"Pray for intestinal fortitude, work hard, and keep the faith. Oh, and pray for good luck, you're gonna need it." Jerry Reed

I’ve always loved “trashy” boys. Always. I can prove it.

When I was five or six, I can’t remember which, my mother came into the living room as I was watching TV. I was, she says, enraptured. I turned to her with the love light in my eye.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” I asked.
My mother looked at the television. I was watching “Smokey and the Bandit.”
“Who,” she asked, “Burt Reynolds?”
“No! Him!” I said, pointing at Jerry Reed without turning around.
“Sure,” my mother laughed. “He’s dreamy.”

Now, for those of you who haven’t seen this edifying and transcendent film, Jerry Reed was playing a good old boy trucker. Not much of a stretch I imagine. Who cares? I was, for once, not in it for the acting. I loved Jerry Reed’s character and, therefore, since I was five (or six) I loved Jerry Reed. And, lo, these many years later, I still do.

Of course, now I know the difference between an actor and a character. Still, for all that, the man apparently made a deep impression on me in my youth. To this day I love a man who was brought up rough, if you will, around the edges. A man who knows what a dollar is worth and how hard you have to work to get one.

Don’t talk to me about men who know which fork to use at every course! That is knowledge I can give them if need be. But you can’t teach somebody things that should have been instilled since birth. Respect for hard work, love of family and how to react when times get tough…’cause they pretty much always do, eventually. These are traits I admire.

I do not, let us be clear, want anything to do with an illiterate (or may as well be), slack jawed, hill billy, beats “his” woman because he can redneck. No. Thank you. I’ve had one of those. I don’t care to repeat the experience. Call me crazy! However, a blue collar man is a thing of beauty. A blue collar man who reads and doesn’t listen, exclusively, to country music? Indefinable joy. If I could find all that and he can make me laugh until I pass out? Book the hall, people, I just changed my mind about marriage! But, sadly, they are few and far between. And, as of September 1, 2008? They’re getting rarer.

Goodbye, Mr. Reed. You may not have been any of the things I thought or admired. You may have been all those things. But, whatever you may or may not have been, to this little girl, you were beautiful.

I Didn't Fall Off The Wagon Today . . .

so much as I jumped off and flipped it the bird as it drove away. And, yes, if you must know, I feel pretty foul about it and the fact that I can't seem to quit smoking on my own. So, feel free to keep any shitty comments to yourself.

What can I say? I'm an addicted addict. I can't stop. Maybe next I'll try Wellbutrin and hypnotherapy. That last one would be good just for the fuckin' comic value.

In conclusion, I am a loser. I accept this.

Chaos, Panic and Disorder . . . My Work Here Is Done.

Today I had a panic attack. It felt like it lasted for an hour and a half. That, of course, is impossible. Panic attacks last for about twenty minutes tops. So, in actual fact, I had a series of them. Being a sensible human being didn't help matters at all.

At 8:30 I was looking over a file and, all of a sudden, I felt like I was going to die. Seriously. Die. Big "D". For about five minutes I thought about going to the hospital which made me think about the fact that I don't have health insurance which made me more agitated. Then I realized it was a panic attack.

I told myself I wasn't having a heart attack. Then I started thinking what if someday it is a heart attack and I mistake it for a panic attack and I die? What then, smarty pants?! Then I told myself it was a panic attack and it would be all over in twenty minutes . . . tops. I started watching the clock. Twenty minutes . . . twenty minutes . . . Twenty one minutes . . . Twenty one? Holy shit. Twenty one! Heart attack! Heart attack! Not panic!! OK, I thought, ok. It's panic. It's panic. DON'T PANIC! Maybe it's time to go back on medication. Then I remembered I don't have health insurance . . . again. BOOM! More panic.

Finally, at ten, a coworker came and asked me if I wanted to go on break. We went outside. I took some (more) deep breaths. We shot the shit. I calmed down.

Keep in mind this all happened, silently, whilst I was sitting at my desk pretending to go over some figures. Say what you will about me but I know how to behave in public. I really should have been born Lady Muck. I have mad stiff upper lip skills . . . um, yo?

I'm fine now. Relatively. The aftermath is almost as bad as the actual attack. I'm sleepy and shaky and want to go to bed. Ain't we got fun?

The point of all this is the following -

Anybody have any valium?

To Quote Crocodile Dundee . . .

"You can live on it...but it tastes like shit."

All I wanted was a shelf stable protein bar (that didn't cost a stupid amount of money) I could take to court with me. We get stuck for hours without a break and my blood sugar gets low. Very. Low. This is not good. And, as it happens, neither are these damn bars. Feh!

