THE TWILIGHT ZONE--MY 400TH POST

This is my 400th post. I have spent about three years on this spit. And I love it. I love to write, I love to blog. Sometimes, thoughts don't come easily to me. On those days, I don't post. Those days have been frequent, of late. I just don't have too much to say. I think my mother may have told me once: "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything."

I mean, seriously, what could I write about? No one wants to hear of the struggles of an alcoholically-minded dude. Who the fuck wants to hear of pain and suffering? I could write about my job, but that has been boring me lately. I go to work, I put in my eight hours, and then I go home. I could write, maybe, about hobbies, but I have none. The dogs are boring me, too. (And Ollie, he of the weak bladder, is flat-out pissing me off.)

What does one write of when one is merely existing?

...

...

Exactly.

I just watched a Twilight Zone episode in which the protagonist ran down and killed a young boy named--of course--Timmy, and, after the fact, his life was turned upside-down. His conscience was killing him. And his car was possessed. (I think S. King may have seen this episode; I think that Christine may have been thunk up after seeing this show.) His car honked, his car blasted its lights, his car, actually, in the end, drove itself to the point at which the dude fell down on the rain-slicked streets and the car zoomed towards him and then...stopped. Its tires were mere inches from the guy's head. The passenger door opened and--I wouldn't have!--the guy got in and the possessed car drove him to the local cop-shop.

The man got out and walked into the police ossifer shack and Rod Serling intoned something like, "A man's conscience is the staff with which he walks. A man's conscience is the value by which one must live. But, sometimes, the Twilight Zone is one's conscience. In the Twilight Zone."

I watched the episode and I just got to thinking. I miss them daze. Late 50s, early 60s. I wasn't born, of course, but those days seemed easier. You have the guy and his wife sleeping in seperate single beds (but how did they fuck?) you have the cars made of metal and chrome rather than plastic and bubble gum, you have cops as friendly peace-keepers....

I just enjoy the Twilight Zone. The episodes are good. They are parables, of sorts. They make you think and they make you want to be a better person. Black-and-white litmus tests. The time period in which we suck breaths is too frenetic. We need to slow down.

We need to watch a b-and-w classics. We need to slow down and appreciate what we have. And, yes, I am mainly telling myself this.

May you have Peace in your lives.

MAY SOMETHING OR OTHER

Memorial Day.

WATER AND BARLEY AND HOPS--OH MY!

The bottle is winning. It is kicking my ass. Hard. It is an old-school ass-whipping.

Beer, vodka, wine...whatever. As long as it is an alcoholic beverage, I am down with it. I am down with it and it brings me down. So damned down. So damned low.

It is far from fun, anymore.

It is a motherfucking disease. It has to be. Why else would I continue to pour this poison down my throat? Why else would I put work and love on the back burners? Why?

Why?!

My name is Adam and I am a blistering alcoholic. Just fucking blistering. Mad burning flames surround my yearning, my want, for alcoholic beverages. I have the tool box that I need to combat this evil life-sapper, yet I shove that tool box into the shed; I cover it with a tarp and forget that I ever had it at all.

I'll tell you this: This is not living. This is shit. The fear, the pain, the hurt, the melancholic meanderings day after day after day...it completely sucks.

When I do not drink, life, sometimes, gets very fucking boring. But what is worse? Boredom or this ever-tightening noose of alcoholism? I'll take the noose for a thousand, Alex. That--this--is much much worse.

The bottle is kicking my ass. It's really not even a fair fight anymore. And it can--and will--only get worse. Unless I can find some spine. Unless I seek help, go to meetings, take Antabuse, drag my nuts out from my ass and man the fuck up.

Being bitten by the bottle-bug is a tragedy. Alcoholism is tragic. I consider myself a pretty special person. I have much love to impart to the world. But I'm burying it underneath this fucking monster addiction. If I continue down this road of self-destruction I will lose all that matters to me. Fuck. Lose it? No, I'll give it away.

I am not prepared to take a dump on what I hold dear. I am neither ready nor willing to throw it all away.

I'm. Not.

Tell that to the bottle, Adam. Tell it to the bottle.

Words are words, man. That's all they are. I need to see Action. Blistering Alcoholic Boy? It is faaar past time to nut up, to sack up, and take motherfucking bull by the horns. Or by the balls, as it were.

This is my life. Mine. Life is *so* much more God-damned beautiful and fulfilling than waking and cracking a beer-top and smothering oneself with the "nectar of the gods."

Enough! Enough with the Dionysian Lethargy.

I talk a mean game, don't I?

Some days, I hardly even know what day of the week it is. Is today Wednesday? No. It's Tuesday, right?

I feel the tears welling up. I am in so much fucking pain, right now.

But I have Faith. I have Faith that I'll emerge from the other side of this self-made maelstrom a stronger individual. I do have Faith.

And that counts a whole hell of a lot, damn it.

WERDZ

I was just having a conversation with my lover, Meeg, about the words Faith and Hope.

I see it this way: Faith is the unwavering knowledge that things will work out just fine. Scenario: a guy is in a liquor store that is getting knocked over--bullets are blazing--and he has the Faith that he'll get out of it unscathed. He does not Hope for good health; he has Faith that he'll be okay.

Same scenario: guy in the middle of a liquor store robbery. He Hopes that he'll be okay. He Hopes that the crossfire won't knock 'im in the noggin. He Hopes that a .44 bullet will shear through a can of Campbell's instead of churning his head into soup.

Which is stronger? Faith? Hope?

I don't need the dickshunhairy to answer the question. It is a landslide victory. Hope is Faith's bat-boy. Hope? Stand back for the power-hitter--Faith.

Hope, to me, seems, ineffectual. Hope, to me, seems wishy-warshy. You ain't gotta Hope; you've just got to have Faith. Hope wears Faith's hand-me-down clothes. Hope is Faith's little brother, little sister.

Faith knows that the world will be okay, eventually. Hope wishes so but then shrugs and clicks the TV remote, looking for the last American Idol re-spin.

Faith is the mortar that solidifies the Wall of Being. Hope is the groundwater that destroys the Being.

Raise yourself up into Faith. Believe. In whatever. Just--believe.

A ROMP AROUND THE MAYPOLE?

Happy Friday, everyone. Happy May 1st. It is May Day. Why? What does May Day stand for? I'd look it up, but I am lazy, I guess. All I know about May Day is that, in some parts of the world, people gather in the village square, 'round a tall pole to which ribbons are affixed, and they walk slowly around the pole, the ribbons clutched in their sweaty palms. Or...something like that. Why? I haven't the foggiest notion. And, then, I do believe, they reverse the direction! Egads.

I may put my little ole spin (no pun intended) on the oh-so sacrosanct May Day tradition: I think I will walk circles around my warshing machine. Yes, my warshing machine is "on the fritz," as they say. The spin cycle is...troubled. The motor is runnin', but the tub ain't spinnin'. Oy vey.

I have looked online and I am prepared to open the lid (after unplugging the beast) to see if, mayhaps, something--a bra, a sock, a clump of dirt, a rhesus monkey--is stuck somewhere in there. My bet is on the monkey. Those damned animals are nuisances! Just ask India.

Anyway, may your day be bright, may your footsteps be light, and may your monkeys not be tight.

In the warshing machine.