Mental Health – On Second Thought

Meditations

I recently wrote about my morning ritual. Listening to new age music, consulting several books: Everyday Serenity by David Kundtz and 365 Tao Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao, among others. During those sixty minutes, my world is focused on words that inspire, challenge, and ask more questions than I ever thought I needed. This is my time. A meditation on one moment in my life. To begin the day aware. I am prepared to make every second count, even if that means doing something or just letting life pass by me by doing nothing. And I’m okay with that.

“No matter how much restriction civilization imposes on the individual, he nevertheless finds some way to circumvent it. Wit is the best safety valve modern man has evolved; the more civilization, the more repression, the more need there is for wit.”
“Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious” (1905) Sigmund Freud

I probably don’t laugh, tell, or listen to enough jokes. Or laugh at me enough. Be silly enough. Speak enough witty statements. Look at the world and scream laughter at how silly this all is. It’s shocking and laughable all at the same time. How foolish we are here in the United States of America, where the past is being exposed as untruth for some, and for others, the past is being revealed for its truth. Someone has been lying all the years I’ve been alive, or maybe they believe what they want to think. I should laugh about that more often because, in the end, I need to understand how all this will impact me at my age.

“Remember that you are always your own person. Do not surrender your mind, heart, or body to any person. Never compromise your dignity for any reason.”
“Youth” Page 239- 365 Tao Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao

I often tell myself I am a leader more than a follower, but I question that sometimes. I come across a piece of writing that grabs me, and I tell myself I would like to write like that. I read about a person who inspires me with a quick wit and charming charisma and is a famous writer, actor, or visual artist, and I’m like, “I wish I could be like them.” And I know that’s silly because I know that I have much to give and be, and I find those qualities endearing and with a certain amount of charisma and hell, I’ve made it this far without being successful at killing myself, and I think “That has to count for something.” It does. I know it does, so why do I sometimes think that’s insufficient? One is unsure of themselves because they have spent a good part of their adulthood (45 years to be exact) running away from themselves and smothering themselves with drugs and alcohol and fear and insecurity. Yet somehow, there were flashes of brilliance, genius, hard work, successful work, and play that didn’t involve unnatural stimulants, illusions, or delusions. Just naked me. Open to all possibilities.

“Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying “I’m not good at being a monk.” You are either living as a monk or you’re not.”
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

I dream of being an artist. And yet the truth is that all along, I know I am. I have been one since I first remember looking up at the clouds when I was very young and seeing people, animals, buildings, and plants in them. My imagination would run wild like a spinning merry-go-round that has come loose and is out of control—spinning faster and faster. It took me years to slow it down and realize that I was going around and around and seeing and being the same things. To change and strike a single path forward to open myself up to different views of life, different people, and truths that were opposite of the ones I believed for a long time. Being an artist allows me to immerse myself in life even when it often feels too much to take in at once, and I would drown, even if it was for a moment, three, or years.

These were the painful moments when I would shut myself down and be blind and unable to hear, speak, or feel. I didn’t want to feel anymore because it hurt. Deep down inside.

Now and then, a sliver of light would break through, and I would create a poem, a story, a video, a line of great thought, and there would be a relief, an insight, a truth that would inspire me to do it again and again and again. But, the pain would return, and I would have to wrap myself in a cloak of doubt, insecurity, denial, confusion, and wonder if I could ever live free again.

Learning. Opening my pure self to new life, new thoughts, and new experiences that’s what drives me now. To create. To put out evidence of my art while being my art. Living unencumbered by foolish memories and instead using them to hold back any thoughts of pain and to focus instead on the warmth of the sun, the tranquility of the ocean, the unique nature of a flower, the shade of a tree, the sizzling touch that comes with hugging those you love and the friends who support and love you with their trust and support. And in turn, you give back a hundredfold in the circle of life.

It’s all good. It really is.

Morning Ritual

“Build your life brick by brick.

Live a life of truth,

And you will look back on a life of truth.

Live a life of fantasy,

And you will look back on delusions.”
Order “365 Tao Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao”

Waking, shaking my body free of sleep in the mornings, any morning, is a ritual, more than a series of routines, habits that one is guaranteed to fulfill because they are a robot and not a live, breathing human being. There were other mornings when I would crawl out of bed on hands and knees because my mind and my body were so poisoned (you pick the poison, alcohol, drugs, the despair that comes with no sleep from breaking night) that I could barely testify whether I was in a dream or a nightmare or death.

