A Few Clues

A favorite past-time of mine is exploring possible reasons why I still exist.  There are many reasons why I shouldn't -- circumstances similar to those I've experienced have put others in boxes punitive or, more often, sepulchral.  What explains the matrix of decisions made by homo sapiens sapiens, unwittingly and otherwise, that has resulted in my drawing breath and being nominally aware of my surroundings at this very moment?  This is as masturbatory as any other blog, and let's always bear in mind the comedic possibilities of the blow to my vanity instant death would deliver upon my clicking "Publish."  But I digress...

Here's what I have to go on:  there is a distinct wash of the feminine to my personal history.  Yes, I suffered the typical slings and arrows with which childhood pelts even the debs and jocks, but I was bullied far, far less than you would expect an egghead faggot to be.  I was generally well-liked.  My school counselor in high school in so many words described me as a bit of social lubrication or the diplomat who kept circumstances from devolving into Lord of the Flies during home room.  I was a peer counselor, for fuck's sake.  I was zeroed in on by anyone who needed a non-judgmental ear.  My peers had no reservations -- whoever said something to me knew they were safe to say anything, no matter how ridiculous, poorly worded, or insane.  Losers weren't losers around me, weirdos were cool, and the popular were somewhat self-conscious and sensitive to my opinion.  I was physically capable of embarrassing bullies to where I needed to do so only a couple of times early on -- the swirlie and the wedgie were known to me only second hand, and from media depictions.  Other boys instinctively refrained from rough-housing with me.  Mostly, though, I was spared fighting for myself.  When Terence made a homophobic crack that probably didn't even have anything to do with me, loutish brute Kevin kicked his ass as though being chivalrous on my behalf.  The only scary enemies I had were the boys who creeped everyone out:  Joey, who had all the makings of a serial rapist, and contemptuously misogynistic monster Frank; we had brief, enlightening run-ins that warned me about them and marked me in their eyes as one valued by the people they loathed.  My hydrochloric acid-dipped scalpel tongue was a secret weapon reserved for adults who abused their authority...and in any ensuing arbitration, the decision was made in my favor.  There's my home life:  I was the lightning rod for violence, drawing it away from my mother and brother.  Ana and I both ran away around the same time in our adolescence, for the same reasons; I was treated by my father in a way that would make sense to any Latina who had a controlling, somewhat abusive, sheltering dad.

It's not a lot to go on, but I'm getting the sense that I'm a bit of a freak of nature, and that I'd not be wracked with such a crisis of understanding had I been a biological female.

Today I find myself as an either tolerated, an unnoticed, or a valued member of a community I don't actively seek to figure out mainly out of respect for the privacy of the individuals who constitute it.  I can be terribly perceptive -- a risky quality in a world ruled mainly by brute stupidity and peppered with elements desirous of power other overs though they are unqualified to wield it.  I'm guessing I've ended up as the naive smart-ass whose circumstances as apparent to unbiased, sharp, independent observers let those observers know what to look out for to so they might optimally care for themselves.  Best I've got.  There's also the possibility that I'm a human shield covering for a lot of people who've earned some punishment or another.  Really, it's all so vague...

It's funny.  This ruminative rambling post today was inspired by a thought:  all across this country there are people who've been laid off and foreclosed upon, and now all of the sudden they're being confronted quite concretely with the demand to justify their very existence.  Pink slips and rapacious banks have told them they and the mouths they have to feed are worthless, and the only option open to them is to Occupy [insert location.]  I felt terrible:  here I am, a formerly homeless mental patient with a debilitatingly high intelligence quotient, severe emotional imbalances, who works part-time as a caregiver and creates art appreciated by some people who are really quite fascinating in their own right.  In other words, I'm somewhat less worthwhile than Kim Kardashian.  I want so desperately to shout at those who're being left to die by the systems designed to serve them that they are not to blame -- no factotum, no young turk has any fucking right to demand they justify their existence.  I think of the t-shirt-and-jeans dude so used to a life in a tract home he lost not long after his job was downsized, and I want to find him and tell him he can crash on my floor as long as he needs.  I want to share my food with the mom who has nowhere to go, despite there being hundreds of empty houses for every homeless person in this land of the free and the brave.  Boys who never really had a chance to properly grow an adult beard have sacrificed their lives in far away countries so I could do any goddamn fucking thing I wanted with my life, and I want to do more than kick up my heels -- I want to share.  I could grandstand under the tenderizing ministrations of a cop's baton at a protest, but that's just another kind of self-indulgence.

