GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1025: A FINAL(ISH) WORD

 As you can probably guess, after spending this week gauging how much time I have upon getting home from work, I've decided to end Goodnight, Fuckers again. This time more or less permanently. I don't discount ever returning to my nightly column, but for now it's done. I just don't have the time to dedicate to it. I'm grateful for the chance to write 25 more of these things after the last time I thought it was over. Not bad. Not bad at all.

I'll probably do a Good Morning, Fuckers! on Sunday, but for the foreseeable future I'm going to pull back on that, too. It's not like I've got anything to report, anyway. I haven't written a word since I moved out of Joliet except for these GFs.

I hate to leave you all in the lurch with Maga still calling the shots, so I'll give you some final advice for dealing with them before I head out that door.

Ever see Unforgiven? Gene Hackman played Little Bill, who would probably have been Maga if he was around today. He's not exactly the villain of the piece, but he's a bad guy. And that's generally what Maga is. They're not exactly the villains, but they're pretty bad people. It's not entirely their fault. They're angry over perceived problems. Problems that really aren't problems, but they've been blown waaaaaaay out of proportion by the true villains of our story, Trump and his cronies. They think something is being taken away from them. They're right, but they're wrong about the grift. They have no idea that their freedoms are being taken away by the very people they think walk on water. It sucks that they've latched themselves onto these assholes, but the good news is, it means they can be turned back from the Dark Side. I probably sound a little crazy for that, but Luke was the only one who believed he could save his father, and he did. (Spoiler.)

Little Bill was certain he was the hero of his story. "I was building a house," he told William Munny, like that would make any difference. The Magas are equally certain that they're the heroes of our story. They think they're the good guys. They were generally good people until they got sucked into this whirlwind of shit.

If you find yourself in a conversation or, more likely, an argument with a Maga, the secret to getting through to them is to knock them off their talking points. These are things that they have memorized from listening to Fox News and Newsmax and their ilk. Take them by the hand and lead them away from that. Get them talking about something they absolutely have to rely on their own opinions for, something they have to think about and argue on their own, because they don't have anything in the memory banks. If you can get them there, you can cognitively rewire them a little. Get them to really think about the things they believe.

At the very least you can win the argument. At the most? You might be able to save Darth Vader.

As Hunter S. Thompson used to say, "OK for now." Thank you for reading all these years. Watch this space, as I will occasionally post something new. Not another GF, at least not for a very long time, but I'll have new stuff for you to look at from time to time. I love you all, even that one guy (you know who you are). Without you . . . well, I'd probably still have written all these GFs, but I wouldn't have felt quite so good about it.

Thank you all. Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1024: OVER NOW

 To be read to this song.

I didn't want to go to Elmhurst today. There were a few things to do in town, but I was planning on doing them after work on Saturday. However, my supervisor at work said that, after tomorrow, I can work Fridays and Saturdays at home, thus saving me gas, tolls and time. Since I'm not going to be in Elmhurst on Saturday, I had to go there today.

I can only get packages in DeKalb from the USPS because the building I live in has a deal with them about putting packages in a separate mailbox. They don't have the same deal with UPS or anyone else, so if something gets shipped to me that way, whoever delivers it just leaves it at the outside door of my building where anyone can just grab it. So my old neighbor has allowed me to ship to her, but she can't do that anymore. I'll have to figure something else out for that, but since I was stopping by her place to get a couple of packages, I decided to go inside my old house to get a few things.

I've been grateful for the access, but I knew eventually I'd lose it. I got a few things I needed, including my old plunger. Why not get a new one? The ones at the grocery store and Ace are weak as all hell. Mine was pretty powerful, so I grabbed that, too. I also realized I'd only kept butter knives, so it would probably be a good idea to go back and get some knives that would actually cut food. And I found myself lacking hangers. I only had enough to hang the shirts I wear to work (minus one).

I'm glad I got these things, because the minute I left, as my neighbor texted me, someone showed up to change the locks. I no longer have access to my house. It truly is the end of an era.

I guess that means I can take the house keys off my ring.

I was not able to save my mom's piano. That was probably a pipe dream, anyway. I couldn't save my grandma's china cabinet, either. And I had to abandon most of my VHS collection.