Sleep was an interruption to a stress-filled rush of time measured by how fast I could speed through minutes, hours, or a day that it all became a blur; a series of events, people crashing into each other with no purpose or goal other than it just was and my body would carry me along praying (not in a religious sense but in the sense of desperation) that it would not drop me. Until it often did.

Now, I know better after years of falling hard. Of getting my head crushed under the weight of failure and disappointment, I get it. You can either let time control you, or you can control time. Your time. No one else’s time, just yours. And it begins with that moment you wake. You know this is another opportunity to discover, to be someone new, to build a day brick by brick different from yesterday, more beautiful than yesterday, to live with purpose and not just glide through with no hope, no moments of joy, allowing yourself to be in a time of being.

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817-62)

That second that I push or pull (aging can do that) myself up from the bed begins my morning ritual (I will not lie; I am often in awe that I am still here). Shaking my body to the bathroom with each step, eyes opening from looking down to looking straight ahead, from stumbling to erect, catching my stride from wariness to determination.

The water flows, warm, over and through my hands, washing over my face, erupting every cell in my cheeks, mouth, nose, eyelids, and neck. The electric toothbrush in my hand vibrates in my mouth, stimulating every cell ending awake and alive.

I stand in the quiet of my bathroom in our house (I recognize that I have the privilege to have one). No one else is there with me, another privilege knowing I am lucky as fuck to have my own space while everyone else is still asleep at five in the morning. My only companion is the quiet that accompanies me to the kitchen and the Keurig coffee maker as I scan the world outside through my phone to ensure the outer world is still here (those news alerts).

The sound of coffee filling my cup (we have cups from around the world, and it’s always a happy moment to celebrate Tokyo, Barcelona, Paris, or New York). The smell of Bustelo Coffee wafting into my nose, bringing back memories of that first spoonful Titi Bebé would give me, of that strong coffee when I was too young to be drinking coffee at all. Flashbacks to 2595 Third Avenue in the South Bronx when my memory swears, I could smell the roasting coffee coming into our apartment from a nearby Bustelo factory.

Cup in hand, I walk, determined to my office. No hangover (I am sober twelve years this September) and no scratching mistakes from the previous day out of my mind.

There’s a ritual. I recheck the day ahead. It’s all laid out before I go to bed (yes, I have a ritual then too). My headphones pump meditation music into my brain, creating a cocoon of thought, wrapping me in a warm blanket of sound, and giving me peace and inspiration. I open my meditation writing notebook and begin a reading and writing ritual that opens a universe before me. Wise words followed by their meaning for me, how they inspire me to create my definitions, and my interpretations for what opportunities I may build brick by brick for my day ahead.

A poem, a narrative, a story built from memory, or a fiction coming from somewhere deep inside of me whose origin I cannot trace, and I swear it didn’t come from a book I read or a video I watched, or a podcast I heard or maybe it came from all those things. Maybe, it came to me when I was fifteen years old on my way to school on the number 26 bus rolling over Westchester Avenue, or was it when I was lying prone in my vomit when I was thirty-two in a stranger’s apartment after testing my limits with alcohol and failing miserably. Stories, true or false, come to all of us in the strangest of places and times if we can remember them all. The truths that would rise.

“Take the breath of the new dawn and make it part of you. It will give you strength.”
Hopi saying.

In my quiet time, I gather my truths, my strengths, the courage, and determination to throw the past behind me as lessons learned, know that today will be one day part of that past and that I have the power to shape it, to make it shine with beauty and peace and wisdom during my morning ritual.

Purse Snatch

The following short story is based on actual events. The story was submitted to my Short Story class, English 405, in the Fall of 2021 at California State University, Long Beach. It has been edited for clarity.

The complete version of this fictionalize account can be found at Chacho and the Five Dollar Bag (Part 1) and Chacho and the Five Dollar Bag (Part 2).

1968 — Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

It seemed simple enough. Be the lookout for Carlito at the corner of 142nd and Willis Avenue. Hector’s Barber Shop is two doors down, where Hector himself would give me a razor cut every two weeks on any Saturday. Sitting in that chair as if I was on a throne listening to Doble-OOO radio station and traditional Puerto Rican music and Spanish-language chatter oozing out like milk from momma’s breast. Next door is Sammy’s Pizza, where, on a good day, Sammy would give us small paper cups of water for free instead of filled with the Italian Ice they were meant for. He knew why we wanted them: to drop clean water through an eyedropper into a bottle cap filled with a small blob of cotton and a five-dollar bag of smack in the belief that we could purify the death created in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost.

