Rage, Rage, at the Dying of the Light, and Please Let Me Go Suddenly…

August 11, 2014Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

I wonder- sleeping? dead? doll?

There is something just not right, something incomplete and unfair, in an untimely death.

A good friend of ours, who claimed at one point to be an atheist, died Saturday night. It was not a pretty death (if there is such a thing) nor was it a quick or painless death. The poor man had dealt with cancer for the past four years- a bout of colon cancer that almost killed him back in 2010, and the stage 4 lung cancer he was diagnosed with back in April that finally spread throughout his body and slowly, painfully and agonizingly did him in. To greatly summarize the gory story, this guy spent the past month jacked up on every narcotic known to man, and was almost always straight out of his mind due to the cancer spreading to his brain. Nothing could quiet the unimaginable pain associated with cancer spreading like wildfire, not even the Tramadol and morphine and whatever other heavy duty drugs that the hospice people have at their disposal. Cancer is a pretty shitty way to die by all accounts. I don’t say that to trivialize his pain or the pain that his widow is still going through and reliving all those horrors, but words just can’t paint an accurate enough picture. I pray to God that I don’t die that way, and that I would be spared the awful reality of being a primary caretaker of a loved one dying that way, because I don’t have that kind of courage or strength.

Since everyone has to die, I could only ask to go the way my maternal grandmother did- suddenly, via a massive stroke that took her from walking, talking and being completely normal to being pretty much dead as a doornail in an instant. It really sucked for the rest of the family, but it actually gives me some peace knowing that she didn’t linger around and suffer for months or years, slowly and painfully deteriorating until she was unrecognizable.

Stephen King said it in his book Pet Sematary: Sometimes dead is better.

I am not in any hurry to take the Dirt Nap- nor am I in any hurry for anyone else I care about to bite the big one either- but I still have a really hard time with suffering, and watching people sort of fade and melt away before my eyes.

Maybe that’s what that whole “mid-life crisis” thing is- understanding that personal mortality is about more than just the Dirt Nap- it’s the little bites of decay and loss and downhill slide of entropy that we endure every day. Things like the realization that my eyes don’t adjust to close vision when I have my glasses on, or that the people I went to high school with look like my Dad’s friends- and that a good number of my Dad’s friends are dead.

The places are either gone or drastically changed, and that’s not even been from the distant past. I usually don’t have too many reasons to go downtown- save for the paper nightie appointment once a year- because I go to a different primary care Dr. and his office isn’t downtown. Yesterday I decided to take my granddaughter to the art museum (which I must recommend, as they have lots of fun stuff for kids) and I was amazed on the way down High St. to take her back home at observing the OSU campus. At least temporarily, campus has been de-skankified and yuppiefied almost beyond recognition. I think they’re trying to overcome their reputation of being the Midwest’s #1 school to get robbed and raped. Good luck with that. Especially on the night of the Michigan game. Leave your car- and yourself- at home. Watch the game, if you must, on TV.

Of course, campus gets a makeover about once every 20 years. It will take about a year or so for the current renovations to get trashed, and when you think it can’t get any nastier, some builders come in with bulldozers, raze most of it, and start again.

Maybe that’s what’s going on with me. I could use a renovation.

Home improvement is nowhere to be found in my box of talents. Believe that.

I would like to expand my education- not necessarily in a formal way, because, sadly, most so-called institutions of learning are all about the almighty dollar and/or all about filling young people’s heads with socialist/globalist garbage. Even poor Steve-o had to take two courses that I believed were total politically correct garbage- one course in “cultural sensitivity” and another on “our global economy.” The first course mostly informed him that as a white male he is/was responsible for all of the evils in the world today, from inequality in the workplace to global warming (both concepts are crocks of crap, IMO.) The second was supposed to be on economics but it ended up being a formalized diatribe on how industrialized nations are victimizing tribal peoples in third world holes, and how we should bury our cars and wipe with reusable cloths. That would have been sort of funny, except that his major was automotive science.