I'm going to miss that place.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1023: A MONUMENT TO SATAN

Hello Satan.

 "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Tom Lehrer said that, and thankfully satire kept on keeping on for a good long time after. I think about this quote every time Trump and his douchebags do something. Anything. What's left for satire? But that doesn't stop those of us who love to take the piss out of the government.

Kissinger finally died not soon enough but at the ripe old age of 100 back in 2023. I thought we'd never be rid of his wretched villainy. But he didn't shuffle off this mortal coil without a parting shot. One of the articles I read on the subject had a nice hooker, so I'm going to quote it: "Henry Kissinger was known for his monumental ego. And at the end of his life he asked for . . . an actual monument." And he wanted it bad. He advised his executors to pay whatever was necessary to make it happen, and he died with $80M, and that's the low estimate. He probably had a lot more.

Like it or not Kissinger was a pioneer. You know how government employees service contractors in an effort to secure an obscenely-high paying job in the private sector after they retire from "public service?" He fucking started that grift. It paid off pretty well, apparently. I'm loath to quote Kissinger in any of my writings, but it's apropos here. "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." If that's any indication of his private life, he may have never had a dry dick since the Nixon administration.

The article I quoted above with the great hooker, written by James Mann and Hailey Fuchs, quotes Daniel Drezner, who is an expert on Kissinger. Drezner thinks Kissinger was mighty insecure, and that his request for a public monument over his grave in Arlington Cemetery is proof of that, but I don't buy it. He *is* right when he says that Kissinger wanted to rewrite his legacy. Not everyone drank his Flavor-Aid, and he knew it. He wanted to ensure that future Americans looked back on his legacy with awe and respect, not derision (like I do). I don't think that's got anything to do with insecurity. That's got everything to do with controlling the narrative, and he wanted to do that so badly that he tried it from beyond the grave.

Arlington generally doesn't allow private monuments, just the usual white gravestones that you see in war movies. They put a rule in place a few years back to ensure that would continue no matter what. However, Kissinger got his plot before the rule went into effect and was hoping that would be a neat loophole for his legacy.

But Arlington turned him down. They flat out said no, Kissinger would get the regular monument as a WWII vet, nothing more.

Thank fuck. I love Tom Lehrer (big surprise, I know), but who says satire is obsolete?

All the same I'm a little surprised that Trump didn't circle back and make this monument to Satan happen. If there is villainy to be performed, he's usually on point. To be fair he's got three more years (no more than that, I sincerely hope, for the sake of America), so it's not a done deal, but still.

Well, if that happens, I hope it's a life-sized nude statue of Kissinger. If I have to suffer, I think we all have to suffer. And I hope some wit chisels his tiny stone dick off and sells it on Etsy. I imagine this statue would make David look hung like a donkey.

Maybe Kissinger should have thought to have his monument built while he was still alive, like PT Barnum reading his own obituary. Now *that* would be satire.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1022: JOHN'S APARTMENT

 When I was a kid living with my mom, stepfather and (at the time) two baby brothers in an apartment across from the train tracks in Elmhurst, we had a few roommates with us: cockroaches. They were a persistent problem to the point where I had to check my shoes every morning. Because there was this one time I was putting them on for school, and I felt something move in one of them. I took it off, and two roaches dropped out and scurried under the couch I was sitting on. It had an effect on me. For many years thereafter I checked my shoes for bugs before putting them on.

And now that I have a new apartment I find myself in a similar situation. I also have baby mosquitos, but they're nothing compared to the surprise of seeing a roach in your bathroom at three in the morning.

I'm back to checking my shoes.

As with back then, they only come out at night, and they seem to stick to the bathroom and the kitchen. I found one in my bedroom, and it met its demise under a mail catalog shortly thereafter.

Most of them are little baby roaches, and when I sprayed the place down with Raid they stopped coming around. I confidently thought that I'd dealt with the situation well, but I also knew from experience that if you see one roach, there are possibly hundreds more of them. I didn't let my guard down.

Now the adults are coming out. I found two of them in the kitchen, but they were quick to evade me. I started seeing visions of me as Peter Weller in Of Unknown Origin.