I kind of get that I have a place, or at least have been designated as not worth eliminating.  But how do I do more than just occupy it?  How do I really put it to use in a way that serves more than just me?

Yes, I'm blegging for wisdom.  Help?

Failings

This month I turn 35.  It occurs to me that I should effect some significant changes in my life.  For one thing, I could be more hard-nosed and hard-hearted.  For another, I should cultivate optimism to the point where I'm deluded enough to believe in the wisdom of planning for the future.  You wouldn't know it from looking at my life -- a roof over my head, food on my plate, no arrest record, no kids, a healthy social life, less debt than your average 35 year-old American -- but I've never really been one to act like I'm expecting a future.  I didn't think much about college in high school, and spent most of my adult life simply placing one foot in front of the other, expecting nothing and hoping for the best.  I'm unambitious, and congenitally incapable of scheming and strategizing -- particularly in those ways that pit me against any one else's interests.  I've had low expectations since childhood, struggle more with not wanting than with a world that won't give me what I am told to think I want, and am keenly aware that, although from others' perspectives I seem to have had it rough, I have it really good.  At my worst, I excel at making it look like I don't have a care in the world.

But I want to trust the sense possessed by achievers; maybe they're on to something.  I should maybe start giving some thought to planning my life in advance, learn to assume I have a future.  Come up with an objective to be achieved within five years and work towards it.  Give myself goals to reach.  Be self-disciplined, rather than self-sabotaging.  Challenge myself.  Of course, once that's done I'll end up a hood ornament or recipient of a stray bullet or something...I may be naive of many facets of reality, but irony is well known to me.

Anyway, I should also take to heart what friends have said:  that I'm entitled, and should start acting like it.

Beware of Artists

"They mix with all classes of society and are therefore the most dangerous." -- McCarthy-era poster.

A Promise Deferred

Let's get over the reality that the Democratic party is centrist and corporatist, and that no president arising therefrom will forward a truly progressive agenda. I've heard from several people that they so loathe Obama they will abstain this election. They are disappointed, disillusioned, and disgusted.

I don't know why these otherwise very grown-up people held close to their breasts such fantastical expectations. Can't we maintain a healthy and warranted sense of cynicism and still make an effort? Although Obama is probably guaranteed re-election, I exhort the abovementioned to lump their broken-heartedness and go through the motions of voting for him again. Let's make this win stick.

People are still mourning Mr. Change's apparently unfulfilled campaign promises and are excoriating his concessions and failures. I myself am rather impressed at how he's kept it together. I think Bush's eyeblink disappearance down the collective memory hole glossed over the tremendous damage that idiot's administration (to use the word kindly) did to America. My assessment is that Obama has earned a passing grade in putting out a myriad fires, staving off disintegration, and preventing tragedy and drama. Yes, there's so much more he could have done, but he, as I expected, failed to overcome the mindset that demands cowering in the face of Republicans' fatuous potshots and childish asides. Democrats, I'm afraid, will always give the opposition too much credit -- they will never stop assuming the other side possesses legitimacy, cogency and relevancy, despite conservatives' wholesale unwillingness to touch base with the real world at all. The result: our infrastructure languishes, Social Security remains imperiled, the economy continues to teeter, and America is only momentarily secure against its own self-destructive excesses. But that's no reason to get passive aggressive and hand the reins over to people whose biggest issues are darker fellow humans and Planned Parenthood.

If I may make a re-election campaign promise on behalf of a president with whom I've been pretty much okay: Expect Obama as a lame duck to throw caution to the wind and truly implement a constellation of policies we can count on to preserve America for at least a couple more decades -- a pretty bold goal when one considers the context of modern human existence as a whole. When I look at the current White House from arm's length I see conservation of energy, an executive that has preserved much of its mandate since 2008 in anticipation of a second term during which it will do its damnedest to revitalize our economy, conserve our resources, take some possibly successful stabs at preventing collapse, and preserving the few civil liberties we haven't lost. Our way of life as Americans is ultimately doomed, but I still see hope in retaining some of it for longer than we have a right to.

I'm not optomistic about humanity's future, but I think the wonkish will be pleasantly surprised during the next four years, and I implore my fellow citizens to hold their noses and go through the motions with me at the polls this year. I'm not saying it will get better, but this is our best shot at preventing it from getting horribly worse very soon.

Gimlet eyes: did we ever think we were doing more than forestalling the inevitable and sticking fingers in dikes? Let's not throw our hands up in surrender prematurely.

