The Cynic’s Cache

I forget exactly when this happened, though due to the nature of the memories, I can assume that it was late winter, either 2003 or 2004.  The memory is fuzzy, thanks to an unhealthy mix of fatigue from poor sleep, being overworked, and relying on stimulants to keep moving.

I was driving home from work after a nine hour shift on perhaps an hour of sleep.  At the time, I was doing ephedrine fairly regularly simply as a way to keep functioning.  I would sometimes not sleep for days, not because of the stimulants, but because of the insomnia.  Sometimes, my body would simply refuse to rest.  I knew what I was doing to myself when I popped a packet of Yellow Jackets, threw two of the pills in my hand, and then reached for a cup of coffee.

The problem was, I felt as if there were little choice.  I needed to work to survive.  My dreams had died, my ability to sleep had failed.  I assumed that my future was a young death due to the stimulants.  I had enough money to eat and sleep somewhere warm, but little else.

I was focusing intently on the yellow lines in the middle of the road.  I did this when I was at risk of falling asleep despite the unhealthy levels of alkaloids in my system.  For whatever reason, it seemed to help.  It reminded me of what I was doing, I guess.

While driving up a large hill, my car suddenly began to sputter and slow down.  I gave it more gas, but it refused to run.  The thing was old.  It had less energy than I did and, unfortunately, was unable to rely on unhealthy chemicals.  At first, I wondered if I had gotten a bad batch of something that was causing my leg to twitch.  The stuff sometimes made me shake a bit, which was part of the reason I never took it unless I needed to.

This proved wrong quite quickly, as the car shuddered and the engine turned off.  I eased to the side of the road, grabbed my things, pulled out the keys slowly, and wondered if I had the energy to walk home.  It was several miles.  At the time, I had no cell phone to my name.

I was wearing black that day.  Boots, pants, shirt.  It was all black.  It was also cold that morning, leading me to pull on the heavy leather trench coat that I have always favored.  Say what you will about what they make people think, the things are unbelievably warm.

I buttoned my coat and simply started trudging up the hill.  The people around here regularly ignore the stranded.  It has always amazed me how, in an area where people are regularly underemployed, bored, or simply do nothing all day, nobody has the time to give somebody a ride when their car breaks down.

At the time, I cared little.  My primary goal was to get home before the ephedrine wore off.  I knew I was as good as comatose as soon as I came down.  I was regularly fingering the yellow and black-striped pills in their little plastic blister packs on the inside of my coat with a mix of fear and stubbornness.  On one hand, an extra shot of energy would carry me long enough to walk home, back to my car, and then home again rather easily.  On the other hand, that might put me over my tolerance and land me in the hospital or morgue.  I was more worried about the hospital, as I had no insurance and an empty bank account.

When I neared the top of the hill, I sighed with relief as a car pulled over.  I put all thoughts of taking the next pill out of my head.  If I had believed in God at the time, I’d likely have thanked Him.

What stepped out of the car was a short fat man desperately trying and desperately failing to look casual.  He wore a cheap gray suit with a cheap, white and blue striped oxford shirt.  His suit coat was unbuttoned.  His car, in all of its averageness, was trying so hard to be average that it failed.  I find it ironic how something trying to blend in with its surroundings by looking like it belongs there can, at times, fail so horribly.

The man was with the police.  I doubted he was local but thought little of where he was from, who he worked with, or why he chose to pull over.  I simply scowled at him as he stepped out of the car and kept walking.  I was going up the hill and he had parked at the top of it.  Encounter with the Fuzz or not, I was still walking up the hill.

The look in my eyes, I had no doubt, said two things; first was “I am severely fatigued and should be sleeping but am likely on some heavy-duty stimulants right now.”  Second was “I know you’re a cop.  Don’t tell me otherwise.  I already don’t like you.”

We live in an age of expanding waistlines.  We live in an age of sedentary jobs, fast food, and easy lives.  We live in an age of laziness.  We live in an age where labor has become an indicator of social status.

Those that actually get up to do things have become reviled.  Hated.  Outcast.  Weight has become an indicator of normality.

I’m quite happy to be strange.

But, sadly, being thin is viewed as an indicator of being undesirable.  Vain.  Lower class.  Poor.  The thin are hated and shunned, cast out for the ludicrous crime of carrying heavy things for a living, or, worse yet, choosing to take good care of their bodies.

