So many Tea Parties, so many Mad Hatters … . Is Sarah Palin the Red Queen? She certainly isn’t Alice and she seems to be ordering the decapitation of establishment Republicans. It’s easy to figure out that the Koch brothers are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, but the Cheshire Cat? I’m thinking the disappearing feline has to be Newt because he was here as Speaker, then gone into oblivion, and now he’s back again with depressingly obscure references to Kenyan anti-colonialism. Considering his marital history, it’s crazy to think he’s a guy who has a chance to be a standard bearer for a family values party. Jabberwocky!

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I’ve been thinking a little lately about “depression”. Not the disease itself, but the label, the word. There’s no question that there is such a mental disorder. There was melancholia long before Freud. No, I’m thinking about what it’s like to have that word attached to yourself. Considering that anyone who just doesn’t want to can walk into a shrink’s office and get that label is a weird thing. I mean, what self respecting shrink would tell you to man up when he can treat you for $300/mo for years? Not just that, but get a good bit of swag from some drug company for prescribing a pill that is less effective than going for a good walk. The “patient” or “client” gets something out of it as well. Every time you don’t want to go to work or whatever it is that you don’t want to do, you can listen to yourself whine and avoid the personal responsibility. Oh, poor me, I’m depressed. Nothing to be done about it. Brain chemistry, you know. It’s a DISEASE, you bastards, you’re supposed to feel sorry for me and not judge me and say hurtful things boohoo. I think I’ve suffered from the real thing since at least the early 80s. I’ve been suicidal and hospitalized. On the other hand, it’s been a darn useful excuse as well as a lever for some pretty crappy thinking. The problem with the word “depression” is that once it’s attached to you, once you think you have it, you do from then on. It never goes away. It never gets cured. We make it become a part of us, an ever-present pall that hangs over who and what we are as people. I wonder how much depression there is among the people of this world who have to scuffle every day just to get a few bugs for protein. Another thing about depression is this: as far as I know, it’s a disease of the highly intelligent. It’s something that attacks people who can function on autopilot and still have the brainpower to have one’s mind attack itself. Sometimes I wonder if “depression” isn’t anything more than the word we use when the words we are avoiding are “existential angst”. I wonder if the word isn’t merely code for not liking the answer to the question: “what’s it all about?” But, see, to be depressed, you’ve got to be smart enough and rich enough to ask those questions and to know on some level what it is that Sartre was writing about. You have to live in a society that’s complex enough to make Kafka relevant. Considering the first paragraph of this post, is it possible that depression is the only sane response?

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Last night, I watched the movie “Mission Impossible: III”. I know, don’t even ask me why and it’s irrelevant to the point I want to make. At the start of the DVD, they have these promos for films coming to DVD and one of the promos was for a collection of Tom Cruise movies. I was appalled. I don’t think much of Tom’s acting chops. Does anyone really think Tom Cruise is as good an actor as, say, Johnny Depp? How about Leonardo DiCaprio? Val Kilmer? Morgan Freeman? Beuller? The movies in the collection are instructive: Days of Thunder, Missions Impossible one, two and three, Minority Report, Vanilla Sky and Collateral. Oh, and lest I forget, Top Gun and Risky Business. I’ll throw in Eyes Wide Shut, even though that wasn’t in the collection. Why is this guy famous as an actor? How did he get so rich on the basis of that body of work? I hated most of those movies in the first place and in the second place, there was a total of about five minutes of acting in the whole lot of ‘em. So, anyway, I just finished another spy thriller book called Rules of Deception and so I was looking for a spy movie and that’s how I got to MI:III. I’d already recently watched No Way Out and Hunt for Red October and my spy movie collection gets real thin after Casino Royale and I’d watched that not too long ago as well in a double feature with The International. You do what you gotta do. I really don’t care that Tom’s a Scientologist nor that he jumped on Oprah’s couch, but screw the idea that he’s some really great actor because he just isn’t. A move star, yes, but good actor, not so much.

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Just in case you couldn’t tell, I’m grumpy today because my ribs hurt. I’ve been in some level of pain for more than 120 days and I mean every minute of every one of those days, I’ve been hurting more or less. The Lortab can make the pain tolerable and not debilitating most of the time, but it never goes completely away. It’s there and that’s the reality of my life right now. The fact that today’s one of those days when I’m chasing the pain instead of being ahead of the curve doesn’t really make me feel as bad as the fact that I’m just tired of being sick and hurt. The long drone of twinges in my abdomen, right shoulder and the throbbing in my rib cage is just always there. It’s been four months now and I’m told I’ll hurt for about a year. I guess it’s the changing weather that contributes but I really don’t care about that. Mostly I like the cooler and cloudy late summer and early fall we’re having here in Oklahoma, but I can’t enjoy it some days. Today is one of those days I feel like I’m at the end of my tether and I want to take Lortabs until I’m passed out, but I know that way madness lies so I really have no other choice but to soldier on. I say prayers and go for walks and try to figure out things that will get me out of the house and out from between my ears where my mind whispers insane crap that just makes me feel worse. That’s why I’m blogging: it’s me reaching out to the ether to whine instead of imposing on my friends and family about shit they can’t do anything about. Please don’t call or email me, just writing this is the therapy I need and want. Just take it under advisement and when you see me, let’s talk about something else, ANYTHING else. I do, in fact, have some social engagements this week and that means I’ve made wonderful improvements over just a few weeks ago when just getting out of the house was a dream and not a real possibility. When I’m in my right mind, I’m grateful for my progress and recovery and I believe the doctors when they tell me I’m doing amazingly well. It’s just that today I have a bad attitude and you, my dear readers, well, I’m taking it out on you. As you were.

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