#358

It being my preference not to see many people, talk to many strangers, or engage in group activities, it follows that long, long times can stretch themselves out before I have to handle a dude. What do I mean?

Personally, I try not to make myself other people's problem. That's the type of dude I am. There a lot of kinds of dudes, not only two, but the reason people use that expression is to illustrate the starkness of the comparison: another type of dude tries, everywhere he goes and with few breaks, to make himself other people's problem. Those dudes want to either win or be handled, and insufferably, if handled, also win. Dudes like me, dudes that don't want to make themselves problems and whose affliction is further compounded by the ailment of feeling like they need to solve problems (and answer questions), especially when no one else can or will, often have to handle this other type of dude, but ever-fleeting victory so rarely brings any degree of pleasure that it is functionally nothing but an imposition. That's what I mean.

I used to have to handle dudes all the fucking time. It is simultaneously ponderously dull, like I wish I could fast-forward the whole process, and extremely stressful, because you might (you usually don't, but you might) have to fight another person, and that means someone could (usually they don't but they could) die. So your body's doing the whole fight/flight, which is too much, frankly. Let that be a young man's game, while they're trapped in all that anyway.

So a guy's a fucking douchebag. Why does it have to be my problem? I dunno. If I'm not around, it's not. If it's the internet, it's not, plus the most total victory is ignoring them anyway. If it's right there in my fucking face, it just is. It's just how I'm built.

Douchebag around where I can't see you if you don't want me in your stupid fucking face.

Part of the problem of the whole thing is that nothing ever ends, and consequences are ripples, not development on a straight plot line. So solving or even moving to address problems can cause further problems, invisible problems, future problems, collateral damage, etc. If I didn't care about causing people problems, and only cared about solving problems, that wouldn't matter. But I'm both. This effectively doubles the stress and makes me have to work harder to handle dudes in an aikido rather than total warfare style; manipulate aggression and transfer its force away from what you want to protect. Back at the aggressor, or in a direction which neutralizes them. I have had to study what makes a douchebag a douchebag, the psychology of it all, and had to compose a whole library of tactics, deflections, and processes by which to keep them in as much check as possible without letting things erupt into violence or other breaches of the social contract. 

The best tools are delicate, subtle. A smile, a certain type of eye contact. A comment, spoken in a low and even tone, followed by a glance. Folding your arms across your chest at precisely the right moment can shut a dude down, if you studied the situation out correctly. 

Dudes may go around thinking they love trouble. Because of how the world is, they're rarely disabused of the notion. If you can remind them that there's trouble out there that they can't handle if they don't cut the bullshit--and there is, no matter how high and mighty a motherfucker thinks he is--you almost always already won.

But all victories last only their own moment. Victory is a a birth and a death in one. The next moment is already part of the next contest, or conflict. 

That's another reason I'm always wary about leaving the house. It's like Bilbo Baggins says: some shit that had nothing to do with you in the morning can own your ass by nightfall.

*

No serious conflict darkened my personal doorstep yesterday or anything, by the way. It was quite a bloody Christmas overall, it seems to me, but my day was untroubled in the main, except by that fact. And one dude who is a memeber of my husband's family being kind of a dick. I was chill, I smiled, but I said what needed to be said and I looked him in the eye. So surely, inexorably, somehwere down the line there will be an escalation, and I will have to actually handle him, because after all family is family and the only way to really handle dudes is to teach them, if you can, to be better, to help them see that a fool is a doomed fool unless he makes a change.

Related note: making fun of people for laughing aloud, for laughing loudly, for visibly experiencing strong feelings of joy and amusement, well, that's about as stupid as low-level, baby-demon-type bullshit gets. Petty emotional fascism on the level of poking someone and not stopping when they ask you to stop. Petty, yes, but to me it feels like a massive crime, a huge problem in the collective unconscious. Fucking...if you find yourself punishing or shaming joy, take as penetrating a look at yourself as you can. Please.

Learn to laugh out loud whenever you want to and to let others, let everyone in the world laugh the same way. I beg of you. It is important. It is not a small thing.

* 

The best, most complete handling of a situation, of a person creating a situation, is healing. That is the opimal, master-level handling that we must pursue in all our dealings, our labors, our constests and conflicts.

--JL

#216

Tequila was my first drink, in cautious nips from the freezer after I got home from middle school. Merely exploratory, almost scientific. What is this magic substance truly about, which stays liquid while the water around has assumed solidity? Why is this beverage such a titan to all peoples, and in so many forms? I believe the only things more culturally omnipresent than alcohol are adultery and shame.

Rum came next, and I got my first really unhinged vomitous drunk off rum. I was never able to enjoy rum again after that, but I fuckin loved rum, people. As a teenager, I loved rum. It had a non-trivial amount to do with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. At this late date, I can admit it had a lot to do with Jack Sparrow. It's always kind of embarrassing for a dude to a admit that he does something because another dude does it--that one imitated, at least, stylistically. We are proud to emulate what we tout as the good qualities of our available examples, things we think other dudes should emulate too. We are more reticent about why we wear our hat at quite that angle, with quite that feather tucked into the band, because we don't necessarily want other dudes to do it--I stole this for myself, motherfucker. I wear black leather because of Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, and smile lopsided because of Han Solo. This is less, say, defensible, though I wouldn't bother defending myself, than wishing to face death in like spirit to that of Seneca, to gain a power over one's own culture like to that of a Goethe or Da Vinci, or engage in the imitation of Christ. 

