Mental Illness

Mental Illness: Edification

Perhaps it’s mean-spirited, but I truly wish that everyone could suffer from mental illness. Well, for the most part, that statement isn’t entirely accurate, but there are days, or even single moments where I wholeheartedly wish for it. I’ve touched on this subject several times before, but I felt (for some reason or other) like it needed revisiting. Mental illness is, by and large, invisible. Sure, its effects can be as plain as day, but it’s not like jaundice or chicken pox. It gets even worse when its sufferer is intelligent, and capable of “maintaining” for some length of time. At least, believing that he (or she) is maintaining. It’s not always obvious what is wrong, and there are many people who are terrified of admitting that they suffer, for fear of retribution due to the stigma of mental irregularities. Sometimes I wish that I had never learned any coping mechanisms (effectiveness and results may vary), so that I could not force myself to hide behind the curtain of normality. For all the progress we have made in erasing the myths of mental illness, we are not so very far removed from the world in which my father lived (the father who suffers from a depression so severe that he could not bring himself to open the letter which I sent him, relying instead upon his brother, who was back for a visit from Japan).

I honestly believe that the only reason that what little progress has been made came only after Big Pharma realized that they could make a profit off of inner demons and melancholia. I remember, twenty years ago, when Prozac was the Next Big Thing. My family practitioner diagnosed me as “Manic Depressive” (yet more evidence of how old I am), and was eager (a little overly so, in my opinion) to get me going on this new class of crazy pills. As I was a minor at the time, and suffering from a contentious relationship with my mother, I am grateful that I had second thoughts. Can’t say why, but I felt this cold chill in the pit of my stomach at the very thought of those pills, and graciously declined (as graciously as any teenaged Caucasian male is able). A year later, I did decided to try Prozac (just one pill), and suffered immediately from auditory hallucinations and a sense of dread. A year after that, I gave Wellbutrin a try. When I was in the hospital, they taught us that depression is just rage turned inwards (psychologically- biologically it is something else entirely). Wellbutrin took my depression away, but left me with an overabundance of rage (directed in each and every direction).

It wasn’t until my hospitalization that someone decided to try Lithium. You know, the medicine prescribed for well over a century. The element. The drug off of which there is no money to be made. If I’d had the money back then, I might have been able to afford to stay on it. But, you see, it wasn’t the prescription which I could not afford, but the blood draws which were required to ensure that the levels in my system remained below toxicity. A few years later, I managed to get another prescription, but lost my insurance too soon to be able to continue. That was in 2004.

Since then, no matter where I’ve gone, or to whom I’ve spoken, I cannot seem to get the one thing which has ever been effective. Either I get brushed off all together, or the doctor insists on trying out all manner of medications which I know (with a growing level of experience) are only going to mess me up far more. No one seems to want to hear that Lithium actually works for me. Sure, I feel exhausted all the time (nothing out of the ordinary these days), and wrapped in a numbing insulation, but I also do feel safe from the pendulum’s swings. It also stifles my creative instincts, which would be unacceptable if the preponderance of my income came from writing, but is tolerable if I have to deal with other people. Not that it actually matters: there are no drug rep kickbacks for a freaking element.

So no wonder that so many people have turned towards self-medication. When you can’t get help from medical professionals, you look to squelch the pain in any manner you are able. Some turn to drink, other to pills, and others to any other number of substances. When the illness exists, for all intents and purposes, in one’s own head, it’s impossible to accurately convey the struggle to someone who doesn’t understand. And then are some people who have it easier than others, or have had better luck in dealing with their own private demons. Hell, I’ve been extremely fortunate myself, as I’ve been able to pass for “normal” for the majority of my life by merely accepting the mantle of “asshole.”

It had been my intention of seeking out medical help tomorrow, to enlist the aid of those who are able, to assist me in fighting my own particular demons. Don’t really see the point now. Everything repeats and falls victim to entropy, and there’s not much point in fighting it anymore. Exhaustion has set in, and apathy is ever-present. I’m just tired of fighting, you know? Better to just throw in my hat, and let everyone have their laugh. I guess I should have finished up Hiraeth, but it’s kind of epic where it’s at.

Thanks, everybody.

Don’t know where the night will take me, but if I see you all on the other side, so be it.

Family, Personal

Loss

I don’t expect this post to be good- in fact, I would be surprised if it winds up even readable. There are many things which I have been through, some of them my own making, and others the end result of razor-tipped butterfly effect, but I have never suffered a loss quite like this before. It devastated me when my great-grandmother died, especially because, in retrospect, I had plenty of time to go and see her before her time came (of course, I never did, but that was because I felt that she would be ashamed of me, and where I was in my life, which is more a testament to my own self-loathing than an accurate depiction of who Gram truly was. I now believe that she would have only been ashamed of me if I had well and truly given up: resigned myself to drug addiction and failure, without ever trying to reach the stars for which I had been yearning since I was a little boy.), but chose to stay away. When the news came to me of my grandfather, I was determined not to make the same mistake. And though there was nothing I could do beside bring a smile to his face upon his realization of my arrival, I felt that, this time, I was finally able to say goodbye.

Here’s the thing, though, and again, it says more about me as a trainwreck of emotional instability than it does of his decency as a human being that the most vivid memory I have of him was from one of the lowest points in my life. It was December of 2000, and my drug-addicted girlfriend and I were on a break (please try to remember what a social powerhouse Friends was during my era). I was still avoiding my mother due to reasons mentioned elsewhere in The Vaults Of Uncle Walt, and so I went back to the one place where I knew that I was always welcome: my grandparents’ home. They had both told me that I was like a fourth child to them, and that their house would always be my home, so, when I’d had no alternative, I came back to them.

