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The Final Gift of Uncle Arnold
I was never particularly close to my great uncle; he was on a side of the family that I didn’t often interact with. So when my mother notified me last night that he had killed himself, my immediate reaction was not of grief, but of shock.
We had missed it. We had missed all the warning signs that could have tipped us off that something was terribly, terribly wrong. But hindsight is always 20/20, and there were things that we should have noticed. He was out of work and they were slipping deeper and deeper into debt. A lifelong alcoholic, his addiction worsened and he became more reclusive, not even going out to visit his sister here a few weeks ago when she flew in from Washington state. We should have stepped in. We should have all been closer. We should have done something different than what we did… which was nothing.
This is not the first time my family’s been marred by such self-destructive behavior. When I was just a little boy, my teenaged second cousin took a rifle and ended his life. I was too young to be fully aware of what was going on, of what had happened and what an impact it was having on everyone. There was some speculation that it might have been accidental. I think in times like that, it’s something to soften the pain, the incomprehensible feeling that a part of your family felt so alienated that he could off himself–and not only that, but that the person could feel so indifferent to what effect such an act would have on the surviving family. It is a pain far sharper and far more difficult to deal with than an ordinary death under ordinary circumstances. It truly is the ultimate selfish act.
It is no secret that I’ve had such thoughts and such desires in my past. I’ve wandered through some dark places when I was lost in my emotional devastation, and I’ve considered that ultimate selfish act as a possible means to an end. But with this, with all this–the effect it’s having on the rest of the family, the investigations, the autopsy, the floating rumors of possible murder instead of suicide that will probably remain regardless of the findings of the authorities–it has ultimately and definitively proven to me what horrible consequences there are to ending one’s life. And in the depths, in the deepest depths of any wretchedness I might experience, I could never willfully and intentionally inflict such harm on the people I care about. The death of my great uncle has made me realize all this. And I suppose that this realization is the greatest gift he could have ever given me.
Drowning in Leisure
It’s pretty sad when my free time is actually busier than my work time.
Work is keeping me occupied enough. It’s pretty steady but I am treading water, not really getting behind or making much progress. But when it comes to my free time, I am getting woefully behind. There are so many things that I want to do in my free time that I don’t know where to begin. I am far, far behind in my blog reading–I’ve already abandoned all hope of catching up there–and I have literally thousands of bookmarked articles on The Huffington Post and Towleroad that I need to get around to reading. I’ve been wanting to resume work on some D&D material I’ve been thinking about, as well as some musical projects I’ve been turning over in my mind. I’ve got a book or two that I’ve been trying to make time to finish reading, plus I need to compile all my old stuff from the old blogs before they are lost forever. And don’t get me started on basic housework. And Christmas shopping. Ugh, seems every time I turn around the list just gets longer and longer.
The fact that, as of late, I’ve turned into an object of desire for a great many people is doing nothing to help me work my way down the list. In fact it may be the reason why I’ve gotten so behind–too busy enjoying all the flirtation and all the attention. I reckon it’s a good problem to have…
I’m going to have to open up bidding on my leisure time to contractors in order to get everything covered!
Pictures from Across the Way
This seal, which forms an acrostic of V I T R I O L, would have been useful back when I blogged under that other old alias of mine.
The Enchanted Negro’s Head
Unrelated to the previous post…
Socialism!
When I awoke this morning, I crawled over to the computer to check the news. This has been my Saturday ritual for a long time now. So, when I opened up the old Huffington Post RSS feed and saw this fine bit of news, I finally saw the light!
All these years, I had been using the word “socialism” entirely incorrectly. I’d always thought that socialism meant, you know, “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.” That’s what I get for using those faulty liberal dictionaries! It is indeed fortunate that we have people like Steve King who can come along and set the record straight on this word by illustrating its proper use, as a word to denote anything that is opposed to one’s own personal beliefs!
I did some more research on the matter and found this:
Given all this new information, I have decided to expand upon my definition of socialism in at least the following ways (more to come as I can think of them):
- When a vending machine takes your money and doesn’t give you anything, that is socialism. Obviously a redistribution of wealth going on there. No wonder Coca-Cola uses red for the color of their cans!
- When a person on the highway cuts you off or passes you on the shoulder of the road… socialism! Obviously a godless socialist afraid of being put in front of a death panel for being late for one of his godless socialist indoctrination meetings.
- When any person disagrees with you… obvious socialism. Rabble-rousers and dissenters are trying to fool the American people with their satanic “facts” and “textbook definitions” and other vile LIEberal dreck. As Stephen Colbert so elegantly put it: “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
- When any person agrees with you but doesn’t do so in a sentence that includes ACORN, SEIU, Ayers, Kenya, Marx, terrorists, birth certificates, the President hating the country he leads, the Antichrist, Hitler, Stalin, witch doctors, welfare queens, Rev. Wright, wives who hate the country their husbands lead, relatives who are illegal aliens, being friends with Ahmadinejad, being friends with Kim Jong-Il, being friends with Satan yet being atheist, and jack-booted thugs putting Grandma down when she stops contributing to society… if any of those elements are missing from the conversation, then, well… it’s not an automatic determination of socialism, but the person probably sympathizes with the left. At the very least, he’s a nigger-lover like Jimmy Carter.
