Pardon Me…Do you have any grey poo pon?

Observation: Intrusion on our Illusions – the Reality Hammer

 

 I received a phone call from a  friend of mine who lives in the city I moved from last year.   She had some sobering news to share. 

The husband of a good friend of ours has AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia) at age 48,  found seemingly out of the blue.  Yet the only reason the disease was discovered when it was is because the  husband, an RN,  hadn’t been feeling well for some time.  And when the doctors still couldn’t find the reason behind it he took matters into his own hands.

He asked his  doctors to order some specialized tests on him as he had his suspicisions.   The doctors waved off the concerns of this young and  healthy man, even while indulging his worries.  Which turned out to be well-founded.   

And he might as well be a sickly 80 year old man – at least as far as the magick combination of his  youth and good physical condition are concerned. These friendly allies whose powers were continually  chanted like a mantra at him, have seemed to have forgotten him, at least so far anyway - he has almost died from treatment seven times already. 

The outcome is bleak – the safe little world of he and his wife, once so comforting and familiar has turned rabid.  Spinning off it’s axis  at the exact moment the reality hammer silently shattered the first of their illusions into a million pieces. 

 I know at this point some of you would counter with the tragic story of your friend’s 5 year old daughter who drowned, or your husband’s tragic early death from congential heart failure. You’d be perfectly correct, of course, to imply that illnesses and other tragedies are not unique to one person and does not make  that one “special“.   I know these random devastations are a dime a dozen, especially these days,  it would seem.  

But it’s eye opening none the less.  There’s the normal reasons of course -  He’s only 48, doesn’t drink or smoke.  He pays his bills faithfully, his taxes every year, works on his yard every weekend and would give the shirt off  his back to help someone.  He eats right, excercises, loves his wife and goes out of his way to support her in whatever catches her fancy.  He likes her friends. He’s just an all-around nice guy.  To know him is to love him.  It’s not fair, why him and  blah blah blah.

I understand there are those of you, or someone you know, that have personally known  or was related to, the very same person I just described,  at some point during your life.  I’m sure you’ve been forever changed by the senseless sorrow of  a life cut short way too soon; the last days drug out painfully and slowly like one endless nightmare for everyone.   Just change the gender and the name in each circumstance, and Voila! you’ve got a fill-in-the-blank novel of someone else’s sad closing act. I understand that your perception of  the world is already altered by your involuntary role in the play of another. Maybe what’s been revealed to you will be different from what is being revealed to me – maybe not.

And now I will tell you what the  surreality is to me,  in this situation.  It’s simple, and some of you will most likely understand exactly what I’m saying.  Others – not so much.

It’s finally seeing with blinders off, the naked truth that’s been there the whole time. The truth disguised as anything but what it really is – Realizing the perception of my own personal immortality is a false one, even though I’ve always pretended to know this already.  But see, I thought we were special.  And what befell everyone else could never reach us on our side of the fence. 

And though I am speaking for myself  only, I also tend to think that my friend and her husband might include themselves as part of  we, in this general statement. So though I would never second-guess them, I will refer to we in some of my dialog as I know there are others reading this who can relate.

The background for my reasons:  All three of us worked closely with illness and tragedy in the same hospital for many years.  Meeting with our endless breadline of  patients, families and caregivers.  And so long witnessing firsthand all the tragic and  sad endings of most of them, it was probably inevitable that we would eventually don a cloak of  denial when it came to acknowledging common ground with “them” in this respect.   Natural to assume, however irrationally, that the  universe had sheathed us in protection and  would forever prevent a fate of  ”exits stage left” of the type that happened to other people, not us.  Made us immune to whatever cooties attacked ”them.” 

“Them” - meaning those on the other side of the fence.  “Them”, the people and their families we devoted ourselves to in the ways of help, care and comfort all day, every day. Assisting them with their journeys, we were travel agents selling travel guides when we’d never been out of the house, so to speak. 

But as long as a patient was in the hospital and assigned to us, we gave 110% of our hearts and souls to be there as their rock in their times of need and give them the directions as we saw them.  They were family…of a sort.

And we were sincere in our care of them, and yes, the ends of some of their lives made us cry.  We even carried the fallout around with us  – for a little while at least.  Till we shook it off like a bad dream and went on to concentrate on being  the exact same devoted rocks and travel agents to the new batch of poor unfortunates and their families who were always waiting in the wings. 

But in our most secret hearts, we whispered again our thanks to God and the universe for leading us away from the same fates.  Gave thanks that whatever had reached out and grabbed “them” like the boogeyman in the dead of night, wasn’t able to touch US –   the universe would not allow the  decimation of the only remaining lifelines that kept ”them” from immediately drowning at the start.

How smug and self-righteous that sounds and is.  And even though I never voiced it aloud I am guilty of it, I admit. 

