TAKING A DUMP
As I wrote in my first blog, I believe that we all live in our own worlds, governed by our own rules based on our experiences. In mine, one of the rules I've tried to adhere to is not to invite unwanted guests. Now, by "guest", I'm talking about anything, and last weekend I broke that rule. If you're feeling good, and want to stay that way, it's probably NOT a good idea to spend a lot of time thinking of your most embarrassing moments.
Last Friday sucked, not because anything particularly bad happened, but after I wrote my blog I felt like a complete loser. A feeling only amplified after I spoke with a co-worker, sharing my deepest insecurities, instead of projecting a shield of confidence like I (and most men) usually do. By the time I left work, and was on my way home, not even my Best of Idol CD could get me out from under my dark cloud. And when I arrived home, I was ready to binge my blues away.
The next day, I was exhausted. Worn out from looking after my infant son all night, ashamed of myself for succumbing to my "old" eating habits, and getting pissed that I missed an episode of THE BATMAN, did nothing to alleviate my depression, so I sank deeper. My wife was up, tired, but ready to go and finally do our Christmas shopping. This only brought up more feelings of inadequacy because of our limited budget this year; the thought of having to settle for the cheapest price bugged me. Going to the "ghetto mall" instead of the high class malls in Santa Monica and Century City made me feel poorer than shit. I'm not even going to go into my continuing problems with my self-image, I spent years just accepting that I'm African American, but there are times when I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, trying not end up on the corner of Crenshaw and 54th street, sitting on a box, drinking Cobra and talking shit about "Mighty Whitey". That, and I had went off my diet most of the year, gained significant weight, and now most of my clothes are uncomfortable...well, at that point, I just wanted to die.
I packed the kids in the car and off we went to my mother's, where we'd drop off my oldest and make for the "Nigga World" mall. Then the “cherry of my day” happened, I heard a loud clacking sound, smelt something burning, saw small faint streams of smoke coming from my hood, and checked the gauges to see my car was overheating. Great. Car was fine last night; gauges were all in the green, NOW it’s overheating.
One stroke of luck, or so I thought, was this happened across from a Sears' Automotive Center. So against my judgment to move the car, but with no other choice, I drove to Sears. But wait, they don't do radiator work. They do practically everything else, BUT radiators.
It's a Saturday morning, the sun is out, it's hot, I've got my wife and kids in a car parked outside Sears’ Automotive, I'm pissed, depressed, and can't seem to think straight. Then something else happens to make matters all the worse...I notice that people are looking at me. This is bad. I have, or think I have, social anxiety disorder. There are situations where I can deal with it, but negative or embarrassing circumstances are when it's really bad. And when your primary physical reaction to stress is an increase of body temp that results in profuse sweating things can get bad real quick.
The Sears’ mechanic told me of a Pep Boy's down the street, and he’d let me use their water hose to fill my radiator and get me there. I thought my luck was changing, until I started the car and it shut down on me. I called my mother, not because I'm a “momma's boy”, but it's her car (1 of 2), she has Triple A, I needed a tow, and I should let her know what I'm about to do with her property. She flipped on me, blamed me, said she was on her way, called the tow truck who arrived before she did, the car was half-loaded when she made the guy take it down because she continued until we finally had the car towed to a small mechanic nearby.
At this point, I'm wondered to myself - what are my wife's odds of divorcing me and meeting a rich man who’d take care of her and the kids and give them everything they deserve, because I'm headed for the gutter and I don't want to drag them with me.
At the mechanic, my mother tried to get a deal with the owner because he’s Korean, thinking that, because my wife is Korean, I'm now the member of some secret Korean discount club. And I explained to her, that the last thing she should do to get on this guy's good side, is tell him that a black man has "fouled" a Korean woman and "spawned" two kids.
The mechanic was cool, busted out some numbers, cut me a break on the labor, and gave me an estimate. It's good, real good in fact, and any other day I would have the cash in a heartbeat. But it's the holidays - I have a new addition to my family, I'm drowning in the costs for diapers, wipes, bottles, formula, not to mention food for the wife and daughter, and Christmas presents.
It was toss up, pay for the car to get fixed and cancel Christmas for my kids or....
