Insomnia: A User's Guide Pt. 374

Ever had trouble sleeping and have someone suggest that you "count sheep?"
Bah.
Sleep is for the weak and counting sheep is for pussies.
I'm a bad-ass motherfucker, I don't need sleep and I sure as hell am not gonna waste my precious insomnia on being a virtual shepherd.
I like to lie awake all night and torture myself by making lists of things I can't change.
OK, that's not exactly true- I don't enjoy making the lists, but I do it anyway.

Here's a sampling from some of my fave self-torment lists:

THE LOVERS:
I'm not now and have never been promiscuous , so if I think about it long enough, I can actually name almost every woman I have ever slept with. But just counting them isn't enough, there aren't that many and it doesn't take long to merely list them. To really deprive myself of sleep, I need details.
So when the insomnia hits, I start sorting them by alphabetical order, last name (if known) first.
Then by chronology. And so on:
-Hair color.
-Astrological sign.
-Where we met.
-What music was playing?
-Drug of choice.
-Favorite position.
If we were 'dating', I replay the details of the break-up and try to figure out what it was that I did wrong. This leads to my next list- Faults, real or imagined:

THE FAULTS:
- HAIR: I started losing my hair when I was 18 but didn't admit it until I was 30 and I started shaving my head in a show of solidarity with my mom, who was undergoing chemo at the time.
If I had started shaving my head when I was 18, it would probably take me a lot longer than it does to count all my ex-lovers. For years, I had long hair and a bald spot, which is probably the least attractive hair-do a man can sport, short of wearing a toupee.
Once, a hippie GF convinced me to try wearing a ponytail.
I was dumb enough to agree.
I had a ponytail and a bald spot at 25 years old.
I may never outlive that shame.

- ROCKIN':
I used to be convinced that I would make a living playing music. Either that, or I would be dead before I turned 40. For 15 years, all my extra energy went into making music. I have at least six hours worth of my own material recorded- I could have written a novel, graduated college or invented a time machine with all of the energy I wasted on Rockin'.
Rockin' has ruined my love life more than once.
One of my girlfriends used to cheat on me when I had gigs- when I was on stage, she knew I wasn't gonna catch her at home...years later, I was trying to impress another woman with my musical awesomeness, so I sent her a CD. She called me and told me that my songs were indicative of serious mental illness and maybe it would be better if we didn't see each other.
That bothered me.

-GETTING WASTED:
I had a PermaBuzz from 1983 to 2005. From Absinthe to Xanax, I have done it all at least once. For a long time, this was fun, but it's really a difficult lifestyle to maintain and it tends to drive away sane people. I once boasted, truthfully, that I could snort an entire eight-ball in two giant lines. That ability didn't exactly attract the best sort of person, my personal possessions had a habit of vanishing when certain 'friends' visited.
And it leads to my new favorite list...


YET ANOTHER BRUSH WITH DEATH:

- DEATH BY AUTO:
Years ago, a man ran a stop sign and I broadsided his new Lexus with my old Honda at 55 mph, totalling both cars. We both emerged unscathed...I was so surprised to be unhurt that I didn't even get mad at the guy, in fact, we sorta bonded on the roadside, looking at the wrecked cars and waiting for the cops...dude sent me $600 even though I told him I wasn't planning on suing or anything.
A year or so later, I blew a tire and bounced my newer Accord across five lanes of rush-hour traffic. I hit a Ford, totalling it, bounced off a Toyota ( wrecked) and finally stopped pinballing when I hit a guardrail. My Honda had a couple dents and lost a headlight. The police officer said he couldn't imagine how I managed to wreck two cars while barely hurting my own. I drove away without a bruise or a ticket...my 4th of July collision with a deer made me think about that...three serious smash-ups that I've walked away from without a scratch.

-DEATH BY SCORPIO:
I haven't had a lot of girlfriends, but at least half of them have been Scorpios and each one of them has made at least one attempt on my life. Knives, guns, a bass guitar and a Wolf-Shepherd hybrid are some of the weapons employed by Scorpios seeking my demise. On the positive side, a failed murder attempt can lead to some pretty terrific revenge sex. It's the mortality buzz, I guess.