We live in an age where denial has become a way of life.  Society has taken the easy way out.  Rather than working toward being less fat, we, as a nation, have instead chosen to simply deny that being overweight is unhealthy.  We have chosen to ignore the fact that size small is simply not sold in many stores.  We have chosen instead to view gluttony as normal, laziness as desirable.

The jobs that are the most praised in our society involve minimal physical activity.  To prove that we’re good enough, we become fat.

I am tired of being hated for being thin.

I am tired of being blamed for “hogging all the metabolism.”

I am tired of dating being difficult because I refuse to date fat women.

I am tired of constantly hearing negative comments because I am thin, but being told not to even think of others as fat.

I am tired of being an outcast because I have chosen to take care of my body.

I am tired of seeing my country slowly eat itself to death.

I am tired of laziness being a way of life.

But no matter how tired I get, I will not be one of you.

I will not be fat.

Among the many memories I have been digging up lately, some of them involve things that seem strange and unreal in retrospect. A lot of them are actions done or things said that had me lapse into a moment of stunned disbelief.

This particular article was intended to be longer, but I find that the details are largely superfluous. The short of it is, at one point, I nearly ended up homeless. I had a job, though it paid poorly, but I owed a utility company money and had an empty bank account. I had a month to find a new place to live, but could never afford the security deposit on top of a month of rent and utilities.

With a week left to go, I told my mother what was going on and asked if I could move back home. I was told “there isn’t enough room.” After a moment of stammering in disbelief, I asked if I could borrow money to cover the cost of a new place. The answer was “no.” She started to inform me that, had I made better decisions, I would not be in this situation to begin with. I simply walked out and never spoke to her for over a hear after that.

I ended up staying in a friend’s spare room.

Fast forward a few years. I ended up in a bad financial situation. I had my own place, but my roommate ran off and left the place a mess. I could afford to pay the bills and eat, but that was it. There was no extra money. That meant no school, no saving, no projects, no bettering my life, and, most importantly, no extra money in case something went wrong. If my car broke down, I had no way to get to work. I never had a check up with my doctor that year because I was too broke.

At this point, I had been speaking to my mother again off and on. I had trouble stomaching her company, but ultimately sucked it up because I’d rather my brother grow up knowing his eldest sibling.

Conversations often got steered back to the fact that I had yet to go to college or accomplish anything she could brag about. These usually ended poorly, as I informed her that college is very expensive and it can be hard for somebody working a poor man’s job to get in and not end up starving. Most people that have degrees by the time they were my age at the time had parents that would, at the very least, feed them and give them a place to sleep until they had a degree and a job. If I wanted to go to school or do anything that might lead to a better job, I would need more money, which would involve more work. More work would mean to time for school.

Several months into this, I approached her to ask if I could stay in their spare room to get my savings built back up and then go to school. Her and my step-father demanded as much rent as I was ultimately paying for my apartment. My mother then proceeded to tell me my aunt in Pittsburgh would likely let me stay there for free if I were going to school there. This, in spite of the fact that I hate that city and have stated my opinion on that fact numerous times.

This is, of course, why the situation confuses me. Not only did she turn me away when I was barely making ends meet and unable to accomplish anything because of it, she also turned me away when I nearly ended up with nowhere to stay. On top of that, she offered somebody else’s help for free where she would provide none, which she has no right to do.

What amazes me most is when she turned me away when I had nowhere to go. What kind of parent would toss a child out to the curb?

While thinking about my childhood, and writing about it, a lot of memories have come up.  Not all of them are bad, of course, some of them even very good.  Interestingly enough, some of my fondest memories have involved some of the bloodiest injuries I had had picked up.

There were at least three times that I wrecked a bike and scraped up an arm pretty badly, once landing in gravel and sliding about twenty feet after riding full-tilt down an alley.  Another time I wrecked a bike and rolled down a steep hill.  I would sometimes come home with scrapes and bruises after having those funny child play fights with neighborhood boys.  You know the type…you kick, you punch, you pretend to be Ninja Turtles, you go home best friends.  You laugh and carry on and stop in the off chance that somebody actually gets more than a superficial wound.