So, I took the bus yesterday, and I'm going over the last few days in my head. I'm spent, I got nothing left, I'm so down, but I put on a good front for my kid who’s with me. We get home, I kicked up my feet, and for some reason I get the itch to watch the supplemental material from LOTR: The Return of the King (extended edition). The first thing they did was talked about Tolkien, and they mentioned how he believed in the idea of "Happily Ever After...". That the light ALWAYS follows dark times, and how that's missing from modern fiction. Life is this constant revolution from good to bad and that no matter how dark it gets, the light will come eventually, and THAT is your ending.
There's something cathartic about depression, like taking a big dump. You're all..."stuffed up", and sick with yourself because you've eaten too much. You're stomach is protruding, you're pants are so tight it’s biting into your skin, and you wonder why you can't just stop eating. And then you take a dump, you're stomach goes down, you're pants get a loose and you even lose a few pounds (especially in the morning). You cut yourself some slack, forgive yourself for being weak, and begin again. I sat there last night, looking at the supplemental, and beginning to see that no matter how things were bad this year, they would get better after the holidays. My wallet would loosen up, as temptation is removed I'd be able to fortify my will power and eat better, and despite gaining weight, I'm not even close to where I was before. And, I'd have the money for the car and be driving again in a few weeks. Things weren't as bad as I thought.
In regards to my writing, I was coming full circle. I first had no idea what I should do with my life, then I believed that I had this innate ability to write and I would automatically become a success, then I learned that I wasn't so great and anyone could do it, and do it better than me. Now, I question if I was destined to write one story, a story I've worked on for nine years, because no matter what I do, I always come back to it. I see it in everything, or it's so classical, that it's a part of everything, and it continues to develop as I do, whether I actually work on it or not.
I won't go into my flights of fantasy; I've embarrassed myself enough, and don't want to invite any more. And my friends will get a big earful in the next few days, so they don't need to read it here. But, while I'm not 100%, I am feeling better. I'm riding the storm, and I can see the crest of a new dawn on the horizon. My children are healthy, my wife loves me (and she proves it everyday, believe me), my friends have my back – no matter how many reasons they have to abandon me, and my writing...my writing continues to be the angel on my shoulder, giving me hope for the future.
JPG.
PS...For all those not in the know, get your assess to
http://progressive.stream.aol.com/aol/us/moviefone/movies/2004/sincity_019736/sincity_trlr_01_dl.mov
to see the trailer for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's SIN CITY, coming in April 2005 (Here comes the sun)!
Last Friday sucked, not because anything particularly bad happened, but after I wrote my blog I felt like a complete loser. A feeling only amplified after I spoke with a co-worker, sharing my deepest insecurities, instead of projecting a shield of confidence like I (and most men) usually do. By the time I left work, and was on my way home, not even my Best of Idol CD could get me out from under my dark cloud. And when I arrived home, I was ready to binge my blues away.
The next day, I was exhausted. Worn out from looking after my infant son all night, ashamed of myself for succumbing to my "old" eating habits, and getting pissed that I missed an episode of THE BATMAN, did nothing to alleviate my depression, so I sank deeper. My wife was up, tired, but ready to go and finally do our Christmas shopping. This only brought up more feelings of inadequacy because of our limited budget this year; the thought of having to settle for the cheapest price bugged me. Going to the "ghetto mall" instead of the high class malls in Santa Monica and Century City made me feel poorer than shit. I'm not even going to go into my continuing problems with my self-image, I spent years just accepting that I'm African American, but there are times when I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, trying not end up on the corner of Crenshaw and 54th street, sitting on a box, drinking Cobra and talking shit about "Mighty Whitey". That, and I had went off my diet most of the year, gained significant weight, and now most of my clothes are uncomfortable...well, at that point, I just wanted to die.
I packed the kids in the car and off we went to my mother's, where we'd drop off my oldest and make for the "Nigga World" mall. Then the “cherry of my day” happened, I heard a loud clacking sound, smelt something burning, saw small faint streams of smoke coming from my hood, and checked the gauges to see my car was overheating. Great. Car was fine last night; gauges were all in the green, NOW it’s overheating.
One stroke of luck, or so I thought, was this happened across from a Sears' Automotive Center. So against my judgment to move the car, but with no other choice, I drove to Sears. But wait, they don't do radiator work. They do practically everything else, BUT radiators.
