Lord I’m Discouraged.
Lord[1] I’m discouraged. I’m depressed. I’m down in the dumps, gloomy, under the weather and over it already. I’m all of these things. The problem is that things are going great for me.
Don’t get me wrong- life is pretty darn swell, which makes me being depressed all the more strange. I have a beautiful wife, a pretty sweet job, and great friends. But I still can’t shake this almost existential dread that I’m feeling. There’s nothing tangible to it. I have no bank loan breathing down my next, no friends who are suffering and I don’t have to watch a close relative suffer the indignity of slowly dying in a nursing home. Instead I’m feeling this rock in my stomach and lump in my throat over something else- over the way things are.
That’s pretty heady stuff, huh? The way things are.
I’m almost thirty-three and that means that I’m chronically in danger of what idealism I have being torn away from me like it’s a baby being ripped from my teen-mother hands by the Tennessee Children’s Home Society (look it up, I’m to lazy to provide a link for my obscure and overly obtuse reference). I see the world and this country that I live in and share with other people and I feel like nothing good can come from me being locked on this mortal plane with such disgusting people. I see the most horrible and vile racism, greed and ignorance being passed off as the norm and it just makes me sick. I see people and institutions that I placed so much faith in giving up and selling out their principles and ideals for the sake of maintaining a status quo that seeks to destroy everyone but the ruling class. It used to make me sick, but instead now it just makes me sad.
Not sad enough to do anything about it, mind you. Not yet- and that’s when I get even more depressed.
I realize for a moment that there is a chance that I could come across as a raving lunatic, writing his manifesto before committing some woefully sad and anticlimactic act of revenge against the outside world that is such poison, but I doubt that I would ever do that. I’m too much of a pacifist to actually hurt someone. So if this long rambling starts to feel like the words of a borderline psychopath readying himself to climb a clock tower and starting to pick off pregnant women, fear not. I find that I wield a keyboard and Microsoft Word far better than I could a high-powered sniper rifle, and my home office is far more comfortable than a clock tower.
But just because I’m not filled with homicidal rage doesn’t mean that I can’t write a long-winded screed about how these unknown forces are troubling me, so here goes.
What’s better: soccer or the in-laws?
I’ve been holding in a gigantic soccer rant since the World Cup started (in what seems like) a lifetime ago. I loathe soccer. Actually, I guess that’s not true. I don’t mind the actual sport; I just treat it as I treat any sort of children’s organized sport/women’s basketball- it’s really fun to watch the participants try to be athletic and the game to be engaging, but it’s even more fun to watch how red-faced and idiotic the people who defend said sports tend to sound.
Look, I get it- you either have a hard on for all things Europe or you hated the people who played real sports growing up. I know it was hard for you to use your hands to dribble, pass, throw or hit the ball, but don’t take baseball off of ESPN for a month because of it.
But anyways, in the name of fairness and in the spirit of sport I tried to watch the final game today between Spain and the Netherlands. What I saw was an endless ping pong match between the teams: the soccer ball flew in the air back and forth and each time it hit the ground, a player would fall down (whether or not he’d been touched) and the referee guy would give a yellow playing card to the other team. It was like Magic: the Gathering, only a tad more effeminate.
Seriously, there were more greasy-haired dudes diving than at a Greg Louganis look-alike contest. The only time I saw a guy actually get tripped up, the guy who did the tripping helped him up and gave him a hug once it was done. What the fuck was that?
But despite this crap, I gave it an honest go for the sake of my friend Miguel, who hates football and yet watches the Super Bowl every year. His father’s side of the family is from Spain and he had a horse in the race. I figured muscling through the game just because I knew it’d make him happy to have someone to talk about it later with would be the friendly thing to do. Dear lord I was miserable because of it. The next time I think about taking one for the team and doing something nice for someone, remind me instead to just run my arm over with a car instead. I hate soccer and I’m glad I don’t have to hear from the bottom feeding loser culture of soccer gimps for another four years about how I should try to enjoy a “match”.