So we silently watched each of “them” face their scary monster and every day, stole their  experiences for our own as our entitlement – payment for our devotion to them. And in playacting out our own finality with these borrowed demons, we became dull in our awareness of what the demons meant and whose they actually were.  We became numb and  comfortable with our seemingly unchanging role in their lives and ours.  If we ever started to experience reality creeping in,  it was quickly shut it down by the silent justification that we were untouchable.  Untouchable  if only for the reason we had been facing more than our fair share of demons.  Stolen or borrowed but not earned, they became our scars from our trials because we made it sure of it.    

And when our comfortable fog started to dissapate and let the light in but just a bit, we shrouded ourselves once more by remembering that eventually each of  “them” would get to bow out of this misery, perform their final  act and close the curtains  on their monsters forever – as if we were declaring them the winners in life’s lotto.  After all, WE  were the ones  obliged to return the next day and the day after that and the day after THAT, long after their hardships were over.  We must continue to go in and borrow even more monsters from a new crowd  and watch as their fights become just another personal experience on our lifeslates. 

To seal the deal we repeated to ourselves until it became proof that we’d been through hundreds of tradegies, sorrows, illnesses and deaths already and were and still counting. That we’d earned our immunity from their fates by absorbing theirs as our own.  We believed their experiences cut us just as deep, and hurt us just as much.  We’d paid our dues over and again, through theirs.  

We’d earned our perfect health, luck and immortality as rewards for voluntarily choosing to suffer simultaneously with the huddled masses of the common world.  We’d even been able to see, always,   reality in the distance,  ahead of time had been able to prepare ourselves before it showed up at someone’s bedside to come crashing down.  It appeared faithful in it’s continuity. Always giving us a warning before swinging down on one of “them”.  So it became familiar to us and appeared to leave us alone.  So we  got comfortable with it’s presence around us, but forgot one important thing – the hammer’s job is to shatter illusions …and everyone has illusions to be shattered.

 t8pmkne6zd

Late Night Observations: A Streetcar Named Bizarr-o

 

 

 

 

One night around 9 pm, my guy Todd and I heard what could only be described as a booming heartfelt monologue being played on a dual speaker system.  From the window of  our apartment, the words we could barely make out being bellowed in the distance sure sounded like someone was watching the classic movie  Street Car Named Desire at full volume.   

 The most famous scene in the movie is the one where Marlon Brando is standing out on a street yelling up at an open window in a glamorous apartment building – calling Stella!  Stelllllla! until she finally comes out and he shuts up.   The voice we heard was fraught with Marlon’s emotion as it started out low in the guts and got higher and more agitated until it drew the last syllable of the name it was wailing into an impossible pitch.  We just thought Stella hadn’t come out yet because he kept yelling,  STELLLLLLLLA!

But after two more hours had passed and Marlon was still  yelling for  STELLLLLLLA! and showed no signs of stopping, we got curious and we were bored, I admit.  So we crept out of our apartment into the night to take a looksee.  

In a moment or two, we realized it wasn’t Marlon we were hearing screaming STELLLLLA!, it was actually the mouthy fat guy who lives in a house on the other side of the  fence that separates his yard from the apartment complex parking lot. This  one was always screaming at his kids or his dog, but never with this much feeling!  Had he taken up midnight acting?

As we moved in closer we found we could see him pretty clearly through a couple of broken boards  in the fence.  He was standing barefoot in his trashy yard, dressed in striped boxers and a sweat stained wife beater T shirt.  He had a beer in his hand and he was drunk.  His fat belly heaved over his underwear with each top of the lung scream , “ Helllllllen!….  Hellllllen!,  like he was performing Streetcar but had gotten the name wrong. Then he deviated from the Tennessee Williams script and added  “Let me in my FUCKING house, Hellllllllllen! ”God Damn you Hellllllllen! Let me in my fucking house!”

It was hysterically funny and we had to clamp hands over our mouths to stop from making any noises.

What was even funnier to us was how either of  us could have ever thought that what we had been hearing was actually Marlon Brando in Street Car Named Desire.  This beer-bellied slob was definitely a classic loon but in no way at all resembled the actor, nor would his acting skills ever make him a contender for an Emmy or any other award.  But mystery solved! 

Still laughing, we crept back into the apartment and ignored all further wailing coming from the fence area.  We also kept waiting for the cops to show up and either make Wailin’ Marlon shut up,  leave or make Helllllllen! open the door and let  him in.   In this neighborhood blue uniform visits are  a regular occurrence – they even fly over the complex in a heliocopter almost nightly looking for some of the complexes residents.  Surely someone had called to complain about this guy’s endless feature presentation. 

But for some reason, the cops never showed up for our thespian, who continued to drone on until the wee morning hours.  I’m thinking he finally passed out in his yard as  I don’t think Helen ever opened the door and let him in his fucking house. 