My grandmother and I are very similar: stubborn worriers who must always have the last word, and who enjoy the sport of argument more viscerally than any other. The qualities which I inherited from my grandfather are far more… intangible. Intelligence, obviously (though my grandmother is no slouch herself), and an ease of learning which makes people who have to study begin to steam about the ears. Then there is the consistency of rulemaking, which my son can attest that I have inherited as well, which boils down to clear and concise rules regarding what is acceptable and what is not, and the consequences which befall each action. But, of course, there is no one better suited to describe what my grandfather gave to me than my own two grandchildren. For my part, I have merely attempted to emulate my own grandfather, be as patient and loving as my own grandpa was, but for them, to have someone to sneak them sweets, or goof around with them, or to exist as a neverending font of unconditional love, I think that they shall be eternally grateful to a man they never got to know.

I seem to have wandered off-topic for a bit, and for that, I apologize. Let’s see if I can pull myself together and get this missive back on track.

For the record, before I start in on this narrative flashback: We spoke some number of years ago about this incident, and came to peace with one another.

My life was spinning out of control. I was an intravenous drug user with a mission which might have made Don Quixote reconsider, and in no mood whatsoever to suffer the advice of someone who “just didn’t get it.” Everything was going more or less okay, despite the fact that I was living with my grandparents, and separated from my girlfriend for whom I had plunged headfirst into the icy waters of self-destruction (though, to be fair, it didn’t require any arm-twisting whatsoever). And then, though I remember it as coming from out of the blue, it might very well have been rooted in something topical, he began to lecture me about the importance of staying clear of debt collectors. At that point in my life, I hadn’t actually ever had anything in my own name (the benefits of dating a woman in her mid-thirties), and just knew that I knew what the hell I was doing. I mean, I did, and it all worked out in the end, but still… Statistically speaking, his talk was dead-center and on-point. And then… I broke.

I started shouting at him in couplets of salty metaphors, decrying his diatribes toward responsibility, and reminding him that I knew what I was doing (while philosophically true, I must admit that my methods are far more hands-off than I might otherwise care to admit). I then stormed out, in adolescent fashion, slamming the door behind me, but not before I informed him, in no uncertain terms that he could feel free to asexually reproduce (though, grammatically speaking, it was more of an imperative).

Perhaps someday I will allow myself to believe that I am worthy of the example which he set for me, though at this moment, I find it difficult to believe. I just hope that he knew how much he meant to a little boy who grew up without a father, who so desperately required someone to love him for who he was.

I love my grandfather, and I miss everything about him. I weep for the knowledge that I will never see him again, though I do not weep for him. I weep for myself, and for the world, as it must come to terms with the emptiness which remains in the wake of his passing.

I miss my grandfather.

Uncategorized

To Woo Women

“Language was invented for one reason, boys- to woo women…”

John Keating, Dead Poets Society

Even though I may have announced on a certain face-based social networking platform that I wouldn’t be putting something out on here for another week, the chance to write something for Leap Day shone brilliantly within my brain, and I felt obligated to give it my best shot. I was playing around with wording and psyching myself up to pound out another 1,000 words about how my life has changed since I began this blog all those many months ago, but then I unlocked the front door, and had not even set my left foot within the boundaries of my domicile, when my son, my eight (riding upon the cusp of nine)-year-old son, declared to me in what can only be described as a stage whisper, that he had a date, and that he needed some advice. Aside from the strange parallels his life seems to be taking in concert with those from my more youthful days, I was brought up short by the notion that my son thought that I would be a good person to come to for tips on how best to interact with members of the opposite sex. Not wanting to disappoint him too quickly, I delayed the inevitable moment when he would come to realize that all of my romantic encounters have occurred through the mercies of dumb luck, and began to ask him about the particulars of his current predicament, all the while thinking that I was entirely too old for this, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be a grandfather (biologically).

As it turns out, he finally screwed up the courage to ask a classmate of his out on a date. I more impressed by this than anything else, as I wasn’t ever able to actually muster up the courage for face-to-face communications with the fairer sex until I had reached the tender age of somewhere in my mid-twenties. Until then, I managed to subsist on the exasperated interests of ladies who were somehow interested in me, and the age-old classic of a handwritten note, hastily delivered and abandoned (thereby sparing me from immediate rejection). Hell, my first kiss only came about because Heather got in it her head that she fancied me, and took matters upon herself to win me over with a game of Spin The Bottle. I never actually took the lead in the pursuit of romance-based adventures until I had come to realize that I had something within me to offer to a woman (please keep your minds out of the gutter- there simply isn’t enough room down here). By the time I finally met David’s mother, I was on the downward arc of belief in romance, and had decided that if it didn’t actually work out, well, at least I had the internet. I’ve always thought that David was intelligent, but I may have to reconsider, as he chose me (me!) to be his mentor in the whirling rapids of romance. That’s like meeting a homeless drifter in the desert and asking him to captain your imaginary galleon. Just saying.

Of course, it was at this point that Flower decided to call me out on something (which totally wasn’t my fault!), and I was pushed toward a defensive posture, despite the fact I was still reeling from the news that my son possessed exponentially more game than I had ever dreamed of having. It had been my hope that he would inherit my complete and utter inability to interact with women, considering the fact that he is, by far, more handsome than I ever was. Sure, I hit puberty ahead of the curve, but it was my total inability to make an actual, human connection with a woman which kept me from the risks of fatherhood until such time as I had fully developed theories on socioeconomics, and a place (no matter how much of a hovel) of my own. If David is already beginning the process of honing his game, there is a clear and present danger that we will have to find a bigger apartment. Now, don’t get me wrong: he’s only eight, and the manliest thing which he has ever done was belch three-quarters of the alphabet after chugging a can of Ginger Ale. But the fact that he is biologically incapable of poor decisions on a grownup scale, does not mean that he is intellectually incapable of making those mistakes. The last thing he needs is a girlfriend. Especially since he will be at least 34% cooler after he goes to his first concert on the second of May (we are all going to see Apocalyptica, this time with VIP tickets (and let me take the time to mention that I am kind of jealous of my son, that at his very first concert, he gets to meet the band (kids these days))).

Of course, all of this boils down to his final question of the night: “Dad, how did you win Mommy?”

Let that sink in, if you will.

“Dad, how did you win Mommy?”

