The first decade of the 21st century will soon be just a reference point, and it's about time for one of those damned end-of-year "wrap-up" newsletters that some people – like me – insist on inflicting on the rest of us. This one, however, may read a tad raw. I woke up grumpy in 2010, and its blessings were decidedly mixed.
My greatest gift of 2010 is that so far I've managed to get through it... just a few more days left until it won't qualify for the end-date on my headstone. Yet it's hardly a small wonder, the way some select forces in life united in collusion, my own stubbornness and stupidity, regarding my health, chief among them.
I finally went to the doctor in 2010, to find out what I already suspected but was in blissful denial about – I'd been committing slow suicide for five years. Type-2, known as "adult onset" diabetes, has manifested as neuropathy – nerve damage. I can't always feel the sun's – or an electric blanket's – warmth. It means I'll be one of those doddering morons whom you've occasionally seen dressed for autumn in July, and wondered about the number of cards in their mental deck.
I've still got both Jokers, that's all I'll say.
For some reason I just brain-shifted onto politics.
I voted democratic in the last presidential election, but didn't at the mid-term. Our local house-rep here on the central coast is a typical political career-cretin who's never punched an honest timecard in his pink, tubby, over-privileged life – Spanky with a prostate. I can hardly believe he was granted another term to keep waddling to the bank. He happens to be a democrat.
On the other hand, our nation's book buyers gave a hardy middle-finger to Karl Rove, and that warms my heart. The only difference between Rove and Luthor, is Lex's cooler hairstyle. Our aching sphincters haven't shrunk to normal yet, Karl, so it's a little soon to bum a post-coital cig.
Speaking of which, let's outlaw tobacco... please... let's. But by all means, keep Big Tob in business, by replacing their landscape of croplands with industrial sized pot farms. No jobs need be lost. They can go on raking in profits, and being taxed and regulated. Smokers can go on smoking. Keep various no-smoking areas in place, though, because I personally don't care for even THAT kind of second-hand smoke.
No, I don't buy nature's perfect bullshit about marijuana – nothing that is lit on fire and inhaled is ultimately good for you. The human body isn't designed to huff smoke. Period. Any substance that becomes a LIFESTYLE is not exactly going to make you a pillar of virtue. Tobacco, however, is so utterly evil that grass wins by default. Yes, I'd much rather sit in a room full of potheads than one full of tar-suckers, or boozehounds.
I'd feel much safer, and much less annoyed. I come from a family whose main goal in life was once to cover the globe with empty beer cans and cigarette butts – nothing good ever came of it.
I have no argument against pot's power to ease pain. If my mother had smoked pot, she'd probably still be with us today. Morphine eases pain too... after all the pot on Earth won't help.
We lived next door to a family of elderly Filipinos, who grew – literally – an acre garden of pot, cleverly disguised by a surrounding perimeter of less suspicious looking shoulder-high shrubbery. Guarded by a doberman pinscher and a marmaduke mastiff whose powerful jaws once bit through a 3-inch-thick grappling chain, just so he could trot up and greet the mailman.
They were such happy people. So pleasant. Shriveled old Mr. Cabbatic, all T-shirted 5-feet, 2-inches of him, and his 300-lb. mail-order bride from Manilla, Eleanora, who was a loyal wife, and outlived him. I can close my eyes now and still see their joyous, serene, humble – wise – smiles.
In our garden, my mother and grandmother grew everything from berries to pomegranates to squash and corn – but no pot. It was a different brand of wisdom.
My dad built a patio onto our house with a roof made from cheap aluminum siding – he was a rough-hewn genius like that. He loved Mr. Cabbatic so much that he took what was left over and used it to build an identical patio onto his house... for free. My dad was a contractor, but we were paupers, because he kept giving work away. I hope the Cabbatics let dad have an occasional toke. He was home alone a lot toward the end, in pain, and would've appreciated it. If he did, none of us ever found out. He died sitting at the kitchen table. His last words were "I feel great."
Their pot-garden patio was quiet, shady, an alternate universe from our patio; the scene of a few nicotine fueled, liquored-up Jerry Springer-worthy family blow-outs. And amazing, scarily-huge swarms of houseflies in the summer.