One of the roaches looked big enough for me to put a leash on, but I don't want to be charged the pet fee by my landlord. The other, however, looked big enough to put a leash on me.

This morning they tried to mug me in the kitchen when I went for my morning Tang. Thankfully I was carrying the can of Raid in my free hand (the other held the crutch I get around on), and I sprayed the fuckers.

And they practically laughed at me. Big Ed, the one who might take me as a pet, attempted to knock the Raid from my hand with his brass knuckles, but I sprayed the bastards harder and harder until they finally fell over onto their backs, their legs flailing at the ceiling. I didn't let up. I sprayed them until I was certain they were dead. I held a mirror to Big Ed's nose, just to be sure.

I scraped them up with a shovel and disposed of them. But there might be more.

If you don't hear from me for a while, please check in. I don't want to end up like poor Joe . . .

Joe's Apartment

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1021: LIKE A KID AGAIN

 On Saturday I was working to unpack a lot of stuff and organize everything while I was doing so. I am insane because I thought it would be a good idea to organize my books before I shelve them in my study. And now those books are all over said study in piles . . . and all over my bedroom in piles . . . and I have started piling books in the kitchen. I have no idea when this lunacy will end, as I still have about 20 boxes of books to go. Now that I'm back to work, I don't have a ton of time to do that.

But because I'm in a cast and need a crutch to get around I have to take a lot of breaks. During one break I read while resting on my couch. Suddenly thunder rolled, and I realized that for the past ten minutes or so it had been raining pretty hard.

And I flashed back to when I was a kid. I was an active child, almost always outside, but on rainy days I always found a place to relax, usually a couch or my bed or somewhere, and I'd read the day away. I felt like that kid again for the first time in decades, and it did my heart good. I didn't want to go back to unpacking my books. I just wanted to continue reading during the thunderstorm.

But I knew I'd be back to work today, so I didn't have much time to lose.

Speaking of which, this is going to be my test week to see if I can still find time to write these GFs while working. If today was any indication, it's not looking good. But I'll keep going, and by Friday I'll know for sure if I'm retiring the ol' column again.

See? Pretty short one tonight.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1020: GREEN MAN

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm an atheist. As such, I do not believe in God or gods. However, I am a firm believer that the universe is a very strange fucking place, and that a lot of crazy shit is possible. I base that on personal knowledge of this exceptionally small corner of the universe, Earth, as well as my understanding of how the universe works. For example, did you know that the center of the Milky Way galaxy (and all galaxies) is a massive black hole? So massive that you can never get your mind around it? Saying it's bigger than the sun is like saying Lake Michigan is bigger than a drop of rain water. The mere fact that black holes exist is fucking nuts.

So I think it's possible for the universe to send a message. We receive these messages on a regular basis. For example, have you noticed the hellscape our weather has become recently? Perhaps this shit would calm down if we stopped treating our planet like a fucking doormat.

It's rare that the universe sends me such a blatant message, though, but I got one Wednesday night.

The first sign was from The Phoenician Scheme. I'd started watching it on Tuesday, but I got too tired and had to finish it Wednesday. The first thing I saw was the scene where they've all got mud on their faces after yet another plane crash. I saw Michael Cera's face and thought, huh, he looks kind of like Green Man. Meaning, the pagan Green Man. It meant nothing to me at the time, but . . .

The second sign was from Northern Exposure. Ed gets cursed by a magical green man. Graham Greene explains that Ed can never be a healer because he is plagued by the worst spirit ever, low self esteem.

The third sign came when I got a tickle in the back of my head. I googled Green Man, fully expecting the first thing to be from It's Always Sunny. The algorithm should have showed me that Greenman. But it showed me the pagan Green Man, symbol of rebirth, the new flowering season.

Greene goes on to say that low self esteem is the cause of all the heartbreak and destruction in the world. The only way Ed can banish his green man is to learn to love himself.

Unsurprisingly, I suffer from low self esteem. I've been working on trying to change that for at least a decade. On a regular basis, I do something dumb, and I slap my forehead and call myself a fucking idiot. I know that's really terrible to do, and I've been doing my best to stop that. And, of course, failing.

