Finding the appropriate antidepressant is like a courtship, you know, playing the field before you settle on one that works, looking for your pharmaceutical soul mate. You flirt with one, it seems great at the beginning, your heart races when you see that little amber bottle, you get that thrill when pop off the lid, you drink in the shape, you taste it as it settles on your tongue, bitter and foreign at first and then bitter and familiar, and you swallow, visualizing the path that medication traverses before it settles and starts to disseminate throughout your system. It infiltrates your pores. A chemical caress. You feel a warm glow. You feel safe. You start to look at the world in a novel way. You start to understand how people can make small talk. You wonder if that's how you're meant to feel, even though you're different from everything you've ever thought you were. But maybe who you have been hasn't been who you have been meant to be. Then the honeymoon ends, and your dance partner turns out to be different from how you thought it was. Imperfections arise, cracks in the facade. But you stick with it. It's what you know. You dabble with others, lured by the promise of something new, but you return to it. You can't escape its orbit. It's imperfect but nevertheless a balm of sorts.
Some of these relationships are bad from the start, and they make you wonder how you ever came to be involved in them in the first place. What was I thinking? You notice, but ignore, troublesome signs right from the beginning. You give it time. You persist even after you've overcome the illusion that it will work out. But eventually you come to your senses and return to the familiar, sometimes begrudgingly.
Other times, when the routine grows tired, you invite another pill to join in. A threesome, if you will. Then you open the door to your other mistress, a bottle of a different type, to further spice up the interaction. No jealousy. No obligations the next day. Kick any one of the components out at will. Not so simple, though, really. They're all demanding in their own right, not to be abused or regarded casually. Alas, there's no easy solution, but the magic bullet could be lurking right around the corner.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Guilty
Is guilt the seed from which depression springs or the offshoot of depression itself?
I favor the latter.
That's not to say that nondepressives don't feel guilty. But the extent to which guilt affects them and the manner in which they process the guilt differ. Guilt can run rampant, even turning ostensible trivialities into gut-wrenching, sleep-obstructing, middle-of-the-night, tug-of-war opponents. Guilt takes hold in your stomach and gains rolling momentum like an avalanche, burying you in its path, smothering you, the pressure building in your head as you assume a fetal position in an attempt to strangle the pain like a constrictor as it constricts in kind. It's leprosy of the soul, eating from the inside out.
And the cycle can be vicious: Guilt induces a feeling of contrition, for example, even if unwarranted, precipitating yet more guilt, without resolution. The body seizes, like an engine bereft of lubrication.
Passive aggression is an attempt to induce guilt, and it's all some people apparently know. When the pattern is established with a child, as in a parent deliberately manipulating and making a child feel guilty, it becomes poisonous for the child and difficult to overcome. Poisonous in that it infiltrates the thought process at every turn and wields undue influence and taints decision making. Guilt courses through the body like venom circulating through the bloodstream, leaving paralysis in its wake. Guilt, a constant companion. Rational thoughts and prayer don't help to heal the wound, even for the blameless child.
I favor the latter.
That's not to say that nondepressives don't feel guilty. But the extent to which guilt affects them and the manner in which they process the guilt differ. Guilt can run rampant, even turning ostensible trivialities into gut-wrenching, sleep-obstructing, middle-of-the-night, tug-of-war opponents. Guilt takes hold in your stomach and gains rolling momentum like an avalanche, burying you in its path, smothering you, the pressure building in your head as you assume a fetal position in an attempt to strangle the pain like a constrictor as it constricts in kind. It's leprosy of the soul, eating from the inside out.
And the cycle can be vicious: Guilt induces a feeling of contrition, for example, even if unwarranted, precipitating yet more guilt, without resolution. The body seizes, like an engine bereft of lubrication.
Passive aggression is an attempt to induce guilt, and it's all some people apparently know. When the pattern is established with a child, as in a parent deliberately manipulating and making a child feel guilty, it becomes poisonous for the child and difficult to overcome. Poisonous in that it infiltrates the thought process at every turn and wields undue influence and taints decision making. Guilt courses through the body like venom circulating through the bloodstream, leaving paralysis in its wake. Guilt, a constant companion. Rational thoughts and prayer don't help to heal the wound, even for the blameless child.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Heal Thyself
Of the demonstrably wise there are but two: those who commit suicide, and those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied by drink. ~Mark Twain, Note-Book, 1935
There's another kind of antidepressant, one that you can get over the counter and use as part of a home-treatment program. It's called alcohol.
Like other ADs, this one has side effects, but they're typically more fleeting and often less severe. You can even mix this one with more traditional antidepressants and get a heightened effect. And it works quickly and is out of your system more rapidly than the other ADs.
Depending upon your drink of choice, this can be a relatively inexpensive route. Alas, I don't think insurance will handle any of the costs, so you probably can't just get by with a co-pay. It would be cool if you could: Budweiser would be generic, craft beers premium; single-barrel whiskey would be more expensive than Jack Daniel's. Insurance might have a place after all. Someone would have to come up with a formula for the appropriate co-pays, dosages, etc. It would be complicated, but I think it could be done.
Some people would even make their own at home, as evidenced by the popularity of home-brewing. And I hear tell of distilleries in Appalachia, so it seems as if people have been self-medicating for a while. I wouldn't know the first fucking thing about developing a serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor at home. Grab some hops, yeast and barley, though, and you could be on your way.