I got hit in the face with a baseball, usually accidentally, more times than I can count.  I walked in the woods barefoot fairly often, sometimes limping home and digging something pointy out of my foot.  Once, I stepped on a rusty nail that punched through even the bottom of my shoe.  I would limp home, nursing various injuries, after playing tackle football with no pads.  I broke an arm roller stating once.

There were even times where neighborhood kids would throw sand in each others eyes, bash each other with sticks, or deliberately give each other bruises to look tougher.  We would put together makeshift ramps to jump our bikes with and see who could do the coolest bike trick, 99% of the time without helmets.

Actually, that last part I was pretty terrible at.  Bike stunts never were my thing.

Anyway…here I am, an adult, with all of my original parts.  Other than a bit of skin here and there, I never lost anything growing up, no matter how dangerous some might like to think my childhood was.  In fact, I think that I am better off having been injured as a child, as it taught me a few things.

The most obvious one is how to handle pain and, more importantly, what pain is safe to ignore and what is not.  A minor, superficial cut can be shrugged off.  Sure, clean it out, make sure it clots, but there is nothing to worry about.  Slap a bandage and some neosporin over it if you think it might need it.  Sore muscles you just slap some ice on and avoid using for a few days.  That joint that is swelling and hurts like fire you show to mom.  You might have broken something.

But, no matter what happens, you tough out the pain so you can think clearly.

I also learned a fair amount of first aid the “unsafe” way: outside of a sterile classroom.  I knew how to dress and clean wounds before I had two digits in my age.  There were plenty of times I would get scraped up, head for the house, patch things up, and then go right back outside to play more.

I even knew how to make splints for broken bones and get somebody with a broken leg home without hurting it more.  Those skills never got used, but I knew them.

Along the way, I also learned to stomach the sight of blood.  I ultimately saw more of my own than anybody else’s, but that even has its benefits.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned is caution.  There was a period where I was so horribly overconfident that it would ultimately bite me in the ass.  The incident where I wrecked my bike into gravel was a wonderful example.  With a head full of “Damn, I’m awesome,” I rode way too fast on what was, ultimately, treacherous terrain.

I was riding through the same alley the next day, of course, but having learned something: make sure that what you are doing isn’t incredibly stupid.  Caution is a good thing, you tend to learn, as it leads to less pain.

Now, I ask you, when is it better to learn a bit of caution: when you are on a bike, wreck it, and get scraped up a bit, or when you are behind the wheel of a car, wreck it, and die horribly?  Is it better to know first aid and have no experience, or learn how to stop the bleeding by actually stopping it a few times?

Who would you rather have show up when you’ve been seriously injured: somebody that will panic at the sight of blood, or somebody that never even flinches at the sight of it and just gets to work?

I often do my best to forget about my childhood.  It is filled with many very painful memories that, over the years, I have done my best to forget.  I intend on letting them out of my head, as I often feel like they need to escape.  This one, in particular, is likely to be the worst of them all.  I am starting with this one, as it is the one that sticks out in my head the most.

Forgetting and moving on, in some cases, has been a difficult thing.  This particular experience tends to replay itself in my head daily.

As experience is one of the things that shape a person, I find myself wondering if my part of my general isolation from the human race, as a whole, is because of a lack of understanding.  I find myself wondering if explaining how I think, and why I think that way, would help bridge some understanding between myself and the rest of the human race.  In this case, this is an experience that no doubt contributes to my general distrust of the human race and overall misanthropy.

I expect to live in isolation regardless, of course, but am typing this out anyway.

I can’t tell you the exact date that this happened as, honestly, I don’t remember.  Considering where we were living at the time, I must have been twelve or thirteen.  If memory serves me correctly, I would have been in sixth or seventh grade at the time.

I am leaning toward thinking that this was seventh grade, as it was a particular grading period that I got terrible grades in.  I had quit trying, as I had quit caring.  In fact, I think I nearly failed.

But, I must get to the point before everybody quits reading.

The day started fairly regularly. I got out of bed in response to my alarm clock and went to the bathroom to take a shower, as was my habit.  What was unusual was the fact that I stepped out of the shower to empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet.  After that, I began to really wake up and notice that I wasn’t feeling well.