But I saw this as a real call to arms, especially now that I have this new permanent home, and I'm at a stage in my life where it is a time of renewal. I need to banish my own green man. I must learn to love myself. This is no longer optional. I can't just keep saying that I'm working on it, and when I fail, then double down on my self-loathing. I have to stop that. This is necessary to survival and, possibly, success.

So that night, just before I closed my eyes to go to bed, I whispered, "I love myself." I didn't really feel it, but it all starts with saying it. If you say it long enough, you will believe it. I'm fairly certain that's what got me in this mess in the first place.

Yesterday morning I accidentally knocked over my can of Monster. It was full, and it spilled on my coffee table. My reaction time is great, so it didn't ruin anything. Ordinarily I would have groaned and called myself a fucking moron. I would have continued to berate myself while cleaning it up. Instead, yesterday, I shrugged it off. It was an accident. Accidents happen. I didn't feel bad about it while I got some paper towels. And then I *realized* I didn't feel bad about it. I wasn't mad. I didn't despise myself. I felt pretty good.

Holy shit, I actually meant it!

Maybe I am a little crazy, but I think I made a promise with the universe. If I learn to love myself, I will succeed in life. The good news is, I keep my word. 

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1019: IS IT TIME?

 My weight goal has always been to get down to 200 pounds, ever since I went on my first diet in the summer between high school and college. I'd eaten McDonald's for dinner every night for five years at that point, and when I saw the video of me graduating, I thought I looked like Chris Farley. Not face-wise. I was heavy, and I moved like him.

Nothing against Farley. He was a funny dude. All the same, I did not want that for me.

I weighed 246 at the time. That summer, I lost forty pounds. I could fit in size L t-shirts again for the first time since I was in sixth grade. I kept struggling, but I plateaued at 205 before I ballooned out to 306.

I know I've gone over this before here, but I do have a few new readers who might not be aware.

Yesterday I went to the doctor and got weighed. I'm at 199, which means I can probably fit in L t-shirts again, but I don't want to. I think wearing the next size up is always more comfortable.

Also, the bottom of the shirt might not look all that great.

Not gonna lie, I have a spare tire of loose skin around my waist, and it does not look good. My belly button looks puckered. If I wore a smaller shirt, I think it would be a lot more obvious to everyone around me, and I'm not a big fan of this loose skin. It does not look good.

But when I'm wearing a shirt? So long as it's not tucked in, I look pretty damned good. Maybe even a little sexy. My face is a lot thinner, too. I can see my cheekbones now, for example. So I'm wondering if maybe I should shave the beard I usually hide my face fat behind. I don't think I have a double chin anymore, so do I really need the hair to hide it? The beard looks good. Great, even. But maybe it's time to show my face again.

What do you all think? Should I shave the beard? Growing one is fucking annoying, so if it doesn't look good, I'll be stuck with it for a while. Is it time?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1018: ONE SHALL STAND

 First, before I get into it, I want to mention that I've been enjoying what Image has been doing with the Energon Universe. Transformers, GI Joe and Void Rivals together make a great story with many potential delights ahead.

But I want to talk about Transformers for a moment, here. Obviously I will always favor the original Marvel books, as I grew up on those, and it is damned near impossible to separate that kind of experience from someone. Dreamwave was off to a good start, but they floundered shortly thereafter, and I'm glad that story died off, never to be taken up again. Storywise, IDW made the best TF comics . . . up to a point. Because those were characters instead of the usual good vs. evil type of thing. I can't tell you how it blew my mind when Megatron turned on the Decepticons and put the Autobot emblem on his chest, and how he spent the rest of the comic fighting his darker impulses for the greater good, even if swift and blinding violence would solve a particular problem. That's the kind of shit I love. And I loved it when they ended the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. But when they continued the story? That's when they fucked up. That should have been the end. It got so bad that I told my comics guy that I was going to drop the book. He said, well, it looks like they're ending it in a few months. Are you sure? Since it wasn't much more of a commitment, and I am a completist, I stuck it out to yet another disappointing ending.

Which brings us to Skybound's version. It's good. A lot of crazy shit happens. Ultraviolence throughout is a good sign, and I enjoyed the pure evil of Decepticons killing people simply for the cruelty of it all. And there does seem to be a concerted effort to make this version different from the others. For example, where's fan favorite Bumblebee? I relished his absence until today, when I saw his corpse in a flashback in the new issue. I really hope they don't go any further into that.