Like any other kind of medication, alcohol holds abuse potential. My father medicated himself right into the grave at age 49. I found it perversely interesting when my mother gave me a measuring glass (a jigger) that my father used to use. "Here, son, this is the the gun your father used to kill himself. Enjoy."
According to a recent study, antidepressant use in the U.S. doubled from 1996-2005. The study found that 5.84 percent of U.S. residents aged 6 and over were using antidepressants in 1996, compared with 10.12 percent in 2005. That's an increase from 13.3 million people to 27 million people. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_87676.html
According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics for 2007, 61% of adults drank alcohol within the past year and 21% had five or more drinks on at least one day. According to a Census Bureau survey done from 2006-2008, the U.S. adult population (older than 18) was 227,431,128. So, 61% of that would be 138,732,988 people using alcohol. That's clearly more than 27 million. People consuming five or more drinks amounted to about 47.8 million, again more than people using more conventional antidepressants.
So let's say that those who don't binge have it all under control and imbibe casually, don't encounter any problems, etc. That still leaves nearly 48 million consuming five or more drinks. College enrollment in 2006 was 20.5 million, the Census says. So if we factor out the college kids, we have about 28 million people who consumed five drinks or more on at least one occasion, about the same as people who use conventional ADs.
So, why so much alcohol use? Probably not because people feel great to begin with. If you already felt great, would you drink? This is to some extent conjecture, but I suspect the widespread abuse of alcohol points to a broader feeling of discontent.
Aside from being readily available, alcohol (especially in the circles in which I travel) has fewer stigmas attached to it that antidepressants. No lie, I've heard adult alcoholics say they wouldn't take antidepressants because they didn't want to be drug addicts.
In fact, we create community events that have drinking at their core. Weddings, birthdays, going to the game, holiday parties, funerals, just sitting around in bars.... It's a cultural phenomenon. We couldn't do the same with other antidepressants, since they often take weeks to work, but it could be kind of cool to have a smorgasbord of such pills to choose from. Start out with a Prozac, switch off to an Effexor, cap off the night with a Remeron, of course.
Alcohol has its charms, more so than the pills. Its insidious nature, though, for some people, is that feeling of never being sated. Conventional antidepressants don't carry the same allure (I've had two of these pills, let me pop a few more). Alcohol, on the other hand, can create a feeling in some people of never being enough. Generally, one drink must lead to eight. So that gets more expensive and can create a host of other issues, especially if you want to drive. At least you can drive with the pills. Alcohol also can be toxic to the liver, as evidenced by my father, so that's another disadvantage, compared with the pills. And, generally, alcohol can really make you feel like shit the next day. The ADs don't typically do that, above and beyond the way you normally feel on them. If you get used to that side-effect feeling, then you don't wake up expecting something different. But maybe that's what people are like who use alcohol all the time. There's a quote attributed to Frank Sinatra in which he said he felt sorry for people who didn't drink because the best they would feel all day was when they woke up. I guess drinking is, though, like other antidepressants--you should use it consistently instead of going on and coming off. So stick with it, drinkers, and, if you're not already, you'll be feeling A-O.K. in nothing flat.
There's another kind of antidepressant, one that you can get over the counter and use as part of a home-treatment program. It's called alcohol.
Like other ADs, this one has side effects, but they're typically more fleeting and often less severe. You can even mix this one with more traditional antidepressants and get a heightened effect. And it works quickly and is out of your system more rapidly than the other ADs.
Depending upon your drink of choice, this can be a relatively inexpensive route. Alas, I don't think insurance will handle any of the costs, so you probably can't just get by with a co-pay. It would be cool if you could: Budweiser would be generic, craft beers premium; single-barrel whiskey would be more expensive than Jack Daniel's. Insurance might have a place after all. Someone would have to come up with a formula for the appropriate co-pays, dosages, etc. It would be complicated, but I think it could be done.
Some people would even make their own at home, as evidenced by the popularity of home-brewing. And I hear tell of distilleries in Appalachia, so it seems as if people have been self-medicating for a while. I wouldn't know the first fucking thing about developing a serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor at home. Grab some hops, yeast and barley, though, and you could be on your way.
Like any other kind of medication, alcohol holds abuse potential. My father medicated himself right into the grave at age 49. I found it perversely interesting when my mother gave me a measuring glass (a jigger) that my father used to use. "Here, son, this is the the gun your father used to kill himself. Enjoy."
According to a recent study, antidepressant use in the U.S. doubled from 1996-2005. The study found that 5.84 percent of U.S. residents aged 6 and over were using antidepressants in 1996, compared with 10.12 percent in 2005. That's an increase from 13.3 million people to 27 million people. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_87676.html
According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics for 2007, 61% of adults drank alcohol within the past year and 21% had five or more drinks on at least one day. According to a Census Bureau survey done from 2006-2008, the U.S. adult population (older than 18) was 227,431,128. So, 61% of that would be 138,732,988 people using alcohol. That's clearly more than 27 million. People consuming five or more drinks amounted to about 47.8 million, again more than people using more conventional antidepressants.
So let's say that those who don't binge have it all under control and imbibe casually, don't encounter any problems, etc. That still leaves nearly 48 million consuming five or more drinks. College enrollment in 2006 was 20.5 million, the Census says. So if we factor out the college kids, we have about 28 million people who consumed five drinks or more on at least one occasion, about the same as people who use conventional ADs.
So, why so much alcohol use? Probably not because people feel great to begin with. If you already felt great, would you drink? This is to some extent conjecture, but I suspect the widespread abuse of alcohol points to a broader feeling of discontent.