I decided to mention the fact that I was feeling ill and skipped breakfast that day to my mother after I got out of the shower, as I WAS in the middle of something, after all.  The problem was, before I could finish showering, I felt diarrhea coming on before I had a chance to finish.  I stepped back out to spray liquid out of my ass for a little bit before ultimately deciding that I should probably stay home from school.  To me, it was obvious that I was rather ill.

So, after my shower was finished, I mentioned it to my mother, as seemed logical.  I had thrown up, had diarrhea, and was feeling incredibly ill after the morning fog had finally lifted from my brain.  The obvious solution was to stay home from school.

She had yet to get out of bed, so I went back to my room, put on my most comfortable clothes, and laid on my bed.  As far as I was concerned, school would never happen that day.  I would spend the day in bed, only getting out of it if I had to make another trip to the bathroom.

When she got up, she asked me why I was still in bed, and if I had showered.  I told her that I had taken a shower already, I just went back to bed because I was feeling terrible.  I was feeling bad enough that there was no way I was going to school that day.

I had thrown up.  I had had diarrhea.  My stomach hurt badly.  I felt hot.  Despite having a proper night of sleep, I felt weak and tired.  All in all, I was sick and needed to rest.  It happens to everybody from time to time, right?  Everybody ends up getting sick at least once in their life and needs to call off work or school, sleep it off, and head back a day or two later.  Not a big deal.

She looked at me and said “You’re faking it.  Get out of bed and get ready for the bus.”

Of course, I was confused, as I had not been faking it.  It was the first day I had wanted to stay home sick that school year.  I don’t think I ever even stayed home sick the previous year, but that memory is a bit foggy.  Perfect attendance or not, I only rarely ever stayed home from school.

“I’m sick, mom.  I’ll be fine home by myself.  I’ll be in bed all day.”

She huffed angrily and said something that I don’t remember clearly, as I wasn’t paying a lot of attention at that point.  It seemed  that she would let me stay home and write an excuse for me the next day, irate or not.

I rolled over and let myself drift into that special kind of half-sleep that only comes when you happen to be ill at the moment.  As that kind of thing is restful, I made no effort to resist it.

The buses came, the buses left.  My sister left with them.  That was when the real havoc started.  As I was partly asleep, I have no recollection of what transpired between laying back down and what happened next.

My mother came back to my room and said something about missing the bus.  I remember her also yelling about getting out of bed, as she had to drive me to school before she was late for work.  I, of course, repeated that I was rather ill and was staying home from school.

I had flushed the toilet after puking and then shitting in it and had no proof of the morning’s events.  She still assumed I was faking and told me to “Get in the damned car and go to school.”

By that time, I was already late for first period classes.  I had also begun to be confused by the fact that she was so adamant about going to school.  I was sick.  No way I was going to cause problems at home.  More importantly, catching up after a missed day is never particularly difficult.

My memory of what happened next is certainly not perfect.  Aside from how long ago this was, I have spent years trying to bury it and forget.  Despite that, this is the part that runs through my head on a daily basis.

My mother had left my room at that point.  I got out of bed, half because I wanted to make my point and partly because I felt the need to throw up again.  I had not eaten breakfast, my stomach began to hurt again, and I wanted to be near the bathroom in case it needed to forcibly empty itself again.

She came charging angrily up the stairs with my backpack in hand.  She thrust it at me and told me to “get in the damn car.”  She was late for work, I was late for school, and I was going, whether I liked it or not.  I wasn’t getting out of it no matter how hard I tried.  Sick or not, I was going to school.

I am unable to remember what she said next, word for word, as it was over a decade ago and I was fighting back the need to vomit.  What I do remember was the subject of what ended in a lot of yelling and screaming.

She had begun to scream and yell about things like “messing up opportunities she never had” and “I’m not going to let you mess up school just because you might not feel like going.”  Which was absurd, as I was by no means messing it up.  I just wanted to stay home for a day.

The word-for-word details of the conversation are rather irrelevant.  What I do remember is being incredibly confused as I was verbally assaulted over wanting to stay home from school for a day for being sick.

Forgive me for repeating myself.

After a great deal of arguing, my mother finally stomped off in a rage.  I figured she was going to work.  I had, at some point, sat down on the floor of my room, trying to comprehend what had just happened.  I was already fatigued from illness, but had just argued the point with somebody that was refusing to believe that I could possibly have taken ill.

