depressing shit

I look down at the brown, squishy mess that is slowly disappearing in the way-too tall grass in our backyard.  It’s my dead dog’s last poop.

“I don’t do depression very well,” I think to myself. It’s not an epiphany, it’s a fact. I don’t do it very well.

On Friday, I had the day off. No idea why my boss, who doesn’t boss very well, gave me the rarest of rare days off for a small-town sports reporter at a small-town rag. But he did. He makes the schedule up on Friday nights. For the next week. Many times at 1 a.m. on a Saturday morning I’d find out I was working Saturday afternoon. I never will understand why he thinks this is cool. People, even lowly sports reporters at less-than-15,000 circulation newspapers in the 21^st century need some bit of normalcy in their lives. But I resigned myself to the fact that as long as I have this job, I won’t be getting that.

But anyway, I was off Friday, a rarity. I was looking forward to a day spent with my fiancée. Maybe we could take in a movie, got out to get a rare dinner together. Maybe even have a beer or two.

It sounded lovely. But I should have known better. Life, for us, hasn’t been that good.

A few days earlier, we took our dogs – Francine the 15-year-old mutt and Murray the 7-year-old mutt – to the beach. I hadn’t been back to the beach since moving out of my house two blocks from the ocean on Aug. 31, 2012. So, on July 8, 2013 we set out in her SUV to the ocean.

On the way, we drove through Jacksonville. A town I’d promised myself I’d never step foot in again. So much for declarations from my mouth. I’ve found my promises to myself are the ones that are never fulfilled. Maybe  going there is why what happened happened. Being tested. Or told. Or I’m just looking for a reason why.

We get to the beach and take the dogs to the ocean. They frolic. They get wet. Francine, who loves the beach more than I do, I think, smiles as much as a dog can smile. A wave gets her pretty good, she looks at me and smiles again.

Soon, she’s tired. At 15, she’s got lots of health issues. We’re poor. So we’ve done the best that we could. But I know she’s been in pain for a while. The pills she takes help, but not enough.

Late-night panting and needing to pee an awful lot had become a pain. But, you do it because of love. You get up at 4 a.m. to get her some water. Or to let her pee. Or just wander around the house.

Looking back, I wish I’d done more.

We go get some food at a local greasy spoon. Alisa and I talk about moving back to the beach.

“Well, back for you,” she laughs.

I like the idea. I don’t want to be unhappy so much. Would I be happier working a cash register and being looked at disdainfully by tourists? I don’t know. And that’s the question. I really don’t know. I think back to being 22. Working at Roses Department store. I felt stupid for being there, college degree in hand, making $4.35 an hour, but honestly, the job provided less angst and a little bit more fun than most I’ve had in my “career” since.

Yeah, I’ve loved being a writer. Putting words on the page is great. It also drains.

We drive back, getting out in New Bern to let the dogs crap.

At home, we sigh a little. Back to the grind, it feels like.

I work for a few days, and on Thursday take the two doggies for a walk.

Little did I know, it would be the last one I’d ever take the two of them on.

All the old tricks by Francine. She tries to pull me towards the lake. Giving me her sad eyes. She always loved going that way. I look at her and said “Next time, buddy!” She stares at me and pulls one more time. I pull back and she obeys. We go home.

I go to work. Alisa’s already been gone for a few hours.

I come home that night. Murray barks like usual, Francine comes and greets me. She rubs her nose against my hand, poking and prodding to try and get some pets.

I get some food. Giving them both a few morsels. The last thing I give Francine is a piece of Chex Mix. She pants after I don’t give her anymore and goes into the hallway in front of our bedroom. She always disappears like that. Waiting for me to stop watching Law & Order on Netflix and going to bed.

About 3 a.m., I go there. I pet her and say goodnight. Murray has already scampered under the bed, his place to sleep.

Around 8 in the morning, Alisa wakes me up.

“Something’s wrong with Francine,” she says.

I woozily get up.

“Huh?”

“She just slumped down in the hallway after going to the bathroom,” she said.

I call Francine from the bed. She looks at me, but doesn’t budge.

I get up, pet her and say “Come here girl!”

She moves a little, but doesn’t get up.

I go over to her completely, give her butt a little boost and she tries to walk into the bedroom. She almost falls over.

“Something is wrong!” I say.

We debate about taking her to the vet. I think we both are too scared to admit what is going on.

Finally, Alisa says it “I don’t want her last moments to be in the vet’s office.”

