sick as a dog

Surprisingly, the credit card doled out fifty more dollars for me. I knew that this was the last of it. My last payment was exactly enough to leave me one dollar under my limit, which I’ve not exceeded. This is the fifth card that I have flown past my limit on now. Using credit cards to live off of and to pay the others’ minimum balance is a fool’s game that has just reached it’s apex.

But, instead of moping about it, I get in my car and go fill up the tank. I’ve got to get to Virginia on this money, so, better spend it wisely.

I buy a 12 pack of beer as well. While I’m driving back to our house, I look at that beer in the passenger seat. I begin to wonder what she’d think if I told her about how much debt I was in. She’s got a great job. It pays well. She’s happy. Me, I’m a bum. I can’t find a job that I like. Much like the spoiled brat that I am, I don’t take one that could have been perfectly good. And in retrospect, would have been better than the one I ended up taking many months later.

Bur right now, I’ve got a 12 pack of beer to drink. Maybe I’ll drink half of it and get on my bike and ride around town. Buzzed bike riding is a beautiful thing. Especially in this city. The Spanish moss dripping down off of every tree. The smells. Whether it’s the river lazily flowing past behind a levee or some homeless guy’s piss from the night before, I love all of it. Call me crazy, but it just fills me with strength, something I need as my troubled existence gets more troubled by the compounded minute.

I should know better than this. I got a decent education. Twice. Even an economics degree from one of the U.S.’ best schools. Some of my professors, I’d learn later, were involved with Bernie Madoff in a bad way, meaning they got snookered too. So, I guess that could help explain things. But the one who made the biggest impact was a Mike Milken lover. Go figure. Maybe one day I’ll be able to write my own Wikipedia page and say that I was a “financier and philanthropist”, but instead mine will read was a “drunken bum and all-around nice guy.”

I decide to just drive around town instead of going home. Waste some more of that last 50 bucks. Good thing as is just a little over a dollar a gallon now. I might never make the trip back to Virginia.

After 20 minutes or so of rambling, I find myself on the Algiers ferry. The Mississippi is dull here. Too many tourists and not enough wooden rafts. I don’t know why I think one day I’ll see Huck Finn piloting on the waters, but I do. Some kind of fantasy. I’ve always wanted to do just that. Jump on a skiff in Minnesota and take her all the way to the Gulf. It sounds great in theory, but I’m sure would be a disaster of epic proportions if this city-fied fool ever tried it. End up dead like Chris McCandless.

One thing for sure on such a trip, there wouldn’t be any fights. No sleepless nights. No fretting when the mail delivers another bill you can’t pay. Just me and my thoughts. Lonely? Yes. Better than what I’ve got? Not really, as being alone is the worst thing one can do to the soul.

After wandering around Algiers for an hour or so, I get back on the ferry to the Quarter side again. The sun is falling, the tourists will be coming out. It’s Friday night. I think I should be at work. I don’t realize that soon enough, every Friday night of my life will be consumed by the job. Something no one should do, when I look back at it. I remember the friends I’ve made along the way. Only two of them are still toiling away in the cesspool of sports journalism. One is an editor for a pretty damn good paper, he offered me a job on his staff not too long ago, I turned it down to chase living at the beach. Smart move? Jury’s still out on that one…The other? He’s in Japan. Living the dream.

Me? I’m a page designer now. I don’t write anymore. I miss it. A little more with every dreadful article I read by the “journalists” that populate the papers I work for. I had a thought yesterday about the newsroom. How not a single soul in there that has a say in things has “it”. My feeling was this is what a newsroom full of citizen journalists must be like. Puppies and kittens and submitted photos and press release re-writes. Cubicle hell, indeed.

And I think about those days when I was free to do what I wanted to do. How I ended up making all the wrong choices. Some that I’m still paying for today. Some that became habits. Some that became patterns. Sometimes the voice in your head, it doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about.

“Sick as a Dog” by Aerosmith plays as I pull into my driveway. I very distinctly remember thinking to myself that life is great, and what I do next will either be a huge step towards getting my life in order or it will further dig the hole.

Wonder how he’d feel if he met the me of today?