Aside from being readily available, alcohol (especially in the circles in which I travel) has fewer stigmas attached to it that antidepressants. No lie, I've heard adult alcoholics say they wouldn't take antidepressants because they didn't want to be drug addicts.
In fact, we create community events that have drinking at their core. Weddings, birthdays, going to the game, holiday parties, funerals, just sitting around in bars.... It's a cultural phenomenon. We couldn't do the same with other antidepressants, since they often take weeks to work, but it could be kind of cool to have a smorgasbord of such pills to choose from. Start out with a Prozac, switch off to an Effexor, cap off the night with a Remeron, of course.
Alcohol has its charms, more so than the pills. Its insidious nature, though, for some people, is that feeling of never being sated. Conventional antidepressants don't carry the same allure (I've had two of these pills, let me pop a few more). Alcohol, on the other hand, can create a feeling in some people of never being enough. Generally, one drink must lead to eight. So that gets more expensive and can create a host of other issues, especially if you want to drive. At least you can drive with the pills. Alcohol also can be toxic to the liver, as evidenced by my father, so that's another disadvantage, compared with the pills. And, generally, alcohol can really make you feel like shit the next day. The ADs don't typically do that, above and beyond the way you normally feel on them. If you get used to that side-effect feeling, then you don't wake up expecting something different. But maybe that's what people are like who use alcohol all the time. There's a quote attributed to Frank Sinatra in which he said he felt sorry for people who didn't drink because the best they would feel all day was when they woke up. I guess drinking is, though, like other antidepressants--you should use it consistently instead of going on and coming off. So stick with it, drinkers, and, if you're not already, you'll be feeling A-O.K. in nothing flat.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Odyssey
In clinical studies, the most common side effects with a particular antidepressant (reported in at least 10% of patients and at least twice as often as with placebo) were constipation, dizziness, dry mouth, insomnia, loss of appetite, nausea, nervousness, sexual side effects, sleepiness, sweating, and weakness.
Well, if those don't make you feel better, what will?
The above-mentioned drug happens to be Effexor, or venlafaxine, an antidepressant that falls under the SNRI class, for serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. This class of medication succeeded the SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, like Prozac. Selective is probably misleading, since these medication work with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Which is why, in conjunction with some remedial activity, there is all the collateral damage. In other words, you might start to feel better after a month or a month and a half or two (please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery), but you sweat your ass off, can't ejaculate, become irritable, gain weight, have dry mouth and difficulty defecating, urinate frequently, can hardly urinate, can't sleep, sleep too much, and have outlandish dreams. Asthenia, also. That basically means you feel like you have the flu. Let the good times roll.
Then, if that particular medication doesn't work, you go through a "washout" period, during which you wait a few weeks for the drug to leave your system before you can start the next one (please allow another 6 to 8 weeks for delivery...if you haven't already killed yourself). Some instances aren't so extreme, and patients can start the new medicine without a prolonged washout period. You also have to build these drugs up gradually in your system, so it's not like taking an Advil and getting prompt relief.
Then there are things called myoclonic jerks, which aren't necessarily unpleasant, just sometimes inconvenient. Myoclonic jerks essentially are involuntary movements, sort of like twitches on steroids. Not too disruptive if you're alone in bed, but perhaps unseemly when seated next to a stranger on a plane. Imagine yourself dozing and then convulsing and the startled reactions.
Not all antidepressants are created equal. Wellbutrin, or bupropion, can be helpful in losing weight and can serve as an aphrodisiac of sorts. It can also simultaneously induce insomnia and anxiety. Apparently there are some people who separate anxiety from depression, but that seems to me to be parsing it too finely. For me, they go hand in hand, and anything that induces what it's supposed to alleviate seems counterproductive. Bupropion, marketed as Zyban, also is used as part of smoking-cessation plans.
Older antidepressants are another breed, but I don't consider them nearly as crude as modern-day drug-marketing powerhouses would. The idea was that Prozac would do all the good stuff that the other antidepressants did without the collateral effects, but I don't think the argument is valid. Tricyclics, like desipramine, have roughly the same side-effect profile as the modern-day happy pills, but they're supposed to be more toxic. So when you want to kill yourself, which some antidepressants in and of themselves inspire you to do, the desipramine is a handy way. That's a funny thing about some antidepressants: you start out wanting to kill yourself, the pills reinforce the notion that it's a capital idea and, since you have them, you can gobble some handfuls to accomplish the task.
MAO (monoamine oxidase) inhibtors, like Nardil and Parnate, are a class unto themselves. To say that they can inhibit urination and ejaculation is like saying Tom Cruise is a little annoying. You can literally stand at a urinal and try, to no avail, to go to the bathroom for 15 minutes. Ejaculation is out of the question, so take heed, sperm donors: avoid the MAOIs. Oh, and you can't have beer. Or Parmesan cheese. Or some kinds of chocolate. And you run the risk of your blood pressure rising to dangerously high levels. And they can make you feel spacey, but that's preferable to depressed. The real ballbuster, though, about these drugs is that they can help. They help you not want to kill yourself until you gain 30 pounds, can't piss and can't have an orgasm. Then you may as well kill yourself. So much for MAOIs.
