GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1044: WHAT THE FUCK?

 Yeah, these things are getting harder and harder to post. Today, for example, I just ran out of time with everything. I'm lucky I got to write anything at all earlier today. I'm going to rethink how I do these. Maybe I don't need to put them together last minute. Maybe I can chip away at them over the course of the day. I did that a few times, which I always admitted to in those essays.

Ordinarily I would have had one for you yesterday, but I didn't get home until 8 pm. My bedtime is usually 9-ish. Every time I sit down to write a GF, I look at the time, and I think, what the fuck? Is it really that late? I need to get in bed right now if I'm going to wake up on time tomorrow.

That kind of thing. So I don't know when I'm going to post them from now on. It won't be a regular thing. Who knows? They might be a pleasant surprise for everyone, me included.

I was late getting home last night because I saw my podiatrist. I usually have to be added on as the last appointment of the day, which is after the office closes. I expected to get home at 8:30, but traffic was fucking amazing going to DeKalb. I made it in barely under an hour, which is the fastest I've made that drive so far. (She's in Lombard, for those local to the area.)

By the way, she horrified me again with another Terrible Story in Leg Cage History. Since my phone died, I no longer have pictures of my leg with the cage on it. I'm sure I've posted them here before, if you want to go hunting. But imagine wearing one of those, with metal rods going through your flesh and bone, and then deciding, what the hell, doing some Stair Master exercises would hit the spot right now.

The story about the guy wearing it for a decade is just gross, but the Stair Master thing? That's a real dick-shriveler.

She also referred to the slight opening I have on the side of my foot as "the bane of my existence." I concurred. It's one of the many banes of my existence, personally.

To quote Hunter S. Thompson, "OK for now." I'm not sure when we'll meet next, but to quote my grandfather, who bore some resemblance to HST in his younger years, "Sweet dreams, pleasant dreams, and all that kind of gas." He would pronounce that last word as "gazzzzz." TL;DR: Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #659: 4/20

 It's 4/20, which means only one thing. No, not that. Although, that, too. So yeah, two things. No, I mean it's the sixth anniversary of my grandfather's passing. I went out to visit him today and to pour his airplane bottle of Jim Beam down his side of the grave. I didn't stay long because it was rainy today, and I managed to get in there during a brief break in the storm.

I'd usually write something good about him, but celebrating a death day is a little bit of a weird thing to do, and I'm afraid I might be giving the impression that he was a superhero of some kind. He had his warts, and you know how I feel about "warts and all."

So I'm going to show a little bit of his darker side.

Years ago I remember him complaining that no one knew how to make a real Manhattan anymore, so I sat down with him and Grandma to find out how to do that, so I could then make him (and myself) one. He and she broke out their old fashioned mixing set. He taught me how to do that while telling stories about the old days before my mom was born, when they would throw crazy Mad Men type parties. And then they started talking about getting married.

Grandma told me that, on their first night back from their honeymoon, after they'd eaten dinner, she got excited about being home with her husband and said to him that they could do the dishes together.

Gramps told her back then, as he set his knife and fork on the empty plate, that he would never, for the rest of his life, wash another dish.

I looked at Gramps while she told that story, and he nodded along like it was a familiar tune. No shame or guilt at all. I then looked to Grandma. She'd pursed her lips and nodded bitterly. "And he never did."

I felt very uncomfortable in that moment, and you know how hard it is to make me uncomfortable.

Gramps was my hero, but he wasn't perfect. It doesn't make me love him any less. Still, it was a pretty awkward moment.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #595: THE SMORGASBORD

 Tomorrow would have been Gramps's 96th birthday. It's hard to believe he's been gone almost seven years. I always used to think that if he died, I would completely lose it. I wouldn't be able to function. And while times have been pretty rough since his passing, and I've gone crazy a couple of times, I didn't completely lose it.

Since I don't do these things on weekends, I thought that this one should be about Gramps. I've told you all about him quite often, so I had to struggle to think of something. Maybe it's not all that glamorous, but here we go.

