So, I spent the majority of my evening sitting on my back patio, drinking Peronis, smoking Pall Malls and wallowing in self-pity. And before you judge, I know that smoking is bad for you. I’m actually glad that smoking is being banned in public places. It’s pretty disgusting, to tell you the truth. It gets in your clothes, turns your fingers yellow and, in case you weren’t aware, it can cause a pretty bad case of cancer. I know all of this, yet, every now and then, I indulge. Why? Because I enjoy it. I make it a point not to do it every day because I despise vices. At least, I like to think that I do. Gambling, alcoholism, smoking, sex — I’ve been close enough to those who are controlled by their vices to know that I don’t want to allow myself to fall victim as well. Still, I am a man like any another and just as prone to becoming prey to intangibles as the next person. Vices are afflictions of the mind, not the body.

I switched to Pall Malls because I recently read that Kurt Vonnegut started smoking when he was 12 and he lived to the ripe old age of 84. Pall Mall was his cigarette of choice. He probably would have lived longer had he not succumbed to the injuries he incurred due to a fall. I intimated to a friend that Vonnegut probably fell when he was attempting to reach for a pack of cigarettes. How ironic would that be? Anyway, my point was that I chose tonight to drink and smoke and ruminate on life and why I am so dissatisfied with my own.

Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever have days when you are completely dissatisfied with anything and everything that is related to you? You hate your clothes, you hate your skin, your breath, your house, your job, the direction in which your life is going — especially if you feel that you life is direction-less. That’s how I felt today. Like I was just going through the motions. 34 and I’m just trudging along to what?

I used to devour Charlie Brown comic strips when I was kid. I loved Charlie Brown. I still do. I think part of it was the great music that went along with the cartoons. Vince Guaraldi was a genius. But I think another part of it was Charlie Brown’s chronic depression. He wasn’t one of those depressed people that you can’t stand to be around. He was one of those guys that was just blue enough that he could empathize with your own woes, but not so blue that you wanted to blow your brains out if you spent too much time with him.

One time Charlie and Linus were talking and although I can’t remember word for word the conversation, it went something like this: Charlie Brown asked Linus about life, perhaps the meaning of it, or school or something like that and Linus said, “You go to school so you can graduate and go to high school so you can get a degree and go to college so you can get a degree and go to graduate school so you can start a career and get married and have kids so they can go to school and graduate and go to high school….” He explained the never ending and completely depressing cycle of life. I must have seen that cartoon twenty years ago, yet that scene sticks in my head. Why? Sometimes I think that I am so afraid of embracing mediocrity, I end up embracing complacency instead. I shun the cycle. I’ve done the school and the degree and now I am supposed to get married and have kids and send them along their way through the cycle while I wither up and die. Yeah, maybe I take a trip here or there or I read a great book or see a great show, but then, that’s it. I get old, I say, “Peace out” to the world and I’m dust. Great. Like Peggy Lee said, “Is that all there is?”

Not that I don’t admire those who get married and have children. I envy them. Mostly because they seem to do it without any sign of compunction. Here I am, languishing in my complacency and they are moving along, taking in life and exhaling it without so much as a hiccup. Have you ever seen the movie Paris Blues with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward and Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll? At one point in the film, Newman and Woodward are looking over the quiet suburbs of Paris and Newman says, “It’s quiet. You know why it’s quiet? Cause they’re all dead inside”, to which Woodward replied, “When it’s quiet at my house, it only means the children are sleeping.” Newman, a jazz musician, thought the whole marriage and children bit was a farce, a quick way to get got and die. Woodward saw the beauty of it. Who was right? Maybe they both were. And if that’s the case, how does it help me?

What’s funny about Vonnegut is that he seemed to spend his whole life beckoning death, egging it on. Cigarettes are “a classy way to commit suicide”, he said. Yet, for all that calling to death, he lived a long, fruitful life. I read that he seemed to take pride in the fact that even though he was enamored with death in a way, he didn’t give in to it and blow his brains out the way Hemingway did. Of course, I’m not certain Hemingway gave in or gave up or however you want to put it. At this point in my life, I can no longer justify judging the decisions other people make about their own lives. We’re all in charge of our own existence, our decisions and our actions (or inactions).

I’m just rambling, I know. Ultimately, I guess I just want to have a feeling of satisfaction. To feel like I am traveling down the right path and not the path others have lain before me. The question is, do I embrace the cycle and perhaps find happiness on the other side, or do I linger in limbo and allow myself to be devoured by my own stagnation.

side note:
I read this evening that Tom Delay says that his affair was different than Newt Gingrich’s because his affair was over (plus he had been saved) by the time he was trying to impeach Bill Clinton, whereas Newt was in the midst of an affair. Ah, once again religion seems to become the springboard for hypocrisy. It seems to me that if you fu**ed around on your wife, humility would prevent you from gloating about WHEN you did it.