Love to all. Even you.

Hey, CNN.

Maybe you shouldn’t use a tragedy as an opportunity for some headline writer to make a TV-show reference. I thought that was the New York Post’s job.

Jackasses.

On 9/12/2001, America was United and the world was behind us. The tragedy of the day before was an unbelievable opportunity to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden, demonstrate our military might, AND show the world that we were a moral, upstanding world citizen.

Instead, we underpowered the military action in Afghanistan, diverted resources to Iraq, and got ourselves mired in a war we should never have started.

Sometimes, I think we’re doomed. This President has made us less than a laughingstock… Bush has made this country the enemy’s best advertisement.

Could you IMAGINE what the world would be like if we hadn’t left the capture of Bin Laden to a porous Afghani troop line populated by bribable, disinterested soldiers?

I can imagine a LOT of scenarios… all of them better than where we are now.

Just thinking out loud, here.

Love to all.

It’s one of those moments.

Less dramatic than years past: I’m not a somewhat-messed-up teen being sentenced to years in jail (suspended), nor have I been hiding vodka bottles at work, and buying duplicate bottles of wine so people will think I’m sipping a glass, even though I’m running downstairs to gulp down another every fifteen minutes.

Instead, I find myself on the verge of altering or continuing various patterns, and I have to… well… to paraphrase AA, I have to be true to myself.

I haven’t run or lifted weights consistently for at last two weeks. The marathon is in slightly over a month. I can feel myself forming new, sloth-like patterns.

I’ve been trying different medicines for ADHD and after a really, really, really bad day/night, I need to decide if I should continue on for two weeks to see if there’s any positive effect. Oh, by the way, I think I accidentally took the stuff TWICE in one day, which probably caused the seriously bad effects I experienced.

My company has experienced an explosion of short-term, high-margin sales which, in turn, has drastically reduced our medium-and-long-term projections. There’s lots of work to be done, now.

The amount of AA meetings I go to has dropped over the last few weeks, as well.

So, I’m at something of a turning point.

I’m probably going to report in on these things on a daily basis, in summary format, whenever I post to this here blog.

I’m still feeling dizzy and strange… but I not so bad that I can’t fake it.

Okay, then.

Love to all. Even you, the guilt-inducing dude who I should probably listen too more often.

So, this guy writes me about employment. In the cover letter, he describes his school like this:

…a competitive small liberal arts college situated in NY’s capital region.

But he doesn’t say which school it is. so I write back:

I have to ask you… why would you say the below, vs. just saying what school it was?

And he writes back:

Why, because it’s true. Sorry you don’t seem to appreciate the description, it is what it is.

Now I’m amused and annoyed. I write back:

All because someone takes the time to ask a question, that doesn’t mean they were being negative. But now, spiraling into the depths of a depression that only the chronically misattributed can truly feel, I remain,

Rich

He wrote back:

My apologies for the tone of the last email. As an English major I am used
to being more descriptive, and perhaps not concise…

I couldn’t resist. I wrote back:

It’s too late. I’m in the dark place.

Then I went home.

Love to all. Even you, the guy in the mauve shirt who wanted to edge his way past me on the 6am train.

Before I failed out of college for the first time (actually, I failed out, went back, then left to go to rehab in 1989… so technically I only failed out once), I wrote a paper on metal vs. plastic slinkies. (And got a B+, I might add.) The paper was unequivocably pro-metal, due to the incredible variety of uses of the metal slinky, including aural transmitter, self-defense tool, and burglar alarm.

When a metal slinky bites the dust, it’s a sad, sad sight. Even though it can be untangled, the little guy will never be the same again. It’ll always be all googly and shit.

So goodbye, Slinky. Goodbye.

Love to all. Even you, whoever decided Plastic Slinky Jr wasn’t an insult to Slinky lovers everywhere.