I think I will embark upon a self-directed expansion of knowledge, even though I know that my biases will play into that. It’s no worse than a tech school requiring my son to take courses in BS to graduate.

A Change In Trajectory, and Don’t Mess With the Almighty Matrix

December 9, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Try as I might, my free throw attempts usually ended up somewhere in the next county.

I can aim a pistol reasonably well (within 15 yards,) a shotgun moderately well, but a basketball, not at all.

When the weather in beautiful central Ohio bites (so I can’t take a road trip) and (when he’s not screaming at the dogs for their loud breathing) Tipsy Mc NumbNuts is sleeping off his hangover, I have time to read. I finally had time to read 11/22/63. I almost didn’t buy it because I thought I’d heard all the JFK conspiracy theories, and I’m not much of a fiction reader to begin with. I did buy it because it was written by Stephen King, and, as is the case with most of his books, (liberal political bent aside) it was worth reading.

If anything it was sort of a sad story, and in a perverse way it shared the same moral of the story as Pet Sematary. For those who have yet to experience that particular tome, it ends on an interesting (if not deliciously macabre) note and reflects a pervasive theme in a number of King’s books.

Dead is better. At least if you’re supposed to be dead, that is.

Not “dead is better” in the serial killer sense or in the jilted lover sense, (or even in the John Hinckley Jr. sense) but in the sense that screwing around with the natural circle of life can have unintended repercussions. As much as I miss my grandparents, for instance, I wouldn’t wish any of them to be alive today. All of them were ill and had lived out long lives before they died natural deaths. Wishing people to live beyond the time of natural death seems a bit sadistic, especially considering that if my grandfather had lived (he died in 2006) he would be 99 this year. He had heart failure and kidney failure, neuropathy from diabetes (couldn’t feel his feet) and was almost completely deaf when he died.

Being healthy and active at 99 would be another matter, as we humans will cling tenaciously to life when we can, but today it seems as our longer lifespans bring more illness, infirmity and misery than anything else. The technology can keep one alive, but most of the time it doesn’t do much for your quality of life. Sometimes the disease- and the end it brings- is better than prolonging the inevitable.

Science can keep people alive that should have long since been dead (and yes, I belong in that category at least three times over) and in the case of the young that might be a good thing, but it’s a mixed bag. Science can keep your vital signs going on, but at what cost?

What ends up being missing? When do we break the boundary of the matrix and then really start screwing things up? How far can we screw up before the process necessarily leads to an end or a reset?

I wonder what this thing does?

A big part of me believes it’s the hubris of humanity that believes that every little popcorn fart can change the world. I mean, you have the global warming crowd going off about cow farts. I can imagine a cow can put off quite a bit of methane, but in the grand scheme of things? A cow is big, and it farts a lot, but really? How much authority and how much leeway do we have to screw things up when we really try? And how long have cattle been domesticated and processed into tasty meat?

If cows fart like that, then why aren’t they powering our cars?

The Butterfly Effect is an intriguing concept in physics in which it is implied that every slight change of trajectory- even the gentle flap of a butterfly’s wings- can change the course of the weather or otherwise alter events to come in the future. There’s no mistaking me for a physicist, but I can see how it can work. How can anyone know ahead of time what the consequence of just a slight change in trajectory might be? It seems sort of rogue.

Perhaps a better question is (and I am assuming that the universe has an order, that it was created, and necessarily has a Creator) what exactly is within our power to change?

What do we risk when we try?

Old Stories Revisited, and Some Things Never Die (But Should)

October 10, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

When I was in high school I had a taste for bodice-ripper novels. By the end of my freshman year I had an entire locker filled with discount cover-less $1.35 novels from the cigar store that were so graphic I had to get rid of them when school was out. Mom would have found them in her regular treasure hunts through my stuff, and “smut” like that would have given my mother a coronary. (I wonder if Beth’s mother ever found them, but then Beth’s Mom wasn’t nearly as snoopy as mine, which is why I gave them to Beth in the first place.) I always knew Mom snooped, so I made sure Mom never found anything good such as cigarettes, “smut” books, birth control pills, short skirts, fishnets, etc. in any of my stuff. I had a few friends once I got a car, and with them, divers places to stash incriminating stuff.

