Thought That Came Unbidden

It’s a long walk back to the subway from my new office building (slightly more than a mile) which gives me a lot of time to think while I walk in the evenings.

I’ve been wondering lately what it would be like to not know anyone, to be really alone, for a long time, or even on a permanent basis. Would it even be possible to live a life where you interacted with people on a professional basis, were a regular at a restaurant or some other place such that they recognized you when you came in, but still be alone, without friends? Without family? Without a romantic life? Nothing but TV and your own thoughts to keep you company.

Just another dispatch…

“If you like fucking, marriage is not for you. I’m married, and I haven’t fucked for seven years. I’ve had intercourse…but I haven’t fucked. See, intercourse is after she’s gotten out of the shower, on the bed with the nice sheets; fucking is in the back of the rental car.”

— Chris Rock

It scares me to think I might be in an HBO special. Rock’s show at DAR Constitution Hall was, as Bono would say, fucking brilliant.

Apparently the American penchant for taking a pill to fix everything is now back-firing on us like mad.

The Food and Drug Administration is calling for makers of anti-depressants to add or strengthen suicide-related warnings on their labels.

Yeah, the story says that there’s no conclusive proof that the drugs heighten the risk of suicide over the risk faced by people not on medication but am I the only one flashing back to the 1970s when everyone and his brother had a prescription for valium?

One pill makes you larger…

They say that water is the most powerful force on Earth. A steady drip, combined with time, can change the landscape; a raging river does the same, only less time is involved. Water cleans, it sculpts, it sustains and, in the end, it’s the first thing to go when we die. While water may very well be the most powerful physical force on the planet, that thing we call depression is a more powerful motivator than anything else.

I can already hear the argument: “what about love?” “what about desire?” “hunger?” “thirst?” “fatigue?” These all pale in comparison. See, depression isn’t a singular thing; it’s an amalgam. What we in the modern world call depression is really a combination of fear, doubt, self-loathing, shame, insecurity, hopelessness, and rage. Or, at least, those are the elements which make up my particular dark cloud.

There’s been a lot of writing, much of it by writers far better than I, about what it’s like to be chronically depressed. I haven’t read any of it. I don’t need to. I have to wonder, though, if any of it talks about what I’ve been thinking about so much the past few days: what it’s like to hide, or to attempt to hide, how you feel from everyone around you, what it’s like to be functionally dead.
[Read more…] about Hidden Agenda

I envy Ethan Hawke’s left hand. Angelina Jolie has, quite possibly, the best tits on the planet, and she’s not afraid to show them off.

Other than that, this movie was execrable.

Is it possible to give negative popcorn boxes as a rating? Maybe empty ones…I’ll have to look into making some graphics.

Just don’t bother.