Reflectivity, Two Thousand and Eight
Another year is drawing to a close, and as cliched as it is I feel compelled to somehow reminisce and reflect upon it.
First of all...to any and all who happen to be reading this, happy new year's. I hope your 2008 didn't suck and that your 2009 is even better. I hope dreams come to fruition and goals are attained and all that you are striving for comes to you. Unless it somehow negatively affects me or other people, in which case, that is fucked up and you should hope for better things. Seriously.
As it seems is the norm for me over the past several years, it has been a year of enormous change and upheaval. The two biggest things are starting a new job and buying a house, either one of which would be huge by themselves, but I did both in the same month of the same year. Looking back I wonder if it was the smart choice, but I guess it doesn't matter because it's the choice I made and so far at least, I have survived it.
Owning a house still feels so odd. As of now, it hasn't changed my life really. Other than mortgage being more expensive than rent, it's pretty much the same as the house rental situation I was in a year ago this time. But I feel like I'm holding my breath because I am now responsible for everything alone, and the second something major (or minor for that matter) does fail on me, there is no landlord to call. There is me to fix it if I can and call/pay someone else if I can't. And trust me, I'm pretty sure I can't. So it's all great and good now...but still scary. Our backup funds are limited, and being forced to tap too far and too fast in to them could be disastrous.
On top of all that, it still feels a little weird to have a semi-permanent residence. I have been living what feels like a nomadic life for so long now. I moved out of my parents' house eight years ago, and this is the seventh domicile I have lived in since then. I am accustomed to moving nearly every year, and I don't think it has fully sunk in that this is where I am going to be for an extended period of time.
The job change was even bigger though, at least to me. I had been working remotely for my old company in Chicago since I moved to Delaware. In a lot of ways, quitting there felt like severing my last personal ties to a city that I really had loved living in. Sure, I was miserable much of my time there, and the winters were pure inner circles of Hell on Earth, but all the same I loved so much about being there. The people I met, the places to go, the culture and all the things to do and sights to see, I loved it. I have tried to keep those connections, to maintain those friendships that were so important to me for so long (with varying degrees of success), but it's hard and I feel it's a losing battle sometimes. I think a lot about my friends from Chicago, people like Chris, Rob, Dave F., Rebecca, Sandra, Gisela, Jason, Roy, Joe G., Freddy, Susan, Rich and Sush...I miss them all tons and have not seen any of them in far too long. It sucks and I hate it, but that is life I suppose...one more aspect of life to despise.
So here we are, 22 hours, some odd minutes, and counting until an arbitrary marker, a milestone that really means nothing at all except what we make of it, and still I am nostalgic. And I really do not know if it is legitimate or because it's been impressed upon me for years that I should reminisce and look back upon 12 months of strife and love and pain and joy...but either way here I am. Nothing to gain but remembrance. Nostalgia. Looking back, reflective.
Linus
December 10, 2005
That is a date that will always have a special, terrible significance to me. And here it is again, three years later. December 10 is the day that always will be the day I signed Linus' life over to Chicago Animal Control after two months trying to save him. He died then, either that night or on the 11th. I don't know and I never will, just like everything else about that incident. He bit the dog walker. Why? I don't know. No one does, except maybe her. I know that I tried so hard to stop the inevitable, and it wasn't enough.
Incident...makes it sound like some sort of misunderstanding. A scuffle between friends that was later made up over whiskey and tears and reminiscence.
I still remember the horrible small things. The coppery smell of blood in the apartment the day it happened. I remember sitting with him that night, in tears, saying "don't you know what this means? they're going to try to kill you now," and praying to any god who I thought would listen that I was wrong. I remember how happy he was to be going on a car ride that night he was taken in to city Animal Control, and once we got there, the frightened way he kept looking back as they lead him away when he was surrendered for "quarantine".
And most of all when it was all lost, I remember that drive down to animal control, alone and feeling it more alone than I ever have or will. The lingering thoughts that somehow, the inevitable could be avoided, that I could save him. Even to the point of absurd fantasies of movie hero theatrics, slaughtering cops and those who had lied to me about what his fate would be in a righteous violent fury, shattered glass and bullet casings in slow motion, saving the one thing I had in my life who at that time loved me and trusted me completely, that I had failed to save. He loved me, and he trusted me, and I failed him.
