Thursday, November 12, 2009
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Internal Debate
I am slogging through my normal routine, doing what I am supposed to be doing. Today is my 417th day of walking. I am teaching. I am conducting my research. I am writing grants. But there is no joy.
I have the option to head to deer camp for the weekend. Yet I am feeling nonplussed about the option. Below, I list the four options I see for myself this weekend and my opinions about each:
1. Go to deer camp. If I go, I will need to drive about 3.5 hours north of here, and sleep in a grungy cabin with a lot of noise. The positives will be spending a lot of time drinking, playing poker, and talking a lot of silly b*llsh*t.
Current opinion of option #1 - NEUTRAL; usually I am very positive about this option.
2. Do yard work outside. If I take this option, I still have a helluva lot of leaves to mulch or bag, a sh*tload of plants to remove, a boatload of items to tidy and put away, and a snow blower to get into shape.
Current opinion of option #2 - NEGATIVE; I feel I have the energy of a frozen slug.
3. Do work inside the house. If I take this option, I will be cleaning, adjusting banisters and railings, readjusting clocks, moving things to the attic, doing touch-up painting, etc.
Current opinion of option #3 - NEGATIVE; I feel I have the energy of two frozen slugs concerning this option.
4. Sleep away the weekend. - self-explanatory in the title.
Current opinion of option #4 - NEUTRAL to MILDLY POSITIVE; Sleeping away the weekend will perhaps help me during the weekend, but come Monday when I have to be up and "alert" all it will do is make me aggravated as hell at myself for wasting an entire weekend. Sleeping may also increase my melancholy.
So, I cannot thinking of anything else I may do this weekend. But I truly do not have much gumption, much drive, or much interest in any of the above. What do you think?
PipeTobacco
6:06 AM
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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"Why?" You Ask?
Today's essay is inspired by Jane, an occasional commenter on my site. In response to Monday's essay (more of a brief pair of sentences, actually), she wrote:
"Why don't you get help?
Seriously.......why don't you?
jane | 11.10.09 - 11:02 pm"
Hmm. A difficult question to answer. But, I shall give it a shot:
Do I experience bouts where I am enormously sad, perhaps depressed, perhaps despondant? Yes. Is it normal to feel this way? I do not know really how to define "normal" in regards to emotions. When I am in these pits of despair, I hate them and feel utterly lost and forlorn and without hope. I feel like all is lost in life. But doesn't everyone feel that way from time-to-time? Isn't life sometimes sad? I really do not know how to answer this question, but I often wonder if the various "sadnesses" I feel in my heart and soul are the same as other people experience, or if I am somehow "different" in a way that is clinical or problematic?
As many of my long-time readers know, I am very UNSUCCESSFUL in handling death. The most significant death I have lived through recently was the passage of my beautiful mother in March of 2007. There are many other deaths though that have impacted me including my wonderful father in 1994, a wonderful, creative niece who killed herself by suicide in 1994, my graduate research mentor/advisor in 1994, a wonderful uncle in 1994, a very close family friend in 1994. Also, there has been the death of another uncle (an additional father-figure to me and a friend and mentor) in 1999, a beautiful aunt in 2002, and a cousin in 2009.
Why do I mention them? I mention the above because I am not sure if I "deal" with these deaths in the "right" way or not. In reality, I seem to have two methods though which I "cope"... either I a) think about these wonderful people who are now gone and I am sad, and I think of my own looming mortality, and how there will very soon come a time when I will not be here with my family and I will be dead, in the same way all those people who loved me before are dead. In this framework, all of life seems bleak and sad, and difficult to focus on. Or, conversely, I adopt strategy b) where I ignore it all and try to blithely go about life without thinking about death, without thinking about my loved ones who are gone. Neither strategy is wholly effective, and yet I do not know of any other strategies to employ.
If I spend time in my mind (I am a professor, so I am used to thinking), I will inevitably begin to think again about the futility of it all, about how death is looming for all of us in truly only a moment of time. So, in the last few years, I have become less of a thinker, less of a reader, more of a person who just drifts from moment to moment. In some ways this has been helpful, for it keeps the harsh agony quelled a bit, but I do not know if it is effective in healing. But I also do not see any other alternative.
So, Jane, I really do not know. I do not know if there is anything that CAN help, nor do I know if I am any different from anyone else in this regard. I really do not know, and I am simply here, in a sea of inactivity and indecision and uncertainity.
PipeTobacco
10:51 AM
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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Flash Fiction Week #9
I was absent from last week's flash fiction effort because of the emotional issues I was experiencing that had me do nothing other than what was absolutely required of me. I am still feeling VERY rough emotionally, but I am trying to rejoin the world, so-to-speak, and am forcing myself to at least try to do the things I enjoy. Today's effort will be a bit of a break from my continuing saga (my previous Flash Fiction Efforts were a sort of serial). I may be a bit late, so I may not be counted on the actual Flash Fiction effort. But if not, it is my own damn fault, of course.
* * * * *
Conundrum Passage
Is this all there is? Live and then die? One moment you are flesh and blood, but the next you are rotting tissue? Is it really a bunch of lies we have been fed our entire lives, that makes us think and believe there is a purpose, a meaning to anything that we do?
All the above thoughts, and many, more putrid ideas have been percolating in my brain as I sit shriveled up on the couch that is in my office, in the turreted, third floor room of the old Victorian house I and my wife live in.
"Life is fleeting. All I do is empty and useless." I whisper hoarsely to Hippo, the orange tabby cat, my voice rough from hours of sobbing.
