Automotivation

So, you might have noticed that I wasn't here yesterday.

Okay, so actually, you probably didn't, but I like to pretend that I provide something to a select few people-- be it a little bit of escapism, a momentary enjoyable read, a measuring bar to point at and say if I ever get that low you should put me out of my misery, whatever--  so humor me.  

On my way home from work Friday, as I was getting on the highway, my car's brake and battery lights both came on.  As a car driver, there is nothing quite as stomach-churning and sickening as red lights on the dashboard just as you are accelerating to a speed that places you right alongside an 18-wheeler, especially when you're a solid 30 miles from home.  I checked my emergency brake and made sure I had no other battery-related things running, like the dome lights or cigarette lighter, or little vagabond kids screwing with the automatic windows, but everything checked out clean.  Fortunately, a few moments before I was about to go into full-on Why me, Why now, Why the Fuck mode, the two lights went out.  Fearing the worst, I cautiously went a very proper (and very unlike me) 55 miles an hour the whole way home.  The lights never again came on.  Admittedly, I sort of put it out of my head.

I had to make a run to my friends' house that night, and upon starting Reno (that's the name of my car, for those who are unaware) in the driveway, the red dash lights came on again.  And right about the time I caught my breath and was about to say "I wonder what the hell is up", they went out again.

By that time, it was patently obvious in my head that my car was fucking with me.   Haaaaa!  Made you go a legit speed limit, fucker!  This is for not taking me to the car wash after that flock of birds treated me like a four-wheeled toilet.  Oh, and that $2.31 a gallon swill you put in my tank... let me tell you, there are such things as standards of good taste, and you skirt them every off-pay day, you bastard! 

So I make an appointment with my dealership to take Reno in on Monday.  Let me be really clear and frank about a couple things here.  First, the people I've worked with when I've had to bring Reno to the dealership for repairs or maintenance are some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet.  That said, there are two places I utterly, without reservation, hate to go: hospitals and auto repair shops.  Hospitals are for more obvious reasons, naturally.  

But auto repair shops know me on sight.  I'm the guy with the seemingly invisible tattoo on my forehead that says, "Potential Pillage Victim."  I'm not a complete prat; I do know a little about cars, other than the fact that I have to get in one to go somewhere.  I know-- in theory-- where all the fluids go; I know how to change tires and wiper blades and filters; I know that I should have certain types of maintenance every few months; I know that these certain types of maintenance always cost 20-50% more than they're ever advertised at, because exchanges like this always take place:

Repairman: So we've drained your oil; what are we going to fill you with?  Same stuff we did before, 5W30?
Me: (Trying to appear confident) Yes, definitely.
Repairman: Synthetic blend?
Me: (Smiling)  Of course.
Repairman: I notice you haven't changed your air filter; it's looking a little dirty.  Want us to take care of that?
Me: (Nervously)  Uhm.
Repairman:  It's no worries.  Your car probably doesn't need it to keep up with all the other cars in its model class.  It'll just lag a little bit behind.  Like the special-ed student with a helmet.  MPG will drop like a rock, but that's okay.  You probably just drive down the block and back, right?
Me: (More nervously)  No, I drive across town to work.  Crap.  Uhm, I guess, if it's not too expensive.
Repairman:  Nah, it's the cheapest repair we do.  Expensive, though?  If you don't change the shot PDG bearing we found; if it's not changed, the whole transmission could go... that would be expensive.  Wouldn't want that, would you?
Me: (Completely blank stare)  I... I...
Repairman: Of course you wouldn't.  I also see your framistat gasket housing is not properly sealed.
Me: (Helplessly)  Is... is that important?
Repairman: (Gives the over-the-glasses "Are You Kidding Me?" look, sort of like my Lovely Fiancee™ when I ask if we really need to keep the cat.)
Me:  O-okay, fine.
Repairman: Excellent, sir.  Rough estimate is $1700, and we should be done with you in about four hours; in the meantime, you can feel free to enjoy our waiting room, where we have some free turgid coffee, and you can watch some brain-cell deadening daytime network TV and fold yourself into a fetal position while you wait.

I am exceedingly fortunate for my Lovely Fiancee™, who knows more than her fair share about cars.  I wish she were here now.   She might have been able to tell me exactly why I stayed five and a half hours at the dealership after they couldn't reproduce the problem and paid $250 for preventative maintenance that we both agreed would likely do nothing about the lights coming on.  No, my repairpeople couldn't duplicate the issue, and couldn't find any reason why it was happening (if in fact I wasn't hallucinating it.  Twice.  While not being on drugs at the time).  The alternator was fine.  The battery was fine.  The electrical system was fine.  The computer wouldn't tell what the issue was.   And in the meantime, while they tried to diagnose the issue, I sat through Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kelly, The View, the Noon News, part of All My Children and at least one other show that I think my subconscious has mercifully purged from my memory, because there was no remote to change the channel.  Preferably to off.   (Especially The View.  You could make a convincing drinking game by taking a shot every time someone on that show says something that you honestly believe they need to be backhanded for.)