But they did something that all the other versions did that I absolutely can't fucking stand, especially since there's an effort to stray from the usual material. And let me not mince words. EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF TRANSFORMERS HAS DONE THIS. I was hoping Skybound would avoid it, but there's just something about Transformers writers. They just can't stay away from it.

The animated movie from the 'Eighties was so powerfully written that every TF writer since can't help themselves. They absolutely have to rip it off, even down to lifting dialogue. I suppose it's not "lifting" if you're doing it from the same series, but all the same, they fucking stole from this movie and dressed it up as fan service.

Not only did the new issue rip off a line from the movie, but it ripped off THE MOST RIPPED OFF LINE FROM THE MOVIE. When IDW's version ended, I told myself if I ever heard the line again, I'd punch the next TF writer I meet. I'm not going to, obviously, but I'm definitely going to shame that person.

"One shall stand . . . one shall fall."

Yes, it's a great line given the circumstances it was originally said in. But to have it repeated over and over again in every alternative variation of the TF story?

FUCK.

THAT.

SHIT.

I should stop reading the book on principle. It's lazy. It's larcenous. And it doesn't even count as fan service. I can't possibly be the only TF fan who is tired of reading the same shit rehashed over and over again. That's why I loved IDW's version so much. They went exploring. Sure, they ripped off the animated movie, too, but I could look the other way due to the reward.

If I could make any request of the TF writers going forward, please please PLEASE stop regurgitating shit you loved from the animated movie. Come up with new shit. New shit that's so powerful that future TF writers after you will want to rip YOU off.

I know I'm asking a lot, but I've come this far. Don't make me give up on the Energon Universe. I WANT to read these books. "One shall stand." For Pete's sake.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1017: PROOF THAT WE ARE NOT REPRESENTED IN CONGRESS

 Proof? What kind of proof could I possibly have? It's scientific, actually, so no one is going to listen to me, anyway. But there have been studies done, and because I've had a rough day (I'm going back to work on Monday), I'm going to let Cory Doctorow write my GF tonight.

Harken back to GF #1000 where I made the claim that We the People are no longer represented in Congress. Only our corporate overlords are. You'd think something like that would be hard to measure, but it's not. House or Senate, Democrat or Republican, if they're in Congress, they're doing their true master's bidding. I see these assholes at their townhall meetings, and I don't think it matters what they say at these things. While the voters still need to vote, it's the money that guarantees their positions.

And this article will explain the whole thing for you. There are a lot of links, and I know the last thing you want to do this late at night is to go down this rabbit hole, but think about the rabbit holes you've gone down previously. How many of them were actually worth it? How many did you have to stop and ask, "What the fuck am I doing?"

This rabbit hole is worth it. It will explain why our lives suck, which will help us find a way to do something about it.

If you want the direct study, here you go. Warning: it costs $30 unless you're with an authorized university.

Long story short, We the People want good things. We're the majority, so if the system works as advertised, we should have them. We do not. The system, therefore, does not work as advertised. Congress does not listen to any ol' voice. Just their master's.

Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1016: GOODBYE TO TOM LEHRER

 I first heard of Tom Lehrer through the Dr. Demento cassette collection, the one that's delineated by the decade. It was "The Masochism Tango" that caught my eye (not literally in your left castanet, thank you), and it quickly became one of my favorite songs. On another cassette I found "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," which quickly became a second favorite. But it never occurred to me that he might have made more songs. (I was a freshman in high school at the time, so I wasn't very bright.)

Around the same time I caught an episode of HBO's Real Sex that featured the song. I giggled, thinking, I know that one! And I also learned that Weird Al Yankovic, the only musician I'd seen in concert at the time (now it's one of two, the other being Alestorm when they were too young to drink at their own show) and someone I respected a great deal, revered Lehrer, which meant he'd made more songs than two.