At least the water is clean. We would buy a slice for fifty cents to say thanks. “Bless you” is all Sammy would say as if it was his last goodbye. Just in case the water drops into the bottle cap full of smack and a small blob of cotton heated over an open flame turned out to be the final act in our dangerous and tragic play titled The End.

It’s winter. I’m cold and shivering. Seven o’clock in the evening, and people are shuffling home from bus stops and train stations and dead-end jobs that paid the rent for rundown apartments in rundown apartment buildings where they have to step over the deadbeat bodies of junkies during the dope epidemic of 1968. Hands in my coat pocket wrapped around my works (eyedropper- check, bottle cap-check, needle safely sheathed, so we don’t stab ourselves-check, a recycled blob of cotton that will not purify anything-check) bundled together with a brown rubber band in a decaying brown bag. A matchbook with 4–5 matches left with the hidden message written across the inside cover “Use wisely, sucker. This is all that is left.”

I’m standing guard looking up and down Willis Avenue and 142nd Street and up to the 14th floor across the street to make sure my fiancé, Chicky, is not looking out the window where she could see me and wonder, ‘Why is that fool standing out on that corner in this cold weather without a hat on and probably doesn’t have any gloves on?” Yeah, that’s not what she’s thinking! I’m sure she’s probably thinking “he’s looking for dope again. I’m done with him.” And she be right. She and I should be done with me because I can’t believe I’m standing on the corner of Willis Avenue and 142nd Street in this damn cold ass weather on the lookout for la Jara as Carlito stalks an elderly woman up 142nd Street toward Willis Avenue while eyeing her black purse with the determination of a beast stalking its prey.

All we need is ten bucks to split two five-dollar bags of dope, smack, skag, and the white horse. Carlito told me that he’s done this before. “Plenty of times. I grab the purse and run. They ain’t going to stop me. If I have to, I push them down. Not hard. I ain’t no animal.” Yeah, but I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to do this now or ever. But the call of the main vein, the road to a good feeling, is just too strong. Stronger than the guilt I would feel if Carlito had to push some old lady down on the ground because she refused to let go of the goddamn purse. Let it go, damn it.

Suddenly, I hear a shout and a scream shooting up 142nd Street, landing in front of me, shutting out the Willis Avenue noise of buses, cabs, and folks just trying to get home before the threatened snow piles up on the streets. They don’t have any boots because they just got here from Puerto Rico or República Dominicana and they ain’t got no snow down there.

Damn Carlito, why you have to push that woman down? She’s screaming madness in Spanish, and I can’t quite make out what the fuck she’s saying as I scope Carlito running up 142nd street towards Willis Avenue. I pray (not really pray) that he’s got that woman’s purse when I see this guy in a doorway of a rundown apartment building on 142nd street. He’s just standing there, hands in his coat pocket, looking down the street. He’s gotta see Carlito running and hear that old lady screaming mad as hell shit in Spanish. I may not speak Spanish, but I know enough that she’s talking stuff like, “Stop him, please!” and “He robbed me!” Damn it, shut up, I scream to myself. I’m freaking out looking for a way outta here. I scramble to run down Willis toward 149th Street and home but I realize I’m not running. Why ain’t I running? Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see the guy in the doorway step down and lunge at Carlito. I figured he was trying to grab him, but his arm was swinging like he missed, and Carlito let out a scream stronger than the woman’s, “Motherfucker, why you stab me?” Carlito is running but tripping, holding his left arm. Now, the guy in the doorway is joined by other men from down the street running after Carlito.

Carlito ain’t waiting for the light to change as he races across Willis Avenue dodging cars and people toward the projects. To this day, I don’t know why I joined the procession of chasers across the Avenue as they were screaming, “Stop that Motherfucker!” I know where Carlito lives, and when I catch up with them, I tell the men that I saw him cut behind the 242 building to run up 141st. They turn the corner and haul ass while I pretend to look exhausted and when they’re out of sight, I run into 242, take the elevator up the 12th floor, and knock on 12B. I see blood on the door.