Remeron, or mirtazapine, is another kind of medication. It's called a tetracyclic, as opposed to tricyclic. Whether a drug is a tetracyclic or a tricyclic apparently depends upon its chemical structure. That's about as much as I know about the technical aspects. What I do know, however, is that Remeron can make you sleep the sleep of the dead, and that's a good thing. Go to Starbucks, get whatever big, fancy, caffeinated bullshit drink you want right before bed, then take some Remeron and fall asleep. Alas, Remeron will make you fat. If you're already fat, it will make you fatter. And it's probably not a great idea to drink.
There are "natural" alternatives, such as St. John's wort, 5-HTP, SAM-e and some kind of extract I don't even recall the name of from a holistic practitioner. You'll try anything, attempting to be optimistic and to maintain an open mind.
So, your choices pretty much boil down to these. Of course, you can try all kinds of mix and match, such as Remeron with Effexor, Wellbutrin with whatever, lithium with something. In case the side effects from one medicine aren't substantial enough for you, try a cocktail. Don't fret, though, because the drug companies are striving to come up with something new and improved. They care about whether you're suffering from side effects, sonce you might stop taking the drug, and thjey would lose money. They really care about coming up with something new and better when patents are about to expire. They care so much that they repackage the existing drug, call it something different and tell you how much better it is. That's easier than actually having to come up with a novel approach.
They'll say that it costs a lot of money to develop new treatments and the regulatory requirements are onerous. There's some validity to that argument. On the other hand, when you have to satisfy shareholders, it's also important squeeze what you can out of what you've got.
It's a dirty business, and patients' options involve gravitating toward the lesser of many evils. Those are, however, better than no evils at all.
Well, if those don't make you feel better, what will?
The above-mentioned drug happens to be Effexor, or venlafaxine, an antidepressant that falls under the SNRI class, for serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. This class of medication succeeded the SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, like Prozac. Selective is probably misleading, since these medication work with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Which is why, in conjunction with some remedial activity, there is all the collateral damage. In other words, you might start to feel better after a month or a month and a half or two (please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery), but you sweat your ass off, can't ejaculate, become irritable, gain weight, have dry mouth and difficulty defecating, urinate frequently, can hardly urinate, can't sleep, sleep too much, and have outlandish dreams. Asthenia, also. That basically means you feel like you have the flu. Let the good times roll.
Then, if that particular medication doesn't work, you go through a "washout" period, during which you wait a few weeks for the drug to leave your system before you can start the next one (please allow another 6 to 8 weeks for delivery...if you haven't already killed yourself). Some instances aren't so extreme, and patients can start the new medicine without a prolonged washout period. You also have to build these drugs up gradually in your system, so it's not like taking an Advil and getting prompt relief.
Then there are things called myoclonic jerks, which aren't necessarily unpleasant, just sometimes inconvenient. Myoclonic jerks essentially are involuntary movements, sort of like twitches on steroids. Not too disruptive if you're alone in bed, but perhaps unseemly when seated next to a stranger on a plane. Imagine yourself dozing and then convulsing and the startled reactions.
Not all antidepressants are created equal. Wellbutrin, or bupropion, can be helpful in losing weight and can serve as an aphrodisiac of sorts. It can also simultaneously induce insomnia and anxiety. Apparently there are some people who separate anxiety from depression, but that seems to me to be parsing it too finely. For me, they go hand in hand, and anything that induces what it's supposed to alleviate seems counterproductive. Bupropion, marketed as Zyban, also is used as part of smoking-cessation plans.
Older antidepressants are another breed, but I don't consider them nearly as crude as modern-day drug-marketing powerhouses would. The idea was that Prozac would do all the good stuff that the other antidepressants did without the collateral effects, but I don't think the argument is valid. Tricyclics, like desipramine, have roughly the same side-effect profile as the modern-day happy pills, but they're supposed to be more toxic. So when you want to kill yourself, which some antidepressants in and of themselves inspire you to do, the desipramine is a handy way. That's a funny thing about some antidepressants: you start out wanting to kill yourself, the pills reinforce the notion that it's a capital idea and, since you have them, you can gobble some handfuls to accomplish the task.
MAO (monoamine oxidase) inhibtors, like Nardil and Parnate, are a class unto themselves. To say that they can inhibit urination and ejaculation is like saying Tom Cruise is a little annoying. You can literally stand at a urinal and try, to no avail, to go to the bathroom for 15 minutes. Ejaculation is out of the question, so take heed, sperm donors: avoid the MAOIs. Oh, and you can't have beer. Or Parmesan cheese. Or some kinds of chocolate. And you run the risk of your blood pressure rising to dangerously high levels. And they can make you feel spacey, but that's preferable to depressed. The real ballbuster, though, about these drugs is that they can help. They help you not want to kill yourself until you gain 30 pounds, can't piss and can't have an orgasm. Then you may as well kill yourself. So much for MAOIs.
Remeron, or mirtazapine, is another kind of medication. It's called a tetracyclic, as opposed to tricyclic. Whether a drug is a tetracyclic or a tricyclic apparently depends upon its chemical structure. That's about as much as I know about the technical aspects. What I do know, however, is that Remeron can make you sleep the sleep of the dead, and that's a good thing. Go to Starbucks, get whatever big, fancy, caffeinated bullshit drink you want right before bed, then take some Remeron and fall asleep. Alas, Remeron will make you fat. If you're already fat, it will make you fatter. And it's probably not a great idea to drink.
There are "natural" alternatives, such as St. John's wort, 5-HTP, SAM-e and some kind of extract I don't even recall the name of from a holistic practitioner. You'll try anything, attempting to be optimistic and to maintain an open mind.