I like the concept of stashing one’s guns under the stairs. I like stashing the gun next to the bed even better.

I wasn’t into ordinary flowery *clean* “romance” stories (think Hallmark Channel snooze fare, or the Harlequin romances Grandma liked to read.) I liked the more juicy ones that usually didn’t have much for a plot, but didn’t leave out the graphic details. Cut to the chase, already. I also had a taste for mystery and who-dunnits for a time, along with my usual historical and scientific non-fiction fare, but when I was in high school I would pretty much read anything and everything I could get my hands on. Today, because I have to do other things (like it or not) I have to be a bit more judicious in my literary choices. Let’s face it, the myriad ways of performing the conjugal act get a bit overhyped at times, and I need a bodice-ripper like a hole in the head these days. My imagination does not need any assistance in that realm. Besides, If I’m going to spend time in fiction I want a good story. Something with an actual plot that’s deeper than, “spying his turgid member, she unzipped his pants…” I want something epic, something meaty, or why bother?

Whether you like fiction or fantasy (normally I am not into either) or not, Tolkien is awesome. I’ve read these more times than I can count.

I never read a lot of fiction (other than the aforementioned bodice-rippers, and I’m really not compelled to go for bodice-rippers any more) but I did and still do like Stephen King. I may not agree with his politics (I don’t) but he is a hell of a writer. One of my favorites authored by King is the book IT, (not to be confused as a horror novel about IT, which is good given that many in the IT profession are quite scary enough,) so I simply had to get it on Kindle.

Maybe I shouldn’t put it like this, but Kindle is a hyperlexic’s high holy fantasy. There are millions of books available for momentary download for a modest fee (and some are even free.) Since my particular Kindle has 3G and Wi-Fi I can pretty much download anytime and anywhere, meaning I have to be careful in the Kindle Store. I have limited myself to one book a week, and only if I have finished the previous one. There is something just plain magical about having so much reading material at one’s fingertips.

My favorite Stephen King book, except for maybe The Stand. It might be a tie.

I read IT back in 1987 shortly after its release in paperback. I couldn’t afford hard back books at that time. $4.95 was pricey enough back in those days, but worthwhile. I couldn’t put it down- and read it the first time in about two days. This time I am taking my time and only reading a few chapters at a time, for no other reason than I don’t have entire days to lock myself away to just read anymore. I really miss being able to do that from time to time. I am one of those incorrigible nerd types who can get lost in a book and forget just about everything else.

IT, I am finding, is a more personal story for me now than it was in 1987. When I read IT the first time, there wasn’t much distance between me as the 10 year old and me as the 18 year old. It was a great story, but I didn’t really identify with the characters back then. Today I can understand their perspective much better. There is a lifetime of distance and several changes of spheres between me as the 10 year old, and me as the forty-something. There are those long-forgotten incidents and pictures from the back of the brain box that I don’t always acknowledge are there until some external event triggers the memory. There are plenty of incidents I’d rather forget, and many pictures that are best left buried deep and not disturbed from their sleep.

Such as: every day.

Even more unnerving, just as Derry, Maine had its scandals and secrets and monsters in the closets (and the drainage system,) I come from a small town with a history that is mired in intrigue, scandal, untimely death and *evil?* just as the fictional Derry was. Some of that history is fascinating and some of it tragic, but none of it rests well. My own personal history rests uneasily too.

Beyond the Void, Someone to Talk To, and Miscellaneous Tidbits

December 10, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

I know where this sign is. You can see it on southbound I-71, somewhere in Madison County- between Columbus and Cincinnati.

