misanthropy

Strange Dreams, and Some Thoughts on Current Events

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strange dreams

Maybe I’m going to have to give those subliminal mind-improvement MP3s a rest.  The next time I have a dream in which the showcased event is an old high school nemesis dancing on the dinner table at a swanky event sans trou and waving Mr. Willy in the wind, I might just have to think about staying awake at night.   The night before last was even weirder.  I find myself telling my mother that my sister can change her own diaper (as far as I know, she’s a tad bit scatterbrained, but not in adult diapers yet) and not to call it a “diaper,” but to call it “pants.”

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Note to self: 160-180# refers to the size of the wearer, not the amount of human effluvia it will hold.

Oh, yay.  Sigmund Freud would have an ever loving field day with me.  Then again, every mental health specialist I’ve ever seen has probably made some interesting notes.  Just don’t let my Prozac script run out and things should be OK.

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I’m not entirely surprised by today’s turn of current events.  I can’t say I support the concept of gay marriage, my primary reason (morality aside) being I don’t buy the argument that one’s “orientation” is something outside of one’s control, any more than any other aspect of one’s behavior is out of one’s control.  I also don’t buy into behavior or “orientation” being a civil rights issue.  The members of NAMBLA will tell you that their “orientation” is toward little boys, and that they can’t help their behavior because they didn’t “choose” their orientation, so does that make pedophilia OK?

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Using the “‘orientation’ absolves me from being accountable for my behavior” argument, I could rationalize that my “orientation” is to attempt to do the nasty with every fine young stud I see between the ages of 25 and 50. I can’t help it. That’s how I’m oriented. I didn’t choose it.   So to take that rationalization to its logical conclusion, my desire to be every hot young-to-moderately middle-aged dude’s naughty cougar fantasy should be celebrated, encouraged and subsidized.  I should be able to marry as many men as I like, so that when their willies don’t work anymore it doesn’t matter because I can just choose another stud from the stable.  Why can’t I engage in polyandry?   That’s how I’m oriented. I didn’t choose it.

See how dippy that sounds when straight people try to use the same argument to legitimize their own personal selfish choices?

If I choose to engage in promiscuous behavior, I could almost rationalize that because I’m married to a guy with ED- or if I choose to do the honorable, not so easy thing and live in involuntary celibacy because it’s the right thing to do, that choice is on me.  If I decided I wanted to get involved in intimate relationships with multiple men to make my life more tolerable and fun, the rest of society shouldn’t have to celebrate it, encourage it, or subsidize it, or even make it sound legitimate and healthy.

The whole idea behind marriage isn’t so much for personal happiness and all that fairy tale crap as it is a long term commitment between a man and a woman (ostensibly but not always for the purpose of begetting and raising children)- even when that commitment involves illness, non-functional equipment or dealing with a spouse who was raised by wolves.  It’s more like joining the army versus “forever after in happy land.”  You’re in it even when it sucks.

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Even so, before one might consider me a gay-basher or a homophobe, I really don’t care what other people do in the dark- as long as I don’t have to pay for it, or watch it, and it doesn’t involve me.  Then again I’m not gay, so I admit it’s hard to see it from their point of view.  I generally don’t get along with women very well to begin with, with few exceptions (most of my friends are guys) and frankly there’s nothing any woman’s got that I want.   I’m straight, though I’ve been pretty much living without any kind of action for a number of years, so I guess in practical application, I would be a “none of the above.”  I guess love is where you find it, and at this point in my life that’s a dead horse regardless of my “orientation”- unless it involves battery powered devices.

Different strokes for different folks, and I’m cool with that.  I don’t care if a person has the hots for a Ford Escort as long as I don’t have to watch, and I don’t have to call it normal.   I don’t have a problem with what other people do or who they think they are for the most part, but I do have a big problem with trying to make behavior choices a civil rights issue.

Attitude, Middle-Aged Angst, and DNR

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I’ve said it before, but since my offspring has more or less achieved the high holy goals of parenting, which are being potty trained, literate and gainfully employed, I am somewhat free to enjoy my second adolescence.

Now that I have a pretty bad ass replica of Théophile Steinlen’s Chat Noir on my calf, I want one more tat. I will wait until fall/winter time to do it, because in the summer two weeks worth of workouts outside of the pool are just too hot.  One bad thing about getting a tat if you prefer aquatic exercise, is you can’t get in the pool for two weeks until the tat is pretty much healed.

I have a DNR on file–  meaning that I do not want to be resuscitated should my heart stop and I’m on my way to the Dirt Nap.  No heroics.  If it’s time for me to die, let my sorry carcass go.  I don’t want to live through a dramatic resuscitation effort only to suck up resources for years- being chronically ill and mindlessly drooling away in some nursing home if that can at all be avoided.   Having one’s DNR tattooed on one’s left chest area (on Hello Kitty’s dress no less- and I’ll have the lettering done in either bright red or black so it’s even more obvious) should drive the point home.