I remember when I was a kid Gramps had a very strict diet he adhered to. A veritable smorgasbord, if you will, of sandwiches. Every night he would make these towering sandwiches that would make Jughead drool. And he'd eat four or five of these giant things. I have no idea how he did it or even why, but he took great pleasure in his giant sandwiches.

And then after he finished eating he would pour one (1) shot of Jim Beam and take it down. "For digestion," he always told me.

I figured that's what adults did for dinner. Ate a bunch of absurdly big sandwiches and then have one shot of whiskey after. In imitation I would make a sandwich for myself (no more than that, I was still a skinny kid back then) and take one of his shotglasses so I could drink apple juice from it, thinking that when I grew up I'd switch from Mott's to Jim Beam.

I got the Jim Beam part right. A little too right, some might say. But I don't eat all that many sandwiches. Except for at lunch. And never more than one in a sitting.

It's too bad they never had sandwich eating competitions. Gramps would have been a stone cold killer at those.

Happy birthday, Gramps.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #594: A BOY SHOULD HAVE A KNIFE

 

Not too long ago I found my childhood knife, pictured above. I don't remember when Gramps gave it to me, but I'm pretty sure it was in first grade. Maybe third at the latest, but I think first. I remember he showed it to me, and I got excited because I was a child in the 'Eighties, and this is the kind of thing that did it for boys back then. That and Hot Wheels and boobs in horror movies and baseball. He told me that this had been his knife when he was a kid. He said, "A boy should have a knife." And so the boyhood knife was passed down.

I carried that thing with me everywhere. School, Cub Scout meetings, baseball games, you name it. I played in the woods a lot, and a knife could be pretty handy.

My cousin was there that day, and Gramps gave him one, too. It looked a lot different. I know it wasn't brand new, but it looked a lot more recent than the one he gave me. I think I got this one because I was the first grandson. My cousin was the second.

So my cousin's sister gave birth a while ago. I think that means her son is my second cousin. Not sure. I'm not big on categorization, in case you haven't noticed, so I don't really care to find out for sure. I think I have my cousin's knife somewhere, and it occurred to me that maybe my second cousin should have it if I find it. "A boy should have a knife," Gramps said to me.

But then I stopped and thought about all the mischief I got up to with that knife, and then I thought about how much time has passed since then. I'm talking decades. DECADES. The world has moved on. Some think that's a good thing, others a bad thing. I consider it a thing, nothing more. It's as inevitable as Thanos.

I thought about how different school probably is now. How if a boy carried a knife to school today, he would probably be arrested by noon and on the news by six. It wouldn't matter his intentions. Some things are forbidden now. That's probably a good thing.

So is it psychotic for a boy, who I think is in middle school now, to have a knife like the one pictured above?

(I almost typed junior high, but there is another thing that the sands of time has changed. And I'm not sure if he's in middle school. He probably is. But when I hit the age of 40 it started getting difficult for me to judge a young person's age. College kids look like they should be in middle school to me. High school kids look like they're ten to me. I don't know what it is. I wonder if that's the same way with others my age.)

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #579: THE COWARD'S WAY

Truer words, never spoken.

 

I don't consider myself a particularly fearful man. I don't think of myself as a coward. To the best of my memory I have only ever done one cowardly thing in my life, and that was because a friend made a horrible decision and I had to back said friend's play by doing something stupid. I'm no longer friends with that person, and I think about that moment often and don't like talking about it at all, so we'll leave it at that.

But I recently realized I may have done something else cowardly, and it bothers me.

A little background. I don't have any children (and I've been pretty fucking careful to ensure that never happened). I don't ever intend to have children. I'm probably too old for that by now, anyway. If I had a kid in nine months, I'd be in my sixties when that kid becomes a teenager. I don't want to be in my sixties chasing a shithead teenager around. That's strictly for the birds.

And for all my bluster about despising children, I kinda don't. Yeah, they're annoying and filthy and stupid and generally disgusting, but when it comes down to it I'd rather hang out with them than their awful adult counterparts. I kind of view them like Eric Northman in True Blood.