Let us, for a moment, discard the notion that another person can be “won”, or that his mother chose that particular moment to start another argument with me, laughing openly at the prospect of that I won her (though, to be fair, if she won me, that has to literally (literally) be the worst carnival prize ever (ever)). I have made it my mission to undercut my godhood with the Minkey since he was capable of understanding the concept of infallibility. I’m just this guy, you know? I make sure to keep reminding him. How he got it in his head that I am some sort of Casanova is entirely beyond me. Honestly, it might be flattering, if it weren’t so worrying a thought.

His main strategy is to buy her affection with flowers and a teddy bear. I asked him with what funds he hoped to buy these items, and he conceded that he might need some sort of financial aid from either myself or from his mother. But the worst part? The very, absolutely, unpardonably worst part of all of this? He wants to bond with her over a game of Minecraft.

Maybe I don’t have that much to worry about after all.

Nothing at all...
Nothing at all…
Uncategorized, Writing

New Year

I haven’t written anything in about a week. I can blame the first couple of days on the New Year’s Eve festivities and how my increasing age has made recovery a longer process, but the rest of my time has remained unproductive due to a combination of persistent headache and a general feeling of malaise, coupled with an extended bout of insomnia and full-contact parenting. It’s really a shame, as I was really gaining steam with the thing I had been working on. Of course, part of it also had to do with the fact that almost nobody read my last column, which I had been hoping would drive some fans toward the artist. Hell, I even said I’d give away a free copy of the album reviewed, and still no one seemed to care to participate. I remember when I could count on double digit page views on any given day, and now it seems that I am lucky to get eight. I mean, I know that’s what happens when you disappear for months on end, but it’s not like I have kept my intermittent return a surprise. And to top it all off, it seems that my muse has recently abandoned me, though I cannot hold it against her, for even fountains of inspiration must grow weary of my melancholy shenanigans. So far, I am not terribly impressed by 2016.

I’m hoping that by actually sitting down and writing on the blog, that I might shake loose whatever has been holding me back, and I can get another couple of thousand words written on the Other Thing. I may have mentioned it, but I was really enjoying the process of writing it, and it finally felt fun to write again. Sure, there was a satisfaction in retooling Terracrats, but it didn’t flow as easily, and I was quite self-conscious about both staying true to the spirit of the original, and showing off nearly two decades of honed skills. But, I’ll not speak too much ill of it, for it is my first (self) published original work, and I have made tens of dollars off of it. If only I had some way of paying off all of my bills, I think that I would give it another try, and pour myself into the only career in which I have ever envisioned myself consistently. To that end, I began another business yesterday, but everyone seems to think that it’s a joke, and it looks like I may have to expend actual effort in monetizing it. Then again, last night was the Mega Millions draw, and there is a minuscule possibility that my wife and I have won some manner of prize, enabling me to forego the drudgery of working for The Man again. There’s always hope, right?

Oh, to be able to buy a house with an office, and feel no worry about debt or other fiduciary obligations. But, knowing me, I’d probably do as close to nothing as I could tolerate for as long as possible, while consuming an alarming quantity of… let’s call them “artistic enhancers.” I could finally catch up on all the shows which I’ve been meaning to get current on, and play through the stack of video games which I haven’t really had the time to play. And sleep. I could sleep for weeks, waking only to use the restroom and then burrowing back into my bed again. I could fund my friends and help their creative careers get well and truly rolling. Maybe if I focus on hoping to make the world a better (or at the very least, more tolerable) place for those for whom I care, the Karma Fairy will douse me with his positivity, and I will find myself able to enact my Master Plan without all of the hassle of having to build my empire slowly. I’m not really a patient sort of fellow, you see, and I’d sort of like to get a move on, if it’s all the same to you.

I would also like to travel. Not to escape the the sadness of a mundane existence, but to see the beauty of the world beyond that which I could rightly consider my backyard, that is, if I actually had a yard, which I do not, because I am poor, and live in an apartment. I think that I would like to see the British Isles, and then maybe pop over to check out Spain before getting drunk in Germany. Perhaps I could make my way to the ancestral home of my great-grandmother, and pay a visit to Norway. It would be a fine opportunity to catch up on the finest of Death Metals. Hell, it would even be fun to bring the kid along, and maybe even Mr. Bad Leon Suave. After all of that, I’d head to Mexico and bum about near pyramids amidst the thunderstorms. Maybe even get to know my parents-in-law. There is so much that I am dying to see and do, and I feel that I will never see or do any of it at the rate which I am going.

Baby steps.

It cost me thousands of dollars for the opportunity to knock the rust off of my wordsmithing abilities, and a large chunk of that time spent was done so under self-inflicted duress. I made myself write nearly every day, and would have kept doing so, but I ran out of money, and couldn’t keep connected to the internet. By the time I paid the bills, and we got reconnected, I was locked in at a full-time job, and found myself without the time to write. Luckily, I’m nowhere near as bad as I was when I began this blog, and there is a chance that maybe I will actually make it happen. I just know that I can’t give up. I have to find a way to pay the bills, and yet not work so much that there is nothing left in me by the time that I can finally make my way back home. I refuse to stand down again. Once I’ve stopped, and by this I mean, accept that I have failed in this endeavor, I don’t know if I could ever rebuild the momentum.

The second half of 2015 was a setback, to be sure, but I never signaled my surrender. I will make it. If only because I never made plans to do anything else with my life, and if I allow myself to believe that I shouldn’t be doing this, then I honestly don’t know what I’ll have left. I cannot bear to entertain the notion that a world exists wherein I have given up the dream of writing. I am in my mid-thirties, closer now to middle-age than I am to the vigor of my youth, and there is no better time to finally force myself to make things happen than right now.

I hope.

