Out of the Maw

Exhausted.  Worn down and running on bare metal.  Whether the drugs are helping or dragging down on mere being is something no longer discernible.  My mind is a chemical kalediscope of up and down and in and out, like one of those movies from the Sixties but without the funky soundtrack.  Trying to keep it together, without being subsumed or consumed by madness on all fronts.

These past few days, thoughts of wanting to be dead haven't stopped.  Thoughts of active ideations of suicide are not there but I'm fighting to stay away from that edge.  Something I've already come too close to.

Not the first time.  Not the last.

I didn't want to look into the abyss.  I was forced to gaze into it.

Take the meds.  Slow it down.  Up the intake.  Breathe in this lithium night.  Take the edge off.  Forget how much you lose as a writer and a thinker.  Be living, not alive.  Mere existence is a crawl.  Life to the fullest accompanied by near-psychosis, or breathing day to day without fulfillment of purpose.

Damn the disease.  Damn the drugs far more so.

I take the meds.  And I will live and be haunted for one more night.

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I have no tears and I must cry.

The drugs took the tears all away.

I miss being able to cry.

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From the estate of Robert Knight...

This past day was a bittersweet one.

My sister and Dad's sister and her husband and I set to work on cleaning out the basement of my parents' house.  Just something that has to be done, sooner than later.  The entire house is being cleaned out, top to bottom.  Because in a few months the house that my family has called home for all these decades will be ours no more.

On a more personal note, I will be looking for an apartment soon, depending on where the Lord leads me.  Which, could be literally anywhere.  For the first time in my life I am truly on my own.  I did everything that I could for Mom and Dad.  Now is time at last to see what's out there.  I can go anywhere, do anything.  It's a very thrilling time in my life... and I'm feeling younger than I have felt in years.  Maybe I'll stay around here.  Or relocate to Florida.  Lately the notion of doing some overseas missionary work has crept into mind.  So many places where I could probably be happy.  Maybe at last the little bit of happiness that I've always wanted, even.

This is what Dad, and Mom, would have wanted of me, no matter where it is that I go.  And that could be any number of places.  There are only two absolutes: Tammy the Pup will be accompanying me (that little girl and I are attached at the hip) and there must be real bona-fide broadband Internet.  All this time I've been using a satellite connection and there's not only a monthly data quota, but also HORRIBLE latency.  Wherever the new digs are will certainly be a place where I can do online gaming with "Weird" Ed and all our other wacky pals.  Not to mention getting to use a Roku.

But that's yet to come.  Right now, there is the very difficult business of settling Dad's estate.  Something that I had no idea was so wrought with intricacies and hurdles.

So we spent most of the day cleaning the basement.  Going through everything.  So much of Mom and Dad's belongings and darn nearly all of it triggering memories for me.  I was literally telling Anita and my aunt and uncle the year and day that we got this item and that.  Such as the VCR that Dad bought three weeks before Christmas in 1984.  And the stereo that was a present to Mom in 1979, when I was almost six years old.  And "newer" things like the first satellite receiver, from 1997 when it was still Primestar.

All of those were so shiny and new once upon a time.  Now useless and collecting dust and forgotten about, as will be with most of the possessions around us eventually.

"Life is a vapor".  The materials which we accumulate, much more so.

So much of what we found brought back many, many cherished memories for all of us.  When we came across Dad's cap collection, that hit me hard.  He collected so many caps over the years.  We didn't know what to do except to put it with everything else going into the dumpster we've rented.  And for a while, doing that walloped me hard.  But there are other caps of his that I can hold onto, and so I can still honor his memory that way.

Some of what we've found will be sold at an estate auction later.  The rest is consigned to that dumpster.  And soon that will be the end of that.

Well, there is one other thing worth mentioning.  At long last I am looking at selling off most of my Star Wars collection.  First I have to get it cataloged... which could take weeks.  Then I have to figure out how exactly to sell it: eBay or Craigslist or somesuch.  It all needs to go to good homes.  But I'm going to keep the pieces that have especially great importance to me.  I'm still debating the Slave Leia cardboard stand-up that my sister gave me for Christmas when I was in college: she said that putting it in my apartment would make sure that I woke up to a woman every morning (her words).

It's finally sinking in.  This home will soon no longer be "home".

But I think that things will work out fine.  God has taken care of me this far along.  Maybe He will bring me a little further.