Thirty years later, that silver-topped patio on our old house can still even be seen by the Google satellite. I've looked.
All of them are gone. All belong completely to the 20th century.
All the old secrets are meaningless. Any illegalities have by now certainly fallen to a statute of limitations. Even the police who once cruised our neighborhood, if still alive, are sitting in rest homes talking about those mean streets of three decades ago, chalking the tires of the potato-chip man's delivery truck, or staking out the 7-11 for Sunday morning hair-of-the-doggers.
2010 was not a year of nostalgia for me, but writing about it has certainly stirred up a dust-devil of memories. In many ways I long to return home, but that's the one thing I can never do – the 21st century is one of forward motion, and gazes fixed upon horizons, not glancing back over shoulders.
The holidays approach, and I've come to know this certain time of year as one of inner calm. Unsure how accurate "inner peace" would sound, I'll play it safe. I enjoy the exciting, yet also soothing, space of days between Halloween and Christmas. Sure, I see and detest all the rampant commercialism and chaotic self-distraction as much as anyone. I once regarded Halloween as my favorite holiday, but have come to see a new truth there as well – its pagan self-indulgence is even a bit more dangerous than Christmas's, because it masquerades as ancestral virtue. At Christmastime we've come to make no pretensions about brazen selfism – that at least is an attempt at honesty.
The ancients had no monopoly on wisdom. They swilled just as hard, smoked whatever they could manage to roll and light, and were every bit as pleased with themselves. We just do it all better and faster because we enjoy modern time-savers like bottle openers and lighters, and our vice substances come conveniently pre-packaged.
I think Halloween began its descent on my personal score card when I noticed it had ceased being a kids' celebration of fun dress-up and candy, and become an adult altar-day for boozing and soullessness. I believe a certain contingent of people subconsciously use Halloween to let their pathologies breathe, or flesh out long-held secret yearnings, with a superficial belief that they are mocking something. What does that really say about modest girls who dress as sluts, butch girls who go as nurses and Little Bo-Peeps. The mama's boys as vampires. The geeks as powerful sci-fi warriors. The jokesters who become transvestites, never clowns. The bullies who morph into doctors, or hobos (there's a psychology term paper in the making). At least one slacker or hipster obligates himself to show up as a priest, or even more hardcore... Jesus.
Maybe that's the "honesty" I thought I was missing. I stopped dressing for Halloween, and stopped formalizing for Christmas, a long time ago. Maybe I finally got to a place where I figured I am all I wish to be, and don't need to keep feeding my subconscious. I'm not better than you, I'm just up late over-thinking it all.
I still miss the kids dressed up, out having fun. That's what Christmas once was too. Parents and kids enjoying some common ground. Halloween. Christmas.
Now my candy is sage stuffing, pumpkin pie, and good coffee. And I have an excuse to, sparingly, fall off my own wagon. 2010 was the year I got serious about The Wagon. The year I admitted there was a Wagon. And that I'd fallen off of it, and had been tangentially jogging along behind it.
I let undeserving people tighten my jaw in 2010. I lost some battles in 2010. I let good things slip by me in 2010. I had to resign myself to a few not-so-nice paradigm shifts in 2010. But I made new friends in 2010. I embraced my responsibility for my own health, finally, in 2010. I took steps forward, and stopped my whining by a degree in 2010. I became – as a result of my illness – worthless below the waist in 2010... but perhaps a better man between the ears in 2010.
I've wasted years of my life being harmless, fooled myself being industrious, and denying of myself by trying to be adorable to everybody. If I prove to be less cute and cuddly in 2011, just chalk it up to my nearness to 50 – what I can only hope is a halfway mark.
I do not wish to offend, but neither do I wish to defend. If you want Happy Holidays, have them by all means. If you celebrate something else besides Christmas, do. I'll say Merry Christmas, and when it arrives may it find you merry, and well, feeling joy and love. Some of that love... will be from me. Thank you for your presence. Among my life's ups and downs, you're in the "up" column. Trust me on that.
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