-DEATH BY BOOZE:
This is the one that lingers on my mind the most. When I saw the deer's blood and guts on the side of my car, the first thing I thought of was my own experience with alcohol-
induced internal hemorrhaging and how much of my own blood I have seen. If you drink heavily for a long, long time, your guts will literally dissolve and you will drown in your own blood - that is what happened to me.
I made it to the ER with a few minutes to spare. When I read the recent news story about a woman who bled to death in an L.A. hospital ER, I had a flashback that triggered a serious panic episode, so I know the fear is still with me. The fear keeps me sober.

I'd like to think that all these close calls have made me braver or stronger somehow, but yesterday it caught up to me- all of it- and I was literally paralyzed by thought. I spent the afternoon just sitting and trying not to think about all of the things that I have just spent an hour describing.
It must have worked, because I actually did sleep last night and my dreams weren't at all bad.

I had a good dream.
My dream had an accent, not an accident.
It was full of love and it rocked without fault.

Big Brother's Vacant Stare

I am growing increasingly disenchanted with work. This new 'motivational' poster isn't helping.

We had a New Guy that I actually liked, but he quit last week, after working less than a month. That is about as long as anyone lasts at this job.
Except me. I've been here a combined total of about two years.

I've had this job three times, once as a temp, then again twice as a regular employee. I quit last winter and failed at a new job, only to be re-hired - good thing too, since I was broke...I've had a few leads and even an interview elsewhere since then, but nothing has panned out yet. I keep my eyes and ears open but so far no matter what I do, I keep winding up at the same desk.

It's the Ant Lion at the bottom of my career funnel.

Today I gave stacking training. Stacking training is the process of explaining how to stack objects of various sizes, shapes and weights, such as boxes and office equipment. Generally, one places the larger and heavier objects on the bottom of any given stack, with the items growing smaller and lighter toward the top.

Take the following objects:

-Three big boxes full of paper.
-One big box, empty
-A fax machine

If you stack them in any order than the reverse as listed, you are inviting trouble.



There was trouble.

Sunday, Monday...

Monday morning, 7:30 AM : I am awakened by a call from the pharmacy. The pharmacist explains that my insurance only covers a 60 day supply of certain drugs, and my refills are not covered. I will need to get my doctor to authorize them- which I thought he did when he wrote the scrips in the first place- I have 2 and 3 refills on my respective meds.

"Oh, you can still have the medicine, it just isn't covered", the pharmacist tells me. "You will need authorization and that usually takes a few weeks."

A few weeks? I am out of pills. I can't wait a few weeks.

"How much do my scrips cost without insurance?", I ask.

"$280."

"$ 280! How much for just one of them?"

"Oh, that is just one. Together it will be $410."

Then my alarm clock goes off- between my early awakening, the bad financial news and the clock's sudden screeching , I am so rattled that I drop the phone. I'm exhuasted, my nerves are shot and I haven't even showered yet.

Ironically, the medicines in question are intended to treat insomnia and anxiety.

I can already tell that this week is heading for the toilet. At least I had a good weekend. I'm going to need those memories to sustain me, because I sure as hell can't afford drugs- even with insurance and a prescription, I can't have my pills.

My doctor's office hates the insurance company, but they tell me they can't change the rules. Instead, my doc calls in two "substitute" scrips for medications that don't work nearly as well as the ones I've been taking. In a few weeks, after my authorization is processed, I can go back to taking the pills that work.

Until then, I'll have to survive on the fumes from Sunday's show.

THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, June 10,2007:


Snakefinger- Jesus Gave Me Water/Move
My copy of 'Night of Desirable Objects' is signed by Snakefinger.One of my few material treasures. Man, he sure could play.

Black Sabbath - Am I Going Insane?
Yes, Ozzy, you are. One day you will be more well-known for being on "reality TV" than for Black Sabbath. No wonder you flipped out.

Steeleye Span- Celtic Inferno
Burn, baby, burn!

Dire Straits- Lady Writer
You broke my heart. Twice.

Alan Parsons Project- The Tell-Tale Heart
When you were done, you buried the evidence under the floorboards, where it continues to haunt you to this day. You can try to run away, but you'll always hear the beating of my hideous heart.

Manzanera/Eno/801 Live- Tomorrow Never Knows
Relax. Maybe things will improve. Maybe they won't.

Frank Zappa- Dirty Love
The poodle bites.

