Always Look On The Bright Side of Life

When I'm in one of my deepest of deepest pits of depression, it's fucking hard, if not damn near impossible, to look at the bright side of life. I fell into one of those fucking pits over the weekend. Too much shit hit the proverbial fan, while tearing away at me like I was made of third grade toilet tissue. Normally, I'm fine with one crappy event dropping down on top of me like a two ton load of elephant dung. But not too fine when a succession of things hit me from all directions.

So this is what I have to do:

I have to step back, find a quiet place and muster all of my inner strength to find peace. Once I find that peace, I can clear my mind. Once I've done that, I can put things in their proper perspective. When I've achieved this, I can take it one step at a time and eventually recover from any bad feelings and work on the problem at hand. It's either that or go on a killing spree or worse.

When a string of bad to horrible happenstances keep pummeling you to the ground, so to speak, it's best that you try to step back inside your mind, maybe laugh at the sheer insanity of life and people in this world and attempt to realize you only have this one life to live and things may not be as bad as they seem.

That is, unless you're locked up somewhere with a lunatic who is cutting off your body parts, piece by piece. Then you're pretty much screwed.

In most cases, however, it is possible to find something to give you peace of mind, no matter how bleak things seem to be. Even if you can't always look on the bright side of life, you can, with inner persistence, find a glimmer of light in the dark woods of hopelessness. And once you find it, you'll find yourself at the beginning of a path leading to a life worth living again.

This video clip and scene from Life of Brian always makes me laugh. It's always been one of my favorite scenes from any movie. I mean, here they all are, being crucified on their crosses, yet they're singing this happy little ditty of a song. It's absurd, just like life and death are, if you think about it, yet they're all just whistling and singing away.

And why the hell not? It beats dwelling in the pits of depression. Play it and sing along, won't you?

Ending scene from the Monty Python movie, Life of Brian

Black Friday Stampedes

Ah, it's that time of year again. You can smell it in the air. Could that be Holiday Cheer?, you ask, naively. No, that isn't it Holiday Cheer, friends, neighbors and virtual pals o' mine. It the smell of huge corporations like Walmart and all the rest of the huge chains exercising their stranglehold on the public's addiction to material things with their horrific onslaught of Black Friday advertisements, urging everyone to cram into their store fronts and aisles, crushing one another during the annual American Consumer event.

There will be lines aplenty of the crazy, waiting outside the doors of these stores. Some idiots will be willing to stomp on a face or four to latch onto whatever they are getting a hard on (or if you're a woman- a wet on) for. Every year, it's on the news about someone getting crushed during the Black Friday event.

I really think it's a joke when some stores say they've taken the necessary steps to ensure public safety but they don't, really. A couple security guards at either store end isn't going to cut it. People will rush like rabid bulls. When I worked at Walmart for 3 years, all I could see that they were really making, instead of safety steps, were huge Christmas tree obstacles and sprawled out "consumer-unfriendly" displays of sale items to be put in the way of customers when they rushed. It's almost a guarantee that something stupid is going to happen.

Customers, overzealous and seething with madness to get a cheaper deal, will trample each other to get what they want. This is known, at least in America, as "Getting Into The Christmas Spirit".

Tomorrow morning, it is supposed to rain and snow around four in the morning. At that time, consumers will be lined up at the doors, colder than fuck and salivating at the chance to get their monkey paws on whatever shiny object will create euphoria for the moment. Could be the latest electronic whatchamicallit gadget. Could be a cheese grater/foot massager combination thingy. Who knows?

I think I'll get up in the morning just to get in the car, go to the stores and throw buckets of cold water on the lines and throngs of people. Couldn't be any worse than the usual "Christmas Spirit' exemplified.

Happy Holidays! Happy Spine Crushing! And don't forget to sodomize your fellow consumer with a broom handle for whatever it is you want at the store! Or bash in their skulls with a pretty snow globe with Santa in the center! Your choice. Spread the Holiday Cheer!

A Typical, But Not Completely, Typical Day

I woke up, today, around 11:00, after about fours of sleep. Seems like I can't sleep any longer than that, lately, without waking up from some strange dream. They're mostly "guilt dreams". I'm only theorizing about that. But I guess I've been burying my conscious and it only escapes during my sleep. This beast has been having it's fun with me for the past month and IT is getting mighty annoying.