I don’t like to think about that most terrible place I think of as simply the void, but I was reminded of it in of all places in church this week. It’s that bone chilling, thought shattering, crushing experience of being everywhere and nowhere and immersed in grinding, mind-blowing pain that is brought on by extreme trauma, whether it be emotional or physical. Stephen King sort of describes it in his short story, “The Jaunt.” What I mean by the void is a sort of airless, timeless limbo that is between time and space (if that’s possible to comprehend.) It’s the moment in which you are hit with unspeakably horrific, life-shattering news and the grief and disbelief and shock hit you like a tidal wave- and worse.

In “The Jaunt,” the entry into the void was a bit different. A scientist discovered that teleporting things almost instantly across space was possible, but that live animals and humans only made it through “the jaunt” if they were anesthetized. Live animals came through the process aged and weak and died shortly after arriving at their destination- and the few humans that attempted it came out on the other side certifiably insane.

Maybe King’s story isn’t the best analogy, but it’s the closest reference I can find to those times in which the wind is knocked out of you, you are transported to an airless, breathless, motionless state, and your world falls apart. It’s infinity in there. And not in a good way. It’s what I would imagine to be a tiny sampling of hell- and no I’m not referring to the BMV. I have to go there soon enough for the dreaded driver’s license mug shot, for which no matter what I do it will turn out positively frightening and should say “Correctional Institute Inmate” on the picture somewhere, because yes, my driver’s license pics have always been That Bad. Even so, I’d gladly take an hour at the BMV waiting on having a shitty picture taken vs. one millisecond of the void. Believe that.

My driver’s license is valid, but the pic is just as bad.

I don’t like to be reminded of the void or of the times I’ve been there.

However, as far as psychological pain goes, I am almost always a delayed reactor. I can only think of one time that I completely fell apart instantaneously, and that is when I got the news about my four year old niece being killed, which was completely unforeseen. It seems that in order for me to fall apart I have to be caught off guard.

For years I dealt with- (and at times, still do deal with) post traumatic stress, which is the gift that keeps on giving, those brief illogical terrors that show up unbidden and in the least likely of places for the most bizarre reasons. One of the most memorable unbidden episodes was back when I was working a really crappy job. The only thing that kept me from going nuts in that place was that they sent me out to run titles from time to time. It’s not rocket science but it does give you a lot of time to yourself. You find the title offices of surrounding counties and turn in the paperwork so people who just bought cars get their titles registered and all that crud. Most of the time back then, title offices were in the courthouse in whatever county seat so I got to investigate some really cool old 19th century courthouses. Today public buildings might as well be prisons, but back in the day architects built things not only to last, but for their aesthetic value. That part of the title running thing was almost fun.

This is the courthouse in Marion County. I hope that the powers that be don’t decide to tear this one down too.

I had to go to Union County, which was only about a half an hour out. The title office had temporarily been moved to the old high school which was slated for demolition, while the new county building was being built. So I find my way through the vestibule and follow the arrow upstairs. The staircases were well-worn and crumbling, but the metal framework beneath them was holding fast. I had a really strange feeling in that building, as if I were violating someone, or something’s space. I found the temporary title office, completed the transfers, and as I was leaving, a huge framed glass and gold leaf memorial caught my eye.

I don’t have a pic of the Union County memorial that was in that high school, but this memorial displays a similar concept.

It was a memorial of WWI veterans who came from that school. There were at least fifty names on that memorial, and I believe eight of those names had stars next to them, indicating that they had been killed in action. I wasn’t able to linger there long. For such a small, rural town to lose that many was sad, but the fact that the memorial was in a high school sort of struck me. These weren’t old men. This wasn’t a picture of grinning old men reminiscing over old times at the bar in the VFW. These were kids just out of high school- boys who either came home jaded and scarred, or never came home at all. I don’t know how to describe the wave of emptiness and profound grief that washed over me that day, but I had to run back to the car as fast as I could, and for some reason I was overcome with sadness and rage and I don’t know what else. I wept over strange young men who I had never met, who had experienced terrors beyond anything I could imagine, and to this day I have no idea why.