Why don't I have kids? First and foremost I'm a child myself. I'm the oldest eight year old boy I know. I'm irresponsible and I'm selfish. When you have kids, you're supposed to put them first, and I have absolutely no desire to do that.

But a major concern of mine was that I'd wind up just like my stepdad, a drunk who beats his wife and kids. Even before I became a teenager I could feel his hatred and rage in me. I still feel it to this day. Sure enough, I became a drunk. I've never intentionally hit a woman in my life. I accidentally slapped a girlfriend while rolling over in my sleep. It wasn't the impact that woke me up but the feeling of her face on my hand after. It wasn't forceful, and she didn't even wake up. I was just startled because I don't really sleep well around other people, and it kind of surprised me that someone else was in bed with me. It took me a moment to reorient myself and remember who she was.

And though I've wanted to many times, I've never struck a child. But I knew that was in me, and I didn't want to pass that down. Child Abuse: The Next Generation. I wanted to make sure that whatever thing that lived in my stepfather would die with me. And I think about how he got to be that way sometimes. I have a sneaking suspicion that his dad was a Nazi. I don't mean that figuratively. I mean, the guy fought in WWII for Hitler.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about when I considered the coward's way.

Not too long ago I watched what is possibly my favorite episode of Supernatural. It was about the life of Bobby Singer. This would probably be considered a spoiler for the show, so if you haven't watched it, maybe skip the rest of this.

The episode is called "Death's Door." In the previous episode Bobby is shot in the head. He's still alive in this episode, but he's struggling for what, at first, you think is his life. He's trapped in his memories, and he has to relive some of his deepest regrets in life. Before this episode you know him as the gruff and ornery surrogate father to the Winchesters. He's a no-nonsense kind of guy with more than a tinge of paranoia. He's also the most knowledgeable hunter the boys know. They go to him when they don't know what kind of monster they're facing.

But we learn more about what makes Bobby tick in this episode. You see, his Reaper has showed up to take him to the other side, but like I said he's struggling to succeed at something before that happens. He has to run and hide from the Reaper, and he learns the best way to do that is to find his worst memories and stick with them.

His absolute worst memory is of his father and why he doesn't have kids, either. His father beat his mom. He beat Bobby. Often. And li'l Bobby did what I'd always fantasized about when I was his age. He killed his abuser. Shot him in the head. And he swore to himself that the cycle of abuse would die with him.

And so he raised Dean and Sam as best as he could when their real father was hunting monsters. He didn't always raise them like John wanted. Sometimes he let them play hooky from target practice so they could play a little ball instead.

And Bobby realizes, in these moments before the Reaper catches up to him, that his deepest regret was not having kids. It had been the coward's way. You don't just avoid evil. You step in its path and fuck it up as best as you can. The truly heroic thing would have been to take a stand against the evil within himself and NOT LET IT WIN. To be the best father he could have ever been.

And he manages to do the one thing he was really struggling to do as he stood at Death's door. He helped the boys one last time and died.

Fear stands in our way a lot more often that we'd like to believe. We do something or we don't do something because doing the opposite scares us in ways we can't even comprehend. When I discover I'm afraid of something, I usually just do it anyway, but in this one case, where it might have mattered the most, I didn't.

And that's one of the regrets I may have to hide in when my Reaper comes for me.

IDJITS.

One more thing. Gramps had a saying. "'Balls!' said the Queen. 'If I had two I'd be king!'" This went back to his high school days, apparently. I was thinking about it earlier tonight and decided to look up where it came from. No one knows, like no one knows who came up with the song that says, "Milk, milk, lemonade, 'round the corner doody made." Or the one about what King Kong went to Hong Kong to do. But Gramps never told me there was a second part to that. The King responded by saying that it takes 12 inches to make a ruler.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #508: WHEN I'M GONE

I was working around the house a bit today, and it reminded me of something Gramps said when I was a kid. Whenever he had to do something homeowner-ish, he'd call out to me. "Dodge! Come here! I have to show you something!"