After Dark

Leah Pape: Not What I Meant

As promised, I’m presenting my review of Leah Pape’s album, Not What I Meant. It’s taken me a little while to build the momentum to write this, as I have found myself torn between my desire to share this music with everyone, and having to open myself up and leave myself vulnerable before the music’s effect on me, especially with repeated listenings, as I try to write something more intelligible than, “I like it. Made me smile.” As I mentioned in my review of Girlfiend’s EP, I am receiving absolutely no compensation for this review, and, unlike with the Girlfiend EP, I actually put down my own cash to buy this album. It goes without saying, therefore, in this world of rampant piracy, and a policy of “Pay What You Want”, that the cheapest guy I know choosing to drop real dollars on this means that I kind of liked it. That being said, I will spend the rest of these words trying to explain what I especially liked about these eight songs, and why I think that you all should give them a listen, and then go and spend some of your own money to help support this artist. Let’s try and help her earn the same tens of dollars that I made! Also, as I said in my last column, I will be selecting a winner at random from those who choose to comment on this post to win a copy of this album. Here is a link to her Bandcamp page (for ease of purchase), her Facebook page (show your support and give her a “Like”), and I will put a link to each song in its title so that you can listen along while you read my words.

Let the analyzation begin:

Pape

Not What I Meant

Leah Pape

April 13, 2014

Passing Craze

The first time I heard this song, I commented that it felt like a Feist cover of Somewhere Over The Rainbow. As I have been told on many occasions by both Fed and Bad Leon Suave, I tend to make connections that no one else seems to see, so I’m not really expecting anyone else to see it. Even the artist herself commented that it was “different” description of it than she was used to. Not to spoil the rest of the album, but this is probably my favorite of the eight tracks. It is concise, beautiful, and soulful. When I first mentioned this artist to Bad Leon, he expressed his interest in her, if only because he felt that if I liked her stuff, she must have good lyrics, and this song has magnificent lyrical phrasing, especially in the second verse. And her singing, while lacking the polish of seasoned veteran, is still capable of conveying an emotional charge.

Knelt

Of all the songs on this album, this is the one with which I felt the least connection. There is a lot of potential, but for me, the fluctuation between the high notes and a drop to almost spoken word were a little jarring. I do like that there is a kind of disjointed feeling, like it’s all held together by duct tape, tears, and raw determination, while backed by the slightest hint of depression put to music. Perhaps it’s just that it starts a little… off… for me. It does twirl in upon itself as the song progresses, and finds a thrust of inspired beauty, but never manages to reconcile the emptiness of the vocals with the minimal backing of the guitar. Actually, now that I’ve said all of that, I may have to admit that this is almost a perfect example of what the emptiness of loneliness feels like in those quiet hours all alone. I mean, it’s still never going to be my go-to song off the album, but I can definitely respect it.

Taciturnity

Let me get this out of the way: It is a bit jarring the way she sings “traverse.” Again, there is the switching between singing and spoken word, and it works as a performance piece, but on its own seems to lose some of its impact. Its secret weapon however, is its chorus. Like a pair of diamonds in the rough, her abilities as a wordsmith shine through as she throws together words like woven or spun armor which protects her as it swirls about her in a mesmerizing flow wordplay. Again, there are a couple of missed notes, or, perhaps those were intentional, but, rather than detract too much from the overall aesthetic, they hint towards the future growth of the artist and the promise which her handful of years upon this earth have only begun to grow toward.

The Spin

This is the one that I think of as her Simon and Garfunkel track. A little Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. mixed together with some Feeling Groovy. Despite my complaints over the past couple of songs, I really do like the moments here when she drops from singing to speaking. They add a wonderful punctuation to the melody. Again, there are a couple of moments when she doesn’t quite nail the note she was aiming to hit, but, as I have said, that, in and of itself adds a humanity to her music in this world of digital perfection, and when she really throws herself into it, there is a raw power which is a thing of beauty all on its own. A minor note: I can tell she’s East Coast from her pronunciation of “whore.” This is a hard song. While there are themes that I can relate to, as a human being who has been hurt, but there are also some things which, as a male, I haven’t really had to deal with. “I guess that’s why you left me/ now I’m a whore.” While I cannot speak to her personal experiences, I have seen on more than one occasion that the virtue of an ex-girlfriend is called into question upon the end of a relationship. Ex-boyfriends are often Bastards, or Assholes, or Dicks, but none of those really has the same effect upon the subject as does a Whore, Slut, or Bitch. I could be overreaching here, as I often do, but that line just kind of stuck with me.

Playing Pretend

If I were to give this song an alternate title, I would call it “The Other Side of Friend Zone.” This is a painfully honest look at a breakup from a female perspective. There have been countless euphemistic breakup songs, but nothing so arresting as “I can’t tell if it’s him I miss/ or just a cuddle and a kiss.” Maybe I’ll lose some of my “man-cred” here, though my countless nerd treatises on Star Trek probably did that long ago, but I have felt that particular sentiment several times before. Moving on, or trying to, is one of the hardest things to do, and it makes one question everything about themselves.

Walls

The opening guitar part on this song makes me want to curl up into a little ball and cry for a week or so. Sparse. Sad. Of course, it picks up and lends a sense of false optimism, like a face one puts on to face the world. It leads me to believe that December might not be the month for anybody. I am afraid to keep going, for the fear of transferring too much of myself onto my listening. Like the best of art, Ms. Pape has the uncanny ability to make us feel. 

To Hold

This one actually might be tied with Passing Craze for my favorite of her songs. The scenes she paints are vivid, like running tears upon velvet, and the heartbreak and disappointment are plainly tangible. More than any other song on this album, this one makes me want to drag her into a full, professional recording studio and giving her the equipment to fully compliment her abilities. “Seek comfort in me.” The loves which could, but truly couldn’t ever be. The magic beneath the moonlight, and the sobering terror which accompanies the day, and the way that it so casually dismisses the enchantments of the evenings before.

The Long Drive

At first glance, what truly stands out about this song is the juxtaposition between the driving, insistent prodding and surety of the guitar against the hesitant uncertainty of the vocals. Like the words are being drawn out of her while she is marched toward a moment of confrontation. With each step, she builds confidence, knowing her fate. The guitar falls away to something more melodic, as she counters with what feels like a comforting lullaby to her inner demons. The ticking of a clock. Marching again, this time faster, more insistent. She has accepted her journey, and walks beside her tormentor, grateful, at last, for the company.