Counting My Blessings

"If everyone else were jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, would you too?" -- My Mother.

There is no way around it: I am the product of a superlative mother. She was demonstrative during my childhood, mainly in how she worked her ass off to provide for our family. She started out stressing early literacy and potty training, and was pretty hands-off beyond that. She is the antithesis of overbearing. Rather, she cultivated in me independence and inner strength when I was very young. My brother and I were not born to validate her or act as foils in her personal psychodrama. She seriously devoted herself unselfishly to our best interests. I was almost never coddled, the exception being when I had the mumps. Then, she cradled my agony-ridden frame in her lap all night long, before leaving for work after having worked all day the day before. No more than two or three times did she find it necessary to resort to physical punishment. For the most part, she incentivized responsible behavior with candy and cash, and would on occasion play the guilt card.

Although highly communicative (I was her duty-bound listener for most of my childhood), she eschewed maudlin displays. My father would say he loved me. My mother would demonstrate it. My father would say how proud he was. My mother, on the other hand, was content to act as though she knew I was capable and intelligent -- she took my wit as a matter of course.

I can't imagine what it would be like to live as that woman on Dr. Phil who hated -- hated! -- her mother. I think of my friend "K," whose relationship with his mother to hear him describe it resembles nothing so much as that which exists between two alligators. And one twisted mess in particular, a man who briefly played my nemesis, exemplified spoiled son syndrome. The man had spent all his life under a mother who cleaned up after him, lied for him, and indulged him in every single way. The result was less a man than an unconscionable monster whom no one seems to be able to stand.

When I'm told by someone they think I'm a good person, I know precisely who to credit.

Of course, I have let my mother down. Though touched by artistic and musical talent herself, she completely lacks the artistic temperament, and despairs when she sees it in me. My flightiness, my space cadet moments, no doubt vex her sensible, level head to no end. And I'm pretty sure she's given up on teaching me the value of a dollar. Still, she taught me to value my mind. She is a highly intelligent woman who I'm glad to say is not disappointed in her eldest son's capacity for thought.

My mother and I don't bandy terms of endearment. Our bond is divinely animal. Words are for the mere quotidian. Without her saying it, or my having to ask, I know for a fact she would sacrifice her life to save mine. She wouldn't even wring her hands or debate self-interestedly. It would be a given.

How many people in this world are as fortunate as I am?

The Sobriety Police

Just had a thought-provoking discussion with a friend about the medical community's attitude towards pain medication. Too many physicians and nurses want to play sobriety police -- always on the lookout for drug-seeking behavior. Can't have you feeling good, must make sure you're stopping at not-too-excruciating. Frankly, I'm a little sick of doctors and other health care professionals using their jobs as bully pulpits from which to trumpet their opinions on addiction. Wanting to feel good, pharmaceutically or otherwise, is nobody's business but the person who is doing the feeling. An ex of mine, a physician, once observed that he didn't believe I had suffered enough physical pain in my life. Apart from being inaccurate and impertinent, it's highly presumptuous of a mere M.D. (you're not a physicist; essentially your greatest intellectual accomplishment is memorizing Grey's Anatomy) to think it's within his bailiwick to prescribe agony as some sort of lesson to be learned from. Anyway, if you're an adult, you're entitled to get fucked up when you feel like it -- particularly if you're not causing trouble for anyone else. And if you're poor and miserable, who could blame you? I would never begrudge any down-and-out denizen of 6th Street his or her crack rock and Steel Reserve.

Chances are, the friend with whom I was speaking wouldn't have suffered his paralysis had St. Mary's not been so damn obsessed with checking what they perceived was his desire to get high on pain meds. They actually thought he was lying about his chronic pain and immobility in order to score happy pills. And all of this applies only to the poor, not the wealthy, of course. If you're low on the socioeconomic totem pole, you're obligated to be a teetotaler... But if your husband manages hedge funds, it's expected that your stash rival Hunter S. Thompson's.

I Have Spent

The previous two days disgusted with myself for not being the person the standards to which I adhere require I should be. It has been a long, rough road these last couple of years: from abject homelessness, living out of two bags and rotting from the inside out, to maintaining my own home since July 2010, and successfully caring for a plant and a cat while keeping up my volunteer commitments and part-time work. But I haven't accomplished everything I'd like, and I always feel I come up short. The high road is steep, and I stumble sometimes while taking the righteous path.

Let's hope the last couple days of crazy give way to better times.