“We can call the in-home lady,” I say. “But she might not be able to go.”

We decide to go to the vet. I pick Francine up. She’s stiff as a board. She is never like that.

I place her in the back of my car. We have to drive my car because Alisa doesn’t have any gas.

Once at the vet, it takes forever for them to see us.

Francine sits on the table like a trooper. Staring at us. Her breathing is labored. I pet her as much as I can.

After an initial assessment, the doctor, who is very nervous, doesn’t know what to do.

She takes some blood. It’s very red. And there isn’t much of it.

It’s decided to give her an X-ray. They take her away.

A few minutes later, they call us back. Francine’s breathing is labored even more.

“She’s got blood in her stomach,” the vet says. “We don’t know why. We can operate.”

“No,” we both agreed.

By now, Francine is barely there. Her tongue is sticking out of her mouth and her breaths come only every so often.

We say goodbye.

I watch the breaths slow even more. Then they stop.

Francine is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a dog. I really loved her.

It’s been a few days now. I’m still thinking about her. I know it’ll pass. I don’t get over things very well, though, so it’ll be awhile.

I cussed at God for it. Knowing how pointless the whole exercise is.

I bought a lottery ticket with the numbers from her dog collar on it. In the cruelness that is life, the first two numbers came up immediately. Then nothing.

Of course.

I haven’t put the seats back up in my little Hyundai yet. I don’t know when I will. Her fur, which she always shed tons of, is still there.

But, like I said to Alisa yesterday when she vacuumed the floor and threw away a big container full of mostly her hair “Pretty soon, that won’t be there anymore.”

We cried. Was it stupid to say? Maybe. But I’ve found out from a lot of suffering over the years, that keeping it inside is worse.

Last night I came home from work for the first time since she died. She always greeted me.

This time, it was just Murray. He poked his head around a corner. His confidence is shot since she isn’t backing him up anymore.

I wonder what he thinks. He’s an attention whore, so a little part of me thinks he’ll be fine without her around. Especially with us pampering him the last few days.

But that’ll pass too.

Everything does. Just like in a few days, the rain and weather and flies and whatever will make her last poo disappear. But I’ll keep looking at that spot. Probably for as long as we live here. It’s just the way it is…

I miss you Francine. Love you…

umbros

I never wanted to be President of the United States. It just happened. One day I was an unemployed journalist, deemed no economically viable by the profession that I’d given my all to. The next day I was running for Mayor of my old hometown. Six years later, somehow, I was a senator. 48 years old and not having a clue about anything. I ran on a platform of exactly that. My slogan was taken from one of my favorite movies, “Falling Down”. “You and me, we’re the same.”

I never told anyone that. A reporter from “Rolling Stone” caught on at one point. He asked me about it. I said “Nope. Although, Frederick Forest should have won an Oscar. Best supporting actor.” When I said that, the reporter decided I was fucking with him and left all of it out. Probably for the best, really. At least as far as my political career was concerned.

And that was exactly what I didn’t want. To make it a career. I’d run on a platform of fixing stuff. And at every level I’d done just that. Never fixing as much as I wanted to, but I never stuck around long enough to see it through. They kept pushing me further and further.

The economy never had recovered from what the politicians loved to call “The Great Recession”. I stayed away from that term. I called it a Depression. Why? Because that’s what it was. I refused to make back room deals. At first, my advisors told me it was suicidal. That you had to make “some deals.” But I didn’t. And I kept winning.

As my first term as a freshman Senator was coming to a close, the current President was shot. He died six weeks later. He was about to declare for a re-election campaign, but this kind of put a kink in things. So, a desperate party turned to me.

I remember when the Speaker of the House called me on my phone at home. My old trusty rotary phone. That same “Rolling Stone” guy asked me about the phone in that now-famous interview. He noticed it sitting on a shelf, he said, and didn’t think much of it since I had so much clutter and collectibles everywhere. But then, he said, it rang.

“It’s here to remind me that all that is good, comes to an end,” I said. I made that shit up completely on the spot. But it ended up becoming the lede to his article. And got me noticed. By the young and old alike.

“This guy is a loose cannon,” some said.

“He’s a real innovator,” others pontificated.

“He’ll change things,” still others seemed to believe.

“He’s full of shit,” one blogger noted. Probably more right than wrong.