And that’s it. Overall, as I may have said, I like it. It holds up well together, truly anchored by its first and penultimate songs. Taken together, it is a portrait of a young woman with an older soul who has decided that she’s earned the right to have something to say. She takes small moments and expands them until we see that the most seemingly insignificant incidents are perhaps the most important. There are examples of pure poetry in her lyrics, and I am confident that as she continues writing and recording, we will only see her talent grow.

Now, as I promised, the contest: Please leave a comment below about which song was your favorite. A winner will be selected at random to receive a copy of this album.

Work

Eleven Month Year

As it turns out, I’m no good in December. Even if I were to abstain from sneaking glances at a calendar, I think that I would still know when the clock ticked over to December 1st. This month seems even worse than other recent Decembers. Like last year, I left a job. Of course, I left due to some family reasons (a similarity with 2014), but also because I’d thought that I’d locked up a new job. Knowing me, however, it comes as no surprise that it seems that I somehow managed to blow the final interview (as I am amazing at speaking to other people), thereby leaving me to face another January in which I am unemployed. Sure, I wouldn’t have been working anyway, as the Bear’s Lair is shut down until mid-January, but if I’d played things a little more conservatively, and if I hadn’t felt the need to stay at home to make sure that my wife could get some rest, I could have stuck it out for one more week, and been eligible for seasonal unemployment, thereby freeing me up to sit at home and write without feeling guilty about it. In all fairness, I have been writing (just not on the website that I own), but I find it difficult to free myself from the sinking feeling that I’ve screwed everything up again. Go figure.

There are just a few days left in 2015, and I cannot help but think that it didn’t really go according to my plan. I took six months off to try my hand at writing once again, and for my effort was rewarded with literally tens of dollars. I’m not complaining, mind you, as those were tens of dollars earned doing something which I’d always dreamed of doing, but it’s hard to feed your family or even pay the smallest bills with that kind of money. Even the thing I’m writing now is basically for practice only, as it’s been over twenty years since I’ve written anything cohesive which lasted more than 5,000 words. As of now, I’m at 14,000, and, assuming that I don’t find some excuse to keep myself from writing, I’ll probably add another couple of thousand words before I go to bed. Mind you, this is the most positive interpretation of how things have gone since I quit my job at Blondie’s.

I found myself working at Big Lots for minimum wage and a schedule of less than thirty weekly hours. Of course, as the work was physically demanding, and I have dedicated my existence to the pursuit of a sedentary lifestyle, I wound up spending almost the entirety of every other paycheck on visits to the Doctor and prescription medication. Just when I thought that I could take it no longer, I was offered a promotion (which would have meant full-time and a raise of a couple of dollars). I wasn’t thrilled about the money, but that, combined with nearly double my regular hours, would have given me enough spare cash to consider paying off some of my growing bills. But, because my life is rarely bound by just one single narrative, I was contacted around that time by someone whom I had known through my previous employer. And, because my life seems to run off of some sort of omnipresent snark, the day I interviewed for the promotion at Big Lots (wherein I had to reassure the higher-ups that I had no intention of leaving), I had another interview in Berkeley for a management gig back in restaurants.

I’ve got an interesting relationship with restaurants, and I’d honestly believed that I was done with them, but my experience demands a certain wage, one which I realistically cannot demand in any other field. That interview went wonderfully, and the guy who interviewed me really sold me on the idea. They were resurrecting the Bear’s Lair after a four-year absence, and I would have a part in it. My experience in Food Service Management, not to mention having helped to open a restaurant from Day One, would be of enormous help in this endeavor. It was the chosen job. And the best part was that I was to attend a Management Retreat in just a couple of days, with my time there being paid. I said at the end of my interview that I would need to give my notice, and it seemed that I would be able to balance the handful of hours that I was pulling down at Big Lots with the full-time prep work I would be doing for the Bear’s Lair. But, after the Retreat, I realized that we had a lot of work to do, and I didn’t want to be hamstrung by a job that would only, at that point, serve to distract me from the job which would finally allow me to pay the bills. When I got home, I wrote up a letter of resignation, and delivered it to work.

Having worked in the industry for as many years as I have, I should have paid more heed to the red flags which I noticed almost immediately. I don’t want to get into a lot of detail, as it really was a wonderful opportunity for me, one which allowed me to pay off my credit card debt which had amassed during my sabbatical. But, ultimately, it was a difference in philosophy which caused us to part ways, which is a shame, because I almost believe that there has been some progress of late, and that the future for the Bear’s Lair may be brighter than its past. Of course, no matter how things wound up turning out, if I hadn’t felt that my dream job (in that industry, at least) was a total lock, I would have stuck it out, and gotten on unemployment. I know that this will merely be an opportunity for me to take another path which I might not have otherwise seen, but there are times when I get tired of the constant tension within my shoulders which always leads me to land upon my feet.

But, hey, at least I’m writing!

Also, sometime over the next couple of days, I will be reviewing “Not What I Meant” by Leah Pape. And there is a small possibility that I will give away a copy of this album to a lucky reader of that post. Just leave a comment, and you will be entered to win!

Writing

Some more from that thing that I’m working on…

Interlude: Road Trips with the Grandparents

Part One

 

In the summer of 1984, his grandparents, perhaps sensing that his mother could benefit from some time apart from her precious son, took the boy on a road trip to California. When he was told of the impending vacationary travels, he insisted that they take his grandfather’s truck down on the trip. When his grandfather asked him where his grandmother was to sit, he helpfully suggested that there was room in the cargo bed. Sadly, at least to him, he was overruled. He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t interested, and in fact, the only reason that he hadn’t offered to ride in back himself, was that his grandfather seemed wholly obsessed with the notion of seatbelts where it came to his diminutive passenger. For the entire run-up to the day of their departure, the child could feel his excitement grow, filling him to nearly bursting with a smug sense of glee and four-year-old entitlement.

But on the day of his departure, he briefly lifted up his mask of self-importance, and asked his mother if she was sure that she would be all right without him. He couldn’t say exactly why he came to feel the way he did, but the look upon his mother’s face as he was being bundled into the car seemed wholly inappropriate considering that he was going to be going away. He felt that she should be wracked with apprehension, tear-stained eyes betraying the sense of loss she felt, seeing her son, her only son!, being taken from her. Instead, he caught only a barest hint of a smile which was quickly hidden behind her “serious face”, and then the door was closed, and the journey begun.

