Being Sick And Alone

...you know, as I typed the words of the title to this post, I realized that No, I don't think I'm going to go forward with my original intentions, which were to bitch and whine (under the auspices of some kind of objective commentary on the human condition) about how bleak one's outlook becomes when one is truly sick (I've had the nastiest case of the flu I can remember ever suffering through) and truly alone (as in, not only do I live alone, but I am completely geographically isolated from anyone upon whom I could call for aid/comfort)--but you know what? It's one thing to feel whiny; it's another to be whiny.

The former is tolerable--I mean, come on, when the alarm clock goes off on a work day, we all give a little moan of 'why me', and that happens five days a week!--self-pity is a universal condition, and that's natural enough. We're the occupants of our own minds, so everything that happens, happens only insofar as it happens to us, in whatever way we choose to let it do so. So feeling whiny? No shame in that. But that's precisely why being whiny is so repulsive. If everyone feels whiny, but few of us express it, then those who do are just claiming--unfairly and selfishly and childishly--that their problems are somehow more important than everyone else's. Bulls***. Carry your load, deal with your problems, and save your complaints for when the combine rips your arm off (metaphorically speaking, though literally would also constitute just cause)--then you get to complain. (Either that, or do what I do and get yourself to a shrink, who at least gets paid to have to sit through your snivelling crap.)

So I'll just wrap this up by saying that since what I'm emotionally and intellectually preoccupied with is various forms of self-pity and aggrievance, I don't have anything worth sharing--and I'll close with a stern lecture to readers that this is not a passive-aggressive ploy for sympathy or expressions of concern. (Though, God, wouldn't that just be so like me? I'm horrible...[grins]...) So hush, and focus on your own inner whiner. Poor little guy--you've been ignoring him for so long.

Post Trauma...

Well, I *was* going to talk about how I'd had a bad spell of depressive anxiety--prompted in large part by a debilitating cold and the fact that certain medications I'm already taking do not interact well with what I took to ease my nasal discomfort--for Chrissakes, they could hear my heart beating three townships away, and the side-effects listed on the package should include "Overwhelming Conviction That The Apocalypse Is Only Moments Away"--and had come out of it with flying colors, but no. I wanted to. But no.

As of this afternoon, I was settling into enjoying the remainder of my spring break--I really was feeling better--at worst, I was a little bored, which isn't the worst state to be in. (That honor goes to "Alabama in the summertime right after a white woman has claimed that a black stranger raped her child.") But then...

OK, now, look: I get basic cable, but not any of the pay stations, and staying here with my parents, who *do*, I'm reminded why: some f*cking thing called DATE MOVIE was on--part of that whole "It's not a Wayans Brothers' Movie, but we'll try to make it just as inconceivably sh*tty" generation of movies that 'satirize' movies that don't take themselves seriously to begin with, and therefore render 'satire' unnecessary and moronic. I watched it...why? Well, it had Alyson Hannigan in it, whom I used to have tender and fuzzy thoughts about back when she was on BUFFY. (Until Eliza Dushku showed up. Then it was like "Alyson who? Stop blocking the view to the badass hottie, red!") But I still had fond memories of Willow. No longer. Now I just want to figure out how I can claw my eyeballs out of my skull, replace them with Hiroshima-strength cherry bombs, light the fuses and blow my f*cking head off rather than have one single moment of that...THING that calls itself a movie playing through my head.

Seriously, if the closing credits had been the video from The Ring, I would have welcomed that scary girl coming to kill me with open arms and a smile. Sweet merciful Lord--who clearly does not exist, since He allowed this abortion to live--there are people who find that film and things like it funny. Genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny. Now, I know I shouldn't judge, or preach, or judge in a preachy way, or condescend, but you know what? F*CK. THAT. This was, to paraphrase the great Colbert, a terrible movie, and they are terrible people for having made it for terrible people who enjoyed it, and if a meteor DOES come and wipe us all off the f*cking planet, we will have deserved it richly for allowing such people and their MINDLESS appetite for toxic swill to live among us, breed, and vote.

It just wasn't very good, is what I'm saying.

Now I have to go and practice my coping mechanism of listing 10 good reasons why life is worth living. I'm up to 2, and they both involve the possibility of Scarlett Johansson getting naked, so I'm a little worried...

It Continues to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I think I may have discovered the first crack in the facade of Midwestern sanity. I've taken up, as I mentioned before, walking to school, and thus pass through a residential area that could only be described as 'Norman Rockwell quaint'--the clean, friendly architecture of houses built in a similar style, but with enough distinction to show that they weren't cranked out by a McContracting Firm. Nice lawns, well kept. (Invisible now beneath the snow, but the sidewalks are shovelled with a diligence that predicts regular mowing come summer.) One can imagine lemonade stands and games of catch. There's very little irony here--which doesn't make these people rubes by any means. Quite the contrary--the people that I've spoken with have shown a fine taste for genial sarcasm and self-deprecation. But irony doesn't exist as an automatic reaction to everything, as it does in SoCal--the people here seem to recognize that genuine experience--the enjoyment of simple pleasures--is actually preferable to mocking them out of hand. It's very...well, provincially European of them, and that's high praise.

But.

But it's March. March. And as I walk by these houses, with their large front windows, always with the shades thrown open (there's a delightfully unsecretive quality to life here), I can see...Christmas trees. And wreaths on the doors. Still. In March. Not in every one, to be sure, but in about 1 out of 5, which is definitely a pattern as you walk through the neighborhood. And it's, frankly, a little bit creepy.

Now, we've all lived on the street with the guy who never seems to take down his Christmas lights--he leaves them on well into January because it's still 'the holidays', and the Febrary and March pass, and he realizes that if he can just hold out to July, he'll be close enough to December to say "F*** it" and leave them up. We know this guy. We sneer at him, because we know that he's a lazy buffoon.

These people--are not this guy. Because, as I say, they're not lazy. (Shovelled snow and mowed lawns, remember?) They're diligent. Which means...which means that these people are choosing to keep the Christmas stuff up. Even though it's March. March. I can't quite fathom this. I can't think why--is it denial? Surely not--these are the nation's pragmatists! Is it some way of coping with the miserable weather--dressing it up as 'festive' rather than bleak? Maybe, but again, that seems delusional. I don't get it. And some part of me doesn't want to get it. For the first time since I've come here, I've recognized a cultural habit that is, in fact, genuinely weird. Not menacing, just weird. And it's got me pondering--I thought I was getting a handle on this place, but now...now I don't know...