PS I actually purchased the hazelnut variety but couldn't find a picture of that one.

"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist." - George Carlin

This is the first comedy album I ever listened to. I can probably still recite most of it. That's all I have to say about that.

"I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work." George Carlin

"I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me - they're cramming for their final exam." George Carlin

"I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose." George Carlin

"I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood." George Carlin

"I'm always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I'm listening to it." George Carlin

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death." George Carlin

"They can conquer who believe they can." - Virgil

EDITED TO ADD: Yes, I know today is the fourth. Due to the storm on the third I was unable to post the below.

Journal Entry - 6/3

Today I went to work. I sat in my office. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move.

Oh, how I wish I'd been having a psychotic break. There was a large, ugly, vile, foul, disgusting and other adjectives which are synonyms for horrible things as well spider sitting in the middle of my desk. I jumped up and ran out of my office to find something heavy with which to murder, smash, kill and wallop it. When I got back it was gone.

I looked but I couldn't find it. I could, however, feel it looking at me. Hiding. Waiting for it's moment. Biding it's time. Ready to strike.

I text messaged a couple of friends to share my horror. One felt my pain. One wrote back and told me that no matter where I am I'm never more than five feet from a spider. Always. I contemplated this. I decided that he is a bastard and deleted him from my phone book.

Paranoid for the rest of the day. Conclusion? Let constant vigilance be your motto.

"I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.” - E. Albee

A little over a year ago, while I was still at insurance hell, I was standing in an elevator when an attractive man got on. The only one in the whole building it should be noted. I proceeded to make an ass out of myself when he spoke to me. It was a bad day and I was in a bad mood. It was bad. There was badness. We spoke a few times after that but, let me be clear, it was still bad. Comprende?

Today I saw him again at the gym. I almost said hi but then I thought what? What am I going to say? Hey, remember that time when I was a bitch to you? ‘Member that? That was awesome! So, needless to say, I did not say hello.

The point, if I may be permitted to believe I have one, is what the hell is wrong with me? I can talk to anybody. I am, I flatter myself, quite the social butterfly. I can shoot the breeze with anybody about anything. Unless, of course, it’s a man I’m attracted to.

If I’m not attracted to a man I can make him think I believe the sun shines out of his ass. This, most likely, explains why I’ve made out with at least two men I had no interest in. What? I hate to be rude. Don’t judge me. Did I sleep with them? No. Good manners can go too far.

Obviously I can at times speak to men I find attractive. Sometimes I am on a roll. I am the party and the party don’t stop! There we come to the second and, possibly larger, problem. I am funny. No. I am Funny. Capital “F”. I can’t make myself be less funny. Not for my own good. Not for some dude. Because, let us be frank, the essential difference between men and women is that women want a a funny man but men want a woman with a good sense of humor.

You think they’re the same? Wrong! If somebody is funny then they make you laugh. If somebody has a good sense of humor (to you, it’s subjective after all) then that means that either you find the same things funny or that they find you funny. Think about it. You see? Not the same. Different.

These are the reasons why I will, most likely, end up adopting a little girl from Asia . I shall name her Inga. Don’t worry, you’re all invited to the Bat Mitzvah.

If suffering brought wisdom, the dentist’s office would be full of luminous ideas. ~Mason Cooley

Tomorrow I am going to the dentist. I made the appointment at 10:30 this morning. I have not stopped thinking about it. Even when I’m thinking about other things I’m still thinking, in the back of my mind, about the dentist. I am, in case you couldn’t tell, terrified of the dentist. I’m thirty-three years old and I want my mommy to go with me.

This is, of course, a totally irrational fear. My current dentist (we won’t even speak of my first dentist who was a bad man and should rot in hell) and her staff have never been anything but kind to me. They are always very understanding of my phobia. They’re lovely people. I fear them like they were the reincarnation of Mengele.

I’m just going in for an exam tomorrow to see how badly I’ve chipped my tooth. Basically, it’s x-rays. They asked me, smart people, if I needed to be sedated. Yes, I thought, of course! And not that twilight crap either. I want a full on morphine drip with a xanax chaser! But I said that no, I believed I could handle it. Then I laughed in a self deprecating manner.

Humiliation is a great motivator to courage.

AURGH!!!!!!!

Bill Clinton was at Mary Wash today. He had a town hall meeting from 12:15 - 2:15. I was at work.

This makes me sad.

Feel my pain.