It would be his first trip to Disneyland, as well as his first extended period of time away from his mother. It was also, according to reliable sources, a time when he subsisted almost entirely upon air and various bites of food from off his grandmother’s plates, much to her growing fear and consternation. As the miles rolled by, and the boy became an official Interstate traveler, he found himself caught between the realization that he would soon be arriving at the “Happiest Place On Earth” and the worry that his mother would be cast adrift without him. Every other night, as he and his grandparents settled into their motel, he would call his mother and ask her if she was all right.

Far be it from a simple narrator to interject his personal opinion, but it is entirely plausible that he was using these conversations not to reassure his mother, but rather, to reassure himself. It was, after all, his first time so far away from her, and though he dearly loved his grandparents, he was also ill-equipped to deal with change. Of course, once he made it to the Magic Kingdom, the majority of his worry began to melt away, and his conversations with his mother, while still framed in the pretense of concern, were now more about assuaging his growing sense of guilt at having an amazing time and leaving her at home in utter boredom.

As for his grandparents, he didn’t give a second thought to whether they might be bored, as he could not conceive of how someone might remained untouched by the sheer splendor of it all. In later years, the only thing which he was able to recall was a brief moment of stark naked panic at the sensation of flight above a miniaturized London as he and his grandparents glided along upon the Peter Pan ride. And though he never truly got over his fear of heights (either real or of a forced perspective), it made him feel immeasurably better to discover that his grandfather had also reacted similarly. His grandmother, on the other hand, had thought that they were both acting just a bit ridiculously. But at the time, Tex was rather shaken by it, and demanded almost immediately upon exiting the ride that they make their way back to the Small World ride again.

According to his grandparents, if there is a hell, then it is going on a trip to Disneyland with a four-year-old child. And, if one has truly lived a vile and horrid life, littered with depravity and sin, then the special place reserved for him is the Small World ride. For a child, its repetition and simplicity were the pinnacle of innovation; for the adult accompanying him each and every consecutive visit, mind-numbing would have been more preferable than any term which I may try to insert here. Throughout their visit, they managed to take a ride on the Peter Pan exhibit, the Pirates of the Caribbean (decades before anyone considered turning it into a film franchise), and very nearly managed to get on the Teacup ride. In contrast, they were forced to queue up and suffer through (at minimum) forty-eight trips through the smallest world of all: their rapidly shrinking sanity. Suffice it to say, that when the vacation was drawing down, their joy at never having to take that ride again was the direct inverse of the child’s despondency, but at that point, they may have even been willing to pay another visit to the Tiki House.

By the time that they had finally gotten home, each of the weary travelers was anxious to go spend some time apart from one another. The boy’s anxiety had gotten the better of him, and once all of the fun had been extracted from his visit to the Golden State, he began to feel a keen and biting sense of urgency to return home. As there was no constant barrage of diversion to keep him occupied, his mind returned to the plight of his mother, and how terribly lonely she must have been. His grandparents managed to keep it together just long enough to drop him off at home, and only then by retreating into their inner sanctums and imagining a world where tiny people did not feel the urge to speak from the moment when they woke (entirely too early to be wholesome), until the moment when they finally passed out, mid-sentence.

The car pulled into the spot in front of our hero’s home, and as soon as he was unbuckled and set loose, racing toward his mother, a tangible weight lifted from each and every one of the three vacationers. No sooner was the boy’s luggage extracted from the trunk and set briskly upon the porch, did his grandparents get back in the car and drive back to their home. It might have seemed a bit bizarre, if the boy had noticed it, for normally his mother and his grandparents lingered interminably before departure. He, however, was awash in the comfort of returning home, having nobly cut his adventure short so that he might rescue his mother from her doldrums.

“I’m home!” the boy said with genuine enthusiasm. “Did you miss me?”

His mother only stared at the falling dust which her parents’ car had left behind as they’d driven away. The smile upon her face turned down ever so slightly, and then she snatched up the boy in great big hug, and said into his ear, “Of course, honey.”

After Dark, Writing

The Boy Who Dreamed (Sample)

Here is the first bit of that thing I have been working on:

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The Boy Who Dreamed and The Big Bad Wolf Which He Became

(A Fable For The Jaded Special Presentation)

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by Tex Batmart

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PART ONE:

CHILDHOOD

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Chapter One

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                Our story begins, as most stories do, on a storm-soaked December afternoon in the Pacific Northwest. Hang on. Statistically speaking, almost no stories begin like that. Nevertheless, our tale must carry on. I suppose we could go back a ways, and briefly tell of the love between a man and woman which endured nearly the requisite number of minutes for our hero to be conceived, but that is another tale entirely, and not one which this author is entirely interested in retelling. Suffice it to say, that when our hero came into this world, he did so into an already broken home, the vessel of a fading, jaded love which a bruised and beaten woman had infused with all her hopes and dreams for an uncertain future. Our hero, of course, knew nothing of this, knew nothing much at all, save for the newly-gleaned understanding of the differences between dark and light, warm and chill, weightlessness and gravity, and a rapidly developing preference between the lot of them. Gone was the soothing rhythm of his mother’s beating heart. Gone was the safety and security of an existence at the center of his own personal universe. I am convinced that he never fully recovered from these losses.

                Within an hour of residency within the nursery, he was returned to his mother under the pretext of having incited a neonatal revolution. Even minutes old, he didn’t take too kindly to disappointment. Life, such as it was, had been thrust upon him, and he didn’t much care for it, truth be told. No one had warned him that things would be so jarring, so cold and desiccating, for the first time in his brief (measured by the pulsing beatings of his heart) life, and as he filled his belly, and fell, troubled, into sleep, he had no idea what it was that he would do, or how he might come to repay these slights visited upon him during his moments of vulnerability.