I had been running through the conversation in my head at this point.  I was simply unable to understand what was going on.  Other kids stayed home from school sick.  This was normal.

Shortly thereafter, she charged back up the stairs with my shoes in her hand.  There was a lot of screaming and swearing about “putting your damn shoes on and getting in the car before you cause more trouble.”

I looked at her, confused, and just said “but I’m sick.”

She glared at me for a moment before looking at the floor for a moment.  When she looked up, she took a shoe in her hand and threw it at me with all her strength.

At this point, my adolescent mind became even more confused.  I had no idea what I had done to deserve being hit with a shoe.  After the shouting and years of accumulated verbal abuse, I finally lost my temper.  I yelled back.  “This is abuse, mom.  What is wrong with you?”

This was not the first time I had been verbally abused, mind you.  That was something I had grown up with.

My mother, after hearing that, stopped before she threw the second shoe.  She dropped it, clenched her fists, and then walked away.  I found myself sitting on the floor, again running through the events of the day in my head and wondering just what had happened.

When my mother came back upstairs, she was holding a screwdriver by the metal part.  She rushed into my room and screamed “I’m going to show you what abuse really means.”

She hit me in the jaw and the chest with the handle of the screwdriver.  I had bruises on my chest from the experience, but never showed anybody.  This was because, after hitting me a few times, she looked at me and said “If you ever tell anybody about this, it will be worse next time.”

At that point, I simply began cowering.  I guess auto-pilot had taken over, as I quit talking and simply cowered.  I sat where I was at the moment, trying to figure out just what was going through my mother’s head.  I remember being frozen in fear, even well after she left.

She told me to stay where I was.  Filled with fear, I stayed put.

After more verbal abuse that I am unable to recall, she began picking up everything that was mine and throwing it out the front door of the apartment.  At the time, we were living in subsidized housing in an apartment complex.  There was little to prevent neighborhood children from helping themselves to whatever was left outside.

With the exception of clothing, she threw everything that was mine out onto the sidewalk in front of the front door.  At some point, I must have walked down to ask her why, as I was downstairs and near the door, looking at my things and wondering what was going on.

She looked at me when she was done and said “If anything is inside by the time I get home from work, you’re in trouble.  Understand?  I’m going to work.  It’s your fault I’m late.”

I don’t remember what she said next, exactly, but it was to the effect of “if I lose my job over this, you won’t live to tell anybody about it.”

I sat by the front door for an hour or two before crawling half way up the stairs to get to bed.  I lacked the energy to get further and just laid there.  I was there for a fair amount of time before vomiting on the stairs and ruining the carpet.

I woke up on th bathroom floor.  I am unable to remember how I got there, though it was early enough that I was still alone.  My sister and mother had yet to come home.  I am unable to remember which came home first, as I spent the day on the bathroom floor until I heard the front door open.  When it did, I crawled to my bed and curled up under the covers, hoping that I would be left alone.

Later that evening, my mother confronted me about what had happened that day.  My things had been brought back inside, but were incomplete, as the neighborhood children helped themselves to what they wanted.  I am unable to remember what was lost.

I sat on the bed, closed my eyes, and hung my head as the punishment was described.  Everything I had lost to other children was punishment.  Until told otherwise, I was to start on homework as soon as I got home from school and continue until told otherwise.  If I ran out, I was to read about anything related to school until told otherwise.  I was allowed no friends, no television, and no video games under any circumstances.  I would not be allowed to go do anything on weekends indefinitely.  I was not allowed to go to my father’s, grandmother’s, or friends’ houses over a weekend until told otherwise.

Then my mother pulled the same screwdriver she had hit me with out of her pocket and used it to take the doorknob off of the door to my room.  She told me that she would be watching.  I was no longer allowed to lock myself in my room. I was allowed no privacy.  I was not allowed to be alone, ever.  I would be allowed to have a doorknob again when I had earned it, though she never did elaborate on exactly what this meant.

All of this lasted for many months.  She gave me no indication of when it would end.  The threat of more violence was constant and I often spent days simply sitting on my bed staring at the floor.

I remember one teacher asking me why I had suddenly quit trying in school, as I was suddenly failing most of my classes.  I mumbled excuses and never mentioned what happened at home.  Another time, I made passing reference to being “lonely and miserable” in an English class that I was doing poorly in, only to waffle about and refuse to answer questions when asked why.