Carlito’s mother can be heard screaming from inside. His sister opens the door, and she’s crying. I push my way in, rapping some shit about, “I saw some guys try to rob Carlito, and they chased him to the building, but I told them that he ran up 141st street,” and I wanted to make sure that Carlito was okay. I probably didn’t do a good job convincing them because Momma was looking at this black purse on the floor in front of Carlito, screaming at him, asking what did he do now and who did he rob? The whole scene went downhill from there.

Momma is still screaming. Sister is still crying. Carlito has his coat and his shirt off, holding a towel against his left arm, blood dripping down onto the black purse on the floor that he had taken from the old woman. It was open, and I could see that there was a bible inside. Carlito was huffing and puffing. He looked at me and then looked down at the purse with the Bible book peeking through the unzippered opening and back to me, and I’m like, What the fuck? His mother is on the phone calling someone to come over and take Carlito to the hospital, and I grab the purse swearing I’m going to return it to its rightfull owner and Carlito should be ashamed of himself but no one cares because they’re too busy screaming at each other in Spanish and English with a little Spanglish thrown in.

I step out into the hallway, find the stairs, and slowly make my way down 12 floors, hoping not to run into those guys chasing Carlito, my girlfriend, anyone from her family, or anyone who knew her. When I get to the first floor, I turn to look into the purse. The Bible falls out and down on the ground, opening up as it hits the dull gray concrete. An envelope scatters across the floor, and damn if there ain’t money flying out of it. I stoop down and grab the bills and count them. 1-2-3-4-5. There they are, five five-dollar bills. All that drama for twenty-five bucks. Oh well, I guess I’ll be getting high tonight.

I go out the back into the playground, where I walk across the project complex to St. Ann’s Avenue, Third Avenue to Westchester Avenue, and take the number 26 bus to 156th and Westchester and home.

My nose is now running, my body aching and shivering from more than the winter cold. I’m not high and will get high until maybe the next day. Carlito is the one that had the connection. I’m going to be left with keeping the twenty-five bucks warm in my pocket instead of the dope in my veins.

But, I learned two lessons: one, I’m a terrible lookout that is never going to be good at committing a crime, and two, from now until the day I die, I will respect all old ladies that I see walking down the streets with their bibles and purses and ask that they forgive me even as they look at me and wonder, “What’s wrong, boy?” Nothing, I’ll tell them, I just need your forgiveness forever.

Steppin’ Out

Flyin’ at the speed of truth
through tunnels of lies
framin’ them with gold leaf
pretty borders		
                              don’t make ‘em right.

Steppin’ out in a gold lame tight skin reflecting suit with gold hat and gold socks and gold sneaks with a gold watch and gold emblazoned teeth don’t make you Elvis or Little Richard or a red carpet darling you just steppin’ out trying to be someone or something you ain’t.

Strut all you want
Throw confetti in the air
Wave your hands like you don’t care
Whip those hips
Stroke your crotch
Shuffle those legs
Slide those feet
		You can’t hide the truth
		You can’t fool no one
		You can’t hide behind the sweet mask

Steppin’ out ain’t goin’ to do shit for you
		We know. Trust me we know who you
		really are.

Reflections and Random Thoughts

End-of-the-year resolutions that will soon die on the altar of hope.

New Year resolutions — Photo by Antonio Ruiz

What is it about the end of a year that we are compelled to reflect on the last 365 days and wonder, fascinated that we made it through the fire of days and weeks, and months of work, play, sex, love, hate, hunger, gluttony, selfishness, selflessness, the beauty and the ugliness of being here except to be able to reflect and write these words and live this life learning and growing knowing that one day we will be unable to continue anymore?

2022. I am often obsessed with the reality that I’ve made it this far, not just this one year but all the last seventy-four years of it all, even after forty-five of those years stoned, drunk, feeling nothing knowing only eyes wide shut, refusing to acknowledge that there is a better option. Eyes wide open. All the way open so that all the light, the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, nature’s sweet calling, and the laughter of babies, children, and adults who sing in the morning and during their daily living because that’s what we should all do. Hey, it’s better than crying all the time and hiding in a closet with no light allowed to enter and no breeze, and fear is one’s only companion.

Been there. Done that.

Goals are good. Hell, I have had plenty of them. Then, I realized that I was living for the goals and not for the moment’s journey through them. After a moment, I knew that I couldn’t tell you how much the wind breathed or the sounds of the birds and bees that sent me messages or the color of the trees and that flower that greeted me every time I stepped out of my house and the sights I passed on the freeway or city streets because all I did was look straight ahead stiff-backed eyes on the road listening only to the incessant noise of the all-news station or talk radio blabber of call in yahoos complaining about their miserable lives so then soon my life was also sad. I forgot where the hell I was or going or cared.