Hippo is the cat's nickname, for his formal name is Hippocampus. My wife and I found him in a box along the railroad tracks where the two of us often walked together to view the Fall leaves. We noticed the box on the tracks and thought it odd. Getting closer, we heard a puny, and weak "mew" sound from the box. We quickly opened the box and found a nearly starved kitten roughly about 6 weeks of age. The kitten was so frail and thin, its bones along its tail and back were sharp and prominent, feeling the body of the kitten, its muscles had no form or definition, for they had been consumed by the kitten for energy. The little kitten could barely stand from weakness.
I did not think the kitten would survive, but we brought it home and put it in a warm, covered box with some food, water, and a blanket. The next morning, I took the box to the veterinarian, presuming he would end up euthanizing the little kitten. Much to my surprise, when I opened box, the kitten, though still frail and exceedingly malnourished, was alert, and attentive. The vet looked him over, stem to stern, and took a blood sample as well. He gave me a slightly jaundiced eye and asked, "Are you going to keep it?"
The thought had not really crossed my mind the evening before, as I thought there was no hope. I looked at the kitten and asked, "Do you feel he has a chance to survive and be reasonably healthy?"
"I'll know more in a few minutes." he said, as he went to the back to look at the sample.
I could not believe people treating this small kitten so badly. I picked it up while I was waiting and the little "motor" in the back of his throat started to vibrate as he purred.
The veterinarian returned a few minutes later with a furrowed brow, and a bit of a scowl across his furry, grey face. "Well, I'm not exactly sure what to tell you. This cat has virtually no flesh on it, and it has been horribly mistreated. However, it also does not have worms or feline leukemia, or any life threatening disease I can uncover. That said, my advice is really a compromise of sorts. Right now the little beast is healthy, albeit starved, but the degree of emaciation this cat shows is bound to affect how it grows and develops, and also its long-term survival."
I looked at the kitten, and also looked at the vet. "I guess I will have to give it a chance." I said with a lackluster tone to my voice, mostly to match his own tone and mannerisms. Truth be told, however, I was glad to try saving the kitten, as I saw how happy and content it seemed, even with all the harshness and abuse it had experienced. It somehow could still be content and happy. On the way home in my truck, I decided to name the little kitten Hippocampus, because it was a region of the brain I had been working on writing a research grant about for the last several weeks. The hippocampus is the region of the brain where memories are believed to he stored, and the grant I was woarking on was to examine in a rat model, the role of exogenous cortisols on memory.
That was 7 years ago, and while both my wife and I know that Hippo could still have a shortened life span, we do know he has been a valued and true member of our family. He filled out very quickly and by the time we had him for a year, he weighed in at 26 pounds, and was long and rangy. Yet, he never lost his happiness, and he always wants to be near one of us or one of the kids when home.
I so needed his companionship today. I do not know what it is, but something is just not right. I feel like a man who is in disguise. On the outside, I look like I have a wonderful life.... actually I DO have a wonderful life, but inside, deep in my very soul, all I feel is sadness and loneliness that I cannot even put it into words. I love my wife, I love my kids, I love my family and friends. My job is *usually* very nice (it has glitches of course), but for the most part life is good. Yet, at different times and without understanding why, I fall into a pit of despair, a vast crevasse though which I fear I may not be able to climb out of. The best I can describe is that it is akin to feeling so utterly isolated, isolated from time, from people, from any sensation. It feels as if I am in a void, a void that I fear will last for infinity. No one will hear me, no one will see me, no one will touch me, no one will know me. A complete and utter void.
I need some sort of redemption. Please.
* * * * *
It is different from my earlier efforts. I hope it is at least somewhat interesting.
PipeTobacco
12:22 PM
Monday, November 09, 2009
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Where the Hell Have I Been?
Unfortunately, I have been in the pits of sadness and despair. I am trying to climb out. I am not sure how successful I will be. But I shall try.
PipeTobacco
11:41 AM
Friday, October 30, 2009
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Free Food & Booze
Tonight is the annual Faculty Appreciation Dinner at the U. It should be a helluva good time. Lots of food, lots of liquor, and hopefully not a helluva lot of schmoozing.
I am planning to get "likkered" up.
PipeTobacco
9:19 AM
Thursday, October 29, 2009
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Take This B*llsh*t and Shove It!
What is it I do not get? I love my teaching and research. I truly do! I relish being on a variety of committees and groups to be active in service in my community. Again, I truly do! So, what is it that puts a damn, dark cloud over my feelings about work so much of the time:
1. Asinine people who try to take advantage of me by having me do THEIR work.
2. Students who view a college education as a piece of paper you purchase, and view professors as their salesmen. I am an educator, not a babysitter. I am the person who understands what is appropriate for you to learn. Do not come to me with attitude and bravado and think you will bully me into giving you a good grade. No way in hell will that happen. Instead, you will just p*ss me off and get me aggravated for the day.
3. Administrators who view faculty as hamsters on a wheel. They think that we are cattle to be herded, but let me assure you, 99+% of us faculty will not behave like cattle, but instead you will be finding yourself in a situation akin to herding a hundred cats. It WON'T work.
Now, let me reassure you that there are MOSLTY VERY NICE PEOPLE that I work with, and there are MOSTLY WONDERFUL STUDENTS I work with, and there are even MOSTLY WONDERFUL ADMINSTRATORS I work with, but it is the small number who are rude idiots in each of the above three categories that drain every ounce of energy out of my being. They are the ruination of my mind and my psyche. I need to develop a better way to deal with them. But what the hell is that way?
PipeTobacco
8:07 AM
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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Day 402
I forgot to mention (in my glee at my flash fiction entry) that I have broken the 400 day milestone! With an average of 4-5 miles per day, that means in the last 402 days, I have logged roughly 1800 miles (close to 2900 km).
This walking every day has been one of the best things I have done for myself in the last few years.
PipeTobacco
7:00 AM
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