- When a cashier gives you back incorrect change… socialism. That new liberal math will take away your hard-working white dollars and distribute it to LAZY PEOPLE, only LAZY PEOPLE, as anyone who doesn’t have the same job as you or the same lot in life as you is LAZY.
Thank you, Steve King, for showing me the error of my ways!
The Red Book (Liber Novus)
Sitting bored at work today, I was perusing Google News when I came across this article:
The Holy Grail of the Subconscious
It’s a lengthy read, but one that completely fascinated me. I’ve always been a fan of Carl Jung and his dream analysis, but I’d never heard of the “mythical” Red Book–an illuminated manuscript, bound in red leather, that he himself claimed was his greatest work. It has never been visible to the public at large and has never been studied by academia–it took a tremendous amount of diplomacy to convince the Jung family to retrieve the book from its secret location and allow high-res scanners to capture the elegant German writing and archetypal artistry of Jung while he explored the depths of his subconscious. The contents laid the groundwork for the Jungian method of psychoanalysis, but the family has been terrified that the never-before-published work would cast Jung as a madman, as its contents are creatively schizophrenic and at times disturbing. Jung did not hold back, and the Liber Novus (as he called the Red Book) captured all the gory details of his visions, dreams, and reveries.
I am going to try to procure a copy if at all possible–the first edition print run is only 5,000 copies, and each copy is already priced at over $100. Amazon has already sold out, and some other sites have started jacking up the prices… If this effort fails, I know what I’m going to request at Christmas.
Dragon*Con 2009
Dragon*Con 2009. Whoo boy. Where to start.
For those who don’t know, Dragon*Con is an annual gathering of tens of thousands people in Atlanta to share their love of science fiction, fantasy, and other geeky endeavors. It is always over Labor Day weekend and it is always a spectacle to behold, as a good many of the attendees dress up as their favorite characters. There are lots of geek celebrities in attendance (like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy) and tons of events, including concerts, parties, discussion panels, movie marathons, gaming marathons, and vendors selling all kinds of strange and wonderful things. There is so much stuff to see and do that it is distributed across four hotels downtown. It is, in short, a freak show par excellence.
For one thing, I am still somewhat shocked that I took the advice of an extremely enthusiastic (and nerdy) gay couple that I only met a few months prior and attend one of the nation’s largest geek conventions with them. I mean, I don’t generally do things like this. Anyone who knows me knows that I generally don’t go out of my way to go to large gatherings of people… especially when it costs money. But, I think at some point this past spring, I realized that I’m not getting any older, and that it’s always better to regret things you’ve done than to regret things you didn’t do, and nothing ventured nothing gained, and maybe a handful of other cliches too. So, why not? I mean, the worst that could happen would be that someone mugs me and murders me in some back alley of Atlanta… and that’s not terrible in the grand scheme of things. What did I have to lose?
Fortunately for me, I was neither mugged nor murdered. As a matter of fact, I had a surprisingly enjoyable time, in the company of people whom I have come to consider real friends. I felt like I fit in there among the geeks and the weirdos–it was lovely. There is so much that could be said about the trip, but so much that should probably remain unsaid in case certain parties ever stumble across the blog. Let’s just say that most of us spent the weekend in a blissed-out, boozed-out, sex-fueled haze, punctuated with pirates, vampires, steampunks, goths, furries, gamers, zombies, ninjas, elves, faeries, and other things too numerous to list. And while the debauchery might have made me feel like I was in college again, the games and characters that I saw made me feel like I was back in high school. This was the very best kind of nostalgia, coupled with a wondrous assemblage of things and people never even dreamed of previously.
I’m very glad I went and I have now become something of a Dragon*Con evangelist. Knowing the tastes of my other friends, I know that they would have a blast, and I would very much like to show them the wonderful and strange place that is downtown Atlanta over Labor Day weekend.
I’ll leave you with a bit of music by the Crüxshadows, a goth/darkwave band that is a perennial favorite at the ‘Con. I heard this song throughout the weekend as we ventured through the lower reaches of the Atlanta Marriott, so in my mind it became the default theme song for my first ‘Con experience. And yes, I admit it: I think the lead singer Rogue is cute. I’ve always had a thing for the goth boys.
Closed for H1N1
I’m going to be doing a big, full-length post on my Dragon*Con experience once I am a bit better. Seems I contracted swine flu from the masses down in Atlanta. Does this make me swine or what?
The Old Popularity Index