(Incidentally, I didn't have a bedroom back then, so I didn't have an inner sanctum to escape to with the volume low. I slept on a cot in the living room, but we had a basement where we--meaning, me and my brothers mostly--watched a lot of stuff. I was 14, so I could watch PG-13 movies, but my brothers were still forbidden. So we watched Real Sex with the volume low enough, and if we heard someone on the stairs, they would certainly be someone who would disapprove, so we had the remote set to return us back to another channel just in case.)

Back then we didn't have the internet, so I went to the library to do more research, and lo! and behold! We had one of his live albums! It was Tom Lehrer Revisited, and I listened to that tape so much it practically became my Bible. Imagine my pleasure when I discovered more albums, which I quickly purchased from Borders (because they could order it, and Best Buy wouldn't).

(Another side note: when the library decided to get rid of their cassette collection, I saved this one from the garbage. I recently had to abandon my own cassette collection, but I saved a few, and this is one of them.)

Without Tom Lehrer, I don't know what my sense of humor would be like now. He's an essential part of my building blocks. For the longest time I had a quote of his paraphrased on my wall next to my dinosaur computer (back when it wasn't a dinosaur but top of the line!): "If after [reading] my [stories] just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will have all been worth the while." But there's an even better scenario that he described that works more toward my way of thinking.

I think he was interviewed by the New Yorker back when I was still working at the library (I found it while I was working the periodicals section in the haunted up-upstairs area), but the gist of it was this. He said he described his humor as thus, and I'm going off memory here, so don't be too harsh if it's not exact. He said, "You throw a baby up in the air and catch it, so the baby laughs. But I throw the baby up and don't catch it, so I laugh."

I know for a fact that I've written a GF about Lehrer before, maybe a few, but this is the first time I've done so since he died last week. He was well into his nineties when he passed. He'd left music to go back to his true love, teaching math (he worked at Los Alamos . . . as a spy), but he was always a violently funny musician to me.

Tom Lehrer is gone, and I'm going to miss him, but before he died he released his music into the public domain so anyone could use it. That was pretty nice of him. You can go here for all your Tom Lehrer needs. And if you don't think I'm a big enough fan of Lehrer's, please know that I once got in trouble at Conference Plus, my first big boy office job, for singing one of his songs on the floor. This one, in fact. It's the greatest love song ever written in my opinion.

If you've never heard his songs before, I encourage you to listen. If you think it's too old-timey for your likes (they were mostly written from the 'Fifties to the 'Seventies), just listen to the lyrics. Keep an eye out for the guy who took a knife and monogrammed his wife and dropped her in the pond and watched her drown, oh yes indeed the people there are just plain folks in my hometown!

Goodbye, Tom Lehrer.

PS: He also wrote the greatest end of the world song ever.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1015: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROB TANNAHILL!

 

Right now my hetero lifemate, Rob Tannahill, is probably seething that I've forgotten his birthday. I have not. Surprise, ye bastard ye!

I've known him since I was 14 and he was 15. We briefly went to the same high school, and we met through our English teacher, Mr. Sibley, who was a former player for the Chicago Bulls, himself. We were in separate classes. Mr. Sibley knew we were both writers, so he had us swap stories and tell each other what we thought. Fast forward a few decades, and here we are.

Which reminds me, he's got a bunch of stuff out, including some music, but if you want to get to know him best, you should go for Prince Junkie, which details his life fairly well, or at least the early draft I read did. If you know him and would like to wish him a happy birthday, you should buy this. Or even if you don't know him, this is the easiest way to get into his work. He's also an artist, and if you want to see what he's capable of, check out GF #1000 for a piece I commissioned from him. Or, if you've got a twisted mind, you can check out The Cocaine! Bros., a webcomic by the both of us. Hunter and Tucker are evil and horrible bastards, kind of like what if MAGA assholes were Looney Tunes characters.

Happy birthday, Rob.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1014: GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE CAGE

 

And hello to the cast.

I woke up at 3:30 am this morning to get the fucking cage removed from my bad foot. When I was in preop I was advised that I would have a cast on, but I'd be able to walk short distances. No more walker. However, when I woke up after the operation, they told me that I can't walk anywhere, and I can only put my foot down to balance myself. I still need the fucking walker.

That pisses me off to no end, but at least I'm no longer in agony anytime my bad foot so much as twitches. It's also good to know that if I start to fall over, I can put my bad foot down and not get sent to another galaxy with the shock of pain. And hey, look at that bandage on my toe! The surgeon removed a couple of giant scabs while she got rid of the cage. I got those scabs because . . .