So, your choices pretty much boil down to these. Of course, you can try all kinds of mix and match, such as Remeron with Effexor, Wellbutrin with whatever, lithium with something. In case the side effects from one medicine aren't substantial enough for you, try a cocktail. Don't fret, though, because the drug companies are striving to come up with something new and improved. They care about whether you're suffering from side effects, sonce you might stop taking the drug, and thjey would lose money. They really care about coming up with something new and better when patents are about to expire. They care so much that they repackage the existing drug, call it something different and tell you how much better it is. That's easier than actually having to come up with a novel approach.
They'll say that it costs a lot of money to develop new treatments and the regulatory requirements are onerous. There's some validity to that argument. On the other hand, when you have to satisfy shareholders, it's also important squeeze what you can out of what you've got.
It's a dirty business, and patients' options involve gravitating toward the lesser of many evils. Those are, however, better than no evils at all.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Wal-Mart & Assorted Items
So I go to Wal-Mart the other day, and there's a guy and a lady in the front of the line I'm in, and he's wearing a T-shirt with a naked lady on the back. Now, I'm all for seeing naked ladies, under the right circumstances, and generally not those who go to Wal-Mart. This guy is about 60 years old and has tattoos on his arms, and the shirt says Choppers Inc. or some bullshit like that. I know, he's Mr. Outlaw. And to prove what a badass he is, he has to wear the naked-lady shirt so that all the kids at Wal-Mart see it. Impressive. Granted, this isn't the upper-crust Wal-Mart, and most of the kids in there already have the decks stacked against them, judging from the parents, so I guess I have to relinquish my naivete and accept the fact that I can't have a pleasant trip to Wal-Mart.
The same trip. there were two woman in between these people and me in line, and they had a baby in the cart. Whatever snack the baby was munching on soon ended up all over the floor. So the one lady sweeps it aside with her foot. I guess that's something, but why didn't ths lady pick the stuff up?
It all just brings this to mind: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
But it also begs the question: Why don't people do what they're supposed to do? Clean up your own fucking mess. Don't wear naked people on your shirt in front of the kids, or ever. In my case, don't go to Wal-Mart. Although it didn't matter so much that day, since, after Wal-Mart, I went to the convenience store. When I came out of the convenience store, a car was parked so fucking close to mine that I could hardly open the goddamned door. How far up your ass must your head be to not recognize that the person next to whom you are parking won't be able to open his fucking door? Or do you just not care? And the flag-football guys playing next to the soccer games for the 7- and 8-year-olds were profane, and they left their trash strewn all over the place. Profanity, like naked ladies, has its place, just not next to the little kids playing soccer.
Someone recently shared his consternation with me that a customer-service representative hadn't responded to his email after several days. "They say they will," he said. I asked him what planet he's been living on. Because you should always expect people not to do what they're supposed to do. It's like driving defensively. Then, your expectations will be fulfilled a majority of the time. You can be pleasantly surprised when someone actually does do the right thing, or the considerate thing, or the responsible thing. In the meantime, if you expect any different, you must have your head up your own ass.
The same trip. there were two woman in between these people and me in line, and they had a baby in the cart. Whatever snack the baby was munching on soon ended up all over the floor. So the one lady sweeps it aside with her foot. I guess that's something, but why didn't ths lady pick the stuff up?
It all just brings this to mind: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
But it also begs the question: Why don't people do what they're supposed to do? Clean up your own fucking mess. Don't wear naked people on your shirt in front of the kids, or ever. In my case, don't go to Wal-Mart. Although it didn't matter so much that day, since, after Wal-Mart, I went to the convenience store. When I came out of the convenience store, a car was parked so fucking close to mine that I could hardly open the goddamned door. How far up your ass must your head be to not recognize that the person next to whom you are parking won't be able to open his fucking door? Or do you just not care? And the flag-football guys playing next to the soccer games for the 7- and 8-year-olds were profane, and they left their trash strewn all over the place. Profanity, like naked ladies, has its place, just not next to the little kids playing soccer.
Someone recently shared his consternation with me that a customer-service representative hadn't responded to his email after several days. "They say they will," he said. I asked him what planet he's been living on. Because you should always expect people not to do what they're supposed to do. It's like driving defensively. Then, your expectations will be fulfilled a majority of the time. You can be pleasantly surprised when someone actually does do the right thing, or the considerate thing, or the responsible thing. In the meantime, if you expect any different, you must have your head up your own ass.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Whee!
I recently had occasion to pay my first visit to the videogame retailer GameStop, and I felt like I could have been in a Saturday Night Live skit, except this was funny.
First there's the teen-something kid in the green gym shorts with white piping, looking like he walked out of the '70s. These are the shorts with no pockets, and he had on a T-shirt, sneakers and tube socks reaching to the knees, not to mention the glasses. The only thing missing was the terrycloth headband. As if he weren't already the stereotypical geek, his mother called him on his cellphone while he was standing in line. But he did have a decent set of tits.
He was in back of my son and me in line, while his female counterpart (almost, except her tits weren't as big) was in front of us. She was borderline porcine and probably couldn't have been more nondescript, but perhaps I'm selling her short. She's talking to the clerk with the underdeveloped beard, and he's holding forth with the zeal of a '60s radical, but not about peace, man, about videogames. In particular, he's pontificating about the merits, or lack thereof, of a certain game and how he would never play it on a certain platform again. She sort of has the star-struck look in her eyes, and they're apparently discussing some kind of magazine that serves as a playbook for a particular game. I may have this wrong, but it looked like this playbook cost $24, on top of the roughly $50 price tag for the most popular games.