Emmylou Harris- Here I am
Right here. Easy to find and the door is open. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

Steve Hillage- Wait One Moment
One moment. Not five years. One moment.

Briege Murphy- Cloghinne Winds
Add another name to my list of hopeless crushes...sigh. What a pretty song. I wish I knew how to pronounce her first name. Breege? Brayge?

Sweetwater- Why oh Why?
I ask myself this question all the fucking time...never an answer. Great 60's band, though.

Fiona Joyce- Cry Over You
I'm in the mood for this- new on St.Clair records. Beautiful song, great voice and wonderful production.

Loreena McKennitt- Gates of Istanbul
Ahhhhhhh...sonic excellence.

Anuna- The Last Rose
I'm in a Green Zone today and this Celtic choir helps keep me there.

Stranglers- Let Me Down Easy
This request is unlikely to be granted. Life doesn't work that way. A better title would be : "Destroy me in under sixty seconds"

Pentangle- Mirage
Is this real? No.

Fairport Convention- The Way I Feel
If I felt as great as this song sounds, I'd be euphoric. Instead, I am merely delusional.

Claanad- The Other Side
Always wins.

Danielle Dax- The Wheeled Wagon
Hah! Take that!
This song brings back happy memories! Michael Hawkesworth, are you out there? ( MH was the original Breakfast Snob and the title of my programme is a tribute to him. I'd love to talk to him again...it's been 20 years). He turned me on to Dax.

Blonde Redhead- Slogan
Cheering up now...I have no idea what the French lyrics are saying, but I like the melody.

Can- Half Past One
If I am playing Can, I am in a good mood.

Funkadelic- This Broken Heart
"I got more faults than Carter's got little pills."

Gentle Giant- Free Hand
I am very luck to have a free hand in selecting my songs.

Damien Dempsey- The Jar Song
Buy his records.

Jethro Tull- Acres Wild
I'm being very optimistic here.

Pretty Things - She's a Lover
Of someone else.

Soft Machine- Why Are We Sleeping?
Why are we awake?

Radio is a Flashlight

(this post has been de-fanged and replaced with a cheerier version)


I wasn't surprised to open up a local activist newspaper and see an ad for our station, but I didn't expect to see my name on it. (Clicking makes it bigger)
There's my show, The New Breakfast Snob, sandwiched between the Gospel and the Jazz.

At first , it was very difficult to adjust to waking up at 5:30 am, but I've been doing it for five months now and I've grown used to it.

In fact, I've grown quite used to the station in general.

For two years the station has been my anchor to the real world. When I got out of the hospital I threw myself into my radio work- it was my sustaining passion. When things got bad , I always had the radio to fall back on- there was always another show to produce, another playlist to program...and at home I could listen to my friends playing good music. There's a special security and comfort in listening to the announcer and not only being able to put a face on the voice, but being able visualize the entire studio. I can hear the music and in my mind's eye I can see all the buttons and knobs and that's a good feeling.

One evening I did an entire two hour show of bands that I had recorded , played in or worked for ..that was a uniquely enjoyable two hours of narcissism. I didn't announce what I was doing on-air but a couple friends noticed and that made it worthwhile.

One savvy friend asked: " Did you just do a two-hour guerrilla tribute to yourself?"

Why yes, I did. And I never played the same band twice.

Yeah , it's vain, but so what?

Check this out:

I have followed my songs all the way from the first scribbled chord progressions and words through the endless failed bands, crap rehearsals, marginal gigs, medieval recording dungeons and personal meltdowns and somehow managed to escort those very songs onto the airwaves where I used to fantasize they would one day be played.

In other words: A dream came true.

I was so busy brooding I almost didn't notice.

------

I find inspiration in odd places.

One show consisted mostly of songs inspired by my blogpals- I have even played music by blogpals and their offspring. This is more indicative of my lack of imagination than any benevolence in my character, but it was still a neat feeling - a real mingling of worlds, if you will. And the music was good, although it's also part of the saddest episode of my sad blooging career...eh,well.
Live and learn.

Every once in a while one of my blogbuddies listens to me live on the webstream and when I get their emails or comments, I feel connected in a way that radio or blog alone doesn't quite provide. (Hello and thanks to Em and JP and Lorraine and Barb and Amy and everyone else who's ever tuned in!)