On a brighter note, last night and today Jessie’s parents were in town. Last night, they came over to our house, ate dinner and stayed until nearly 11 talking and laughing with us. This morning, we all got up and left the house early to head up on the Blue Ridge Parkway to eat lunch at the Pisgah Inn together.
My normal joke about the Parkway is that I never went up on the road because I don’t like the outdoors, I had no girlfriend in my twenties, and I didn’t do drugs that often, thus negating any reason that I would have to travel on that road. But this morning it was beautiful up there. We stopped at a view overlooks and I just took it all in. I tried to count the layers of ridges and got dizzy, and had my breath taken away by some of the huge rocks just jutting up out of those green green mountains.
It was a lovely time and I’m so thankful I did it. Hopefully that was just the start of more mountain adventure. Sue and Dale (Jessie’s parents, whom I’m still not sure what to call them to their faces), were really fun. We traded stories and Dale and I even got confused when Jessie was speaking to her mother about the differences between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians (we thought that the ladies were talking about woodchucks for some odd reason). I know the common comedy cliché is to bitch about the in-laws, but I’m not going to- and that’s not because Dale occasionally reads this blog- it’s because I like them.
Now I’m sweaty from my nightly walk with my wife and the dogs, and settling in for a nice long work week. Life is pretty sweet.
Until later, be good.
Pat
I remember when I was a kid going on those long beach trips to North Myrtle Beach with my grandparents, my sister, and my grandmother’s niece (who happened to be my childhood babysitter) and her husband (they were named Pat and Joe).
Late one night I remember laying in bed beside Trevor, Pat and Joe’s nephew whom they pretty much raised, and hearing Pat tell my grandmother that she was going across the street to the all-night arcade to play Skee-ball.
Pat wasn’t young back then in the traditional sense of the word. She was probably in her late 30s/early 40s. But I definitely saw her as an older person. But I remember her saying that she was going to play Skee-ball and all I could think was wow, adults like to have fun too.
I can’t describe how powerful a moment that was for me. I realized that being an adult didn’t just have to be the griping and worrying about bills that my grandparents did all of the time. Instead, you got to go play Skee-ball late at night after the kids were asleep.
I found out today that Pat died in a Hospice Facility, almost a year after her husband Joe was found dead in his home. Pat was 63.
I’m still sort of numb about it, but I know a big chunk of my childhood has gone away. I know that the last link to my grandmother’s side of the family is gone now. I know that I didn’t get to see Pat enough over the last few years and wish that I could spend my afternoons doing my homework in her living room while she watched the Donahue show. I wish that I could spend Halloween at her house in West Asheville one more time, or see her and Joe drive over the hill to my grandparents’ house one more Saturday or Sunday night.
I wish I could see Pat one more time to tell her that all of those little things were a huge part of my life, and that I’m sorry that her dying was what it took for me to see that.
Rest in Peace, Patricia Metcalf.
Weekend Affirmation!
Sometimes I think that I’m crazy. Sometimes I think that I’m down and out and that I’ll never really truly be happy. Sometimes I think that my life is a big weekday crawl of work, toil and file notes and weekends where I sleep in too much and spend too much time driving. Sometimes I drink so much that I ruin the next day and sometimes I spend the next day wishing that I had had a few more drinks the night before. But then I have weekends like this past one and everything is fine.
Without going into even more detail about my personal and family life, I talked to Jessie in the spring and made a vow that I would do more with my nephews and niece this summer to help them have a great time. I want to find that perfect balance between letting them experience the things that I never had the opportunity to try when I was their ages (13, 9, and 7) and making sure that they are entitled little brats because of these experiences. I don’t know how I’ll know if I’ve done the right thing, but Friday night I think that I was definitely one of the good guys.
My nephews are at a peculiar age. They aren’t little kids, but they aren’t teens. Sometimes they turn into these rather complicated older kids in front of me, and other times they are just silly little boys. It’s hard to tell what they like and what they don’t from week to week. But when I heard that the WWE was coming to town, I had to take them. I mean, I knew I’d have a good time there, so why wouldn’t they?