On a brighter note, I remembered that I haven’t put up any pics of my newest kitty, Jezebel. Jezebel was one of the feral kittens Jerry trapped back on the shop lot the week before Halloween. The other three went to the owner of the body shop’s horse barn to keep the vermin away from the horses. I wasn’t planning on another cat, but Jezebel, well, she’s all black. All black cats don’t fare well in feral or outdoor settings, so we made her a house cat. The first week or so she had to be handled with a welding glove (this is sort of normal with feral kittens.) Now she is very social and fond of human attention, Isabel (and she looks just like a mini-Isabel) and really isn’t fazed by much of anything, including dogs. The key to socializing cats is getting them before the socialization window more or less closes at 12 weeks. These kittens were about 6 or 7 weeks when we found them, which is the perfect age to socialize them. They can eat solid food and live OK without Mommy, so the mortality rate is low, but they can still learn to get along with humans, other cats and dogs.

Jezebel instantly gravitated to Isabel, (who is also all black) which we are grateful for because Miz Izz loves other cats and has always been good at schooling youngsters. So now I have a 14 week or so old kitten who is going to have to be spayed here in the next few weeks. But Jezebel is already a really good cat. No welding gloves are currently required.

Jezebel- “Mini-Izz”

For All the Saints, Fanning the Flames, and a Limited Time Offer

November 7, 2011Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I know that here lately I have been rather drawn to the macabre. It seems that around Halloween (when the seemingly endless Central Ohio winter effectively begins) and also toward the end of February (when the even more depressing season of Snowbooger Grey sets in) I get obsessed with the issue of mortality- mine, and that of others.

It doesn’t help that Saturday I had to attend the wake (and yes, it was an actual Irish Catholic wake, complete with noise, a plethora of friends, relatives and assorted others, enough food for an army and then some, and plenty of whiskey and beer) of a dear older lady who I was both surprised and delighted to call a friend. Then Sunday (which had almost completely slipped my mind) was All Saints’, which is one of the hardest days of the year for me to go to church. I need to do that- especially on the difficult days- but it’s very hard for me to make a conscious effort when I know I will be streaming tears uncontrollably the whole time. I don’t handle public displays of emotion well at all. The whole idea behind All Saints’ is to remember those who have gone before us, which has been especially difficult for me since Grandma died.

Sadly, I don’t spend enough time with people I care about. I would have liked to have talked with her one more time, but I missed the opportunity. I am reminded yet again how temporary life is, and how the people I want to see and talk with a little while longer might not be there the next time I think of them.

It might seem strange, for someone like me who isn’t terribly social and isn’t really into superficialities, that I am so neglectful of the very few close relationships I have. It’s actually rather pathetic that I avoid human contact to such an extreme. I have enough excuses- overwork and babysitting Jerry are probably the two biggest drains on my time and energy- but excuses are exactly that. I don’t make the time. Even though I do cherish people I deem to be friends, being around people wears me out. I know it sounds superficial and selfish, but I really have to be intentional regarding who I socialize with, and with how much time I spend being in the company of others. Otherwise I get stretched too thin and get emotionally and physically exhausted.

Over the years I’ve discovered I need solitude not only to get my head straight and to make some sense of my fractured and often puzzling emotional life, but I also have a genuine physical need to take that ivory tower time. Leave me alone and let me regenerate. Often. The bad thing is that I don’t get nearly enough opportunity for such regeneration, so I take it where I can get it. Otherwise I will get physically ill, and end up being forced to stop and get away.

As much as I found it necessary to go to our friend’s wake, I paid for it in terms of just plain coming home depleted. I don’t know if my exhaustion had to do with trying to keep Jerry out of too much trouble (he almost killed an entire 30 pack of Natties) or just from needing to get away from people for awhile. Perhaps a combination of both?