Kill me now, I often yelled in the emptiness of the car.

2022. We’re coming up on three years of the pandemic (you do remember the pandemic). I’m trying to fly above it, being careful not to be dropped head-first into the eye of the hurricane (knock on wood that it hasn’t happened yet), trying to defy the odds while flying to Texas (three times) and San Francisco (two times) and slipping into enclosed spaces at school with a mask on. Still, no one seems to worry on the planes and in school (do they know something I don’t?). I have been scared shitless for nearly three years, and this is no way to live or die, but amid the fear, something beautiful has happened.

Resolution number one: burst the fear like a yellow-topped pimple (yuck). Yeah, it’s ugly and gross, but so is the fear that comes with constantly looking over your shoulder and to the side of you and in front of you and all around you because you’re so worried about everybody else and everything else that you’ve lost faith in your ability to make the right choices that are right for you.

Sticks and stones will always hurt me, but fear can kill my soul. If I stop fearing, the fog can be lifted from my mind.

Resolution number two: Be happy. Only you can make yourself comfortable. Don’t look outside of yourself for salvation. Salvation will only come from you. Don’t look outside of yourself for liberation. Liberation will only come from you.

Trust me. There is no magic pill.

Resolution number three: Make all the goals and plans you want. Just don’t forget that you must take a path and a journey to get there. It begins at this moment, followed by another moment, followed by many more moments composed of a moment of silence and thought and meditation (something similar to stopping, looking, and listening for the eighteen-wheeler coming at you while you only think about getting to the other side of the street without looking both ways.)

Oops.

For most of my adult life, I believed there was no time to stop for anyone or anything. I was in a perpetual hurry fueled by doubt, inexperience, and often drugs and alcohol; I just had to keep going, not knowing what direction I was headed in (I don’t know where I’m headed, but I’m going there anyway) as long as I got there only to find out later that it wasn’t the place I wanted to go to. Or needed to be there. There was no map or directions, only a meandering, sometimes blind journey. What a waste of time, I would shout.

But was it?

Here’s the last random thought. All those detours, dead ends, and misdirection somehow became embedded in my brain and eventually became guard rails, signal lights, bells, and whistles at those intersections in life we always find ourselves. I could count on them to help me decide at that moment so that I wouldn’t again drive off the road or a cliff or something crazy.

Lesson learned.

New Year resolution — Photo by Antonio Ruiz

I got goals and plans for 2023. Big goals. Big plans. Big dreams. In the meantime, I’ll relax, lay in this moment, and be.

And that's a good thing.

drunk and sober

Sunday, September 11, 2022, will mark eleven years of sobriety. The following edited essay was initially published on March 23, 2022.

Walking into the light: Image by Three-shots from Pixabay

I’ve been thinking about my sobriety lately. On September 11, 2011 (Yes, that September 11), I had my last drink of alcohol and use of any mind-altering drug. This year will mark the 11th anniversary of the beginning (It is always a beginning. Every day) of my new life. My Creative Non-Fiction Writing class at CSULB has me thinking about those previous years. Drunk and stoned. I can’t help wondering what my life would be like if I had begun sobriety earlier. Say nearly fifty-six years ago, give or take. My first joint. Trust me, it went downhill after that.

All those years being stoned on everything under the stars. Later, added drinking to the toxic mix. Drunk and stoned was like walking hesitantly into the ocean and then feeling like I was sinking until I finally gave up and surrendered to the water.

One morning, I woke up and decided that I was too damn old for the daily struggle that haunted my life for more than forty-five years (1966–2011). The pain, the slow beating pain that reminded me that I am the only one that could stop it. The hangovers, the anger that erupts from them, the holes in my memory, the emptiness of my life. Enough.

I’m here now, and I’m alive. Yeah, there are some health issues, but overall, I’m okay, and that’s better than being drunk and stoned or dead any day of the week.

I don’t live sober because I believe I’ve solved an extraordinary riddle of life. I live sober because I want to live longer and happier. Sobriety is living one moment to the next as everyone else does but with a reminder that one wrong decision can be deadly. Unconsciously, often consciously, I am on constant watch. Don’t fuck up. Once I fall into the hole, there is no easy way out. The nightmares will return and trust me, no one wants them to resume more than me.