And while the dealership couldn't figure the battery and brake lights issue, they did discover my brake pads were worn to almost nothing... y'know, just to make sure I didn't leave there with a full wallet or anything.  I guess that it was probably be nice to find that out from them, rather than learning about it shortly before ramming full speed into a school bus full of children.  So there is that.  But I still get the feeling that those dashboard lights were just a cry for help.  Maybe Reno's just depressed, and if so, I in effect just paid his therapy bill by buying him something nice to wear.

Next time, though, I'm gonna see if a nice pine-scented air-freshener will do the trick.  With the money I make, only one of us can afford to be medicated.

Crowds

I guess I should offer some explanation about yesterday's diatribe about Black Friday shoppers. It was a little over the top, a little stereotype-y, and a little unfair to those people whose lives revolve around that singular day after Thanksgiving because their particular form of religious worship has a magnetic strip and a security code on the back.  And since I consider myself irreverent and a-religious, who am I to question that faith? I realize all of this now, and upon further examination, contemplation and soul-searching, I am blaming that entire freaking blog post on the Wellbutrin.

Ha!  Had you going, didn't I?

I think my personal bias against the whole Black Friday "tradition" is twofold.  Firstly, it's all about the hype.  Every year, stores right and left give a limited number* of special deals* with the caveat that they will only be available at this price for a very limited time* while their limited quantities* last.  Now, I've marked with an asterisk every phrase that is specifically pointed at underscoring the OMG-urgent immediacy of the sale, and how you are rewarded for being among the first in line vis a vis the other, worthless, huddled masses further back in the line.  Not for being a good customer, or a consistent customer, or anything like that.  For standing in freezing cold for 8 to 10 hours awaiting this particular special hype-machined sale like mindless lemmings.  And that's total bullshit.

Hype, as we too well know, can be terribly dangerous, and should frankly be avoided at all costs whenever possible, just for the sake of common sense.  But hundreds-- thousands-- people don't learn that, and they let the stores jerk them around with the tease of a few dozen items "marked down" to the same price they will be in two months. And that's exactly what the stores are counting on... that people are stupid, greedy and priority-driven enough to wait around in the cold until they can herd in like pigs at slop time and join the chaos of hundreds of people fighting for dozens of items.

The second reason I hate the whole Black Friday "tradition" is that it draws huge crowds of people, and modern statistical analysis proves that the more people you gather into any reasonably contained space, the lower the group mean IQ level becomes, and the quicker the group becomes irrationally surly.  People wonder how the Romans could possibly enjoy gladiatorial games with their blood and death... I give you exhibit A... and B.... and... hell, you get the drift.  The Romans could have sent out pornographic poets and free oral sex and their crowds would have been bloodthirsty and ready to kill things. Every year around this time I get reminded of those wonderful holiday words delivered by Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black: "A person is smart; people are dumb panicky dangerous animals and you know it."

I therefore refuse to go to these Black Friday events, partially out of a sense of self-preservation; as I told my Lovely Fiancee™, I have every reason to believe that the first year I endure the Black Friday "tradition", it will undoubtedly be the first year that there are multiple gunshot, trampling, or stupidity fatalities at a Wal-Mart. It's only a matter of time.  Especially the stupidity ones... I'm sure at some point I will hear, "...Three drown in a Target bathroom.  Details at eleven."

I've learned very quickly that I am not generally a crowd person.  I get anxious and antsy and claustrophobic in them.  I think it says something about me that I prefer solitary hobbies like art, reading, writing and fish-keeping, that I enjoy playing golf, and that whenever we have our family gatherings I end up holing up in my room.  On top of that, I have a really low tolerance for stupidity in mass quantities.  In short, I cannot imagine a level of hell that would be worse for me than being among the five hundred people trying to fit into a Best Buy after six hours in the cold.  So I'll happily continue with my own "tradition" of shopping around online in my lounge pants, ordering gifts as early as possible, and praying that the 24-hour stores aren't crowded at 3 in the morning on a Tuesday morning for those last few things I have to get.

I guess, if nothing else, the good news is that I most likely only have a couple more years to deal with it.

Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving.  

I'm fatter for it.

Really, there's not a shatload to write about beyond that at the moment.  Tune back in tomorrow.  And for the love of all that's holy, don't go out shopping tomorrow.  Life's too short to deal with the toxic levels of greed, base crass materialism, and overall gluttonous nonconcern for fellow men that you'll find in some of the hapless degenerates you'll find waiting in line at any store that goes "Look!  Rush in here at five AM and you might be one of the 15 people who get a special deal on one of these wonderful gifts (no rainchecks, first come first serve, not responsible for damage incurred by fights with other customers or the hours of productive time you lose by standing in line, nor are we responsible for the mental trauma you may incur by making the local newscasts and looking just like the morons that waited in their Star Wars jammies and Stormtrooper outfits for the most recent Lucas movies.  Oh, by the way, tell us how those dumpster fires turned out, kthxbye?)!!!"

By the way, I finished the vast majority of my shopping for my Lovely Fiancee™ and our Family-to-Be from my room.  While eating turkey.  Hot turkey.  I will contrast that later with having to endure a Wal-Mart the first Saturday of the Christmas Shopping season.  I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking that sitting in front of my computer monitor and spending thirty minutes-- while eating some of my Thanksgiving meal, thank you-- will most likely stand up very well to getting elbowed by Gus and Wanda, the creme de la creme of Western Civilization (and devout NASCAR fans) who are in the midst of trying to find out why an X-Box Kinect doesn't come with this here game that little Bobby wants, and oh yeah, they need to make each of these things in their cart a separate purchase, too, even though there's a half-dozen people in their line, knowwhutImean?

Guh.  I have the cold sweats just imagining that.   Let alone enduring it.

Cattywampus

An Epilogue to yesterday -- I am now on my first day of meds, so I officially have a scapegoat for everything that happens between now and the moment I get picked up by the police while in the midst of a three-state spree of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, identity fraud, and public indecency stemming from exposing myself at various art museums.  One thing you have to admit about living in a culture where people refuse to accept responsibility for anything they do wrong: it's much easier to blame large multinational corporations, inanimate objects, and freeflowing emotions or mental states than our own inadequacies and dumbfuckery. (We've come full circle, boys and girls: the 80's were the "Me" Generation... welcome to the "Not Me!" Generation.)

And if anyone is offended by that last statement, the generic Wellbutrin XL I'm taking was wholly responsible for writing it.  

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog.

* * *

So a couple days ago, my lovely fiancee warmly informs me that our pet-to-be can peel wallpaper with the stench of her cutesy-widdle-kitty-cat poo-stink.

Needless to say, I couldn't be more thrilled about bringing our pet-to-be up here so that it can demonstrate its newfound ability to clear a room and stank the new house.   I say "our" pet-to-be because I have-- in what we can either call a grand magnanimous gesture or a minor bout of idiocy-- folded like a wet towel to my wonderful fiancee and her children's wishes to bring along the kitten on their move from Florida to Indiana.  There, it will make itself a new home in our brand-new ridiculous-priced house, where it will no doubt mark its territory with its piss; spend a few formative months shitting on whatever happens to be around-- rugs, furniture, computer chairs-- until it gets its bearings and realizes that the litter box is in the garage; and sharpen its claws on whatever new furniture we happen to buy.  Overall, I foresee it turning the first few months of my new marriage into an exercise in reigning in sarcasm and watching our house depreciate in value.

Also needless to say, I am not a huge fan of cats.  That is completely the opposite of my lovely fiancee, who has yet to see a cat that hasn't made her go "awwwh," and want to bring it into her life.  This might not be so bad if she were, say, blind.  Or if, say, we could own two houses, one for the cats and one for me.  But neither is the case, and much in the same way attractive women in a bar can key on the one guy who's happily in a relationship as 'safe' and taunt him mercilessly with cleavage shots and innuendo (my lovely fiancee will be happy to know I don't go into bars anymore), cats from all over seem to notice that she's a cat-lover and do everything but molest her to get her to notice them.  It's like premeditated sluttery wrapped up in a furry coat.

My lovely fiancee can't help but fall for it, unfortunately.  She likes sites like LOLCats and I Can Has Cheezeburger, which are known for cutesy/humorous/saccharinney pictures of cats in cutesy/humorous/saccharinney situations.  I cannot fault her for this.  I would probably like both those sites if it weren't for A) the broken, butchered and massacred English that masquerades as 'cute' when it is actually what many 5th grade Language Arts tests look like, and B) the cats.