I figure if I’m going to die anyway, why prolong the process?  Maybe it’s a morbid thought, but I want people to be crystal clear that it’s fine by me to keep me off the machines and to let me just die with some comfort and dignity.

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I have to try to get a better outlook.  Granted there have been some incidents in the recent past that have completely pissed me off and demoralized me but I’ve gone through a lot worse.  I may not have much but I do have a healthy sarcastic streak, and comedy is indeed the flipside of tragedy.

Negative-Attitude

I have to change this stuff.

I’ve fallen back into the age old pattern of letting people simply walk all over me.  It’s bad that I’m so used to being a doormat that I have to consciously think about confronting people when they are just plain being assholes.  What is so wrong about calling out the conspicuous douchebag?  I’m sure that my megadouche detection skills are just as good if not better than most people’s, given that I have had exposure to more than my fair share of megadouches in my lifetime.

 

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This is what I want to say to Jerry when he whines about food.  Unfortunately, when he isn’t in the mood for the entreé du soir, it means I either end up going out for subs or to the Chinese joint for his hineyness.  Last week I got to get him a sub, and then a replacement sub, when the zit faced high school kids working the evening shift at Jersey Mike’s committed the unforgivable sin: his Philly cheese steak had green peppers on it.  You’d have thought it was anthrax the way he reacted to a few green peppers. They weren’t even the hot peppers, which if you ask me are quite nice on a Philly cheese steak, among a plethora of other things.  But green peppers?  If you don’t like them, pick them off.  As rude as Jerry is in restaurants, green peppers are the least of his worries.  I bet fast food workers see condescending assholes like Jerry from a mile away.

I’m sure Jerry’s gotten things far worse than a few green peppers on his sandwiches.  Saliva, semen and boogers come to mind.  I understand the longing for passive-aggressive revenge more than most.  I might not actually perpetrate vengeful acts, but I fantasize about them a lot.

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If thinking about passive-aggressive revenge is just as bad as actually perpetrating it, I’m in big trouble.

Life is a Gift (a Gag Gift?) and Other Greeting Card Sentiments

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Just a little perspective- for that poor sucker I saw jogging down Morse Rd. in the freezing rain the other day.

I am not in any way, shape or form an optimist by nature.  At best I am pragmatic and can adjust, adapt and overcome, but I hate to admit I am not generally one of those “carpe diem” (seize the day) types.  If one is shaped by early life experience, i.e. having the hell beat out of you just about every day, then, at least in my experience, you tend toward a wee bit of trepidation in simply facing the day.

I know that Christian faith is necessarily optimistic, which is one of the reasons I really struggle with faith.  I admit that there have been many times in my life when the only thing keeping me from the option of self-annihilation has been the Catholic teaching about mortal sin.  I was raised old-school Catholic, even though I can’t in conscience call myself Catholic.  My particular way of understanding Christianity is best described as confessional Lutheran, which is fairly close. I don’t want to end up spending eternity being tortured forever and ever being chewed up in Beezelbub’s flaming maw because I died with a mortal sin on my soul.  According to Catholic tradition, suicide is a mortal sin because if you kill yourself you don’t have the opportunity to confess your sin and be forgiven for it, so you burn in hell.  As miserable and painful as life can be at times- and my life has had plenty of misery and pain- I still believe that no matter how bad it gets (even though Obama was “re-elected” by sole virtue of voter fraud and I’m still pissed about that) automatic and eternal consignment to the fires of hell is definitely a downgrade.

Obama’s bad, and dangerous on many levels, but even he’s not the end of the world.

I need to believe that there will be a day when things are made right- not just in this country, not just on a few small levels, but made completely right.  Yeah, perhaps in this, color me optimistic, or perhaps just a perfectionist.  I want to be around to see it.  No, I can’t explain faith in rational terms, other than to accept Pascal’s Wager.  I would rather live with the knowledge that God IS, than to pretend He is not, and have to face the consequences of conscience-less living at some point.  I know my agnostic friends have trouble with the notion that God is in charge.  I’m weaker than that.  I have to acknowledge that God is in charge, which is (paradoxically) liberating.  I have problems when I start thinking I’m in charge.

Even knowing that God is in charge doesn’t guarantee me a sunny outlook.  It’s a challenge for me to wake up in the morning and see life as a gift.  Sometimes I do view life that way, but more often than not I see it as a burden or even a sick joke.  Sometimes sarcasm is the only way I can get through the day, and that’s not a very good thing either.  I wish I could take the Lord’s advice in Matthew 6:25 and not worry about stuff- but I do.   Worse than that I let stupidity and ineptitude piss me off which (while pointing those things out can be funny) doesn’t do much for my mental state either.  Anger and worry are not a very good combo.

There may be some hope for me yet:

License to Annoy, I Hate the Holidays #584, and The Drippy Winter Funk

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Ok, so I am a brunette by virtue of hair dye.  I’m also over 40.  Cut me some slack.