Anyway, what was particularly staggering was the apparent lack of technological proficiency when it came to ringing somebody up, because I could have composed this post longhand while standing in line. There were two other ostensible employees in this place, and they moved with the grace of a sloth, and not toward one of the other registers. And when someone did wait on me, they had to type in the gift-card number, since the swiping device wasn't working. Peace, man.
First there's the teen-something kid in the green gym shorts with white piping, looking like he walked out of the '70s. These are the shorts with no pockets, and he had on a T-shirt, sneakers and tube socks reaching to the knees, not to mention the glasses. The only thing missing was the terrycloth headband. As if he weren't already the stereotypical geek, his mother called him on his cellphone while he was standing in line. But he did have a decent set of tits.
He was in back of my son and me in line, while his female counterpart (almost, except her tits weren't as big) was in front of us. She was borderline porcine and probably couldn't have been more nondescript, but perhaps I'm selling her short. She's talking to the clerk with the underdeveloped beard, and he's holding forth with the zeal of a '60s radical, but not about peace, man, about videogames. In particular, he's pontificating about the merits, or lack thereof, of a certain game and how he would never play it on a certain platform again. She sort of has the star-struck look in her eyes, and they're apparently discussing some kind of magazine that serves as a playbook for a particular game. I may have this wrong, but it looked like this playbook cost $24, on top of the roughly $50 price tag for the most popular games.
Anyway, what was particularly staggering was the apparent lack of technological proficiency when it came to ringing somebody up, because I could have composed this post longhand while standing in line. There were two other ostensible employees in this place, and they moved with the grace of a sloth, and not toward one of the other registers. And when someone did wait on me, they had to type in the gift-card number, since the swiping device wasn't working. Peace, man.
The Sunny Side of the Street
People are stupid and/or deranged:
10/06/09
The big Fox News story of the day appears to be concerning a group of hostile raccoons in Florida who had the temerity to attack a grandmother. A grandmother! Seriously. Residents are on edge.
8/14/09
According to the Associated Press, police say a 61-year-old Savannah, Ga., woman chopped her 63-year-old boyfriend 20 times with an ax as he lay in bed. He's dead. A detective said the woman told police she was tired of being abused. Not sure who's at fault here, though 20 ax whacks might have been overkill.
8/11/09
8/6/09
The Daily Mail reported this week that officials at a U.K. crematorium fined a woman whose baby died at 5 weeks from SIDS $173 because her grieving at the funeral ceremony pushed the service over the 30-minute time allotment. "The vicar had asked if I would like to spend a bit more time saying goodbye," the mother said. "I sat by the coffin for 10 minutes, telling my son how much we loved him and begging him not to be scared." By the way, the woman isn't the stupid one here.
10/06/09
The big Fox News story of the day appears to be concerning a group of hostile raccoons in Florida who had the temerity to attack a grandmother. A grandmother! Seriously. Residents are on edge.
8/14/09
According to the Associated Press, police say a 61-year-old Savannah, Ga., woman chopped her 63-year-old boyfriend 20 times with an ax as he lay in bed. He's dead. A detective said the woman told police she was tired of being abused. Not sure who's at fault here, though 20 ax whacks might have been overkill.
8/11/09
A man died when he was impaled on a large shard of glass after throwing a woman through the window of a shop in the West End of London early Tuesday morning.
So says the Times of London. This guy banged the girl up against the Banana Republic window three times before cashing it in.
8/6/09
The Daily Mail reported this week that officials at a U.K. crematorium fined a woman whose baby died at 5 weeks from SIDS $173 because her grieving at the funeral ceremony pushed the service over the 30-minute time allotment. "The vicar had asked if I would like to spend a bit more time saying goodbye," the mother said. "I sat by the coffin for 10 minutes, telling my son how much we loved him and begging him not to be scared." By the way, the woman isn't the stupid one here.
Jennifer Frederich went to a Burger King on Sunday, Aug. 2, in Sunset Hills, Mo., according to news outlets. She had her 6-month-old daughter, Kaylin, in tow and also was accompanied by her own mother. Workers told them to leave because of the shoeless baby, citing a health-code violation. Burger King apologized the following Wednesday. It's a fucking baby, morons.
Monday, September 28, 2009
The Public Option
Insurance seems a lot like legalized extortion. The insurers take your money,ostensibly to protect you in the event of an accident, and use the money as they see fit in the meantime. And much of this insurance is required by law. Take auto insurance. In New Jersey, we have to carry liability coverage. If you finance a vehicle, you have to carry comprehensive coverage. And you have a deductible, also, so little things aren't even worth trying to get insurance to cover. Or, if you do have an accident and your insurance company has to pay something, they then drop you as a customer. So, the lawmakers require that you buy insurance, then the insurance company basically says "fuck you" when they have to hold up their end of the bargain. Give us your money so we can invest it and make money off of it, but don't expect much in return. Warren Buffett thinks it's the greatest thing going. He gets to play with the money that policyholders pay in premiums.
Now, you don't have to have health insurance, but you're really disadvantaged if you don't. And those jerk-offs don't want to pay for anything. And mental-health issues aren't even treated like problems. How did this get so out of hand in the first place? I mean, medical care is basically unaffordable if you don't have insurance to cover the outrageous cost of treatment. Why is it so expensive?