There was no gunfire though, no swirling trench coat as the bad guys fell before me. There was the dry scratch of ballpoint on a release paper and a brief moment to say goodbye. But even that didn't matter, not anymore because he didn't recognize me, and if he did it didn't matter. After two months locked non-stop in a cage, he was dead inside, had given up all hope. If he recognized me, it was with nothing but pain, because I am the one that turned him over to Them. Who subjected him to the living Hell that was about to end finally, mercifully. Then it was a drive home through the snowstorm to drown in a flood of tears, alcohol and regret. And god I hate how self-pitying this all sounds, wallowing in my own sadness, because fuck it at least I am still alive. He didn't get that luxury.
It's been so long now, and I still dwell. I don't know why. I don't know what the point is other than remembrance. But I loved him, and at a time that I felt very alone, he loved me unconditionally. No matter what, he was always so happy to see me, and I knew that I mattered to him. And he mattered so much to me, and I miss him still. So fucking much. Beating myself up for it does no good, and I can't bring him back or change how things played out. But I would give just about anything and everything I have to do just that.
I miss you still, Linus. I loved you and do love you, and I hope that you are somewhere that it doesn't hurt anymore. And I am so sorry, still. I will always be sorry, and I will always love you.
Hope
Choronzon: I am Anti-Life, the Beast of Judgement. I am the Dark at the End of Everything. The End of Universes, Gods, Worlds...
...of Everything.
Sss. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?Dream: I am Hope.
-The Sandman, issue 4, 'A Hope in Hell'
written by Neil Gaiman
I've been thinking a lot about hope lately, how completely insubstantial yet singularly important it is to our lives. It is nothing and it is everything, intangible and priceless. It is the light that keeps us going when life seems black as pitch, the drive to go just a little further, and then a little further after that. It's what makes us try when giving up seems so much easier. It cannot be sold and it cannot be bought. It is strength at your weakest, it cannot be stolen if you are not willing to give it up and it can only be destroyed if you let it be.
To completely give up hope is to lose all you have and be dead inside already, beyond salvation; breathing, warm and heart beating but not alive and never to be again.
In the darkest place, at the edge of the deepest abyss, when you're teetering at the brink, eyes burning and cursing all of existence and convinced that death would be easier, there still is room for hope. You have only fallen when you give that up. When it cannot get better, when there is no salvation left, when the last gossamer thread that could have pulled you back from that place slips from your grasp and the only thing left to do is take that last step and say goodbye to it all, then and only then have you truly lost all hope.
I've never been to these places, never sunk to that depth. I've felt hopeless, and sometimes I still do. I've had dark times in my life, and I will have more. I am so lost and scared and confused sometimes and I feel like things will never make sense in a way I can grasp. But I have never truly lost all hope. I am convinced that to do so must be the most horrific experience that one can endure, worse than whatever brought you there.
I have never lost all hope. I hope I never do.
Jesus, Protect Me from Your Followers
or...why I, and others like me, have so much beef with so many Christians.
The folks on the right talk so often and loudly about Jesus, and claim him as their own. It's impossible these days in America to separate religion and politics. So lets talk about that guy that got nailed to a tree that the Republicans claim to love so much.
Two things to note, first of which is the obvious: I am not religious. I have a love for Buddhist and Taoist philosophy and writings but I would be lying if I called myself one. I was raised Lutheran, which is Catholicism with less bullshit and less Mary. I drifted away from that pretty young though. Too many questions that could not be answered, too much doubt, too much emptiness, too much hollow.
Second, I am basing all that follows on the belief that religion is not something you do for an hour a week. It’s not something you dabble in. Sitting in church doesn’t make you a Christian, just like sitting in a garage doesn’t make you a car. It is what you believe, to the core. The guiding principles of your life. Christianity is defined so differently by so many people, but when you strip away all of the bullshit, the ceremonial trappings and inter-sect squabbles, at the heart of it all the point is to follow Christ’s teachings and example as best you can. To try to be the light of peace that he was. All the rest is just trim.
And right there is my beef. So many (most?) on the Right just use their religion to justify how they already feel, to rationalize their prejudice and hate. And so Jesus becomes a reason to discriminate, to hate gays and Muslims, to wage war...to do all manner of things that he was blatantly against. I don’t like the Vatican much, but damn it was nice to see the pope call the Iraq war for what it was.
If you think Christ’s highest priorities, were he alive today, would be eradicating Muslims, stopping abortions, and keeping gays from getting married, you really need to evaluate your priorities. Maybe he would care about those things, maybe not. But I am damn sure that ethnic cleansing in third world countries, the thousands of innocents dying in Iraq, the destruction of the environment, the greed and avarice and sickening chasm between the haves and the have-nots all across the world would all be much bigger blips on his radar.