Two years later, after a campaign where my opponent – Republican nominee Jeb Bush – threw more slings and arrows at me than had ever been thrown in a presidential campaign. At least according to the Guinness Book of World Records. He also spent more money than any candidate ever. I spent as little as I could. I raised money strictly on Kickstater. And raised more than I could ever have spent.

When the results came in on that cold November day, I was sitting in the Three-Legged Dog in New Orleans. I knew I was going to win, I had no doubt, but I was petrified because I had no idea what I was going to do when I got to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In my inauguration speech, I was nervous. But I didn’t let it show. I wrote my own words, and was told many of them were grammatically incorrect and it would show. No one noticed. Except the bloggers.

On my move in day, the next morning, I decided I wasn’t going to live in the White House.

“It just doesn’t fit the model of what I see the President of the United States should do,” I said. “I have decided to let you, the people who elected me, to live here.”

Everyone thought immediately I was insane. And I didn’t argue. I was strange. I didn’t know where Yemen was on a world map – thought I came damn close when I looked at it.

That night, I flew to my hometown of Hopewell, Virginia. I went to  my parents’ house. They were there. Old and retired. And hopefully happy. I could never tell.

But while I was there, I noticed the old stucco house around the block was for rent. It was small, but had a great porch. And a huge back yard that went into the woods. I rented it that moment and it became the White House. For eight years. In that time, over 1,500 folks got to live at the “other” White House as I called it. Me, I spent three nights there total.

Including tonight, my last night in office. I figured it was necessary.

I looked at the photos of those that came before me, and noticed that they were not smiling in their portraits. I made sure I was.

And while nothing really changed in my eight years, I don’t know if anything can without a revolution, I didn’t do any more harm. The only thing I really accomplished was making it no longer a good thing to be a career politician. No more benefits. No more huge salaries.

To quote my second favorite Kevin Costner movie, which I did when the legislation was signed, even though the title of it never actually appeared in the movie: “If you want to be a politician, you better do it for the love of the game, not the perks.”

And I walked out the door, put on my Umbros and played soccer in my front yard.

exactly

Two and a quarter beers in, and I’m done. The beer doesn’t do what it used to do. Now, it’s just the depressant that it is. Making me feel bad. Taking the desire to live away.

So I stop drinking. I pace around for a while. Trying to find something to occupy my mind. It’s not easy when there’s nothing around.

Downloading an Elvis Costello concert diverts my attention for a moment or two. Finally, I dig into the boxes of VHS tapes that I cling to for just this reason. “We’re No Angels” grabs my attention. I plop it into the VCR. Push play. Start watching. It’s got to be better than the other options.

The quarter drunken beer sits on the coffee table. Staring at me. By now, it’s warm. Well, as warm as it can get when you don’t turn the heat on in the middle of November. But this is North Carolina. Not North Dakota. So, it’s not freezing cold. Inside. Yet.

The itch is here. To do something wrong. Something dumb. Stupid. Ignorant. Would it make Dennis Hopper proud? Hell no. I feel too sorry for myself. But maybe he felt sorry for himself sometimes to. Hell, who doesn’t? Assholes and cereal killers. But they smell and have bad teeth. Wait a second…

Just five minutes ago I was thinking about going to bed. Calling it quits at 11:45 p.m. Instead, I’m typing. Sitting in my mind, trying to come up with some way to get 750 words into this Microsoft Works Document. I looked at my old diary on disc while I was at home earlier this week. My mom threw away the old Brother Word Processor that I typed them on. Of course, I threw away my journals from the rest of my life up until 2008.

Still bitter about that one aren’t we? No remorse. No repent. We don’t care, what it meant…

My mind wanders back to the TV for a moment. The absolute awfulness of 1980s movies that took themselves seriously makes me chuckle. The music, straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. David Mamet. Ha. But he’s a writer. Of films and such and so much more. Me? I used to be a reporter. A decent one. Best thing I could do was write features and the like. My gamers tended to be too wordy. But my leads were usually spot on. I just need someone to tell me -- “write 10 inches dipshit, not 35.” All those years I wished for an editor. Which is why, I think, I went back to being just a reporter. But the editor was a friend. A friend who sometimes had a complex about being an editor. Just not a good thing.

Now, I’m just a squatter. My posture has gotten worse. My attitude better in some ways, a whole lot worse in others. I can feel my depression seeping away the more letters I type into words. No matter how silly what I type is. How banal. How insipid. Hey, fun with words without a thesaurus. It can happen. Not that you care.