Pop goes the nasty shit! It's running out of my mind's door! Unfortunately, it's still in my sleepy head, where it stays trapped. Fuckin' guilt! I liked it better when I didn't dream. A decent sex dream would be welcome, for certain.

When I'm awake, I don't think about anything "I believe" I've done wrong. Normally. But, like the therapist pointed out during one session several years ago... He said I persecute myself and think I deserve punishment for things I've said or have done towards people. He also said that I seem to have the tendency to formulate it in my head like whatever I said or did- to be blown out of proportion. He based it on things I had said, when I was around this or that person, from other sessions.

Makes sense. So now the shitty goop of misplaced or unwarranted guilt is popping up in my dreams. Ah, how nice. But I'm going to confront it head on and admit that I'm not that bad a person and carry on... Even if it takes a hammer to my head to knock the evil goop out my ears. I can't afford therapy at the moment, so I'm going to do battle with my stupid brain, by myself. Like Homer Simpson, I'm going to give it a good talking to and tell it who's boss. If that doesn't work, it's HAMMER TIME, baby.

As I was saying, I woke up, made coffee, petted the cat and put two Bacon and Cheese Hot Pockets in the microwave. Soon enough, I ate them and played my messages on the answering machine. One was from the wifey, telling me she made it to work alright. Good. Next, was the receptionist from my doctor's office. She was letting me know that my insulin pens for my diabetes came in from the patient assistance program. Definitely good news. They had messed up the order of insulin last time and if I hadn't caught that it was the wrong stuff-- when I picked it up from the doctor's office, I could have taken it home, injected it into myself and.... Who knows?

After that, I showered, made supper for later tonight and got my clothes on. That's right! I was cooking in the nude! Excited? No? Alrighty then. Anyway, while I was managing to cook up some Tuna Helper, the cat started going nuts when he smelled the tuna cans I was opening. He kept leaping on my legs as the cans slowly turned round and round the electric can opener. At one point, I thought he was going to strike at my lopsided nutsack and rip into it. Then my precious jelly beans would fall out! Then I would feel blue. My solution is to give him a can of Fancy Feast cat food in a can. It's something we give him as a treat, once in awhile. It says on the can that it is Whitefish and Tuna flavored. Ah ha... That will fool him, I think, patting myself on the back.

I set the bowl of juicy, succulent cat food down on the floor (are you as horny as I am?) and he eats it like a little piggy. His normal bowl of cat food is sitting there, halfway full, next to the water bowl. He's a spoiled little bastard. But then I feel sorry for him because he is our only "child" now. Mufasa, our eldest cat, died, recently. We only have Victor now. He's loving and playful and lonely. We plan on getting him a playmate after Christmas. It's too hectic these days and it takes patience to train a kitten, which is what we'll be looking for when the time comes. No pound kitties, though. We had extremely bad luck with that. That was years ago. Max the Cat was his name and shitting behind and beneath megaton furniture, for no good reason, was his game. Sometimes we didn't find his piss and shit surprises until it was too late. Almost needless to say, Max was returned before I could kill him. We gave him four weeks too many. If I wanted to clean up shit for longer than four weeks, I would have had a friggin' kid. No thanks. There's already enough breeders in this world as it is. Many of them aren't equipped with enough brains or conscious to do battle with themselves.

But, on the same token, responsible parents are just as easy to spot.

I say we give the rotten adults an abortion. Or... Any more than two kids, then you have to give up your genitals. Sorry. Rules are rules and we know how humans love their rules. Lap dog, over breeding imbeciles that don't put on their turn signal when they're changing lanes, by damned it! What was I talking about? Damn those voices in my head.

Immediately, when I finished cooking, I got dressed, brushed my teeth, put on my jacket and hat and out the door I went. I went to doctor's office to pick up the insulin pens, went to the grocery store to pick up lunch meat and bread, went to get monetarily raped at the gas station where the gas is currently at $2.85 a gallon and then I went back home. I checked to see if they got my insulin order right this time. They did! Jackpot! I get to live a couple more months. Hooray. And stuff. After putting everything away, I got back in the truck and drove to the park, with haste.

I had to get my daily park walking done in a hurry. It would be dark soon and wifey was going to be home in a half hour. I try to be there for her so I can be a good husband and not get a beating with the baseball bat. I'm so abused. OK. I might be exaggerating just a little. But she does confide in me that she would like to cut my dick off while I'm asleep. But strangely, that's not why I have trouble sleeping at night. By the way, I laugh when she says such things because I threaten to twist her nipple off now and then. It's like an ongoing comedy routine we have going on. 21 years. Quite healthy.