Maybe I really am one of those people who would be better off out in the middle of nowhere with sparse company other than books, music and dogs. It’s been way too long since I was able to be left alone long enough to read a novel (and I do have what promises to be a good novel on the way- 11-22-63 by Stephen King.) It doesn’t take me long to read a novel – even Stephen King’s novels, which tend to be lengthy- but it seems I am constantly being interrupted with Jerry being unable to get his own pills, being unable to shut up late at night, and constantly whining about his shirts or this or that or the other thing.

Maybe it’s not fair of me to expect Jerry to take care of himself like a normal adult. Sadly I have been party to his Helplessman routine for many years, so how can I expect him to take his own pills, iron his own shirts, and keep himself from drowning in the toilet when he’s shitfaced?

I know I am no paragon of virtue by a long shot, but I admit I get tired of the babysitting. It’s hard to put my foot down because Jerry is incredibly emotionally fragile. He gets on my nerves, yes, but he’s a lot worse when he gets either shitfaced and/or in temper tantrum mode. Sadly, he has learned (just like a toddler) that the tirades are a form of blackmail. “Appease me or I’ll go off again” is the mentality. While I know that it’s a fruitless endeavor to keep on feeding alligators, way too much of the time I simply cave in and let him have what he wants so he will shut up. Especially if I’m tired and/or he’s drunk. The irony here is that in the end I’m just rewarding him for whining. Unlike a toddler, when Jerry starts in with the whining and tirades, I can’t take him to the ladies’ room and warm his behind.

I know all too well that life is a limited time offer. I shouldn’t be so harsh with Jerry, even though I lose my patience with the helpless act and with the gambling and drinking. I know I should cherish whatever time we have even though he does try my patience and dealing with his behavior can be quite draining.

I’ll have time to sleep when I’m dead. Hopefully somewhere along the way I’ll find time for the Stephen King novel.

Entropy in Practical Application, All is Vanity, and Balance?

August 10, 2011Tonya Lanthron 3 Comments

Castles made of sand slip to the sea, but ill-maintained redneck houses are reclaimed by the swamp. Entropy in action! I think these guys thought they were going to put in a pool right next to the house. It’s hard to see from this angle, but they dug a giant hole right next to the house for some mysterious reason. Then the whole house started caving in and they filled in the hole again. I’ll bet there’s not a level floor in that place, no running water, and there’s a roach colony of millions, but the satellite and big screen are working just fine. Until the house falls in on the plasma TV, that is. Central Ohio is all one big drained swamp. Compromise your foundation at your peril.

I am one of those people who is all about practical application. I seldom read fiction for that reason. I like a good story, but is it true? Is there a practical lesson in it, or is there at least something funny, gross or macabre in it? When I was much younger and had a lot more time on my hands, I read almost everything I could get my hands on- bodice rippers, porn-without-the-pictures, mystery-especially Agatha Christie, most of Stephen King’s novels, most of Tolkien’s works, but even then the bulk of my reading material consisted of my usual standards- scientific and historical non-fiction.

Sadly I’ve not read a fictional novel in years. I really should broaden my horizons, and I would if I had more time for recreational reading.

I do read the Bible. I really understand what the Teacher of Ecclesiastes was talking about. Sometimes life seems futile and pointless and I feel like Sisyphus – I have to roll the boulder up the mountain every day only to wake up the next day and do the same pointless tasks over and over. There truly is no satisfaction under the sun. I get frustrated, lonely, tired and broke- and for what? The only hope that there is purpose in life lies in the realization that it’s God’s plan and that there is a deeper meaning to life than just endless repetition and monotonous drudgery. Sometimes it’s just really hard to see.

I couldn’t resist taking a pic of this bumper sticker, even though I managed to get my own reflection in the pic. I have to amuse myself somehow.