I thought about my ex girlfriend today. Which one, you may be asking? But probably not. And really it doesn’t matter.

The phrase “love isn’t enough” echoed throughout my empty skull for most of the drive home tonight. I hate those words put together. They killed me once. And I try every day and night not to let them kill me anymore. It’s why I feel so god damned one-dimensional. I can only write about one thing. No matter what I’m writing about, it’s always about that. Hell, I remember a few times I’d see it seeping into my newspaper stories. I’d have to stop myself and consciously keep the words from steering that direction.

How stupid is that?

I got an e-mail earlier this week. Or late last week. It’s hard to keep that straight when I go on trips. And that’s a damn good thing. It was from forbes.net. It was the one I sent to myself five fucking years ago. However, it was addressed to her, not me.

I saw the message title. It made me happy for a second. Until I opened it up.

Guess it’s better than it being in an envelope. That would have meant effort involved in the matter. I did get a postcard this week. From another. It made me smile. I wish we tried harder with people. I like letters. Writing them and getting them. Yet, I don’t send them. So why should I think I should get them?

Exactly.

i tried some pills for my heart, but a little too late

Good decisions are harder to remember than the bad ones. Bad decisions not made are impossible to forget. Good decisions not made just aren’t there…

Talked back from the abyss.

I remember sitting on my sectional couch that my buddy gave me before he moved out of eastern North Carolina, looking at three bottles of pills. One was full of Oxycodone that I’d gotten the last time I had kidney stones. The other was Zolpidem, sleeping pills I’d gotten because I couldn’t sleep. The last was, Budeprion, some anti-depressants I had because, well, I was depressed.

Work sucked at that moment. I’d gone through some issues with a story I didn’t want to write. About a kid who died.

Things just seemed hopeless. And sitting in my apartment, by myself, every, single night didn’t help matters. All I seemed to do was cry. Think about how crappy things were. No girl. No money. A job I hated. Yep, this was where I wanted to be at 37 years old.

And those bottles all had what I thought was the answer.

Death.

I wasn’t very lucky at that point in my life. Well, that’s not entirely true, but it’s the way I felt. My friends who were local, of which I could count on one hand at that time, didn’t seem to see anything wrong with me. Or if they did, didn’t bother to say anything.

I clung to opportunities to go and hang out with anyone. Usually, ending up in a chicken wing joint or just on a barstool. Not exactly theraputic, but it helped. Anything did, really.

But the abyss kept getting closer and closer.

I don’t know what exactly pushed me to the edge. But, there I was sitting in front of three bottles of pills, wondering if the combination would be enough to kill me. If it would put me to sleep and not hurt.

I had no clue.

But I think I was about to find out. I curled up in a ball, crying. I don’t know how long I was there doing it. I grabbed the bottles and opened them up. Pouring their contents onto my footlocker/coffee table. The one with scribbles on it from a three-year-old that touched my heart and made me live for a little while again.

That kid was gone. At least from my life.

After getting the crying done. I stared some more at those pills. All white and awful.

I grabbed my cell phone. Looking at the numbers in it. Wondering who would even answer the phone if I dialed them.

I called my mom. Saying to myself…if she doesn’t answer, it’s a sign.

She answered on the third ring.

I broke down. Completely. Utterly. I told her how much pain I was in. How little I felt and how much I felt. She had no real words for me. She never does. But she listened. And she cried. I felt horrible. She was at work. But she put off everything to just listen.

And that’s all I needed. After a long time of a lot of words and a lot of crying. I hung up.

I put the pills back in their bottles. I wiped my face, grabbed my keys, and went to work. Just like I always did.

That’s the day my mom saved my life. She’s one of two people to do that. Maybe I’ll write about the other time and other person some other time.

Is life any better now than it was then? Nope. It’s pretty much the same. I don’t have any money. I have no friends where I live and I’m single as single can be. Also, every day begins with a ritualistic listening of Rick James’ “Street Songs”. Why? Because I’m scared of what the day will bring if I don’t do it.

The highlights of my days are writing, now, however. So that’s an improvement.

I still have two of those bottles, as well. They both have two pills left in them, so don’t be scared for me. The Hillbilly Heroin went away a while ago. I used to take one every so often just to help me sleep. Or if I was in pain.

Now? I just want to go to sleep. And get up tomorrow and go to work.

The weekend is coming. I’ll probably do nothing but watch and observe and think. Maybe even read a bit. I’ll write something down too. Maybe it won't be forced? It’s what I do.