So why doesn’t the party who claims Jesus as their own, who brings up religion the most often and proclaims it the loudest, care more about those things? If you claim Christianity as your religion, why isn’t helping people, all people your priority; your highest priority, as it was for Jesus? I don’t see the most vocal Christians calling to help those who need. I see them calling for more suffering. More war. More weapons. More death. More torture. More oppression.
...why?
“Support” Our Troops
Apparently, the UFC is holding a benefit for the troops, called Fight For the Troops.
You're probably expecting me to make fun of this. Hell... even I am expecting me to make fun of this...but I won't, not really. I just want to bring up two things.
- First of all, after a $700B+ bailout of the banks and a $25B+ bailout of the auto industries pending, how is it not absolutely sickening that Spike and the UFC have to help raise funds to treat traumatic brain injuries sustained by our troops?
- Second...am I the only one who sees a certain amount of absurd, twisted irony in men beating each other in the head to raise money for a state-of-the-art brain trauma treatment center?
Event planner 1: "Man...a lot of troops are coming home with horrible injuries. A lot of them to the head and brain. That's tragic, and I wish we could do something about it."
Event planner 2: "I agree, it's a tragedy...but what can we do?"
Event planner 1: .................*PUNCH!*
Support Our Mercenaries
Today six Blackwater mercenaries security contractors have been taken in to federal custody and charged in the September 16, 2007 massacre of 17 civilians that left another 20 wounded.
Blackwater has been profiting from the war from the start thanks to the extensive Republican contacts made by founder Erik Prince, and this is far from the first (to put it mildly) questionable incident they have been involved in. All in all, from 2005 to September 2007 Blackwater was involved in 195 shootings. Do you know how many times the "enemy" shot first? Thirty-two. In 195 shootings, they fired first 162 times. Let's look back at some of their greatest "hits", as it were...
There was the time they crashed one of their armored SUVs into an Army Humvee, and then proceeded to disarm and detain the American soldiers. Oh, and those 3 guards for the state-sponsored Iraqi Media Network gunned down by a Blackwater sniper despite not having fired a shot, and the civilian shot in a separate incident in Baghdad for "driving too close" to a convoy.
And possibly their finest moment was the drunk murder of the Iraqi Vice President's security guard in 2006. On Christmas eve, no less. Festive, no? The company's must have felt the warmth of the season in his heart that December 25th. The joy of baby Jesus' birth, renewed hope for mankind, the senseless bloodshed of innocent men, women, and children that would be your only legacy. Ah, the holidays.
As sick as this all is, none of it really shocks me anymore. If it did, it would mean I am hopelessly naive. No, what sickens and boggles me most is the right wing fascists who are leaping to their defense. Now while I can't personally relate to the "ra ra ra, America fuck yeah, support our troops" mentality, I guess on some level I understand it. Personally, I support our troops who deserve it. But the ones who are over there stealing, raping, murdering...well, those guys deserve an IED enema. Fuck them. But to be outraged that people might be held accountable and taken to trial for war crimes, people who are not even soldiers? What the fuck? Didn't Bush run on a platform of accountability and responsibility? Why is it then that these people don't want to see anyone punished for their misdeeds? These people are the first to condemn any civilian that is arrested in this country (provided they aren't white and rich) and assume that they are guilty guilty guilty, and should be executed for that dime bag they were caught with. They are the first screaming for the blood of every Arab carted off to Gitmo, regardless of the evidence or lack there of.
So why? Why the support for Blackwater? When did war profiteering become a noble and honorable pursuit? Is it pure racist jingoism, the belief that anyone who is shooting brown people in Iraq is a good guy who loves freedom, yay freedom, no matter what uniform he is wearing, or if he even is wearing one? If they love freedom so much and wanted to give that precious gift to the Iraqi people, why then when Iraq say they want Blackwater out don't the neocons honor that? Why aren't they allowed to use their new-found "freedom" to prosecute the bastard foreigners who kill their people, especially given the bastards' own government is completely reluctant to?
For more on the full glorious story of Blackwater, check out "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers", a Robert Greenwald film. Part one, approximately ten minutes, is below.
Wasteland Dancin’
The world of Fallout 3 is richly detailed, superbly realized, and just all around awe-inspiring. It's also a world that is full of fantastic dancers. Maybe you have to be a fan of the game to really enjoy this, I don't know. I know I laughed way too hard at it though.
Recent Posts
- Leaving Hope
- Because I Can
- Stephen Colbert, Accidental Hacker
- Doing good
- You know who needs to be punched in the face?
- The pains of being a pack rat
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