I often have this almost overwhelming conviction that I am a failure in every way that matters, but then I think about my pitiful little dream and how it actually did happen. No fame, no fortune, just the knowledge that it happened because I made it so, which is more than some people ever get.

When I play my friend's music, I am helping them with their dreams in a tiny, tiny way... it's small and I know that in 'real life' it doesn't change their world or anything, but it is what I can do and it is real.
When I play songs that I grew up with sometimes I talk about those memories. I never know what I'm going to say- music moves me in unpredictable ways, but the emotion is always real.
Real radio- not a podcast. It's personal. Every song has a point.
To me, it's beautiful.

I get to share those feelings every week.

That doesn't feel like failure. That feels good.

So why am I so sad?

Kathyrn

I was idling at a red light, enjoying the cool evening air, when Kathyrn and some dogs I didn't recognize crossed in front of me. Damn, I haven't seen her for at least six years - she still looks great; I swear she looks younger, but that doesn't surprise me.

She always seemed happy and healthy, even when times were tough.

That's when we met- during tough times. Kathyrn owned a small novelty shop next to the comicbook store that I managed from 1990-97. It was in a not-good part of town, but near enough to campus to get college business and rent was cheap enough to make the location seem plausible for retail...
Her store was called 'World of Mirth' and sold everything from boxing nun puppets to exploding gum.
Need some fake vomit? Check!

A glossy hardcover coffeetable book of WWII pin-up gals? Roger that!

Little capsules that turn into dinosaurs when you drop them in water? Yep!

How about a wind-up mechanical rat? Got it!

We weren't really friends outside of our shops, but we did share a certain shopkeeper camraderie - we both ran stores on a block that was pretty bad- the local college had been (still is) waiting for all businesses on it to close so it could purchase the land for pennies- the area was left to rot and was known for it's beggars, dealers, muggers and transvestite hookers.

Sometimes we'd grab a drink 'round the corner bar and "talk shop".

Usually we'd drink tequila and talk about what a shitty location our stores were in.

She moved her store to a better street after a year or so, but I digress...back to this evening...

I smiled at her and waved through the windshield- I was certain she'd say 'hello' at least, but she just smiled, shrugged and held up a tangle of leashes.

My hands are full of dogs, she seemed to say.

Oh well.
She sure does look good.
I know that she's my age, but she looks ten years younger.

Time has been very kind to Kathyrn, I thought.

The light turned green and I drove about a mile before I remembered that Kathyrn, her husband and their three children had been murdered at the very beginning of last year.

Time is a son-of-a bitch, I thought.

Great Gift Ideas

( New Note: This post is from last year and the year before and probably next year too...)


Christ, is it almost St. Valentine's day already? What a useless holiday. If you're in a happy relationship, you should be doing nice stuff for each other every fuckin' day without being forced to prove your affection by dropping Hallmark cards, chocolates and flowers on your lover's doorstep like a cat dragging home a dead mole to please the human.
Do any of you even know what Valentine's Day is about? Don't believe all that Catholic Claptrap about Romans and imprisoned martyrs and whatnot. As usual, count on the crackerjack Camelsback research staff for the real stories behind our false holidays.
Way back in ancient times, the evil American Sun Kings and Queens of Temperance declared that the rabble should sober up. This didn't sit well with the rabble, who quickly defected to more 'spirited' personality cults, led by charismatics like St. Bugs (Moran) and the legendary St. Alphonse (Capone). In the course of establishing the only religion honest enough to call itself Organized Crime, the two beatific bootleggers became fierce, bitter and violent rivals for the lucrative tithing of the parched and desperately sober masses.

Like any viable religion, Organized Crime soon sparked more than it's share of competition, internal conflict, warfare and corruption; and so, on Feb. 14, 1929, missionaries from the Capone Church, aided by Centurions on loan from the Chicago Police Legion , decided that the Bugs Boys needed some competition-stifling Reformation. They took a half-dozen or so Moran followers into a garage on Clark Street and nailed them to the wall with hundreds of .45 caliber Theses. We celebrate the gruesome deaths of these pioneering Mafia martyrs with roses and candlelight dinners. This makes poetic sense if your love life resembles mine; for your sake I hope that it doesn't.
If it does, I'm truly sorry. Maybe it'd help if I offered some priceless gift alternatives. By priceless, I mean worthless. Buy them for yourself, it's the only attention you'll get on the 14th. And no refunds.