Better than the alternative.

Behind the curtain

Woke up this morning, and I could think about was her. And then my mind started to do stupid things. Not like this is a rare occurrence or anything, but it bothers me. For over an hour my mind kept doing the same damn thing over and over. Of course, I’m sitting there thinking I should just type all of what I’m thinking. Or at least grab a notepad and write it down. It’s not healthy. But it’s also not healthy to avoid it. So, I kept thinking about it. Over and over until it drove me to actually get out of bed and face it.

I miss her.

I miss you.

I miss being with you.

I miss seeing you.

I miss driving places with you, or to get to you.

I miss your voice, a voice I can’t hear anymore. The cliché of not remembering the sound of someone’s voice certainly is a cliché for a reason.

I miss waking up next to you. Or the anticipation of knowing I’ll be doing that soon.

I miss eating at chain restaurants with you.

I miss debating.

I miss your kisses.

I miss making white Russians and staring at the world.

I miss pulling out my record player on to the porch and listening to Frank and Deano.

I miss fretting over you during hurricanes.

I miss carving pumpkins on Halloween.

I miss listening to music and not having it remind me of you.

I miss not drinking.

I miss being happy.

I miss looking forward to the future.

I miss feeling like I was in control.

I miss arguing in the streets.

I miss long talks about death.

I miss your fingernails, digging.

I miss you painting my toenails, and my dad thinking I’m gay because of it.

I miss hoping for a phone call from you.

I miss writing about things that don’t somehow end up being about you.

I miss planning.

I miss dreaming.

I miss feeling.

I miss everything.

I miss your breath next to mine.

I miss the warmth of the bed when I got home from work at 2 in the morning.

I miss having something to look forward to when I am driving home from work.

I miss endlessly trying to find a job where you are, and failing, but still trying.

I miss days when sadness was the furthest from my mind.

I miss hope.

I miss your music.

I miss your smell.

I miss the cucumber body wash.

I miss being loved.

I miss someone calling me.

I miss feeling wanted.

I miss feeling alive.

I miss long walks around the same neighborhood.

I miss the silly jokes that never got old.

I miss your face.

I miss your elbows.

I miss the back of your knees.

I miss your legs.

I miss your eyes.

I miss your smile.

I miss me smiling.

I miss knowing the feeling that things are going to be ok.

I miss a day without depression.

I miss being broke because of you, in a good way.

I miss wanting to get out of bed in the morning.

I miss not wanting to get out of bed in the morning when you’re there.

I miss how jealous you were.

I miss the stritch.

I miss the ibis.

I miss big balls in cow town.

I miss penguins.

I miss crabby.

I miss the things I don’t remember anymore.

I miss freckles.

I miss meaning every promise.

I miss trust.

I could go on. But I think the last one sums it up. I don’t trust myself, let alone another person. I remember writing down after this, after finally coming out of the other side a long, long time after it happened and then it happened again with another girl, a girl that didn’t deserve it -- the chameleon as I no refer to her as she becomes what the guy wants her to be, and I really believe she’s still doing it -- writing down that I’d never break another person’s heart again. Now that I knew what it felt like, what I’d done.

How fucking arrogant is that? And how fucking stupid. It’s perfectly acceptable to have mine broken again, to face that pain, but you can’t face breaking someone else’s again? Then you’re going to be this miserable fucking wreck for the rest of your life. Because without the risk, there is no reward. Both ways. And you may have to make someone else feel like this again to find it.

I’d hope not, but it may have to happen. And for sure, the ability to face that prospect is the only way to truly stop being miserable. And stop getting black out drunk with a woman I would love to have a shot with, but instead now I wonder if I opened my big old depressed fucking mouth and lost a friend out of the deal.

Those moments are when my dad comes out of me. Like a dragon. Breathing fire. And that scares the shit out of me. I don’t want to be like that. The rage that is inside is scary. Maybe I just need an outlet for it? I bag to punch instead?

I can sense my depression, which I knew never left completely, is starting to win again. I can’t afford therapy again. Hell, I don’t have insurance.

And I’m scared. Scared of myself. Scared of what lurks behind the curtain, so to speak.

I’ve written this down before, but it’s true …

My life has been so defined by my losses, instead of my gains.
Self-defined, but defined.
It’s a curse that I can’t seem to find a way out of.
And sometimes I wonder if
I want to at all.