Please don’t give me a medal or pat me on the back for being sober. This isn’t a competition to win. This is a lifelong struggle to make it through a day, one second to the next, one hour to the next. If you want to say or do something, say you will be there for a loved one or a friend who may one day face the same decision I had to make. Please pass it on.

My wife, Sumire Gant, always says, “Life is Good.” It really is- sober.

A Distraction at 57th and Fifth Avenue

The following is an updated narrative poem.

Joe Vega is a lost young man who cannot find his memory or the light in his eyes. Nor the sounds of his past. There is no way back and no map forward. He is stuck where he stands. Void of any purpose except this moment.

Blood pooling at his wrists. He opens his mouth to hear nothing but silence. 57th and Fifth Avenue. It’s 3 o’clock. 1966. Invisible to them, the crowds rush past him.

He’s late for work. Chock Full o’Nuts Coffee Shop splashing cups on customers and flipping those greasy half-beef patties onto stale buns while smiling uselessly. Hopelessly. It’s a future that will not arrive.

No, he’s just going to throw himself down at the feet of New York’s finest, directing traffic in the middle of 57th and Fifth Avenue. The symbol of a civilized society, the guardian of order, protector of the law. He’ll take care of things. He’ll know what to do, how to help. This really wasn’t a badly botched suicide attempt begun in Central Park on a knoll overlooking a quiet, placid lake. No, it’s more like a cry for help.

That’s what they will later tell the nice busy policeman minding his job and not thinking about someone falling, scrawling with their bloodied hands on his long blue coat with the silver badge glinting in the afternoon sun on a fall day in the middle of Fifth Avenue encircled by the rush hour traffic crush and a №49 bus vainly attempting a left turn onto 57th Street blocked by hundreds of New Yorkers zombie fast-walking to stale jobs and the latest personal bankruptcy sales at Bloomingdales and Macys. Slowed down by gawking tourists (Look, Ethel, Tiffany, Bergdorf Goodman, Van Cleef & Arpels).

They all stop. Distracted for a second in time. Dropping their jaws in awe at the sight of the young man with the red blood pooling at his wrists. Dripping a trail down Fifth Avenue. Falling with arms and hands outreached like he was praying to the skyscrapers before him. Barely shouting. Help me.

Oh, well, just another distraction in New York City. They move on.

Writer’s note: You are never alone. Someone is always there to help you. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. 1-800-273-8255.

drunk and sober

The following is an updated version of a story posted in Medium on March 7, 2021.

I’ve been thinking about my sobriety lately. On September 11, 2011 (Yes, that September 11), I had my last drink of alcohol and any mind-altering drug. This year will mark the 11th anniversary of the beginning (It is always a beginning. Every day) of my new life. My Creative Non-Fiction Writing class at CSULB has me thinking about those previous years. Drunk and stoned. I can’t help wondering what my life would be like if I had begun sobriety earlier. Say nearly fifty-six years ago, give or take. My first joint. Trust me, it went downhill after that.

All those years being stoned on everything under the stars. Later, added drinking to my toxic mix. Drunk and stoned was like walking hesitantly into the ocean and then feeling like I was sinking until I finally gave up and surrendered to the water.

I’m here now, and I’m alive. Yeah, there are some health issues, but overall, I’m okay, and that’s better than drunk and stoned or dead any day of the week.

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before

The unraveling of America. Not that we were ever as knotted together as we think we were.

Apathy — Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

Road Rage

A group of teenagers (or adults) is beating up another teenager (or adult) in a public space, and no one who is witnessing it attempts to stop it. Instead, everyone pulls out their phones and start recording the event, and some even live stream it. Another human being whose video of the incident later gets 225,643 likes steps over the victim on the ground because they have places to go. The victim is so severely injured that they are transported to the hospital, where they suffer needlessly or die. Maybe, they'll get five minutes on the news.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

Mask Fights

You’re seventy-three years old and high-risk health-wise, and you go to the Urologist’s office in Orange County where you see a waiting room of other senior-looking men and a few women who you assume might also be at risk health-wise considering their age and the reason they are there and the intake person is a young woman who is not wearing a mask in the middle of a pandemic and chatting up a storm to those coming to the window, and then you look over and realize that other staff around her (also young people) are not wearing masks, and you’re shocked, and you quickly retreat to the furthest corner of the office lobby hoping that you’re going to be okay and wondering “Is this a doctor’s office?” and why weren’t you warned and you swear that you won’t ever come here again because it’s apparent that they just don’t give a shit about you or your health. Kind of like walking over your dead body because they got better things to do than protect your health in a doctor’s office.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