On a much brighter note, the Journey show last Friday was beyond awesome. I am a huge Journey fan and would love nothing more than to send myself back 30 years to be backstage with Steve Perry- believe that- but I am also a realist. It’s not 1981. Steve Perry is of the over 60 crowd, hip replacement and all. As much as I would love to see him, and hear The Voice live, I don’t think he is physically able to tour and endure all that. Arnel Pineda is worth seeing and hearing in his own right, and I don’t think I have ever heard Neal Schon or Jonathan Cain play better. Journey 2011 is still very, very good. I absolutely loved “Edge of the Moment,” which is one of the new songs from Eclipse. I only wish they would have had time to play “Resonate” from Eclipse also, but if they would have played everything I would have wanted to hear they’d been playing all night and that’s simply not feasible- especially considering these guys are getting up in years. Pity.

I only encountered two people who understood the t-shirt I wore to the show that says, “Neal Schon Afro Society” and has a pic of Neal from about 1977 with that ridiculous poofy ‘fro he had back then. (see the cover of Next to see what I mean- Neal is the one on the left) But today I understand very well that a 56 year old guy with black hair is going to be coloring his hair, and the less hair one has the easier it is to keep it all one color. Besides, a 23 year old guy looks dorky with a ‘fro like that. A guy more than twice that age would look like Flippo the Clown with a ‘fro like that. The ’70’s- I must say the hair and clothes were bad- but the music (grandiose, funky, fusion based rock, anyway) was good.

The nice part about this show was that everything was worth watching. At no time did I feel compelled to make a run for snackies or to go to the john out of boredom! Night Ranger was excellent- I particularly enjoyed Deen Castronuevo coming out to play drums during “Sister Christian.” They also did a most wonderful rendition of Damn Yankees’ “High Enough”- even without Ted Nugent. Foreigner was impressive as well- especially “Dirty White Boy” and “Jukebox Hero.”

You can’t turn back time, but you can learn to enjoy the moment for what it is. I know some people might have been disappointed because they expected to see everything exactly as it was in the Big 80’s. In some ways it was all that and more- perhaps with some different faces or arrangements or a few new twists, but who or what can remain the same forever? Entropy, my friends- everything is moving ever closer to disorder and chaos. My boobs are heading a bit further south every day. That’s a lovely thought. Pink Floyd- in rather macabre Brit fashion- in the song “Time,” put it as, “one day closer to death.” Might as well tell it like it is. As for me, it was most therapeutic for once to simply sit back and enjoy the show. Next time- if there is a next time- I really want to spring for the VIP tickets and perhaps get seats close enough to take reasonably visible pics. You can almost see Neal in the big screen in this one.

The common wisdom about aging is that everything gets bigger, hairier and closer to the ground. Except the tops of men’s heads, that is. The tops of their heads might get bigger and closer to the ground, but the hair migrates to their ears. No wonder I wondered for a moment what my Dad’s friends were doing at my class reunion, until I realized they were the guys I graduated with, and not the geezers Dad hangs out with. Creepy.

Actions Have Consequences, Social Darwinism, and Compassion for the Drunk and Stupid?

March 3, 2011Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

A quick disclaimer: While Jerry is currently sporting a particularly wicked shiner, like this poor gentleman pictured above, I didn’t have the opportunity to snap a pic of the genuine article. This guy is not Jerry. I don’t have a clue who the dude in the pic is, but he and Jerry have matching black eyes this morning. And I am laughing my sorry ass off.

Perhaps that is a bit cold-hearted of me, but I have absolutely no sympathy for illnesses or injuries of the self-inflicted kind. He got shitfaced last night (no, that’s not usually news) but the humor in this is that somehow, sometime very late last night, he managed to get off the toilet and fall directly into the corner of the towel rack. His left eye looks like something out of the Rocky movies, and he has a nice goose egg on his left temple to boot. The cosmic justice lies in the fact that he decided to go to the hell-hole across the road to blow money on gambling tickets and get shitfaced AFTER he assured me that he didn’t mind if I went to my class and that he would stay home and behave. Yeah, right. Serves him right. Even so, it was a bit heartless of me to comment that at least he didn’t injure anything important when he hit his head.