THE CAMELSBACK SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE CATALOG FOR THE UNLOVED AND DEPRESSED:

EMOTIONAL TRAIN WRECK

No lights. No tunnel. Just derailment, gravity and inertia. You probably thought that you'd never need to wear a parachute on a train. You thought wrong.

A real bargain for only 76 cents!

EXPRESSIONS OF UNREQUITED LOVE

This could be that letter you wish that you'd torn up when you had the chance. Maybe it's that necklace you knew that she'd love-the one you purchased the day before she told you she wasn't looking for a relationship. Perhaps it's three weeks of unreturned phone calls. It might be a horribly embarrassing love poem or song that fell into the wrong hands.

Two lousy bucks.This item knows no limits , so don't be such a cheap-ass.

A LIFETIME TOGETHER

Well, you got what you wanted. Too bad it turned out to suck, but hey, there were some good times, weren't there? Weren't there? Live the same miserable day over and over for the rest of your pointless life while you brood about the way it could have been. Even your children will pity you.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

LONELY ALCOHOLIC MELANCHOLIA

He doesn't deserve you. Take another shot.

Buy yourself something nice. No one else will.

ENDLESS SEARCH FOR LOVE

Remember how your friends used to tell you that there was someone for everyone , and someday, somebody special will see you for the irresistibly sweet, kind and golden soul that you are?These days, they don't call you very often since they all got married and had kids. If they did , you'd call them liars.

Maybe throwing your money away will make you feel better.

BUY NOW!! TIME'S RUNNING OUT!

.

Multi-Tasking

Now what?
I'm driving on the highway and my car radio goes dead. It still lights up and all, it just produces no sound.
I am radio people. I need my radio.
Not having a radio bugs me, but not as much as the clouds of smoke my car has started belching recently.
Yesterday I was able to find a loose wire inside the passenger side door- the speaker's circuit was broken is all, sure wish I'd checked that before I took my dashboard apart to get to the radio's wiring...
Today I took the car to the garage. Stereos and wires I can figure out, audio is one of my specialties- engine repair is not. Anything more complex than changing sparkplugs is beyond me.
Better get it looked at now before something happens...shit. More money I don't have.

I'm almost out of medicine and my insurance is gone. I wonder how much it costs without insurance?

Guess I'll find out. After I find out what's wrong with my car.

I use the long walk home from the garage constructively.

I brood before breakfast.

I get a lot of quality brooding done during my stroll.
My heart's in a bad place today, a fortified bunker, attacked from all sides with little hope of victory , fighting simply to endure, a veritable Khe Sanh of the soul, living on whatever can be emotionally airlifted into the perimeter, not sure if that's a mortar shell or a Red Cross package...

I lost a tug-of-war with alcohol recently. I didn't drink but someone I care about did- another broken promise...funny word "promise"..."promise" was something I saw...the potential for something great.
Done. Over. Oh well.

Speaking of alcohol, my father has gone AWOL again. I don't have the fortitude to track him down and do another intervention, but my grandmother has asked me to do it.
I am utterly , totally overwhelmed by this sudden responsibility for my 60-something father's welfare.
I don't care what he does, he's an adult and he's had all the chances to change and then some, but his behavior is killing his mother. It's shameful in the truest sense.

So I have a good brood-on going when I get home *ring!*...a call?

It's my old boss from the Law Firm. He wants to know if I'm interested in coming back...fuck, I hated that job, but it's slack and comes with insurance, 401 k and all- and my savings are gone...might have to suck it up and go back. It's nice to know I have a sure thing, though ,as I am getting a bit weary of serial disappointment.
I tell him I'll let him know soon.

I have another call to make first. Perhaps a job, perhaps not...but I'll never know if I don't call.

Hey

Look, I'm sorry if you thought I had killed myself.
Most of you will be relieved to know that I am fine, some of you might be disappointed -in either case I'm sorry.