So off to the park I go. The first person I see is the guy by the athletics supply building. This building sits close to the tennis court that is hardly used and still looks new and the basketball court, nearby, that is the same way. The guy, I'm guessing, is the guy who takes care of supplying the athletes with enough balls and stuff to do their thing. The door was open, obviously, with a key. He looked at me, giving off a little vibe of nervousness. Maybe I imagined it.

All I've ever seen, as far as any games being played at the park, is two Pee Wee football games attended by millions of crazed parents and the other times when a couple kids were playing a few basketball games. Anybody else you see in that park are walkers, runners, people trying to fish at a lake without fish and the park employees. Maybe once a week, you'll see a cop car run through the park. If you wanted to, you could probably get away with fucking, sucking, fisting, lickin' the va-jay-jay and other horseplay down at the large gazebo by the lake without too much trouble. Party time.

Anyway, the supply guy at the building says, ""It's getting colder out here."

I say, "Yeah, it is."

Hell, I don't know what else to say. Supply Guy didn't give me much to work with. By the way, it was getting colder. It was about 45 degrees Fahrenheit at the time. For the rest of you, in other countries, I have no idea what that is in Celsius. I won't check, either, because I'm American and don't give a shit. I think that's the American Way. The metric system can go fuck itself, too. The last person who tried to teach me the metric system was a nun from the parochial school I attended. I rammed a pencil in her eye. Not to worry, though. It was a No. 2 Pencil. And she cried out, "Praise da Lawd!"

After walking the usual path, I find a second person. He is walking toward me from the other direction. He looks like he could be crazy. He's wearing a grey coat with a black sock cap on his head. So I nod to him and do what most folks do in that situation. I say, "Hi.", without really looking at him. He does nothing but nod his head, not wanting to be bothered by my evil, intrusive greetings and keep his hands in his pockets. I wonder if he's hiding Barbie Doll heads in his pockets. Then I wonder if they still have the bathrooms locked or unlocked up ahead in the yellow building. I have problems with my butt. It likes to shit. Although I'm not at the stage of routine adult diaper wear, I have had an accident at the park because they will lock them when it gets closer to winter. During that accident, it was so cold... The turds froze to my leg underneath my pants. Talk about feeling blue... and brown.

When I got home, I was able to shake a leg to pop the turdcicles from the very bottoms of my pants legs.

Minutes go by during my walk now. I have to stop every five to ten minutes because of my foot conditions. I have inoperable 2 and a half inch heel spurs (my feet have been X-rayed so many times, I lost count) and equinus deformity on both feet. The heel spurs have connected to the rest of the bones in my footsies. It's like walking on railroad spikes with misshapen, unbalanced feet. I've tried everything so spare me the advice that I've heard a billion times. Thanks, anyway, stranger. I've done my time with the fancy insoles, shoes and whatever. I've had almost thirty years of experience with it. But I force myself to walk short distances, anyway, because I still need to exercise. It's called perseverance, people. I was going to the gym almost every day for a year and a half and lost thirty pounds but that routine got fucked up during the continuous moving fiasco with my dad's old place that lasted 6 weeks. Now, I'm just trying to keep up with my walking routine.

Regardless, I see a couple walking their pet dog. It has a pink outfit on. I restrain myself from killing the couple. I smile, then say, "Hi. How are you tonight?" They say something back but it doesn't matter. I'm not listening. I'm still thinking of the poor dog in the pink cowboy outfit. As I walk further, I wonder if it's too late to limp back and bash the couple in their heads, thus freeing the dog. Then I think, Well the next thing to happen, if successful, would be the dog rewarding me, with it's rescue of it, by biting a finger off from my hand and taking my nose off my face. Oh well. I keep walking. No good deed goes unpunished. This has always been especially true, in my experience.

In conclusion, I struggle through the rest of my walk, make it home in time before the wife, serve her and I supper and watch a couple shows that we pre-recorded the night before. We talk for awhile. My wife goes to bed early. She's tired. It's getting busier where she works. And now, I'm typing on this keyboard and telling you I'm about to sign off. Who knows? I may come to your blog and leave a comment. Ah, can you feel the excitement?

Behold! You are at the end of this journey I took you on, brave soldier. You must celebrate by flagellating yourself. Or by fixing yourself a hot cup of coffee. Your choice. I won't peek.