Don't Listen to Me

I have nothing this morning.  I'm out of gas.  I think that the vaccines have done something terrible to me, in truth.  I felt weird and tired all of yesterday and I have woken with incredible fatigue this morning.  I am dizzy and muddled and am going back to bed.  The news is that even if the vaccine has done this, there is nothing to be done but wait it out.  "Some people improve over time," I've read.  Let me tell you what people do over time. . . .  It gives me great anxiety.  

I AM shocked that people don't understand that the nature of war is killing and maiming.  "They killed civilians," people cry.  Oh, god, really?  Duh.  Unless two armies meet on an open field to do battle as in "days of old," that's what happens.  Otherwise it is like having the Vikings come to plunder your village, all rapey and murderous.  War is bad.  It is very, very bad, and it is better to stay away from it, but what are you going to do when the Visigoths break down the door?  I don't know what to tell you, man. . . you just gotta pick a side.  I don't think being scared is going to save you.  

But who am I to talk?  I never went to war.  I have had a charmed life.  For a hillbilly, anyway.  I hung with the non-violent crowd.  Make love, not war.  Now there is a motto I can stand by.  Even so, the violent world occasionally crashes in.  I guess I've always had a foot in both worlds.  I knew what I had to do.  Ended up with a broken jaw, a broken nose, chipped teeth. . . but my buddies were fine.  

Lying in bed the other morning, it occurred to me how much of the myth of being male effected me.  I grew up thinking that because I was a man, I automatically knew how to do things.  Like use tools, fix a car, a sink. . . whatever.  I was always confused when I couldn't.  Somehow I guess I thought you were just born with that knowledge.  

Now I am amazed at a lot of the old things.  Guys want to be as tough as Mike Tyson, for instance.  Oh, buddy, to be the guy nobody messes with.  But step back and look for a moment.  Do the girls like him?  I don't think so.  He's a convicted rapist.  WTF?  I looked at girls throwing their underwear on the stage at rock concerts.  Hmm.  Skinny little Mick getting all the girls.  

I can't ride a horse, either.  I can sit on them, but I can't ride them.  That's another thing I thought you got by being born a guy.  

Now this is just me.  You are going to have to look at the myths in your own lives and come to some decisions.  And we do live by myths, I think.  We envision types.  I always rooted for Navy to beat Army because my dad was in the Navy.  I mean, it goes down to the granular level.  

I had lunch with my former secretary.  She seems like the happiest girl in the world.  She is fun, likes to laugh, is terribly friendly.  But she is unhappy.  Her life has not turned out the way she expected and now she is turning 38.  She worries about her future.  She imagines the bleakest outcomes and then lives in fear.  Psychologists have a name for that, but I can't remember it.  The advice is something like reigning in the imagination, change your projection. . . something along the lines of "change the way you think."  I kid.  But she spends most of her time alone at home with her dog now and gets depressed.  If you knew her you would say, "What?!?!"  

It makes me think twice about getting a dog.  

Don't listen to me, though.  I am still wrong about everything.  Girls ride horses.  Now they throw their underwear at Taylor Swift, but she dates a pro football player. . . and not even a quarterback.  What the fuck do I know?

It is cool and bright right now, and I should be yearning to get outside.  But as I say, I don't feel so very well and think I will go back to bed.  The war will go on without me.