What happened is:
-I wrote a long series of really depressing essays in response to some hard questions. It sent me on a sort of emotional snipe hunt, looking for non-existent problems that I was assured were there. Sometimes we look too hard for meanings and we find mistakes instead, make mistakes too.
-The person I wrote these essays for got bored with me before I published them, so I took them down from the blog, as well as some widgets I had put there for that person. There wasn't much left after that but the Dove but I thought it looked nice that way, plus I really didn't have anything nice to say...I go entire days without comments, so I figured I'd just fix it later when I had something a little more upbeat to share. Maybe a new pic or something.

- If you read my no-longer deleted posts , you'll see that I said I didn't plan on suicide, that I had a hard time talking about it in real life because the first thing people think is "hide the guns", even though I don't consider doing it, I do know about it. I mean, yesterday I was blogging about how much I was looking forward to my weekly radio show- if you listen to my show, you will know I am not a suicide- I love what I do and you can hear it when I am on-air.
I make up a lot of silly BS (google Whalanol) here, but I love my radio station and they count on me. I couldn't fix my blog because it was 6 am and I had to be on air. Call the station if you don't believe me, as the commenter on my recent radio post seems to scoff. I really do love doing my show- why should I have to prove that?

- I've already apologized personally to one blogger and my apology was rejected. That's too bad, but there's nothing else I can do. I'm not a mad villain plotting ways to make people cry, I'm just a person who's trying to work some very difficult things out and sometimes it comes out wrong- so I deleted the words- and the deletion came out wrong.
Everything I do comes out wrong but I am not suicidal about it. If I was I'd be Kurt Cobain and I'm not Kurt Cobain.
I'm sorry, I'm confused and hurt , but I'm not an evil person.
I want things to be better and I try as hard as I can not to fall into the old traps and sometimes I goof up, but please...I have a lot going on, if my blog goes away, it'll come back eventually. If you are concerned I am right here at camelsback@msn.com , please, if what I write upsets you write to ME , not to someone I barely know, and ask ME what's up.
Or stop reading it if it's that painful.
I'll miss you, but it's better than hurting you.

More Radio

I got a key to my new shared office today...I have a yet another unpaid volunteer title at the station and this one ends with the word 'Director', which means I have access to the Tiny Office, a space where I can sit in relative peace and listen to CD's for airplay- I had a show this afternoon, River City Limits, which is all local area bands. It was fun, I came in early and got my ducks in a row so the show was a breeze.
Sometimes the station seems like a huge effort for no money, but I like it anyway. Kind of like this blog, except the radio station has never broken my heart.

Anyway, I'm admistrative director local music, but we all overlap jobs, so I imagine I'll learn a bit about new functions, although I seem to do everything some days and nothing others...I have a younger kick-ass co-director, he's into screening the CD's and keeping up with concert tie-ins and stuff, my job is the oldman agenda- records keeping, scheduling, fixing shit...it's working ok.

I wanted to name the show River City Shuffle( say it 5 times fast) but was voted down.

I have another show tomorrow morning, it's a regular weekly gig even though I don't get paid, I do get to play any music I like for anybody who'd like to listen. Last week was a semi-tranquil winter mix, some ambient, avant-garde , modern Celtic, mainstream rock,No Wave...I like it all...gonna play some funk and blues tomorrow, maybe some more music by bloggers -if?

Didn't Know it Then

I needn't explain how soul-crushing the search for a decent job is- we all know that already- but I will say that its easier now that I have a spiffy new fax/printer/scanner courtesy of the Twin and my grannie- thank you for my miracle box!

I scanned some old baby photos that I found in my mom's boxes and emailed them to my dad, who showed them to my grannie on his new laptop.
We blogger-types take things like photosharing for granted, but my grannie and my dad had never seen such a thing- it's great that my dad is sober and can open email and stuff.

I'm proud of my father for being sober but I'm worried because he still looks terrible. At 61 he looks 80.
He is lucky that the men in our family have a longevity gene, except for the ones who have killed themselves with alcohol or handguns . No one is sure how long they would have lived.

For years, I've been terrified that dad would deliberately kill himself whilst under a spell of alcoholic despair but now I think he's away from that. I just don't think he's ever going to be 'alright' again. He's ...off.
But not suicidal.
A few months ago he told his mother he wanted to die. She's 86 and wants to live and hearing her oldest son declare his desire to die is not good for her health.
This fall we thought she was dying, but it was a false alarm. I talked with her a great deal when we were making plans...during our talks, she revealed what dad had told her about wanting to die.
I had to drive up and do an intervention of sorts after hearing that, a task that was no picnic but it seems to holding so far.