There is one thing from the estate of Robert Knight that I'm not sure how we are going to dispose of.  It's a cache of items which I discovered this afternoon, on a high shelf - untouched for decades - in the basement.  As I was pulling out dust-covered jars and bottles, some dating to the Fifties, my hand touched something round and metal.  And when I saw what it was, I could scarcely believe it.

Look!  Billy Beer!

Dad had told me years ago that he had some of this stuff, but until this past afternoon I had never laid eyes on it.  And next to the Billy Beer cans (which were still filled with beer) there were a few cans of J.R. Ewing's Private Stock, which I assume was from around 1980 and the "Who Shot J.R.?" hype.

Billy Beer.  Somehow, that made all the work and yes, heartbreak that we went through this past day worth it.  It's the kind of thing that Dad would have bought, as a novelty if nothing else.  I don't know what I'm going to do with those cans.  Maybe donate them to some strange museum for this kind of thing?

Hey, Billy Beer can't be all bad, can it?

"MMMMMMM... We elected the wrong Carter."

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The shortest scientific journal paper published... ever

"The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of 'Writer's Block'" is the title of one Dennis Upper's article, published in Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis in the fall of 1974.  In terms of structure and syntax it is in every way a well-researched, thoroughly annotated and concisely presented scientific paper.

It is also the shortest such paper ever published by a journal.

I don't dare excerpt it here.  You'll have to visit the article that Science Alert has about it.  Much thanks to great friend of this blog Dewana Hemric for passing it along!

EDIT:  Real Clear Science has compiled a few other brilliantly terse published science articles.  I like this one especially, a fairly recent article investigating neutrinos traveling faster than light...

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Big Bird almost flew on the doomed Challenger flight

Nearly thirty years after the Challenger disaster, it is now coming out that the first "regular citizen" to fly on a space shuttle mission was originally going to be an eight-foot tall yellow Muppet loved and adored by what has become generations of devoted fans.

Strange, but true: Big Bird almost had a seat on Challenger for its final flight.

In the new documentary I Am Big Bird, the most massive fowl on Sesame Street was in early talks to fly as he'd never flown before.  Muppeteer Caroll Spinney would have gone aboard Challenger for mission STS-51L.  It was meant to be something that would enthuse and excite children about the space program.

Can you imagine that?  Big Bird himself in orbit around the Earth, talking to children via live television.  To say nothing of what would have been some amazing footage for Sesame Street itself.

There was one, errr... "little" problem with the scheme.  NASA determined that the Big Bird costume would have been too big to really be practical aboard the orbiter.  And so it would be schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe who was scheduled for the mission instead.

"It made my scalp crawl to think I was supposed to be on that," Caroll Spinney has said.

Click here to read the Daily News's article about Spinney's... and Big Bird's... narrow escape from death.

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For the first time since late February...

...I am writing for my book.

Let's summarize for a moment.  Last May and up until late October, my book was going at a very good pace.  Oh sure, there were some fits here and there, and I made a few mistakes from which I learned a great deal (and made the book much better, I think) but as this sort of thing goes, it's my understanding that this was going along better than a lot of first-time authors.

Then Dad had his stroke.  And a little over two weeks later he passed away.

Things have been in turmoil since then.  And the past few weeks especially.  I am now looking at some very drastic life changes which I had not had to consider anytime during the course of my life.  And on top of all of that, work on my book practically ground to a halt.

Then in late January, I was able to write again.  And a little more work on it was accomplished.  But then around mid-February my progress was halted.  By a very hard obstacle which I could not get through or get around.  I had come to a place where I was having to confront things in my history as a bipolar person that were extremely difficult to revisit.

It was like hitting a concrete wall.  I could bang my fists against it as hard and as often as I could, but it would not budge.  Would not be marred.

But then came this past month.  Two things happened.  The first was the trip I took to Florida to visit my family there: what I'd been plotting to do for years and years.  It was time away from the things that had burdened my heart since this past fall.  More than that, it refreshed my spirit.  I learned anew what it is to be alive... and to be thankful for that.  Sitting here trying to write all this time, barely leaving the house because of indifference to the world beyond, an aching emptiness in my soul the only persistent feeling I knew... none of that is healthy.  Driving to Florida was the longest overland journey I've ever taken alone.  Being welcomed by my family filled my heart with joy.  The sights that I saw there, the laughter and the fellowship... all of it renewed my strength and resolve.  When I came home over a week later, it was with a sense of life that I had not known for too long.  And I was determined to make the most of that and to never stop appreciating it.