Spirit Airlines passengers brawl inside Detroit Metro Airport

You’re at the airport waiting at the gate for your flight when all of a sudden you hear shouting from the gate next door, and you turn and see a full-fledged rock 'em and sock ‘em battle to the death by would be passengers hauling blows upon the airline staff behind the counter as the victimizers curse their mommas and daddies and complain “Whatcha’ mean the flight’s been canceled?” and people get their cell phones out and are recording the action, some even streaming it live, and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Where’re the cops?” and “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing a mask at the airport?” as you watch the victimizers not wearing masks because they want to be able to shout their obscenities filled rants clearly and loudly so they can be heard and some of the people shooting videos have lowered their masks because they’ve determined that somehow the masks get in the way of their live streaming the battle royal. Later one of them will learn that their video has received 525,674 likes after they’ve stepped over the airport damage and some little old lady innocent bystander who’s writhing on the ground in pain (“Fuck ‘em).

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

I was thinking about all of this when I came across the headline America Is Falling Apart at the Seams, an opinion piece by David Brooks. The headline scared me because I’d been saying it for the past seven years (Actually, way longer). Brooks lamented the seeming breakdown in society’s weave and wondered why.

“But something darker and deeper seems to be happening as well — a long-term loss of solidarity, a long-term rise in estrangement and hostility. This is what it feels like to live in a society that is dissolving from the bottom up as much as from the top down.”
David Brooks

There’s a long list of signs that America is unraveling, but he offers no solutions, “As a columnist, I’m supposed to have some answers. But I just don’t right now. I just know the situation is dire.” I agree. Things seem bad. So bad that we just don’t have an answer to what to do about it (Besides just shooting some video and stepping over some person’s dead body).

It must be so bad that I found other columnists bemoaning the state of America: Rudeness Is on the Rise. You Got a Problem With That? by Jennifer Finney Boylan. Others are looking into the possibilities of the next American Civil War: Imagine another American Civil War, but this time in every state reported by NPR’s Ron Elving or In the coming second American Civil War, which side are you on? an opinion piece by Chauncey Devega.

These pieces mirror the news headlines we see every day announcing the latest battles around COVID or Race or White Supremacy, guns, crime, fights on planes, and my favorite, Wokeness (I wish someone would define that for me). Dogmatism has replaced compromise because the extreme wings of our political and social discourse have hijacked the process.

On the right, the politics of the last twenty-two years since the Bush-Gore debacle have grown more feverish, commanding, and powerful. Strategically, they have worked hard to take the levers of power in more states and localities than the moderates and progressives can ever have dreamt. Ruthless and dogged while inciting in mostly White Americans (Black and Latino adherents are a separate story) the need to kick some ass on their way to their thrones of power.

On the left, there has been a desire to abandon dialogue with the right and moderates because, well, what has that gotten them? The victories of the sixties through the end of the twentieth century are threatened and, in some cases, have already been pushed back by conservative legislatures and conservative judiciary. The left asks, “Why are we still fighting for social justice in 2022?” and they are frustrated to the point of To hell with compromise.

Some on the left, like their counterparts on the right, believe the only thing this country understands is what comes out of the end of a gun barrel. It may be time to kick some ass.

But the reality is, that as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve witnessed this conflict of conscience where some people don’t give one cent about their fellow humans. Anyone who has studied American history (not the whitewashed homogenized version) knows that this is not the first time in our history that the hands of Americans are at the throats of other Americans and that they didn’t give a shit.

However, something feels different now. It’s not just the pandemic, or that’s there are just more of us with smartphones and access to and influence of the thoughts of millions of other Americans who just can’t stand other Americans and also don’t give a shit. Fuck ‘em as I walk over their dead bodies.

This is sad. Not surprising, but still sad. You just feel that something is missing. An emptiness of character, a deficit of human empathy. That there is no hope.

Damn, there just has to be.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

For My Own Health

Forget COVID mutations; I’ve got other things to worry about. Over the past three years, I’ve had two knee replacements, degeneration of the lumbosacral intervertebral disc, sciatica, some strange extended bronchial infection that requires a CT-Scan and a visit to a pulmonologist, and the words from more than one doctor that I better do something about my weight. Or else.