OK, I lived in a friend's basement in Joliet for a while, but the floor down there was hardwood, and I had an air mattress. So I had to roll out of bed every day and climb up the walker, and I couldn't do that without fucking up my toes, which were sticking out of the cage. So yeah, those scabs had been there for quite some time. (I should also mention that once, after rolling out of the air mattress, I noticed that the floor had bent back my big toenail. Good thing I couldn't feel that. I must have done something similar this morning because the same toenail was bent back. I didn't notice until I got to the hospital.)

I'm in a much better mood today, but I'm still kinda fucked in regards to being able to move around. I have a bit more freedom now, but not much more. I was hoping I'd be able to unpack all these boxes and get my study ready for work. With these restrictions, though, it might be a long time before that becomes a reality. I'll do what I can, but that's not going to be much.

I was also hoping to get my microwave from storage. It's pretty far back, and I have to move a lot of stuff to get to it, so that might not happen for another month, either. Holy shit, I really need to get back to work to earn at least two weeks of wages, or I'm going to have some financial issues, too.

I think I'm going to have to go back to work with the walker. Fuck. I was hoping not to do that.

But last night's GF had the desired effect. I did not stop off at the place down the street for a bottle. At least the docs gave me some fentanyl as they rolled me into the recovery room. That was a nice little treat on my way out of surgery.

I haven't felt any pain yet, so I hope that part is over. Not having metal rods going through my leg has improved morale around here, but it's good to know that I still have my laudanum just in case.

It'll be good to sleep in tomorrow. Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1013: MY CALENDAR IS STILL PACKED AWAY

 

Yesterday I found my motivational bottle of whiskey. There's maybe a quarter-inch of booze in there, and I'm guaranteed not to drink it because the original cork broke, and there are hundreds of pieces floating in the bottle. But I do like to take a sniff from the neck every once in a while. Sometimes it smells glorious, but most times it grosses me out, the desired effect.

It's been three years and a handful of days since my last drink. I don't know how many days because my calendar is still packed away. However, I made an ugly discovery this morning while refilling my bottle of liquid Vicodin from the cannister CVS gave me. I usually get a little red flask of the stuff, but for some reason I got the cannister this time. I read the label and found, much to my horror, that there is alcohol in this.

So technically I haven't had a drink since the last time I took my medicine.

I'm supposed to take 15 mL every four hours. That is the equivalent of a sip of decent beer at 6.7% ABV.

After some agonizing I decided that it doesn't count against my years and days. #1: I had no idea that there was alcohol in this. #2: It's not like I'm drinking this stuff to get wasted. Sure, the pain gets to be a bit much sometimes, so I'll take 30 mL, but it's not recreational. I'm using this as directed, as a painkiller.

Yes, I can hear myself. I used to drink to kill the pain of a terrible constant months-long headache, and that was how I became an alcoholic.

It gets worse. The temptation to drink in this new home is exceptionally strong. I've almost gotten myself convinced that I can just have a couple of drinks to unwind each night. Right now I have edibles to unwind. My new home is a nonsmoking place. You can't even smoke on the property. So I've stopped smoking weed, but the edibles aren't kicking in like they used to.

Yes, I can still hear myself. I'm looking for an excuse to get fucked up. I'm writing this to convince myself to *not* do that.

Because the rest of me is very much onboard with getting fucked up, but as I write this I can feel myself coming to my senses. Yet: "Hey, man, you don't have *any* days because you fucked up. You took the liquid Vicodin. So give up. Go get some bourbon. There's a place just down the street. It's a college town! There's a place just down *every* street! Let's go, dude!"

The other day I stopped in a Casey's to use the bathroom, and I had to crutch (I'm on a walker, not a crutch, but "walker" my way doesn't sound right) my way past the liquor section. I scowled at Evan Williams, but Larceny? Whoo-boy. I loved Larceny. If I wasn't in dire straits of a piss, I would have stopped and considered. Considering might have lead to something else.

