cars

Tires, Testicles and Trouble, with Some Pent-Up Angst Too

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Sometimes old pics are creepy, especially if they are high quality color pics.  The above postcard of Downtown Marion from the early 1950’s reflects that not terribly much has changed other than the cars and a couple of the buildings.  I know exactly where that pic was taken- right in front of the south side of the Courthouse looking west.  I can see the cigar store (on the south side of Center Street, on the east corner of the intersection) and what is now the Ohio State Bank across the street from it.  Further west on the south side of Center Street is the Harding Hotel, which is also still there but has been made into senior citizen apartments.  The Taft Hotel (on the north west corner of the intersection) was torn down in  1969.  The National City Bank built their ugly boxy windowless monstrosity of a bank there (which burned down in 1985 or thereabouts) and rebuilt another hideous modern architectural disaster piece there on the same exact spot, which PNC Bank inherited.  The Bank Fire was almost a funny thing to watch as the digital thermometer on the outside of the bank skyrocketed to over 500 degrees (F) before it melted.  Then again, when you live in a backwater town, excitement is where you find it.  One would think a bank of all places would be built of relatively fireproof material, but I guess as long as the vault holds, who cares?

The WWII In Color episodes are fascinating, but they are almost too personal, as if they are bringing something too antique and faded into real life.  Some things are better viewed through the distance of black and white.

Some things are just too powerful and frightening to experience in all their details.

Admittedly I have been more depressed than usual lately.  Part of it I know is coming off of the Late Winter Funk that lasts from the beginning of February until usually the middle of April or so. I just can’t get enthused about much of anything as the snowbooger grey days drag by, overcast, rainy and dismal.  My perpetual state of poverty does nothing to brighten the picture, especially when Jerry’s groundbreaking suggestions for “saving money” include options such as getting rid of my car, and cancelling cable except for the basic channels -so he won’t miss any sports.  At no time were curtailing beer-drinking, eschewing gambling or getting serious about quitting smoking put on the table.  Then again, I don’t drink beer, I hate gambling, and thanks be to God I quit smoking several years ago.  Jerry isn’t going to address cutting back on his vices but it’s OK to cut back on my base essentials.  Imagine that.  I am disappointed, but not surprised at his zeal to make my life as miserable as he possibly can.  He wonders why I absolutely can’t stand to ask him for anything- not even basic, common sense things like paying for his own scripts and for a reasonable amount of his own expenses.  However, I am not going to give up the car. If worse comes to worse he can cram the cell phone where the sun don’t shine. I can live without the electronic leash, but as far as I can help it I am not going to put myself in a position that I have to beg for the use of his truck.  Being at his mercy for transportation is just not a good idea.  Not happening.

But as I said yesterday, I am thankful that things aren’t any worse.  Maybe I can beat some sense into his head if he’s sober- or just ignore him as usual if he’s drunk.

I don’t know why he is so jealous of any social contact I have with people other than him, even women.  It’s a fight for me to go to church and other activities at church.  Maybe in his mind he sees that he’s missing his “live-in maid” or gopher and he resents not being able to order me around or bitch at me for an hour or two here and there.  Maybe deeper down he’s afraid that I’m trolling for his replacement.  Being with Jerry is sort of like driving an old hoopty. You get none of the options that make having a car fun or comfortable (no A/C, no stereo, etc.) but all of the problems inherent to an old POS. (POS: Piece Of Shit)  He reminds me of my ’79 Rabbit that I spent $800 in repairs on in one month.  It did have a good stereo but no air conditioner, and it was a crap shoot as to whether or not it would start and run from one day to the next without something major failing. Why the hell keep on dumping money, time and frustration into a lost cause?

If I’m going to pay out the ass to drive a car,I want one that works, and one that doesn’t give me fits.  The same goes for men. I had enough of nickel and diming away my life on pathetic hooptys in high school and college- and enough of nickel and diming away my life on mooching trolls from there forward.  I hate to admit it, but Jerry has simply followed the pattern- taking advantage, draining me dry, and browbeating me into feeling like a total shit every minute I am not actively kissing his ass.  It gets old.

I take responsibility for this in so much as I allow it and I have allowed it to continue for years.  I don’t know how to make it stop other than simply disappearing, which I can’t do because I have no money and nowhere to go (also my fault) so it’s a catch-22.  The vicious cycle continues.

I’ve never been able to find a trouble free man.  If anyone could find me one who isn’t a complete troll, please let me know by commenting on this post.  Seriously.  But then again, perhaps I would be better off alone.  I would be, if I could afford it.