I was referred to a guidance councilor in school for depression, but did my best to avoid the subject.  I denied it, and said I was fine.

This whole experience is significant not only for the problems in school, but for another very major reason: the day after this happened was the first time I ever considered committing suicide.  The worst part is, I very nearly did.  Sometimes, I find myself wondering just how many people in the world very nearly killed themselves before they even began high school.

More stories will follow later.  For the time being, I am unable to bear sharing any more.

Lately, I have had a lot on my mind.  These are things that I have avoided writing about for years, as I have trouble even thinking about them.  I think it is finally time to let these things out of my head, as I doubt they will be getting out otherwise.

This will likely be divided up into various parts, as it will be impossible to write everything out in one big article.  There is simply too much to write.

At the writing of this introduction, Part 1 is already written and will be published shortly thereafter.  It is about what is likely the worst experience of my childhood.  It is also the most difficult article to write, without a doubt.

If you only read one of these, make it that one.

But, before reading that, a few things:  I am not looking for pity.  I am not begging for money.  I am not looking for sympathy.  I need to get these out of my head and nothing more.  Perhaps it will help, perhaps it won’t.  Whatever happens, if you read them, you will be doing me a favor, as the more people that read these, perhaps the easier it will be to deal with.

I will never argue that I had the worst childhood in the world.  Though there were a lot of unpleasant moments, I was never starving.  There were people that cared about me, though they were, at times, deliberately kept out of my life.  I carry no physical scars of abuse.  I doubt my experiences will ever be turned into a New York Times Bestseller.  I don’t expect to be showered in pity money.

Some of these articles will lack perfect proof reading and likely have continuity flaws, as I will care little for rereading them.  They are painful enough to write about.  Other times, writing flaws will creep in, as some of these experiences will be difficult to write about while sober.  In fact, I was very drunk while writing most of the first draft of the first article.

In short: I’m writing these things out in the hopes that these memories will no long keep me up at night.  These are a factor of my insomnia.  Part 1, which I wrote before this introduction article, I have nightmares about.  Even while awake, this experience has run through my head every day of my life for well over a decade.  I am not coping with the memory of the experience and never have.

Again, I am not out for pity, sympathy, or an easy dollar.  I will not reject any genuine offers of help dealing with these things, but I will also not beg.

So, lately, I’ve been really damn lazy about writing. Well, everything other than getting up and going to work every day. Some folk know that I’ve been working on a few other things, but it seems that stuff wasn’t quite up to par either. There are reasons, apparently.

I saw my doctor yesterday and got put on Restoril, which is “for temporary treatment of severe insomnia.”

Yes, you read that right: severe. Many of you know that I’m not much of a sleeper, but lately it’s been downright dreadful. I feel like shit all day, have fairly low energy levels, and it has begun to affect everything, especially work. It has gotten to the point that I consider three hours of sleep a decent night. Sometimes I’ll run on less than two hours of sleep a night for a week, sometimes longer.

As I’d rather not end up homeless and unemployed, I’m talking to my doctor about this more as things unfold. I’ve had trouble sleeping for a good 15 years now, but it has been slowing me down like mad.

I will also be taking an indefinite break from writing. I started articles here and there but just went “meh” when I was too tired to finish them and noticed that my extremely fatigued body just didn’t want to produce anything coherent or interesting.

I’m sure I’ll be back eventually, but for now, I need a damn rest. I’ll be taking my magic sleepy pills shortly after I write this.

The next time you complain about not having enough time, ask yourself one question: Do I own a television?

If the answer is yes, ask yourself: Do I have cable (satellite counts)?

If the answer is yes, ask yourself: Do I watch television at least four days a week?

If you answered yes to all three, never complain about lacking enough “free time.”  You have plenty, you’re just wasting it.  If you answered yes to at least two of them, it’s highly likely you should be grouped in with those that answered all three.

Starting tomorrow, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, write down how much time you watch television.  Do that for a week.  After you have figured out how much time you spend staring at the glowing box, ask yourself what else you could spend that time doing.  Write that novel you dreampt about when you were 20?  Take night courses in something that interests you?  Exercise?  Learn to draw?