Almost every writer I know is all "How can you not like cats?! They're so independent, and aloof, and mysterious, and spunky, and playful, and insert-adjective-that-I-would-use-to-describe-a-heroine-in-my-novel!" And there is a very simple answer: I tolerate cats, sort of the same way I tolerate ebola viruses: I know they're out there, and generally I hope never to be exposed to them, but I realize if I do, it'll probably be something I have no control over, anyway.  And I can objectively admit that as creatures, they have a sort of regal air to them that's lacking in dogs.  Of course, that just means they're arrogant, aristocratic, and have a sense of entitlement.... so it's a bit like having a rich New England politician for a pet.   

What some people see as independence and aloof... ness, I simply see as a propensity not to give a flying fook what their owners say.  Cats will climb up on anything, no matter whether they've been "trained" otherwise or not (and whether that training has come with a gentle "shooshoo," with a super-soaker, or with my personal preference, a taser).  They'll jump onto furniture after you've shooed them away.  They'll jump on the TV.  They'll climb onto your food prep table.  They'll sit on your stove.  It is honestly a miracle of no small proportions that they even use a litter box.  They will happily follow whoever gives them food.  If an axe-murderer chopped our family up into bite-size pieces, but gave the cat a can of tuna, the cat would be happy and content and probably would follow the axe-murderer to his next few stops before the electric chair.  (And before the calls of "Cat Hater!" start, let me say that if children shat in my inkjet printer, scratched up my copies of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and sprayed in my briefcase, I would hate children, too.)

So people would very likely assume I'm a dog person.  Yes, but not so much, really.  Dogs are too much work.  You have to let them out to go shit in the yard, then you have to clean it up unless you're really keen on stepping into it later.  And while they can dissuade burglars, they require a small metric assload of space, and most of them are dumb as a sack of hammers.  They do love you unconditionally, however, which is a huge step up from cats, who love you only as long as it suits their purposes to do so. But no, I'm not a big dog fan.

Personally, I prefer fish.  They're quiet, unassuming, calming, and excited to see you when you come near them.  They require very little food and no personal contact, and they won't move out of the area in your home that you set aside for them.  When they go to the bathroom, it won't be on anything of yours.  And what's more, when they inevitably kick off, they aren't all that hard to get rid of.

And they don't like cats.  Which makes them pretty damned intelligent in my book.

Medicated

It's a big day for me today.  And that's sort of odd, because it's not as though it's some great anniversary or birthday or anything.  At least, that I'm aware of.  Given the size of our family and my newness at being a true significant other, it is entirely possible that I have forgotten an event of some sort and royally pissed someone off with that last statement.  I tend to do that.   (As an aside, in case you didn't know, our family is big.  At family gatherings, you are a small voice in a cacophony of laughs, stories and contentious points being made.   The chances of you being able to carry on a legitimate conversation at one is somewhere near the chances of you being able to hear a pin drop on a busy airport runway.)

No, it's not a special day just because it's the second day of this blog, either.  (On another tangent, I did not even realize that I started this blog on the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination.  Some folks that are smarter than me would probably say there's some sort of ironic symmetry about that, I'd imagine.  But they can make those sorts of leaps in eclectic thought-- that's why they get paid to write, while I get paid to never fully understand how a largely-automated job can possibly be so difficult for so many people.)

Nope, today is the day that I take step two in my plan to get myself back to being the creative force I used to be.  And this might be the most difficult one, too.  Today I go see my doctor and I talk to him about Viagra.

Oh, shit.  You mean that doesn't expand your mind, too?  Well, that's  a big "fuck me on stilts".

Actually, I'm going to see him about seeing what sort of medication we can put me on that will keep away this anxious, oppressing gloom of depression without turning me into either A) a completely unproductive drooling vegetable or B) a bubbly flower girl named Rainbow Jubilee.  Cause God knows, A) I am already desperately close to being a drooling vegetable; my weekends are largely filled with watching the wall of my room and wondering if I can change paint colors with my mind rather than doing something constructive like... maybe writing, or maybe art, and B) my lovely fiancee will probably stake me through the heart with a digital tablet stylus if I start singing how the hills are alive with the Sound of Music or some crap like that.  

But, you know, even with my insurance, there's like a $25 co-pay at the doctor's office.  Maybe I should just load up.  You know, how you try to get all the preventative maintenance done when you get your oil changed, or buy all your Christmas gifts in one run to keep your trips down?  Maybe I ought to look at this as an opportunity.  Buy one procedure, get one free.   "Yeah, I'm really happy we can get me set up for Wellbutrin, doctor.  I'm also having a little trouble sleeping, I have muscle spasms at times, and you think it would be too much to ask to slap a couple inches on my pud while I'm here?"