Oh, yes, this brunette remembers way too much, especially in regard to others’ drunk and stupid antics.   Jerry is attempting to stay sober so he can get good and liquored up for the OSU/Michigan game Saturday.  Joy and rapture.  The game is at noon, which means I can forget my Saturday morning cougar nap.  Jerry will be raring to go by 8AM if not earlier.  I wish he had the same enthusiasm for waking up on work days.  I don’t care for football on a good day, but dealing with Jerry when the beer drinking begins at noon (or earlier) is going to be hell on wheels. I can just imagine dragging him in the car to go home after the game.   It’s almost enough to make me wish I could drink to forget.   Right now I’m not in a particularly social mood either and I’m sure I will be even less inclined toward interacting with other humans after dealing with my relatives on Thursday.

No, I won’t have to eat this.  But in the end, I don’t know if eating humble pie is worth a high class meal.  I’d rather be home alone eating White Castles, truth be told.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so despondent.  I do have a family.  I get along with my parents for the most part and am at least on speaking terms with my sisters.  But these get togethers serve to sort of rub my failure in my face.  I’ve never really done anything worthwhile other than somehow manage not to either starve to death or become a victim of a spree killer, and being around my sisters only underscores the point.

I know it’s been a long time, but a tortured childhood is a gift that keeps on giving!

Steve-o has managed to thoroughly piss off my granddaughter’s mother- so much so that I would be pleasantly surprised if I will be able to have any interaction with my granddaughter again.  He’s actually at the point of wanting to do what the male contributor of his DNA did- signing off his parental rights- which will in effect make me a stranger on the street.  Yeah, I know, the whole biz with relationships and so forth- and I am a cynical one.  I have to admit I pretty much anticipated this, though I am thoroughly disgusted with the POMC and the way he’s handling things. It breaks my heart.  When it comes to kids in Ohio courts fathers have no rights except to pay up.   I’m pissed at him- because I warned him not to be such a dick to her- but I also understand the futility of him trying to maintain any kind of meaningful relationship with his daughter when her mother won’t speak to or deal with him for whatever reason.   The courts always side with mothers in this state, unless they’re crack heads or serial killers and sometimes even then.  She is a good mother, and her relationship to Steve-o or to any of the rest of the family is not an issue there.    If she doesn’t want him or any of us around her kid, she can and will get her way.

This is reason enough for me to avoid the forced family togetherness this week.  I’m pissed at my own son, won’t get to see my granddaughter, and have to deal with my parents and my two sisters.  Damn, I wish I could have a nice, stiff drink.  Or twelve.

I’m almost considering feigning communicable illness to avoid the compulsory Thanksgiving roadtrip to my sister’s house, where I will have my poverty, marriage to a drunken redneck, and my painful lack of any sort of meaningful accomplishments rubbed in my face yet again.   Hello, punchbowl!  The turd has arrived!  That’s how I feel when I go to her house, and I have to drive 100 miles to do it.  Me in my Goodwill and Target discount rack clothes, driving a Toyota Yaris, showing up about as welcome as Cousin Eddy (remember Christmas Vacation) in this suburban wonderland of palatial homes and BMWs.  It’s depressing.  I don’t know why I even bother showing up, because I know my sisters are ashamed of me anyway.  I give them something to laugh at, or perhaps my saga serves as a cautionary tale for their offspring.  Even so, I don’t really think either one of them would give two shits in a baggie whether I showed up or not- except that, for whatever it’s worth, I do bring homemade pies.

I may be poor and not good for much, but I can cook.

There is a bright spot.  I have to work on Friday.  So I have a good excuse to beat feet quickly after dinner and not stay overnight at my sister’s.  Then I’d end up having to go through the hell of Black Friday shopping with the two of them and my Mom.  I think I’d rather slit my wrists with a rusty razor blade and slowly die of exsanguination.  The rusty razor blade would afford a far more pleasant death than traipsing through Nordstrom’s (there’s a place where I am definitely the turd in the punchbowl) while my sister runs around flashing her plastic and Mom’s gawking at all sorts of fugly high dollar kitsch she can’t afford.

I like mustard too, but NOBODY needs this!

I can’t get into the holidays.  I wish I could- but I have no money and no time to do any of the things that would make the holidays fun.   I thought I would at least be able to enjoy some time with my granddaughter, but I highly doubt that will happen either, thanks to my son and his abysmal relationship skills.

If I could avoid my entire family and all the holiday crud and come out sometime in March or April that would be OK with me.  But, alas, the drippy winter funk begins.  I know I have to deal.  Oh, and I have to remember to go to Target and get my scripts.  I don’t want to run out of Prozac anytime soon.

I’ll be armed with the camera for both my Thanksgiving Dinner in the Punchbowl and the OSU/Michigan Beer Drinking and Football Outing.  Comedy is the flipside of tragedy, and I’m going to be trolling for comedy this week for sure.  If I can get past the tears, that is.

Here we go again!