The second thing came a few days after returning from Florida.  Some of you are familiar with Forcery: the film we made ten years ago (has it really been that long?!).  One of the brightest highlights of that project was Melody Hallman Daniel.  Her portrayal of Frannie Filks - the obsessed Star Wars fan holding George Lucas hostage - was hilarious, hypnotic... and at times downright scary.  It has become legendary in many quarters.  It was heavily featured in the award-winning documentary The People vs. George Lucas.  It was touched upon in a Time article and several other publications.  From the first time that we all came together, Melody has been a very dear and precious friend.  Following Dad's funeral service, she and Chad Austin and Ed Woody and myself came together for the first time in more than a decade.  I was really overwhelmed by the bond that we shared, that had come about from our little project together.

Well, Melody had been wanting to visit Reidsville again for quite some time, and we wound up making that happen this past week.  Not just Melody but also her service dog, Sasha.  I knew all along during the month or so before she came that her visit would help me overcome the block that had been in my mind.  She was my counselor, my sounding board, someone who reassured and held me accountable when I needed it.  It was her suggestion: that I should not be alone while I was going over some very difficult material that had accumulated during the last several years.  It was a good idea.  I'm thankful that it was Melody herself who was here when it came time to do that.

And hey, Melody was working on a book project also: translating into English a well-respected book by a Croatian author.  So we had two writing endeavors going on under the same roof, sometimes in the same room.  All while Sasha and my mini dachshund Tammy were playing with each other.

Florida renewed my spirit.  Melody's visit renewed my strength of purpose.  More than enough than I needed to get past that excruciatingly painful block that I was slamming myself against to no avail.

Today I began writing again for the first time since the end of February.  What has been an obstacle, is now something to at last be surmounted.  Is it still painful to read that material?  I'd be lying if I denied that it was.  But it doesn't have to haunt me as it has been.

The book is back on course.  And I think that this months-long struggle will prove to in the end to have been a good thing.

Just some thoughts from the writing process.  A little insight into the mind of a first-time book author.

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Saw AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON last night!

Okay, it's not a "perfect" movie.  I for one would have appreciated more of Ultron's legendary Oedipus complex between himself and his "father" (who in the Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity is Tony Stark).  But those little problems aside, Avengers: Age of Ultron is a gob-smockingly powerhouse of a ride comin' at ya, and in this viewer's opinion it's more than the ideal movie to kick off a summer season.

So we caught it last night during its preview showings (it officially opens today).  "We" being longtime friend/artistic collaborator Melody Hallman Daniel who's been visiting here for the past week, her service dog Sasha, and Yours Truly.  After what seemed like a dozen trailers (alas! the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer was not one of them, and if it had been I was going to stand up wave my hands frantically while screaming "YES YES YES!!").  The film starts with our heroes taking out a Hydra installation in Eastern Europe, the prize possession of which is that pesky scepter that Loki has been using in previous entries of the franchise.  The team brings it back to Avengers headquarters, where Tony Stark asks for some time to examine it.  And so he begins to mess with things beyond even his understanding and which should not be tampered with.  Of course, this can't end well.

Avengers: Age of Ultron, I thought, was much like the story of Frankenstein.  About a new creature brought about either by design or accident that grows beyond the control of its creator.  In this case, said creature is determined to become God by wiping out all humanity, to say nothing of evolving itself.  And so it falls to the Avengers to stop him/it.

I thought that in some ways this was a stronger ensemble film than The Avengers was in 2012.  In this movie, everyone gets their chance to shine (especially Hawkeye, who has been holding out on some things from his teammates).  There is a greater sense of depth here among our heroes.  If only there had been more screen time to devote to that... but for a comic book film, it's still fine.

I enjoyed it immensely.  So did Melody.  And so did Sasha.  Yes, Sasha watched it and she communicated to Melody that she thought it was good, but also that she didn't like the bad guy.  Which from a dog's perspective means that she thought that Ultron (played with brilliant menace by James Spader) was a great bad guy.  Maybe Sasha should have her own blog reviewing movies: according to Melody she seems to have a great sense for this sort of thing.

Anyhoo, if you want a great popcorn flick to take your mind off of the even crazier stuff happening all around us, as well as a solid new entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you'd be doing yourself a heaping disfavor if you didn't catch Avengers: Age of Ultron at least once during its theatrical run.  I give it two thumbs up.  Melody gives it two thumbs up.  Sasha gives it a high five and a tail wag.

By the way, it goes without saying with this sort of thing: don't leave the theater when the credits begin to roll.  There is one more surprise left that seems to be playing into the larger game that Marvel and Disney are taking this franchise.

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