thankiN'

Of course it all comes down to one little thing:  to know that you matter.  

Funny.  I've been told that I don't matter in so many ways, on so many occasions, that you'd think I'd have gotten the message, curled up, died, and blown away long ago.  But I guess not.  One of the images that keeps cropping up in my writing is of the man who is spiritually and emotionally dead, but keeps on walking.  That could be seen as brave.  It could also be seen as stupid.  When should you give up?  Certainly there is a point at which perseverance is just a pretext for masochism, right?

But there's some stubbornness inside of me, some idiot savant whose sole talent is to get back up again.  

My inner child is Cool Hand Luke.  

There have been many times when women have treated me like shit.  There have been many times when friends have ignored my pleas for help or even just attention.  There have been countless times when strangers or bare acquaintances have done their damndest to cause me pain.  And don't even get me started on (most, not all) of my  former students.  Just picture an Atlantic Basin-sized crater filled with two-hundred pound infants, all squalling and heaving handfuls of their own feces at you 24/7, 365 1/4th, and you've pretty much got that one covered.

I have come to conclude that this world is mostly comprised of shit, and that there is almost no possibility of living a life with any meaning, dignity, or value.

And then I take a deep breath and I make a joke about something that is actually quite horrible, and I laugh at my own joke.

"Is the ocean supposed to be on fire?"

&

maybe it all comes down to one gigantic, echoing thought, a thought so powerful that it is ever resurgent in my psyche, a thought which cannot be drowned, poisoned, hung, burnt, freeze-dried, evaporated, or scattered:

Fuck 'em.

Just

FUCK 'EM.

'CAUSE I AIN'T GONNA BE NO SQUAREHEAD.

Anger mAnAgement

Living as a single parent of two autistic kids is no piece of cake . . . especially when one of them wakes up pissing at the moon EVery goddamned day.  I love those kids (and Jimmy) more than anything else in the world.  There is almost nothing I wouldn't do for them.  But there are times when I think that blood is just going to spurt out of my ears.  Like this morning.  Things started off well. I told Jacqueline we were going to take Francis (Pantsis) to Kentucky Kingdom and let her ride the roller coaster, then showed her what FP would look like in that situation:

And she laughed one of her big hearty laughs and all was well with the world.  For about 5 fuckin' minutes. And then she was slamming doors and screaming, and of course Joe, superego of East Louisville, had to weigh in, so he was shouting,  and it was downhill with the Jamaican bobsled team after that.  Now Jacqueline is in her room, quiet save for an occasional "Oh, my GOD!" And Joe is at his computer looking sullen and wounded, and me?  I'm just sitting here at the dock of the bay, watching "Baby Ruth" bars bobbing by.

Jung ameriCANs

"It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts."  

Carl Gustav Jung

Well, I'm just a modern guy.  (Of course I've had it in the ear before.)  So I've got your standard 20th / 21st (as if there's a difference) century slovenly attitude towards good & evil, and am loath to think of people or groups of people as "wicked," no matter how despicable they are.  But--perhaps because of those formative K through 6th grade years spent in Emmanuel Christian Day School, every little once in awhile "it" rears up with me.  I think the death penalty is barbaric, ineffective, & idiotic. But show me a person who has intentionally hurt and / or killed a child and I'm opening the refrigerator & looking for a pat of butter, cause I want to fry that son of a bitch my damn self.  

And reading this Jung quote just made me think, "Why do we panty-waist, whiney-assed liberals allow conservatives to call dibs on the moral high ground?  Well, because things are so complicated, right? Bullshit.  You can make things complicated by focusing on the less important aspects of an issue, but that's an intellectual problem, not a moral one.  So the guy who tortured and killed an innocent child had a hellish childhood?  That's terrible, and my heart sincerely aches for him and I wish it were possible to find justice and spiritual & emotional restitution for him.  But (1) that's not possible &  (2) it's not the most important aspect of this situation.  He tortured & killed a kid.  He either spends the rest of his life in jail or he gets fried.  If the latter, it doesn't matter if the death penalty has no deterrent value. What matters is that THIS son of a bitch will never do it again.  End of story.

I've often wondered how anyone with a semi-functional brain can align themselves with the Republican Party.  But just for now, it seems clear to me: they're tired of Democrats, who seem like complete pussies.  They'd rather be wrong about every single goddamned issue--they'd even rather vote against their own interests --than saddle up and ride with the Pussy Patrol.  Which is really stoopid . . . but understandable.

So come on, liberals.  Wicked is wicked, and it's a contagious disease.  Grow some balls & deal with it.