                For the first year of his life, he and his mother stayed with her parents, as she struggled to make sense of her own broken life. A failed marriage, single motherhood, and the shame of the necessity of returning home to where her parents had made their home (and lasting marriage, she bitterly chastised herself), did not sit well with her. For the child, however, it was a wonderland of near-constant attention from interesting people. What he loved more than anything, however, was a pair of leather slippers which had previously belonged to his grandfather. I say previously, because as soon as he could crawl, the child made his way over to them, and began to gum them into submission in a release of his frustration at having several bony protrusions slowly tear their way free of his still tender gums. His mother was always snatching away his slippers, but the child never failed to find them once again, as long as no one was looking.

                It was during this time, that he made his first friend. Having grown tired of the removal of his playthings, and this new vocalization, “No!”, he came to befriend a flower-print couch which he was occasionally imprisoned upon. It never said much, but always seemed to be there for him, listening for hours on end, without interruption, as he practiced his nascent idiomancy. Oh, the tales of tiny victories and heartbreaking injustices which he imparted to his dual-natured cellmate and prison. Inevitably, however, his sentence was commuted, and he was separated from his friend and captor. Actually, as memory serves (though it rarely does), it was around the time when he had mastered his plan of escape when he was whisked away. Normally, he was allowed brief moments outside of his cell to exercise himself upon the pea green shag carpeting of the prison yard, but this time, he was taken somewhere new, somewhere his couch and confidant could never follow. Worse than that, he would soon come to understand that it would now be just he and his mother living together. The final indignity, of course, the event which would set him upon his path and remind him of cooed promises made moments after birth, was his enrollment in something he once overheard described as “daycare.”

As you can see, it’s something I’m having a little fun with, and, once it’s done, should save me the effort of having to spend the time letting people get to know me. Obviously, the lighthearted nature of this romp will probably get dark pretty quick (which should be obvious to those of you who know me), but this time I’m making a concerted effort to balance the ennui with some intentional humor. So far, it seems to be going okay, but then again, I haven’t even written to my first day of school yet, so, you know… baby steps.

Anyway, hope you enjoy! If I don’t hear anything back from Jupiter within the next few days, I’ll be back here blogging (and working on the story) in between attempts to seek out and obtain some sort of employment. I think that if I don’t get the awesome job for which I have been hoping, that I might just try to find something with minimal responsibility, or am I just repeating myself?

Work

End

Things have begun moving at a slightly uncomfortable pace, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and slow them down again. I’m still hoping to hear back from Jupiter within the next few days, but, that being said, I’ve come to the end of the line at the Bear’s Lair. I had several reasons ready for walking away, but then something actually important came along and made the decision practically automatic. I may have been dealing with some things deep within my head these past couple of weeks, but all of that soul-searching came abruptly to an end when I spoke to my Wildflower this morning (though really, at that hour, it’s should still be considered night). She’d left work early because she’d been nearly crippled by a headache and an unending bout of dizziness (for those of you who knew me a few years ago, these were the same symptoms she was exhibiting when she had to go to the hospital (the end result of that visit was a night spent uncomfortably in the world’s most expensive hotel room (you try going to a hospital without insurance), absolutely no idea what was causing her discomfort, and a bill larger than my wife’s annual salary after taxes), and which have been reappearing at random intervals since then), but didn’t manage to actually get in to see a doctor at Urgent Care until a little after noon. And by that, I mean that she actually got to see a doctor sometime around two. Sadly, but not at all unexpected, the longest part of her medical journey (in terms of time, at least), was the part where she had to wait almost five hours to get her prescriptions from Walgreen’s (despite having been told that they would be ready in two hours, and then when we arrived two hours after that, being told that nothing had been done for either because her insurance wouldn’t cover one of the prescriptions (which was only $19.99). After I said that money (in that range, anyway) was no object, we were then told that it would be just a few minutes, and her name would be called. An hour later the actual pharmacist (not the register monkey) chided us for not picking up the prescriptions sooner…).

All of that, and the best that this doctor could tell her was that she was suffering from “stress” and that she needed to take a few days and relax. She was told not to return to work until the fifteenth of December, and to try to take it easy at home. Now, to tie this in with the swirling pageant of self-loathing to which I’ve been subjected recently, it did occur to me that it could, in fact, actually be stress, and that, as I wasn’t the lowest maintenance chulo on the block, perhaps I should test the maxim about setting someone free (for the record, when presented this idea, Wildflower informed me in no uncertain terms that she just couldn’t deal with my dramatic bullshit today, and to put a lid on it). Of course, I don’t entirely believe that mere stress is entirely to blame, but I’m no doctor, or at least that’s what they keep screaming at me every time I try to go behind the counter at the Clinic in an attempt to actually provide healthcare for people. Whatever. Of course, none of this explains why I began this post with talk of jobs in both the past and future tense, subtly, yet ubiquitously leaving out the present tense. Not being one for half-measures (the only things I halve are asses (and then, only in regards to determination and/or dedication), sandwiches), I cobbled together a plan in the time between conversations with my wife. If she is to rest, and I mean that she take an actual proper rest, then she cannot be burdened with a duty of care for the Monkey Man. Combine that with the news that my adult children will be house sitting for the next few weeks, and I really had no alternative: I will be looking after David (and subjecting him to Quality Time with Dad) until Flor either feels better, or cannot bear to listen to his whining any longer, and can stand up long enough to actually do something about it.

With only seven more days until the Lair is shut down for nearly one month, its employees subject to Seasonal Layoffs (a whole different column, I promise), I felt that it was unfair of me to have to ditch out for five of them (in the interest of fairness, I would have only been missing three days of work), and even then, not be able to guarantee my return, should my wife’s condition worsen. Couple that with the probability that someone from Jupiter will be calling back within the next three to eleven days (though, as always with my life, the job isn’t a complete lock), and I felt that I’d no choice but to make a clean break. Sure, I could have found some sort of corporate loophole through which to squeeze myself, and stuck it out until we closed, and then, per their instructions, register with the EDD for seasonal unemployment, just in case things didn’t pan out with Jupiter, but that just seems… I don’t know… petty. That, and my boss has been on me since Wednesday in an attempt to secure my commitment to return after the break. No, as much as the thought of repeating the Big! Lots! Boogie sends shivers down my spine (and not the good kind), I think that it was the right time to pull away. There are some good ideas coming to the forefront now, and I think that, after having exhausted almost all possible avenues of failure, there is a decent chance for at least some modest form of success. I do not know how many people will be returning in Mid-January, but I do know that there won’t be many, as most of them (of us) have quit. Again, that is probably for the best, as we have been burnt out, and if there is to be a new chance at success, with a new Captain at the helm, it must necessarily come to pass without us. What the Lair needs now is a Belief In The Ideal, and having seen the sausage made, not that many True Believers still remain. I do, however, wish them the best of luck.