But I’m still confused as to why the cops never showed. Maybe they were all at an all-night donut shop, or maybe they were never called at all.  Maybe people around here needed a good laugh and had stopped to listen to his wailing and ranting.  Maybe some of them were waiting for Helen to come out so they could see what happened next.  Maybe people were making bets inside their apartments on when he was going to drop dead from an aneursym from all the yelling. 

STELLLLLLA! Where's the Cheeezwhizzz!

At any rate, he gave us a good laugh and made us forget the price of gas for a moment.

Observation: How to Increase Traffic by Tricking Readers Into Visiting Your Blog

Here are my observations (and instructions) on how to get readers to click on your blog and increase it’s traffic!  (Please feel free to use this idea to increase your personal blog’s traffic,  if you wish):

First, I list my humor blog on every blog directory I can find.  I also post it to Cancer Survivor support group blogs and Families of missing/murdered children national support blogs.   I justify it this way – I figure if you’re DYING or dealing with the DEATH of a loved one you’d welcome the distraction - although I do tend to stay away from the blogs where perverts might hang out as I don’t want to distract them anymore than they already are.  

Next,  because I suffer from a severe lack of self-confidence,  and  automatically assume that no one will would want to read my dribble voluntarily,  I start my blog description with a lie that goes something like this: 

“The family of this blog author is sad to report the unexpected and tragic suicidal demise of  (fill in the blank) on (month-date-year), that occurred after a brief but severe depression.  In an effort to educate the public on this growing epidemic, the family has graciously agreed to share their  private agony with the world.  They feel if this prevents just one more family from experiencing the nightmare of a loved one’s suicide due to the untreated mental conditions of  low self-esteem and self -pity, the reliving of their pain will have been worth it 1000 times over –   The following is an excerpt from the author’s last desperate message (along with a link for the suicide video in it’s entirety) to a world that had gone deaf to his pleas for validation.” 

Then I post the “author’s excerpt”.  It reads something like this,  ”because I was ignored by a cold and uncaring world,  I was forced to film my suicide for posterity and make EVERYONE who views it feel horrible and sorry about what THEY DID TO ME!” , along  with a link readers will assume take’s  them right to the You Tube page that contains the video.

Are you happy you cold unfeeling assholes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now because I already know that this link will be worn out worse than a chronic masturbater’s finger by the end of Day One,  as  everyone loves to view the tortured suicide of some random jerk  (it makes them feel they’re finally less pathetic than someone else),  this is where I slide in the old bait and switch.  Witness the unfolding of my brilliance:

 

I need some ATTENTION NOW!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turns out all those readers expecting an instant-gratification, 100% no-hassle free view into my mental anguish and human frailties have to manually take the time to click on my blog first, in order to get to their reward! It’s true – Nothing’s for free! DAMN!!  And of course once the poor mice go through all that back breaking work to get to the promised cheese, only to end up viewing the “Leave Brittany ALONE!” parody some clever perp made a few years back, they’ll discover how full of shit I am and most won’t see the humor in it. Oh well, boo-fuckin-hoo.

Anyway, at this point usually one of two things happen:

Sometimes, just sometimes…I get a clicker who actually gets it and finds what I’ve pulled off hysterical.  They actually come back repeatedly for more of my evil scams and observations.  These are the intelligent blog readers.

More commonly however, the majority of lazy idiots become irate and leave me angry self-righteous comments on the Imposter video’s You Tube page commentary section AND at my blog. In fact, many of them will even return to my blog numerous times in order to defamate my character again.  Turns out they don’t appreciate being cheated out of their opportunity to feel superior to some loser who promised to be a WAY bigger loser than they’ll ever be, only he trashed their dreams by revealing himself  a fake.  Again I repeat -  boo-fuckin-hoo and add a HA HA too. 

So what does this end up proving boys and girls?  Only that I was clever enough to steal the real  prize sought by EVERY blogger who starts a blog.  No matter what crap, goody-two shoes reason any blogger gives for starting a blog, know this – They’re  ALL in it for the attention.  Attention that’s offically logged for everyone to see – by all that traffic to their blog!  I include myself amongst the hopelessly vain, I admit it.  

And guess what?   I’M  getting lots of ATTENTION these days – from THEM!  As my blog stats for traffic to my blog proves – Negative attention is STILL attention.

I ROCK!

ZEN Bush…

This is a GOOD BUSH..a ZEN bush

THIS is a beautiful bush…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But we’re not here today to observe THIS bush – although it is a certainty it could teach us much in the way of  ZEN wisdom…

 

 

NO…

 

 

We’re here today to  observe THIS bush – and we will stay here and study it for as long as it takes to learn something ZEN from it’s wisdom…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alrighty then!   I’m ready to scoot!