I joke about suicide, but it is something that troubles me -although I don't think it would be my choice- the idea is not unfamiliar to me.
My mother's older brother shot himself last year and my mother made several serious attempts before cancer settled the issue.
Usually a car accident was her thing, but she tried the pistol too-she almost shot me when I took the gun away.

I was 18 and living in Summit Park, Utah. I'd just graduated High School that summer and decided to move from Virginia to Utah, stay with my mom and her new husband until I got a place- I already had a job lined up at the restaurant I had washed dishes at the previous summer...ski resort here I come!

Stepdad was an oilfield worker and was gone four, six, seven weeks at a time which was great, because he was an asshole; but it left my mom alone in a big house in the middle of nowhere and this was killing her.
I didn't know that then, how the years of isolation,abuse and neglect had robbed her of her ability to feel anything but desolation, pain and the utter lack of hope, save for the hope that it would all just end forever, and end soon.
I was still a dumb child in some ways and thought she was just sad and drunk, not sick. I wasn't paying attention and I was all she had, and it wasn't enough.
Things were not at all well with my mother, but I didn't know any of that then.
Suspected, feared, dreaded the worst, but I didn't know.
I wouldn't have admitted it even if I did know, which I did and still won't admit now.

One evening I was playing guitar in my room when I heard a POW! from the kitchen, a heavy jar breaking maybe?, then a second report, unmistakably a gunshot.

As I ran into the kitchen my hearing went white- a close proximity gunshot is louder than the movies would lead you to believe- the bullethole at my feet added a further 100 decibels of panic volume.
Mom was beyond mere drunkenness, she was spinning on a bar stool and trying to shoot herself.
She was so wasted she kept missing, almost hitting me again as I took the weapon away from her- I walked onto the back porch and chucked the gun down the mountainside and deep into the snow-covered forest below.
Not the smartest thing in hindsight, kids maybe finding it and all, but I was overwhelmed. I didn't know what else to do. I just wanted the gun as far away from us as it could get.

I had knocked mom off her perch during our brief tussle for the gun and she couldn't stand on her own.She could talk though.
Her words will be repeated in my nightmares, not here.

Anyway, I carried her into her bedroom, put her on the bed, she couldn't get up ...I walked back to the kitchen and examined the damage.
Four shots, two in the walls, one in the floor and one in the ceiling.

Then the phone rings . It's the Sheriff.
(We lived in what was at that time a very remote and sparsely populated mountain community but the Sheriif lived only a mile or so away- why call?)

"Who's this?"
I introduced myself. I didn't know it then, but the Sheriff had been called to our house before I moved in. Several times.
He didn't seem interested in returning.

"Your mother says you beat her up and stole her gun. Is this true?"

"I stole the gun. I didn't hurt her."
I explained what happened.

"Do I need to come out there? She sounds heavily intoxicated, do you need rescue? "

"No", I said, "I won't be needing rescue".

It was a lie then and it's a lie now, but I didn't know it then.

There's Always Next Year

If I buy my gift wrapping paper today I will save a dollar.

The cost of a Saturday newpaper is a mere 75 cents, while a Sunday fishwrap costs $1.75; it used to be worth the extra buck just because the colorful Sunday Funnies made such excellent gift-wrap but the comics section is so small these days that it's virtually useless as wrapping.

I miss that double sized-funny papers section.

When using 'newswrapper' today, care must be taken to avoid using headlines like " Car Bomb Kills 38" when wrapping gifts , especially on those presents that are intended for persons with delicate sensibilities.

This is harder than it sounds.

Ah...I'm kidding. I'm not using newspaper to wrap gifts this year.

I have none to wrap.

The things that I have to offer on Christmas are the same things that I have to offer on the 364 other days of the year- not much to offer at all, really, not that it stops me from trying.
Here.
Take this.
What's that?
A flimsy box of jagged, bloody shards , the prettiest scars left by the deepest cuts from the dullest blades , gaily decorated with the headlines of yesterday's murders.

With bells and ribbons.

Who wants that?

Put that box under the tree , toss the rope over the lowest stout branch.

Giddeyap.