but that is of no importance.

The greatest mystery left for me, about me, is about my mind. Will it improve with time? My degree in biological anthropology and former work experience are ready to help me. The plot thickens, the story moves along, and time will tell. For now, I just want there to be peace and happiness at the House of Four Cats.