It’s not that I am inherently anti-men.  I love men.  I love to look at hot dudes.  If memory serves me right, I like a lot of activities involving men.  I simply have a problem with being used and guilt tripped and ignored and made to feel as if I only have value if I’m either earning money or doing endless chores.  The minute I don’t have enough money to just pay for everything or I’m exhausted and can’t do anything else then the hell with me as far as Jerry’s concerned.  Steve-o treats me the same way.  As long as Mommy’s footing the bill everything is roses, but the minute Mommy’s broke it’s F.U. this and F.U. that.  At least my poverty and lack of stamina have served me in two important ways: to let me know I am not worth a tinker’s damn to anyone, and I’m pretty much destined to die alone.  If the dogs don’t eat me, I’ll be left to decompose for months until the guy who comes to read the water meter can’t get in and as he’s banging on the door he notices a funky smell.   That’s what happened to the creepy old lady who lived across from Mom and Dad.  She used to bitch at us kids for “stealing her snow” if you scraped up a handful of snow from her yard as you went down the sidewalk.  It was thought she died sometime in February, but they didn’t find her body and fumigate the house until high summer- the middle of July.  It took two weeks for the health department to fumigate that house.

I wonder if the “I’ve Fallen and Can’t Get Up” alarm people have an alarm for old people who live alone and whose relatives are either dead already and/or don’t give a rat’s ass about them?  If I live to be old, I will be one of those people I am afraid.  When said geezers die in their sleep the alarm could go off and call the coroner to come and get the corpse before it festers and rots for months or the deceased’s dogs start munching on it.  I’m going to need one of those, or should I say the poor suckers who eventually happen upon my remains would probably be grateful for an early warning.

Maybe that could be the invention that makes me rich- the Dead Geezer Warning System.  So the coroner gets to you before the smell gets to everyone else.

So Now What, Creative Ideas for Avoiding Confronting My Past, and Other Inevitabilities

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I had one of these. An 83 GTI just like the one pictured, with the cool wheels and the funky red trim. Too bad my dumb ass sold it because the A/C didn’t work and I damn near gave myself a concussion every time I tried to get Steve-o in and out of his car seat.  People with kids prefer four door cars for a reason.  It’s been awhile, but trying to manage those damned car seats is hard enough without having to do calesthenics just to get in the back seat to screw with them.  Now that the powers that be are requiring kids to be in car seats until they are old enough to vote, I say screw that.  Give me four doors because it makes it easier to get the dogs in and out, and if I had to deal with carting rug rats around these days the rear seat DVD player sounds like a plan too.

Being a motorhead I have had many cars in my lifetime.  Some magic, some tragic, some forgettable.  A few of them, I wish I could have kept.  The 1972 Super Beetle was one of them.  The GTI of course, the 1994 Toyota truck, the 2000 Celica would have all remained in my possession if not for one thing: poverty.

Then again you can’t take it with you, and what’s the point of becoming a hoarder?  Need what you use and use what you need and move forward from there.

Of course getting rid of emotional baggage is a lot harder than getting rid of stuff.  I know sometimes Mom means well but I don’t need Grandma’s entire wardrobe or her entire collection of cooking utensils to remember her by.  A few keepsakes are fine but I really have no use for 50 year old stockings or all that cheap crap she bought from various mail order joints.  Some things I just threw away.  I shouldn’t guilt trip over that.  Part of living and moving on means getting rid of the things that hold us back.

Perhaps at my age I should be thinking more along the lines of the bucket list.  One of those things (and I need to stop putting it off) is to get back in contact with old friends, sooner rather than later if for no other reason than I am honor-bound and will regret my neglect if I continue to put it off.  I’m rather tired of being bereft of virtually all human contact.  I need to hold an intelligent conversation with someone for a change.  Dirty jokes and politics can only go so far.

I did get moderately good news at the Dr.’s Monday.  I don’t have hepatitis or any other Really Serious Illness- just a bit of bizarre liver chemistry that is caused by diabetes.  As long as I can keep my sugar down this condition should (in theory) right itself.  Famous last words.  Nothing about my health is routine, simple or uncomplicated.  I try to starve and eat healthy when I do eat, get the 30 minutes a day of mind numbingly boring exercise in and all that and still my health sucks and I’m still working on losing that 30 or so lbs.  Then you get people like Jerry who maintain just fine, all lean and mean, no diabetes, no sucking down blood pressure meds, on the Bacon-n-Natties diet, which puts me in mind of Gustavson’s Dad in Grumpier Old Men.  Jerry will be like those Russian dudes who live to be 115 on vodka and cigars.  I’ll probably drop dead before I’m 50 of something.  While I’m at it  with the bucket list I need to check into the urban legend that OSU will give one $250 if you donate your cadaver to them when you die.  Sounds like a sorry bargain to me, but hey, a lot of medical students have gotten some lessons in unusual anatomy off of my living carcass.  I bet my autopsy would be a real education in Murphy’s Law and what can go wrong with the human body.  Too bad I won’t be able to observe my autopsy, should one be done, or even to request that Dr. G gets to do it.  I’d love to hear her commentary on my abnormalities.  But if someone will give me $250 so med students can have a Mutter Museum type learning aid, where do I sign up?

I just answered my own question really quickly.  OSU does accept donated bodies but they don’t pay anything for them.  I should do the donation thing since I was planning on getting cremated anyway.  Might as well let someone learn something or at least see stuff they don’t see everyday.

I don’t know why I’ve been in such a morbid state of mind lately.  So now what?  Just keep on getting ready to take that “dirt nap?”

Creative artwork.  I need some whiteout and a red marker to make the fangs look more real.  I can’t die yet- right now this country needs as many conservative Republican voters as it can get!