Mary and I have decided to once and for all quit smoking. So once again we are cutting down. One an hour now. I think we are going to head up to Mt. Charleston in April and just chill out for three days until the evil nicotine leaves our bodies.
The stupid thing is the less I smoke the more depressed I get. I'm not clear on whether that is a psychological situation or some kind of gypsy curse. I do know that I'm tired of smoking. No matter how cool I look or bad I smell.
I have been re-reading
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy this week. I realized that a lot of what I know about philosophy and life in general comes from there. Which I suppose is either enlightening or pathetic depending on your point of view.
Now of course I've tried to share this with Mary who just barely abides my more than passing interest in Science Fiction and all things geeky. My suggestion I think would be to watch the DVD instead of trying to explain it to anyone. Poor special effects and mercury quick dialogue make it a well spent few hours.
After my whirlwind trip to LA I feel a lot better. I feel better than I have since we moved out here to Sin City. I even took the 15 to 95 on my way back instead of my usual back roads. I'm still not too stoked about Vegas but my general outlook on things has improved greatly.
We (we meaning Mary and I) seem have some balance again in our lives. If anybody ever tells you marriage is easy, they are straight out lying to you. Love is easy if you let it be, but not marriage. I think that marriage is great thing with love but it's work. Trust me on this....
I do believe that at the end of it my worst day with Mary is still better than my best day with any other woman.
We even had a nice long conversation with Mary Belle and Erin. Don't know if it did any good but we'll see.
I'm going to the beach. Ideally my beautiful wife would be accompanying me but unfortunately the terror twins pooched that for us. Now that half of the scuzzy guys in Las Vegas know where we live, we are taking turns standing watch. I guess our crappy stuff is looking good to somebody.
Today would've been my deceased brother Bill's 38th birthday. Happy Birthday Bill.
I'm old, okay. I look about 32, I act about 9, and I am chronologically 38 years old. Between Mary and myself I would say we are about 156 years old in experience.
Now when I was a teenager I was what you would call "out of control". I drank excessively, I did and sold illegal drugs, I stole cars, and I broke into places and stole things that didn't belong to me. I was "troubled".
I was on my own at 16 years old, which sounds impressive, but Mary was emancipated and Married by that age. She was on her own at 13. I think she wins that one.
So this morning when I woke and realized that Mary Belle and Erin had three boys in their room and that all of them were still drunk from the beer they stole from 7/11 earlier that morning I wasn't too happy.
Now I'm wondering what to do? As I am sure my parents wondered what to do with me.
If nothing else this makes my depression seem a little inconsequential. That is going better by the way. Thanks everybody who wrote to me. I appreciate it.
Personally about the only thing I feel like I'm good at is being able to work through just about anything. I worry sometimes that my identity, as an artist is all I am. I think that is why I am so hard on myself about it. (the finished art) That and the fact that this pretty much all I do. I think I need to get out of the studio more and have a life outside of the work.
In an effort to do this I'm going to hit an AA meeting today. I haven't attended AA regular for a few years now. I've been so isolated here in Nevada and the people I've met have not helped at all in my opinion of the place. There a lot of self-indulgent warped people here and I always seem to find them. Moreover they seem to fuck me over in some way. Sometimes big and sometimes small but it's a sad place. I'm trying to remain more positive and work through all this shit but it's really a constant struggle.
Sometime I wish I was Forest Gump. That I could just view things simply and without cynicism. I wouldn’t have that haircut though.
Also thank you folks that have posted on my comments and emailed me. It’s very heart warming. Gives me hope.
Oh hell yes! Nothing better than Adam West and Burt Ward kicking it old school!
According to a poll on WCCO an overwhelming 67% of the people in Minnesota believe that our glorious leader has the right to make war without congressional approval. Maybe they are right? Or maybe George W. Bush is more like Hitler that Suddam Hussein? Of course that presupposes that G.W. is intelligent so that can't be right.
Maybe those two should just put on spandex and settle this like men...in the cage.
You know the worst thing about depression for me is the fact that a lot of people seem to think that's it's something I have control over. Obviously if I had control over it I wouldn't be depressed.
Still I keep thinking that I should be able to pull myself up by the old boot straps. What's up with that?
While things on the home front have not been as serendipitous as one would hope for these days (both personally and globally) I still found the time to play around with the new and improved iMovie app.
At any rate here is what washed out. Star Trek the anti drug...
It’s really not a safe as we once thought now is it?
Carolyn was watching COPS with us last night and Mary was telling her and the older girls to stay the hell off drugs because they would end up like that (or her back in the day). Carolyn asked why there "bad" people in the world and Mary said maybe it's so we can know what good is. I thought that was pretty profound. That's why Mary rules...
I stand corrected. Apparently it was Lana that asked that and not Carolyn. Still a good question either way.