The one thing that stops me flat is the cage on my leg. I can't tell you how many times I've almost fallen over on the walker dead sober. I have stopped myself from eating it each and every time. But if I was drunk . . .

It doesn't matter. The cage is coming off tomorrow. I won't have that to stop me soon. But I will still be in a cast. Maybe that will help.

Speaking of which, I've been advised that it's possible the cage *won't* come off tomorrow. My surgeon asked me to get a CT scan today (last minute) because she's afraid two of my bones haven't fused together. If they haven't, she said she won't take the cage off.

THE CAGE MUST COME OFF. I'm at the very end of my wits on this. I can't have this cage on me anymore. The longer it's on, the higher the risk of a bone infection and a subsequent amputation. But that's not what's eating me. I NEED TO WALK AGAIN. I can't keep crutching around on walkers and actual crutches (I use one for stairs). No matter how much of my liquid Vicodin I take, I'm still in pain, especially when I'm on stairs. I can't take it anymore. I literally can't.

Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow, and the surgeon will tell me that the CT scan showed the bones didn't fuse, so the cage isn't coming off. Or I'll go under, and when I wake up the cage will still be there. The cast is supposed to be a walking cast, so I've decided that if I can't walk around tomorrow on my feet, sans cage, I am going to get a bottle of Wild Turkey 101, and I'm going to drink myself into oblivion.

I know that sounds crazy, but have you ever spent approximately three months with a cage around one of your feet? One that keeps several metal rods going through your flesh and bone in place? So that you're in constant pain that whole time?

We're going to find out about a lot of things tomorrow. Things have been going my way lately. I can only assume this will go my way, too. So here's to hoping I walk out of the hospital on two feet tomorrow, and that I'm carrying my folded up walker under one arm. Wish me luck.

I really hope the cage comes off for many, many reasons, but one of the big ones for me is, I'll finally be able to change my boxers. I've been wearing the same pair since the cage was installed. The ones I'm wearing are pretty rank by this point. I spray them with air freshener every day. But hey! No pee stains or skidmarks! 

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1012: PULP FICTION

 I have a fairly decent collection of old pulp magazines, but I've been thinking about selling some of them. Not all of them. I have some pretty good issues, and I couldn't part with them. The covers are, uh, astounding. Here are some of the issues I'm keeping.

The perfect word for these covers is "lurid," I think. I have a bunch of other pulps that I'm going to keep, but they're all still packed up. I mention this because if you want to read pulp fiction for free, you should check this out. It's an archive of pulp magazines from way back when, free to read. You could probably read that site for years and still not reach the end of it. The internet *is* good for something!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1011: THE LAST OUTPOST OF THE EMPIRE . . .

 . . . at least until Iowa.

I've lived in DeKalb for a few days, and it's been pretty nice, but it *is* in the middle of nowhere. I like the middle of nowhere. There's a lot of farmland and woods and prairie out here. You know how, if you're driving, the road signs tell you what the next major town is? When you get to DeKalb, the road signs advise you that Iowa is pretty much the next thing of interest on this road, and there's still about 90 miles of Illinois left.

I spent today trying to put things where they belong, or at least in the room they belong. Unpacking with this fucking cage on my foot is difficult, to say the least. Right now the dinosaur computer I write just about everything on is in my living room, and I'm trying to figure out how to get it all to my study, where I plan to do all my writing going forward. (Yes, I have a study. And yes, you may see it when it is ready.) I have two ideas: I can crawl on my hands and knees, pushing each component one at a time. Or I can put each component on a sheet that I can drag behind me as I make my way with the walker.

I supposedly go back to work next week. I'll bet the doc gives me another week of rest first. I'm taking a practice drive during rush hour tomorrow morning to see what the commute will be like. Better than I expect, I hope. But I'll have a better idea of how much time I'm going to have on work days soon. Which means I'll be deciding the fate of GF soon. I started writing these again because I had unexpected time. I might not have the time soon. I'll probably make that determination tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll keep writing these while I can.

I can't express to you how happy I am sleeping in my own bed every night. Not having to wake up twice (sometimes three times!) to refill the air mattress. It's like I've been given a respite in life.

I have to get up early tomorrow, so I'm heading to that bed right now. It will be glorious, just like you glorious fuckers. Goodnight.