Now, however, I am moving on to bigger and better things. I know that I was saying much the same one year ago, but nothing about my dream has changed, save, perhaps, for the geography. I don’t know how much time I will have before I must return to the daily grind of full-time employment, but I know that I must take advantage of this downtime, and write for all that I am worth. I am inspired once again (well, not at this exact moment, but that may have more to do with a perpetual sense of exhaustion which I have been carrying for the past few days), and there are some things that I know that I must get out while I can. And, as with most things of artistic merit, I really just want to show off a little. There’s nothing like trying to impress new friends to get the creative juices going. Time will tell if I have made the right decision, or if I somehow managed to bollocks it all up again. But since everything this past year happened at exactly the moment in which I needed it to happen, I’m going to keep on rolling with the punches. So here’s to the coming year, and here’s to the once which is coming to an end.

Uncategorized

Intent

Enough with all of the melancholy diatribes. Although a defining factor of my personality, depression is not the sum total of who I am. There are also good things about me, or so I have been told. I’m sorry for putting all of you through my open-book therapy sessions, although I do manage to sneak some decent sentences in there from time to time, so I suppose even the darkness serves its purpose, if only to give depth and value to the light. It’s quite easy to fall into a cycle of self-hatred, and that dead horse is quite good for the beating which I’ve gotten quite adept at giving, but that’s only a part of who I am, specifically, the part of me with so little self-esteem that it verges on unadulterated self-despite. But I’m also in possession of a mighty ego, and while that by itself is not much better than the other, it is at least a springboard into the possibility of writing something that’s not so completely dour and vitriolic towards myself that it is known to the State of California to cause cancer (along with almost everything else). I think that it’s about time to try to say something nice about myself, or at least address why have a such a hard time taking a simple compliment.

Apparently, there are people in this world that have been under the delusion that I am attractive. I am willing to concede that when I am in a particularly viscerally vulnerable and self-destructive mood, I have been known to be quite charming. I would argue the point, but it has been well documented, and I have had more than the sum total of zero girlfriends in my day, so I am faced with no alternative but to admit (mostly to myself) that there must be something that isn’t completely repelling about me, at least in a certain light. But even that is not really what I’m getting at. I know that it is difficult to believe, but there are apparently people in the world who think that I am physically attractive. I literally do not understand this. I am fat. I am constantly scowling. My teeth resemble buttered popcorn more than ivory, and I carry the constant aroma of cigarettes about me like whatever the opposite of an Invisibility Cloak would be, but for one’s olfactory array. Also, I am bald. I know that’s a sign of virility, that I am literally too much man (fat joke!) to be burdened by the more pedestrian trappings of hair care products. On the other hand, I’m easily doing my part to fight the drought in California by taking such quick showers. If I was someone other than myself, I don’t know that I would “think of me like that.” You heard it here, folks: Even in the hypothetical, I have friendzoned myself.

Stop, Tex. You’re slipping back into self-critical humor.

Right. Sorry.

I mean, I have made strides since I was but a lad, in trying to make myself a better man. And there is something quite alluring about self-confidence, which falls into the bailiwick of ego (Great name for Cartwheels Into Oblivion’s first album: The Bailiwick of Ego). Not that this is truly a pressing concern of mine, but the fact is that everyone wants to feel beautiful. Even if you have someone who tells you every single day, that’s still a tiny sample size, and hardly representative of society at large. Sometimes it’s just nice for someone to smile at you for no other reason than they’re imaging the nasty things they’d like to do with/to you. Again, it’s not that I am looking for a dinghy, just that it’s a real boost to see the sparkle in someone else’s eyes. As a man, I have been led to believe that stoicism is the spice of life, and showing emotions (other than manly things, like rage) is something I should never do. Being beautiful in someone’s eyes is foolish; having compliments bestowed upon you is the most shameful of occurrences. Do I try to make myself attractive? Not really. Most of the time I just don’t give a damn. If the beauty standards were reversed, I still don’t think that I’d be caught dead painting myself just to catch a passing glance (please discount those years when I was younger and smoked clove cigarettes and wore black lipstick and nails- that had more to do with how deeply into the trappings of the Goth life I had fallen, and less to do with anything remotely beautifying).

I am funny, though. I don’t know that you would necessarily believe it, if you only know me from my written words, but I’m not entirely composed of sadness and grumpy faces. I’ve been known to make some people laugh. On purpose. And as much as I want to say that I’m only good for blurting out exactly the wrong thing, I’m also pretty talented at saying things which people need to hear, at least, according to my ego. I am much more likely to try to build a person up, than to hold them tight on their way down (assuming, that is, that I was the one to topple them). Aside from a very few exceptions, it makes me happy to bring happiness to others. I like to catch someone off guard and goad them into smiling. It makes my day to brighten someone else’s dour demeanor, or use their own momentum to lift them even higher.

Of course, I don’t subscribe to a philosophy of moderation. Once I have forged a connection with someone, it’s hard for me to play it cool, and I think that I end up frightening them away. Those friends of mine who still remain, have seen me at my worst, my neediest, and clingy, and yet they somehow think that I am worth all of that trouble. Tex Batmart: Xtreme(!) Friend!

There: did I say some nice things about myself, and put everyone at ease? I guess that the moral of the story is… Oh, what the hell, I’ve literally no idea. Hang in there? I’m probably worth the trouble? I don’t know, your guess is as good as mine.

Exploring the Universe through Snark

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