Do yourself a favor, now.  Cancel your cable subscription.  It isn’t worth it and it’s a waste of time.

Concerned about missing your favorite shows?  If it’s worth watching, it comes out on DVD and ends up on the (usually free) watch-whenever-you-want internet services.  I know you have access to the internet, you’re reading my website.  Worried that you can’t afford a better connection?  Compare the cost of cable to the cost of DSL.

Worried that you’ll get bored?  In that case, you’re a stupid drone that has become reliant on the television to keep your mind occupied.  Do you really want your mind to be filled with shitty sitcoms, commercials for overpriced garbage, and poorly written dramas?  If you have no idea what to do with your time without television it is likely time that you rethink your life and your priorities.  Is television that important that you let it dominate your life?

Worried that you will end up as an outsider without access to television?  Won’t know what’s going on?  Might miss the news?  Allow me to introduce you to the internet.  Learn to play chess and get on a website that lets you play it.  Find a site dedicated to something you like and you will never want for company.  Want news?  There are more news websites that you could read.  Worried that you won’t see anything different ever again?  Hello YouTube, how are you today?

Fact is, there is simply no reason to watch television.  At least, none that I can think of.  I haven’t had cable for something like six years now and don’t miss it.

Of all the things that I have been yelled at by women over, my attitude toward weight seems to be the most common. Which confuses me, I don’t see where the problem is.

First things first, one thing I get accused of is hating fat people. This is untrue, a lot of my closest friends are on the large side. Far as I’m concerned, if you’re happier fat, be fat. I won’t judge.

The thing that gets me grief, though, is the fact that I don’t date fat women. Two reasons. First, overweight women just don’t appeal to me. Actually, I find too much fat to be unattractive enough that I’ll go “Yuck” and probably won’t even be able to get excited in the least bit. Second, I take good care of myself and am in decent shape (not fighting condition, and certainly not body builder/olympic athlete levels, but I’m going for healthy more than anything) and don’t think it’s too much to ask that, if I’m in a relationship with a woman, she at least ATTEMPT to do the same in return.

This, of course, leads to the why the anger confuses me. I’m not asking for much. I’m not saying that I’d drop a woman like a bad habit if I pulled her shirt off and she didn’t have a perfectly flat stomach. I’m not weighing the women I date and leaving them if they ever gain an ounce. I’m not saying that I only date women that are supermodel level hot. All I’m asking for is a bit of effort and concern when it comes to your body.

That being said, I also think that extremely thin women are just as unappealing as fat women. Might sound nuts, but it’s true. If you’re skeletal, I’m going to be just as bothered. For that matter, there ARE women out there that carry a few extra pounds VERY well and look better when they’re a few pounds over, but now I’m derailing my own train of thought oh shit it crashed.

*ahem*

I think part of the reason this confuses me is because I’m cool with the idea that everybody has their preferences, for themselves and for others. Me, I like to be thin and fit and just shrug if a woman tells me that I’m just not fat or muscular enough for her. She isn’t saying that I’m ugly, just that she prefers a different kind of guy than I am.

Of course, what confuses me even more is the simple fact that, were I to say I LOVE fat women, the bigger the better, PILE ON THE GRAVY BITCH, I WANT YOU HUGE, less people would get angry about it. At least, in my experience that’s how it works out.

Mmm…stream of consciousness posts…

Write this down if you need to, it might come in handy.

Next time you hear somebody ranting and raving about blacks getting the shafted on everything, blacks getting discriminated against, and blacks being kept down by “the Man,” do me a favor and kick them in the teeth.

We just elected a black man for president. For the first time in American history, a black man (I will not use that ridiculous phrase “African-American”) has gotten elected president. Black. In a nation historically led by old rich white guys. In a nation with an unpleasant history of fucking over every minority imaginable, we now have a president that comes from a race formerly oppressed. Really, does it get much more “equal” than that?

I don’t give a damn what color they are or if they’re even human. If they’re spouting off garbage about how poorly we treat black people, they’re either fools or snakes with agendas.

Isn’t it about time we dropped this racial insanity and started unfucking American society? Did you ever wonder that racial problems might stem from treating black people and white people as if they were separate subspecies of human? Now that we’re going to have a president with dark skin, I hope we can quit bickering about it and get something done right for a change.