Mother’s Day
This morning I woke up on the ground of my friend Bort’s land in Big Sandy Mush; my brain sloshing around inside of my skull like the partially melted ice cubes in my whiskey drinks the night before. The air was cool and did a thousand wonders to help me not vomit inside of the borrowed tent that I lay inside of.
Saturday night I sat with friends, laughed a lot and drank even more. I felt a palpable love in the air that hadn’t been felt in far too long. There were fires built and stars gazed upon outside, and we were in one of the more beautiful places in North Carolina (if not the world). Everything was right.
So why was I so goddamned sad this morning?
Legend!
This blog has sat empty for a few weeks, just wasting away on the internet like some sort of Anglefire or Geocities site, and I didn’t mean that to happen. My original plan was to write something short and comical about my father. Something to make myself or my sister laugh, or something that would make other people read it and get uncomfortable whilst doing so. The blog was meant for entertainment.
Something else happened though: I realized how weird and conflicted my issues with my father were.
Now I know for some out there, this is no surprise, for others this news is right up there with “this has been a long and shitty winter”, and even in a few others it will probably be ammo to use against me in a personal attack later. I suppose everyone is right, but it doesn’t make it easier to write.
My first draft of this post started off with the silly and hyperbolic; that my father had the strength of ten very sleepy men, the wit of seven drowsy dudes and the stamina of four coma patients, and moved onto several drug induced malapropisms that he has slurred out to me over the years. But that post didn’t feel right- in fact, it felt too lighthearted and dishonest.
My next draft was a long and rather nasty entry listing the laundry list of examples of why it sucks being the product of a broken home and what my father’s addiction has done to me. But the problem is that that was too bitter, too angry, and those are things that I’m not anymore- at least I don’t think I am.
This is my final draft of this blog about my father, and I don’t know if it’s shit or not. I don’t know if all of the typos are gone and I don’t know if it the words inside of this entry matter to anyone but me. If they do, great, but if they don’t I don’t care. I pay the hosting bills around here, not you. (more…)
Late Christmas night
These are happy times.
It’s Christmas. Well, actually Christmas is over, but I still consider it to be the day until I wake up. In the end, there wasn’t big huge electronic spectacles unwrapped or giant bags of money unveiled. Instead there were two families and a lot of small gestures to let the others know that we are thinking of them. I’m happier about that than you can imagine.
Of course, because I am so happy the late-night mania takes hold and I lay next to Jessie thinking about how goddamned perfect my life is sometimes, and I just feel guilty. I feel guilty that I don’t see my family enough, or that she doesn’t see her’s enough or that I don’t hang out with my friends as much as I used to, but I honestly don’t know what to do, when I am at work, she is the only person I want to see and speak to. That’s so weird. Usually I can’t wait to get out of the house, but lately I don’t want to be anywhere else. I guess it’s a good thing that I married her, right?
I am happy that I finally had the funds to buy everyone a little something. I’m happy that they made everyone smile. I’m happy to do those things, and they make me feel like a better person than I actually am. I’m sad because I can’t do it everyday and sometimes I’m too negative for my own good. I’m sad because in 50-60 years there’s a very real chance that either Jessie or I will have to live without each other. I’m actually scared of that. I’m glad that my grandpa is okay. I admire him so much. Some people look up to doctors, singers, athletes or big thinkers. I look up to an old guy who went to work every day and didn’t do any permanent damage to the people in his life. He’s a good man.
I’m glad I have this blog, and sad that I don’t use it like I should. I could be better at this.
I’m really glad that Jessie’s uncle bought me a Shamwow for Christmas. I may not know if I could live alone without my wife, but I know that I could clean up any unsightly mess that she would leave behind (these things have 27 times the absorbancy of paper towels!).
Life is pretty good. I can honestly say tonight as I sit here in the living room of Jessie’s parents that I am not that worried about tomorrow, or the days ahead. As long as I have my girl to keep me warm at night and shoes to cover my feet, I’ll be okay.
I’m not religious at all, but if my Jessie isn’t proof of a little bit of God’s mercy in this world, then we do live in merciless times indeed.
To the fans of kitschy Christmas (like me) and the Christians out there (even though it’s late) have a Merry Christmas.