I've been trying to understand the Obama administration's health-care proposals. The public option, from what I can gather, is a government-run insurance plan. Some of these proposals require people to have insurance. Why is it all about the insurance? Why can't the government set up hospitals that are well-run and free? Pay the doctors. Take some of that war money and use it to furnish medicine and other health services. Why are people so scared of this? Good doctors, good hospitals and free. Or go to your own fucking doctor. Whatever. Or, if the public option is a government-run insurance plan, what is the problem with that? No doubt there are people who would say that I don't have a clue. But those people are probably the ones who have a vested interest in maintaining the system such as it is. I don't understand it all, but is there something wrong with the basic premise that we should take care of more people? I guess, if you're going to make less money, there's something wrong with it.
I know, the government has to pay for this. But it seems to come up with money for all manner of other programs. And, really, if we ever get out of Iraq, won't that make a lot of money available? Goldman fucking Sachs should have to set up a free hospital, since it got money from the government and now makes billions by creating very little of value. General Motors, if it ever gets its shit together, should have to establish a hospital. And when you go to these hospitals, you can actually get someone to pay attention. You could fucking die during the time it takes them to get your insurance straightened out if you go to a hospital now.
As part of these proposals, plastic surgery should be restricted to people who have disfiguration from an accident or a birth defect or something like that. If these doctors are talented enough to perform these operations, they shouldn't be for vanity's sake. They never seem to work out well, anyway. Look at Michael Jackson and Joan Rivers and all these other synthetic motherfuckers.
There would be people who abuse the system. Overdosing drug addicts, pregnant teens, etc. I don't have a solution for that. You take the good with the bad. But making an attempt to provide affordable health care for everybody seems like s step in the right direction. Sitting Bull, the Sioux Indian (yeah, yeah, Native American), was appalled by the destitute people he encountered when he visited American cities, according to the historian Robert Utley. Indians would never allow their own to be homeless and hungry, and both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were known for their charity. These are people who stole and scalped as a way of life, yet Sitting Bull gave money to beggars on the streets of Washington.
The system is a monstrous morass, and drug companies and medical-equipment manufacturers help escalate costs. Drug makers, in particular, will talk about how much it costs them to develop medications. Bottom line, though, is that they're trying to make money, so they maneuver in an effort to prevent generic competition from reaching the market. Drug companies have paid off generics manufacturers to prevent the generic version from reaching the market. Better that they make more money than people have access to less expensive medication. It's depressing, but I hear there's a drug for that, if you can afford it.
Now, you don't have to have health insurance, but you're really disadvantaged if you don't. And those jerk-offs don't want to pay for anything. And mental-health issues aren't even treated like problems. How did this get so out of hand in the first place? I mean, medical care is basically unaffordable if you don't have insurance to cover the outrageous cost of treatment. Why is it so expensive?
I've been trying to understand the Obama administration's health-care proposals. The public option, from what I can gather, is a government-run insurance plan. Some of these proposals require people to have insurance. Why is it all about the insurance? Why can't the government set up hospitals that are well-run and free? Pay the doctors. Take some of that war money and use it to furnish medicine and other health services. Why are people so scared of this? Good doctors, good hospitals and free. Or go to your own fucking doctor. Whatever. Or, if the public option is a government-run insurance plan, what is the problem with that? No doubt there are people who would say that I don't have a clue. But those people are probably the ones who have a vested interest in maintaining the system such as it is. I don't understand it all, but is there something wrong with the basic premise that we should take care of more people? I guess, if you're going to make less money, there's something wrong with it.
I know, the government has to pay for this. But it seems to come up with money for all manner of other programs. And, really, if we ever get out of Iraq, won't that make a lot of money available? Goldman fucking Sachs should have to set up a free hospital, since it got money from the government and now makes billions by creating very little of value. General Motors, if it ever gets its shit together, should have to establish a hospital. And when you go to these hospitals, you can actually get someone to pay attention. You could fucking die during the time it takes them to get your insurance straightened out if you go to a hospital now.
As part of these proposals, plastic surgery should be restricted to people who have disfiguration from an accident or a birth defect or something like that. If these doctors are talented enough to perform these operations, they shouldn't be for vanity's sake. They never seem to work out well, anyway. Look at Michael Jackson and Joan Rivers and all these other synthetic motherfuckers.
There would be people who abuse the system. Overdosing drug addicts, pregnant teens, etc. I don't have a solution for that. You take the good with the bad. But making an attempt to provide affordable health care for everybody seems like s step in the right direction. Sitting Bull, the Sioux Indian (yeah, yeah, Native American), was appalled by the destitute people he encountered when he visited American cities, according to the historian Robert Utley. Indians would never allow their own to be homeless and hungry, and both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were known for their charity. These are people who stole and scalped as a way of life, yet Sitting Bull gave money to beggars on the streets of Washington.
The system is a monstrous morass, and drug companies and medical-equipment manufacturers help escalate costs. Drug makers, in particular, will talk about how much it costs them to develop medications. Bottom line, though, is that they're trying to make money, so they maneuver in an effort to prevent generic competition from reaching the market. Drug companies have paid off generics manufacturers to prevent the generic version from reaching the market. Better that they make more money than people have access to less expensive medication. It's depressing, but I hear there's a drug for that, if you can afford it.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
My Soul To Take
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take
This is the prayer my mother and I used to say before I went to bed each night. The way I remember it, this prayer provided me with a measure of comfort, since I was terrified of going to bed. The notion that God was going to protect me alleviated at least some of the anxiety associated with, in part, my anticipation of night terrors. In later years, I would derive no such comfort from this prayer or any other, but I digress.
