So take me down. To the infirmary.

"Everyone has days like I'm having. Holding on to anything that I can."
-Todd Snider- I spoke as a child


The return to blogging made me smile a bit. I realized, after the fact of course, how important it was to me. In a sense it was a bit like the frog in a pot experiment. Put the frog in boiling water, it panics, it leaps, it knows the peril it is in. But if you put the frog in cool water and continuously raise the temperature by one degree, the frog will acclimate and boil away without a grumble. For a while I boiled away without a grumble. Truth be told, I replaced writing with other activities. For anyone who has come out to see me perform in the last year, it is pretty obvious where my time went. I love being on a stage. I love making people laugh and I love the construction of new material. But if I was completely honest, which is the goal of this sort of thing, I would admit that I have cheated myself a bit. Writing has always been the thing I enjoyed more than any other. Just stringing words together and seeing what happens. There is a joy in that which I haven't been able to recreate in anything else. Lately, I have introduced more written elements into my comedy performance, and I have been happier and more successful than ever. The funny thing is, something is always lost from page to stage. Words written in careful consideration have a way of shifting into something else when read aloud. Sometimes that is better, sometimes that is worse. The real truth is that while I have tried so hard to push myself to write, I have produced less then I am used to.

"And now my ashtrays overflowin' And I 'm still staring at a clean white page."
-Conner Oberst- Another Traveling Song

I guess one thing we all do is search for our happiness where we can find it. We expect it to be in one place and if it's not we seek it elsewhere. Inversely, when we find more joy elsewhere we replace what we have with something new. Unhappy at work? Replace it. Unhappy at home? Replace it. Unhappy with who you are with? Replace it. I think this is addiction in a nutshell. Whether it's drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, shopping, or some combination thereof, we manufacture happiness by covering our wounds with a never ending supply of band-aids.

Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with this. It seems perfectly natural to want to be happy. Given the alternative, it seems like the easy choice to make. Sometimes though, these remedies wear off. All of the effort we have put towards our endeavors ends up fruitless. Whether it's drugs, sex, god, shopping, or any other activity, there is a time when they don't carry the same punch as we hope. Of course when our easy answers don't work, finding the real answers can seem like a monumental task. So where to begin?

"All my people right here, right now. You know what I mean?"
Noel Gallagher- Do you know what I mean?

I have no answers for anyone. At one point in my life I thought I did. I had that stretch in my early twenties where I had it all figured out. I knew it alI. Even the things I didn't know, I knew. I could argue with anyone and no one could prove me wrong. Looking back I might have been utterly awful. I'm not unique in this. Possibly the only real thing of value I have learned in the interim between then and now is that then I knew shit and now I know shit plus 10 or so years. I can't remember the Buddhist quote about having to realize that you know nothing to truly learn anything, but I think I have the sentiment.

I'm not aware of too many things. I know what I know if you know what I mean."
Edie Brickell- What I am


I always postured myself as a happy person. Perhaps more "happy-go-lucky" than happy. I can't say that I always have been happy, but at bare minimum I I make the best and roll with whatever comes my way. I wrote once about the universe. More specifically about how you shouldn't shake your fist at it and yell "is that all you got?" This is bad behavior. Not that I believe in angering a higher power and getting a good smiting. I just view it as hubris and possibly arrogance. Negativity begats negativity. I have always found that the universe has plenty of negativity for me without my flagging it down and inviting it in. Even with my best positive demeanor, the universe has a stockpile of negativity to send my way. So in a way, positivity begats negativity. Funny how that happens.

"Oh life is bigger. Bigger than you and you are not me."
Michael Stipe- Losing my religion

There is no karma. There is no fate. The is only what we make. Everything we have, or don't have, is based upon our random mass of circumstance and how we receive it. I'm not criticizing anyone's beliefs, religion or general outlook, but however you perceive order in this chaos is your own business and I am most likely not following your lead.

I suppose this might all be perceived as melancholy. Fair enough. I make no illusions about the things I write and certainly offer no apologies. If I wrote what I thought would please others and withheld honesty then I wouldn't value it. I wouldn't expect others to value it either. Perhaps the scariest thing I can say is that each year I feel less of the youthful optimism which was my standby and instead feel cynicism creeping in. That is a sentence that pains me to write. Cynicism is the only swear word I have left. All the others are just crude forms of concepts that we have more polite ways of expressing. Cynicism by definition is a vile trait for a person to exemplify. To be a cynic is to have given up. To have no hope and no will to try. It's a scary thought.

"Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you."
Neil Young- Old Man

I am 13,028 days old. In a certain sense that is 13,028 opportunities for good to happen. The inverse is that there have been 13,028 days with a big target on my back waiting to be hit. Depends on perspective I guess. I think we all know people for whom everything seems to work. I think "charmed life," is the phrase usually used. There are two ways to approach these people. the first is to envy them. The second is to kill and eat them in order to gain their power. I don't recommend either of these. Finding a third way that works for you seems like the preferable option.

"These are days you'll remember"
Natalie Merchant- These are days

What all this boils down to is that there are days when I think I have had my fill. I find myself overflowing with all that I would rather not deal with. The economy sucks. Swine flu is coming. Rent is due. The alarm clock rings. My girlfriend has terminal cancer. The car needs repair. Work piles up. A friend dies. I'm out of cigarettes. My chest hurts. My girlfriend leaves me. Seldom do I see my children. Everyone expects me to make them laugh. And so on, and so on. We all have our lists. None of us are special or unique in this sense. It's how you deal with your list that differentiates you.

I'm tired of advice as well. People who tell you how to be happy are possibly the greatest impediments to happiness I can imagine. The people who tell you how to be happy are happy themselves. They have the benefit of options and the clarity that happiness provides. Imagine someone standing in shangra-la telling you that you should join them. For them it's so easy. They are immersed in happy. It seems so natural and effortless. They can't comprehend that many people don't have the map and even if they did the roadblocks in front of them are too large to navigate. Don't worry, be happy? It's easy to not worry when you have nothing to worry about. Ask the single mother who can't feed her children how ignoring her problems is going. Ask the soldier fighting the pointless war to ignore the bullets and shrapnel. Ask the poor, or sick, or isolated to put on a happy face. While you are at it, trivialize their struggles and laugh at their pain.

Everyone seems to have a happiness cure. Precious few of these people are altruists. Happiness doesn't come cheap these days. It's $19.95 at Barnes and Noble. $74.50 at the pharmacy or 10% of your take home pay at the church. You can't put a price on happiness. Wait, who am I kidding?

"Money, its a hit. Don't give me that do goody good bullshit."
Roger Waters- Money

Again, we all need something. If the alternatives are finding happiness vs. giving in and quitting on life, I suspect the former is the better choice for most. If writing a check works, by all means do it. It doesn't work for me but I am not you. (Thanks for reminding me Michael Stipe) Maybe I have finally had enough things happen where the concept seems so remote and foreign that it is more myth than reality. Maybe many other people out there are like me. I would certainly wish happiness on anyone who reads this. Most of you are my friends. Some ex-friends. Some family. Some strangers. Regardless I hope you have pieced together what works for you.

Can't imagine this was much fun to read. It wasn't fun to write. That's not an apology. I know people usually look for a chuckle or two in these things. I didn't have it in me tonight. If history serves me well, I will soon. Take care everyone.

"A little out of place. A little out of tune. Sort of lost in space. Racin' the moon. Climbing the walls. Of this hurricane. Still overall. I can't complain."
Todd Snider- Can't Complain