It's a Saturday morning, the sun is out, it's hot, I've got my wife and kids in a car parked outside Sears’ Automotive, I'm pissed, depressed, and can't seem to think straight. Then something else happens to make matters all the worse...I notice that people are looking at me. This is bad. I have, or think I have, social anxiety disorder. There are situations where I can deal with it, but negative or embarrassing circumstances are when it's really bad. And when your primary physical reaction to stress is an increase of body temp that results in profuse sweating things can get bad real quick.
The Sears’ mechanic told me of a Pep Boy's down the street, and he’d let me use their water hose to fill my radiator and get me there. I thought my luck was changing, until I started the car and it shut down on me. I called my mother, not because I'm a “momma's boy”, but it's her car (1 of 2), she has Triple A, I needed a tow, and I should let her know what I'm about to do with her property. She flipped on me, blamed me, said she was on her way, called the tow truck who arrived before she did, the car was half-loaded when she made the guy take it down because she continued until we finally had the car towed to a small mechanic nearby.
At this point, I'm wondered to myself - what are my wife's odds of divorcing me and meeting a rich man who’d take care of her and the kids and give them everything they deserve, because I'm headed for the gutter and I don't want to drag them with me.
At the mechanic, my mother tried to get a deal with the owner because he’s Korean, thinking that, because my wife is Korean, I'm now the member of some secret Korean discount club. And I explained to her, that the last thing she should do to get on this guy's good side, is tell him that a black man has "fouled" a Korean woman and "spawned" two kids.
The mechanic was cool, busted out some numbers, cut me a break on the labor, and gave me an estimate. It's good, real good in fact, and any other day I would have the cash in a heartbeat. But it's the holidays - I have a new addition to my family, I'm drowning in the costs for diapers, wipes, bottles, formula, not to mention food for the wife and daughter, and Christmas presents.
It was toss up, pay for the car to get fixed and cancel Christmas for my kids or....
So, I took the bus yesterday, and I'm going over the last few days in my head. I'm spent, I got nothing left, I'm so down, but I put on a good front for my kid who’s with me. We get home, I kicked up my feet, and for some reason I get the itch to watch the supplemental material from LOTR: The Return of the King (extended edition). The first thing they did was talked about Tolkien, and they mentioned how he believed in the idea of "Happily Ever After...". That the light ALWAYS follows dark times, and how that's missing from modern fiction. Life is this constant revolution from good to bad and that no matter how dark it gets, the light will come eventually, and THAT is your ending.
There's something cathartic about depression, like taking a big dump. You're all..."stuffed up", and sick with yourself because you've eaten too much. You're stomach is protruding, you're pants are so tight it’s biting into your skin, and you wonder why you can't just stop eating. And then you take a dump, you're stomach goes down, you're pants get a loose and you even lose a few pounds (especially in the morning). You cut yourself some slack, forgive yourself for being weak, and begin again. I sat there last night, looking at the supplemental, and beginning to see that no matter how things were bad this year, they would get better after the holidays. My wallet would loosen up, as temptation is removed I'd be able to fortify my will power and eat better, and despite gaining weight, I'm not even close to where I was before. And, I'd have the money for the car and be driving again in a few weeks. Things weren't as bad as I thought.
In regards to my writing, I was coming full circle. I first had no idea what I should do with my life, then I believed that I had this innate ability to write and I would automatically become a success, then I learned that I wasn't so great and anyone could do it, and do it better than me. Now, I question if I was destined to write one story, a story I've worked on for nine years, because no matter what I do, I always come back to it. I see it in everything, or it's so classical, that it's a part of everything, and it continues to develop as I do, whether I actually work on it or not.
I won't go into my flights of fantasy; I've embarrassed myself enough, and don't want to invite any more. And my friends will get a big earful in the next few days, so they don't need to read it here. But, while I'm not 100%, I am feeling better. I'm riding the storm, and I can see the crest of a new dawn on the horizon. My children are healthy, my wife loves me (and she proves it everyday, believe me), my friends have my back – no matter how many reasons they have to abandon me, and my writing...my writing continues to be the angel on my shoulder, giving me hope for the future.
JPG.
PS...For all those not in the know, get your assess to
http://progressive.stream.aol.com/aol/us/moviefone/movies/2004/sincity_019736/sincity_trlr_01_dl.mov
to see the trailer for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's SIN CITY, coming in April 2005 (Here comes the sun)!
posted by QABBAL at 1:11 PM
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