I do find it disturbing, and he should too, that a grown man of his advanced age (53) would engage in behaviors that lead to falling. The last thing I need is for him to break a hip or something- although that would really cut down on the forays to the hell-hole. For some reason, the book Misery by Stephen King comes to mind, although Jerry is not a famous author, and I wouldn’t even want to pretend to be a nurse, psychotic or otherwise.

The only thing that sort of concerns me is that he might try to blame me. Then again I don’t think he’s old enough to claim elder abuse- yet.

I thought Jerry sort of learned his lesson about getting shitfaced at the hell-hole two years ago January when he pissed himself and then passed out in the men’s room. Where was Steve-o with his black Sharpie marker to write the word PENIS in reverse on Jerry’s forehead? Maybe waking up to being branded as a PENIS the following morning would have amplified the instructional effect. I am a big believer in personal responsibility, and the instructional value of natural consequences, but I still have a bit of a moral/ethical problem with liquor-serving establishments who have no common sense regarding when to cut people off. Jerry blows more money on pull-off tickets when he’s plastered, so they keep on serving him no matter how loud or obnoxious he gets. That is my main beef with the hell-hole in general, that they take undue advantage of the drunk and stupid. In spite of the ethical bankruptcy of the bar staff, there was some semblance of human compassion in the hell-hole that night. Apparently someone noticed Jerry’s bar stool was getting cold, so a couple of guys had enough decency to retrieve his pickled carcass from the men’s, toss him in the back of their truck, drop him off on the front porch, and ring the bell. Before I could get to the door to drag Jerry in, they were peeling out of the driveway. I think they were driving an older, distressed F-150, but it was hard to tell because they were so gung-ho to get out of Dodge. I don’t blame them.

I am thankful they did ring the bell and wake the dogs up- the bell generally won’t wake me up, few things do at 1AM, but the dogs will- instead of just leaving Jerry on the front porch to die of hypothermia, frozen to the concrete in a puddle of his own pee. It was only about 15 degrees (F) that night, so I think hypothermia would have come upon him rather quickly had I not dragged him in. At least there’s linoleum in the foyer and in the kitchen. That way I only had to mop the foyer and the kitchen floor instead of having to drag out the rug cleaner again. There’s one for 1,000 Ways to Die. Here’s your Darwin Award!

I’ve always believed the Lord has a soft spot for stupid people and drunks, which might explain why there are so many of both.

I try to be compassionate, but I don’t have a whole lot of compassion to begin with. I am not a naturally warm and fuzzy person. I’m not terribly forgiving by nature either, so it really vexes me to see someone keep on doing the same stupid shit over and over ad nauseam.

I’d like to think that I hold myself to a higher standard than I hold others. I usually overlook character flaws or lapses of judgment coming from others that I would not tolerate coming from me. I don’t like to criticize others until and unless they come to the point of being incorrigible, or just downright stupid. Drinking to shitfacedness is stupid. It should have lost its charm for Jerry years ago, but he still hasn’t learned.

I have never bought the hoo-hah that being a drunk is a “disease.” Cigarettes are far more addicting than alcohol (I stopped binge drinking with relative ease- but the cigarettes…that was quite another ordeal entirely) yet no one is going around calling smokers “Smokeaholics” and granting them “disease” status. You decide to drink or not, that’s all there is to it. I think the big difference between drinkers and smokers is that non-smokers absolutely can’t stand the smell of the smoke- so they bitch- and since there are more non-smokers than smokers, the non-smokers usually get their way. (hooray!) Then again, I’m having a really hard time cleaning up after Mr. Happy Hour when he deposits his beer cans here there and everywhere, and when he loses control of his bladder. It’s somewhat funny when you’re a college kid, but when you’re almost old enough to qualify for Taco Tuesday, it really loses its charm.

Maybe I’ll have to work him over with the Sharpie marker myself the next time he gets shitfaced and stupid. That would be funny as hell.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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Stephen King