In retrospect, I question the wisdom of instilling in a child the idea that he or she might die before waking. I can imagine the scene if I were to teach this to my son:
First of all, he never lays himself down to sleep, but let's suppose that he does.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
"Dad, what's a soul?"
"Well, a soul isn't anything material, but it's your spirit, the essence of who you are, or so some people believe."
If I should die before I wake
"Dad, could I die before I wake up?"
"No, no, no. Not really die, but you're just asking God to look after you while you're sleeping."
"Who's God again?"
"Well, like your soul, God isn't a physical being so much as a spiritual one. People believe he's everywhere, especially up in the sky, looking down upon us."
"Like Santa Claus?"
"Kind of, yes. Sees you when you're sleeping, knows when you're awake."
"I don't want anyone looking at me while I'm sleeping."
"I don't blame you"
"What's spiritual?"
"Beings that don't have bodies."
"But they're alive? Like ghosts?"
"Sort of, yes."
"I won't be able to sleep if there's a ghost watching over me."
"Good ghosts."
"I thought you didn't believe in ghosts."
"I don't. I just want you to go to sleep."
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
"If my soul isn't real, like a thing, how can he take it?"
"Good question."
"And why would he want to take it."
"So it can be with him. For safekeeping."
"Like a bank?"
"Yeah, the soul bank. Some people call it heaven."
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take
This is the prayer my mother and I used to say before I went to bed each night. The way I remember it, this prayer provided me with a measure of comfort, since I was terrified of going to bed. The notion that God was going to protect me alleviated at least some of the anxiety associated with, in part, my anticipation of night terrors. In later years, I would derive no such comfort from this prayer or any other, but I digress.
In retrospect, I question the wisdom of instilling in a child the idea that he or she might die before waking. I can imagine the scene if I were to teach this to my son:
First of all, he never lays himself down to sleep, but let's suppose that he does.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
"Dad, what's a soul?"
"Well, a soul isn't anything material, but it's your spirit, the essence of who you are, or so some people believe."
If I should die before I wake
"Dad, could I die before I wake up?"
"No, no, no. Not really die, but you're just asking God to look after you while you're sleeping."
"Who's God again?"
"Well, like your soul, God isn't a physical being so much as a spiritual one. People believe he's everywhere, especially up in the sky, looking down upon us."
"Like Santa Claus?"
"Kind of, yes. Sees you when you're sleeping, knows when you're awake."
"I don't want anyone looking at me while I'm sleeping."
"I don't blame you"
"What's spiritual?"
"Beings that don't have bodies."
"But they're alive? Like ghosts?"
"Sort of, yes."
"I won't be able to sleep if there's a ghost watching over me."
"Good ghosts."
"I thought you didn't believe in ghosts."
"I don't. I just want you to go to sleep."
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
"If my soul isn't real, like a thing, how can he take it?"
"Good question."
"And why would he want to take it."
"So it can be with him. For safekeeping."
"Like a bank?"
"Yeah, the soul bank. Some people call it heaven."
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Self-Aggrandizement Project
So there's this show called The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo. I've only seen it once or twice, and, hey, I was on vacation, when the different latitudes skew the normal TV-watching compass.
Anyway, from what I can gather, this lady serves as an intermediary for actresses who want to buy dresses. She's like a real-estate broker, except she's a dress broker, because, well, I guess Demi Moore and Anne Hathaway can't buy dresses on their own.
And these apparently aren't run-of-the-mill dresses, since they cost more than my house. They must be worth it, though some of them are the ugliest fucking things I've ever seen, or at least no more appealing than what I've encountered at Wal-Mart. I must be unsophisticated, since I can't fathom how one would come to spend so much money on a dress and need a go-between to facilitate the acquisition.
Nevertheless, this is happening, and not only that, it's on TV. So I'm wondering what douche bag decided this should be on television. And why would anyone give a shit about this lady and the process through which the actresses apparently have to go to get a dress? And about the furniture this woman is considering buying for her house? The same people who wait outside the Academy Awards for hours to get a glimpse of the poseurs must be the ones who watch this show. Or maybe it's a reflection of there being too many channels.
There's this one episode in which there's a flood or a broken pipe or something, and the drama is over the top. This lady and her assistant and the token gay guy act like it's Armageddon. It's actually funny, and maybe that was the point all along, but somehow I don't think so.
Anyway, from what I can gather, this lady serves as an intermediary for actresses who want to buy dresses. She's like a real-estate broker, except she's a dress broker, because, well, I guess Demi Moore and Anne Hathaway can't buy dresses on their own.
And these apparently aren't run-of-the-mill dresses, since they cost more than my house. They must be worth it, though some of them are the ugliest fucking things I've ever seen, or at least no more appealing than what I've encountered at Wal-Mart. I must be unsophisticated, since I can't fathom how one would come to spend so much money on a dress and need a go-between to facilitate the acquisition.
Nevertheless, this is happening, and not only that, it's on TV. So I'm wondering what douche bag decided this should be on television. And why would anyone give a shit about this lady and the process through which the actresses apparently have to go to get a dress? And about the furniture this woman is considering buying for her house? The same people who wait outside the Academy Awards for hours to get a glimpse of the poseurs must be the ones who watch this show. Or maybe it's a reflection of there being too many channels.
There's this one episode in which there's a flood or a broken pipe or something, and the drama is over the top. This lady and her assistant and the token gay guy act like it's Armageddon. It's actually funny, and maybe that was the point all along, but somehow I don't think so.
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