Now, before I go on with my self-pity rant, let me be clear. I don’t believe for a moment that COVID and its mutations are anything but serious. Unlike the antis’ and the deniers, I believe that we are still in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently reported 5,183,003 cumulative deaths worldwide. 611,528 new cases worldwide have been reported in a twenty-four-hour period. Since all this started in 2020, there have been a total of 259,502,031 cases worldwide. The breakdown in the United States does not bring me comfort. Just yesterday, there had been a reported 100,455 new cases. The U.S. statistics are mindboggling: 47,802,459 cumulative cases since this all began with an accompanying 771,529 cumulative deaths. And there will be plenty more as the deniers and politicians who grovel before them will guarantee.

So talking about my medical issues seems so petty. Except they are both real and annoying the hell out of me. This damn cough, for example. Now, I’ve had this before. You think it’s just a plain cough until you find yourself wheezing and having difficulty breathing (No, I don’t have COVID or long COVID). In the past, it would either turn into bronchitis or graduate to pneumonia or just plain go away on its own. Albuterol Sulfate HFA Inhalation Aerosol and I have become the best of buds. This time around, it’s been joined by a new friend Wixela (fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder, USP). If you think the name is too long or hard to pronounce, you should read the instructions and the side effects. I’ve recently taken a CT-SCAN. The results will be ready on Friday. I’m supposed to head to a pulmonologist, but the earliest appointment available is in February. Seems my healthcare provider has only one lung doctor in all of region four which includes Long Beach. So, I asked myself how many people we talking about in region four. I’m sure I’m not the only one. WTH!! I’ve put in for another referral, but I’m not optimistic that anything is going to happen anytime soon. I’ve been here before, and the holidays seem to see their share of slowdowns and shutdowns. Add the Pandemic on top of that, and you know I’m in trouble.

The lower back is acting up again. Out of nowhere, I suddenly found myself enduring excruciating pain when I would try to stand up straight after extended sitting. It takes a while to straighten up, and walking has me stooping over and moving ever so slightly to make sure my lower spine doesn’t get a hernia. Now, this is not new, as I said, but I really didn’t need this right now. I just recently received an epidural which is supposed to relieve the back and sciatic pain. Those shots are supposed to last three to six months. It hasn’t been more than a month. What the hell happened?

I’m going to be seventy-three years old next week. I’m starting to really feel that old (whatever old feelings you get at seventy-three). My doctors and my partner-wife wag their fingers at me with warnings about all this stuff happening to me is either caused by or made worse by my weight. Under any measure, I am obese. There I said it. It gives me no pleasure admitting it. This damn obesity is going to kill me unless I do something about it for the hundredth time.

I love to eat. That’s my addiction. I wish I could say that it was always healthy food, but I would be lying. My struggles with food and weight go back decades. I was a chubby kid when I was thirteen years old. When I was in my fifties, I put on some serious weight that I took the desperate measure of a weight loss program and exercise and personal sacrifice to lose one hundred and ten pounds. And when I did, I jumped into running 5ks, 10ks, half and full marathons. A blown-out knee put an end to all that. Everything after that was a blur until I decided to give up drinking and drugs. Then, I thought I could get back to some healthy weight and return to exercise and moderate eating. Well, that was fine for a while. Then, the pandemic and all the subsequent issues came along, and all hell broke loose. And here I am.

I couldn’t move well because of the knee replacements, lower back issues, and sciatica, so there was no exercise. The Pandemic was the perfect excuse to use for stuffing my face and stomach in between zoom encounters and not moving for any reason. The result was not only an increase of 30 or more pounds (Not sound like much? Well, I was already 40-50 pounds overweight when this whole B.S. started). I am the perfect example of how being heavy impacts your health. From being pre-diabetic to increasing pressure on my knees and lower back, I have found that weight can make you feel miserable. I don’t need any more reminders than what my body is already telling me.

So now what? I’ve been down this road before. I’ve restarted walking and the gym routine, and I’m back on WeightWatchers. Fine, I tell myself, but none of this means anything unless I take the same passion and commitment I applied to be sober and apply it here. Do I even have a choice at this age? How many friends with similar challenges have I seen drop dead or end up in the hospital? Honestly, this time fear has slipped into the picture. I have too many things that I want to do before I pass on. Writing these words scares me because I know this is real. What I do next is up to me, and for my own health, I better get it right.

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