To the Jewish, Grumpy Atheists, Muslims and others Mele Kalikimaka.
Be good.
Thanksgiving, baby (or Thanksgiving Baby)
As of tomorrow, Thanksgiving will be here and it’ll be a glorious day at the Bugg home. Jessie and I are throwing our first ever Thanksgiving dinner. Her parents, her brother, my Grandpa, my sister and her children are coming over. I imagine this is a big deal. It will be my first Thanksgiving not spent at my grandparent’s home. Part of me is super excited for this, but this strange pessimistic part of me is rather sad- this is a preview of years to come when members of my family have passed and it’s just my sister and I left.
Maybe it’s the idea of stuffing my face with stuffing, dressing up to eat dressing and hamming it up while eating ham (not to mentions saucing my cranberries) that makes me think a bunch about family, but it inevitably happens this time of year: I can’t stop thinking about my family- both the blood relations and the new one I’m building with Jessie, her family and my friends- and where it’s all heading. I’m sure I’ll spend part of turkey day thinking about all of that. But right now, there are other things swirling through my brain.
I’ve decided that Facebook makes me want to grow older and loathe the idea of getting older at the same time. I see these pictures of friends of mine, of friends of friends and of people I don’t know with babies, with children, with families and I just weird out. No, Jessie isn’t pregnant. We have spoken about a family somewhere down the road, but the weird insolent and impatient child in me wants this now. Maybe I just want the easy parts- the cute looks, the affection, the ability to place my hatred of Italians into a pure soul, but something about me wants children really bad lately. It’s so strange.
But then I think about the other stuff- the 4 a.m. feedings, the temper tantrums, the crying that the little buggers do and you just don’t know when they are going to stop and what to do, the little life who needs me not go off and get randomly drunk, and I shiver a little bit at those thoughts. Am I ready for that? Am I altruistic enough to care for someone else before I worry about Jessie?
I’m 32 and it still seems like my life hasn’t started yet. I have ideas about what I want and how I want to get there, but the ball hasn’t started rolling, and sometimes I worry that the ball will never start rolling. I can’t work retail forever, nor can I beg places to let me write freelance. Sometimes I just want to say “fuck it” and drive tractor trailers for a living. Okay, so I’m not that dramatic, but you (in this case, I mean the internet as an entity) realize what I’m saying.
The other thing that I worry about is that I don’t want to turn into one of those chino wearing yuppie shitheads once Jessie and I have a kid. I don’t want everything to be perfect and our child to have this glistening, sunkissed youth spent with no filth and grime and daddy saying the right thing and mommy never being frazzled. I want our child to know that we are people. I probably phrased all of that wrong, but let’s put it this way- I want us to be the same people we are now, just with children.
I don’t want to worry about bullshit like child predators. I don’t want to log onto a computer and look up who nailed a kid in the neighborhood (my money is on the old guy that works at the gas station across the street). I don’t want that worry. I grew up with the knowledge that both myself and my sister were too ugly to be fucked by a stranger, and I think that made me a good person. Could you imagine how big my already inflated ego would have been if I walked around at a young age thinking that someone triple my age wanted to fuck me? I’d be the cock of the walk (no pun intended).
I don’t want to have a child who grows up to be a miserable teenager, but I don’t want the child to grow up thinking that high school were the best times in their life. I don’t want my child to grow up and become a cop, or a cosmetologist, or a soldier. I want a child who will wrestle hot people and fuck bears. On second thought, maybe the other way around will be better for the kid’s self-image.
I want a child who has a love of cats and dogs, but maybe on some level favors the cats a bit more. I want a child who understands that metal has its place, but synthpop and gangsta rap only have an ironic place.
Did I mention that I want a child who understands irony but never overindulges in it?
I want a child who Jessie can make laugh without having to adjust her intelligence level to appease the child’s rather dull intellect. Did I mention she’s hilarious?
These are the things I worry about. Am I insane?
Happy Day
More to come later. Oh happy day.
Wedding Weirdness
What follows is completely true. No names have been changed, events have been altered or dramatic license taken to make this story seem more fantastical. All of the events took place between October 15th and October 16th, 2009.