Hell, maybe I could get a rain check on the buy-one-get-one so I can use it later, kinda a just-in-case for when we've finished up with the move.  That way, in case I strain my vertebrae lifting the couch; or find after the fact that I have an allergy to cats, ferrets, or married life; or we decide the vasectomy honestly cannot wait for a few months, I can take advantage of it then rather than waiting for a big sale when I have to buy it with a six pack of Darvocet or Propecia.

Or maybe I'll just deal with one issue at a time.   Someone once told me that dealing with one problem at a time rather than a dozen was a good way to keep the anxieties away.   Course, maybe if I listened to them a lot more, I wouldn't be in the sort of situation where I needed to see a doctor to get my creative mojo back in the first place.

What Is This, Anyway?

So, this is one thing that I never figured I'd do...  Blog, I mean.  

See.  It's like this.  I had this preconception of blogs, rightly or wrongly.   I figured, by and large, blogs were generally for Reasonably Successful People in Media Fields Who Had Time on their Hands.  Authors, for instance.  Comic Book Creators.  Sports Columnists.  Not-Quite-Feature Reporters.   Or if the writers weren't successful, they fell into one of three easily classifiable bins: people with political agendas and needs to bash any party that wasn't theirs, thirty year-old geeks living in their moms' basements with an undying need to point out inconsistencies in superhero movies, and wannabe journalists in a culture that is otherwise laughing at journalism as a dead field.

I don't really fall into any of the three.  What I am, is lost. 

Eight years ago, I was... well, younger, for one thing.  But I was productive.  Constantly.  Daily.  Hourly.  I would sit there at the desk, a liter of Mountain Dew on one side of me, some sort of music blaring through my speakers-- depending on my mood, it could have been anything from Saint-Saëns to Scatterbrain to Styx-- and ashtray full of half-finished cigarettes accompanying the lit one in my hand, and I would write.   I worked an overnight shift doing security, and it required about half a brain to work the job, and the rest I could focus on writing about anything.  For hours.  Seriously, I could sit there, take any subject and say, "Three pages, write about X, go."  And by the end of the night (hell, most of the time, four hours into the night), there would be three pages of freshly steaming prose that would hurt your fingers to touch because it was so fucking sharp.  My bullshit was a worthwhile read.  I'm not trying to put on airs by saying that; I had people tell me that I needed to get myself published.

And then something happened.  The job went away, naturally-- any job you only have to expend half a brain on isn't going to pay you great cash. And I started taking Chantix to quit smoking because the cost of cigarettes was getting too high, and the health benefits of stopping were  worthwhile (I suppose they were, at least.  I mean, you do a lot more writing if you're not kinda dead.  But no one can ever tell me that my taking Chantix and stopping smoking wasn't the beginning of the end for me).  But that wasn't wholly it.  Somewhere along that time... I lost something.  Something important.  Something vital. 

When I was younger, there was a great need for me to tell stories.  There was an all-encompassing need to write.  It was like this great violent animal fury that built up inside me until I wrote to sate it-- kind of like a sexual crescendo, only without the Catholic guilt afterward.   I just needed to churn out prose, and I wrote like I wouldn't have my next meal if I didn't.  I constantly made the joke that at 50 I had every intention of stepping out in front of a bus, so I damned well needed to have all my good work out by then.  I was writing with desperation.  And, goddammit, it worked. 

Since then, I've lost that.  Maybe it's because I'm looking more at my health with the frailty of a nearly forty-year old than with the frivolity of a young man (one, in fact, who used to do double-shot coffees and ephedrine and smirk at the way he could hear his heart pounding through his eardrums.)  Maybe it's because there's more planned in my head for the future than living for the moment.  Maybe it's because I was so ingrained to music, Dew and smokes that once one was taken away, it killed all my creativity.  Maybe it's because the drugs nowadays just aren't as good.  It's really hard to say.  But I need to be able to write again.  And that's the reason this blog's around.  To get myself back to writing, like the title says, with desperation.

A quick note before I go this morning.  I listed this as an Adult Blog, not because I expect to be posting naked pictures or anything-- I sense sighs of relief from a lot of prospective readers on that one-- but because I really don't want to censor my thoughts, and my thoughts are usually teeming with profanities.  Also, to those of you I call out (and I'm sure I will call you out; this is a personal, subjective blog, after all, so you can sort of expect rampant opinion), try not to take it too hard... Blogger is available to anyone, so you can feel free to make a blog about what an ass I am, too.

L8.