Christ preferred wine. It took me awhile to get to wine, even though my parents let me have a little sometimes, like parents do. Wine's alright. I'm more James May than Oz Clarke, at least in this matter.

*

When all is said and done, the chips are counted and the vessels filled, I'm a whiskey and beer man. As much gin as I drank up, as much as I also liked and appreciated vodka, the bulk prize of my drinking goes to the sixpack and the pint of scotch--or the case and the fifth, depending on how bad it was, this need to fill myself with a roaring drunkenness, and think the thoughts and feel the feelings that rose screaming from that storm like demon birds. Killed my first fifth in high school and I didn't stop until I stopped. Didn't always kill a fifth, or down a whole case, but I always knew how. I say scotch 'cause it's the best, but any strong brown liquor in that family would do me fine at any time. 

See how I talk about it? The vodka and rum and all that other nonsense is a vague memory, fine and all, but my mouth is fucking full of saliva right now thinking about a deep rich bottle of Tennessee devilry. Fuck me running, man.

*

Drunk plenty at bars and parties, plenty while out and about, trespassing and hell-raising, but for the most part, sitting at a kitchen table, or in a backyard, or a basement. Usually with a couple people, but alone a great deal, alone quite enough to be getting along with.

*

One thing about The Rock--the only truly phenomenal Michael Bay picture--is Sean Connery's line about trying your best. I think you should always try your best, but it's even better to just fucking gut up and win, to do and not try, and this line has a great way of putting it out; less direct but more flavorful than Yoda: 

"Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

I don't know from prom queens, I'm not that kind of dude--I may have fucked one or two, but I'm not a prom king, is the point, and it didn't factor into my decisions--but this statement,  borne in mind, has sure as shit been goddamn useful. 

This attitude is key if you want to not drink and keep not drinking. I can't afford to be fucking around with my shitty little best. I don't fucking drink because I just fucking don't, and I won't. I go home, and engage in all manner of unmentionable activities.

Also God is with me. That is good, and frightening. 

*

All right, fuckers, I'm out. Tired. Work has been pissing me off so fucking much lately. I've wanted a drink and a cig like mad, that wanting that is the actual closest thing to the physical sensation of thirst. What a knocked-ass fuck of a life. You can't stop kids from drinking and smoking, and you usually make things worse when you try, but shit hell and god damn do I understand the impulse. 

This post has been a prelude to a drinking story. The kind of drinking story that turns into a few drinking stories? Yes. That's my basic plan. That's what I set out to do, and I did. 

Already home, and not a prom queen in sight! Well, I guess I'll just read a book and go to bed.


--JL

#113

One time this buddy of mine told me that he was trying to get the location of a mutual friend's wildcrafted marijuana, somewhere in one of the many local woods. He would spring the question at him at odd times, right after smoking, in the middle of a critical gaming moment, setting up long, meandering conversations around the subject in hopes of gleaning some form of data which might lead him to the motherlode.

Don't want to give you the wrong impression, though. I am not describing a scoundrel, by any means. Like basically every dude, there are merely certain aspects and areas of existence around which very few scruples come into play for him.

Second dude never did crack, was the point, but in a very relaxed way. Never told the guy to cut the shit, never lost his composure, always slowly and smilingly revealed nothing. The way the first dude boiled it down was this characteristic exchange:

"So where's that dro patch at, bro?"
"Where the dro patch grows, man."

Deliciously tautological, no? Better for the fact that "dro" is hydroponically grown in particular equipment and almost always indoors, electricity being a relevant, even crucial factor.

The dro patch; only ever a figment, a koan about nothing.


--JL

#70

After I finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which is very excellent, and by Philip K. Dick, I read And Then, by Natsume Soseki. It was tremendously fantastic. And today I finished The Sheltering Sky, by John Bowles. It was okay. Better as you go along.

Might go back and append the authors to all the books I mention, and also underline the titles. It's been weighing on me, frankly. Something feels immoral about how loose I've been playing it. The accumulation is beginning to grate. It's the first time I'd go back through the archive to make such an extensive edit. That feels wrong too, despite the fact that it's a perfectly professional, unobjectionable, objective, even arguably necessary edit. 

Dunno why I'm even discussing it. Whatever I do, I won't do it tonight.

What am I reading now, you ask? Iron John, by Robert Bly. It's kinda weird, but I dig it. It was a gift from an older dude. Let me tell you: this book reads like a gift from an older dude. I like it a lot and feel impelled to laugh at it, at its accoutrement and affect, but refrain from a kind of pity; it's a lot like how I felt about the man who gave it to me. It's not a mean laughter at all, though, and the pity fades as I age, replaced by more warmth, and I think, understanding, Young dudes can be harder than they realize and it's suboptimal. I honor this gift and I honor the spirit this book is written in, which is very honest and heartfelt. I honor that dude, and I hope I see him around.

Anyway, who cares? I get along too well with old dudes, frankly. But I grew up with dudes with severe emotional disturbances and I'm no picnic either. Been itching for chess matches with strangers, though, and there's no chops like old chops. 

Not sure what I'll read next. A few women in a row, I think; that was a three-dude streak. I try and juggle things a bit, keep the mind alive.


--JL