I always knew that whatever it was, it wasn't going to be fun. He'd show me how to snake a toilet. How to put in the fuses for the air conditioning (or the fuses in the basement, for that matter). How to tile a floor. And if I ever offered resistance, which I often did, he would say, "When I'm gone, you'll have to do this."

The only problem was, he kinda sucked at anything more complicated than switching out fuses. That tiling job, for example. He did such a lousy job that he was still around when we got tired of looking at it and ripped it back up to return the kitchen to its original tiles. So I guess I learned how to do things around the house badly. Maybe not the lesson he wanted to teach me.

He's been gone since 2016. While I was still physically capable, I did my best to work on the house. I also had dreams of fixing the hole in the garage's roof. Those survived even after I got my left foot all fucked up. But then Grandma wanted to tear down the garage entirely. I miss that garage, especially on winter days when I have to brush my fucking car off.

And it wouldn't have mattered, anyway. We're losing this house soon. I doubt I'll be here when Thanksgiving rolls around. We might as well have left it up as an eyesore that the bank would have to deal with. We've already decided that the property taxes aren't getting paid, that the bank will have to pay them. Because fuck the bank.

And I'm still packing my books. Those are the most important of my belongings. If I lose everything else, I guess I'm fine with that. I'd not like it, but I can let it go. But those books are important. And the bank is the reason I'm packing them up. So double fuck the bank. And why not? Triple dog fuck it. 

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #505: VISITING GRAMPS POST DETOX

You and me both, Billy. You and me both.

 Today marks the 31st day since my last drink. A whole month! Holy shit! And it's not February on a non-Leap Year, either. It's like a July or a December. The last time I did something like that was probably 15 years ago. I've been drunk almost every day since.

That means yesterday was Day 30. How did I celebrate? I went to a liquor store and a bar.

*record scratch*

Why would I do that? Three reasons. The first covers both scenarios. Like Billy the Kid in Young Guns, I believe in testing myself every day. How am I supposed to stay away from booze in a world where booze surrounds me? I have to be used to it. If I can't accept that fact, then I might as well drink myself silly again. I didn't even think of getting something to drink at either place. Didn't even enter my mind.

The second reason applies to the bar. My aunt is in town, and she wanted to take me to lunch. She had her dog with her, and Fitz's Pub is pet friendly. We sat outside, but I went in to see if it was OK to do so. I spoke with the bartender, surrounded by glittering bottles of amber fluid, and I got permission and walked back out. Again, I didn't have any cravings or urges. Easy going.

The third reason is the biggest, though, at least for me. Longtime readers remember that whenever I visit my grandfather's grave I bring along two airplane bottles of Jim Beam, his favorite whiskey. I would pour one into the ground for him, and I would drink the other myself. It has been tradition for as long as my grandfather has been dead.

Just because I'm on the wagon doesn't mean Gramps has to suffer. So I went to the liquor store and bought one airplane bottle. Any other time I would have been salivating for a handle of booze even before I so much as touched the door handle outside. Once again, I didn't think of getting something for myself. Not even one iota. I got that airplane bottle and pocketed it and headed for the cemetery.

I told myself that I would at least smell it when I took the top off. Just to see my own reaction. They say that if you're away from hard liquor for a while, you don't even like the smell of it, and I wanted to see for myself.

So I visited with Gramps. This was the first time visiting Grandma since she passed, as she and her mom are buried on the same plot with Gramps. After spending some time with them I twisted off the top and poured it down onto Gramps's side of the grave. Only later, as I was throwing out the empty bottle, did I realize that I'd forgotten to smell the whiskey. So I never did find out if I'm repulsed by the smell yet.

I doubt it. Most alcoholics will say they don't even like the taste of liquor. They just drink it for the effect. I'm different, though. I revel in the taste of whiskey. Anyone who has ever had a few with me knows that I don't grimace when I take down a shot, and I will sometimes swish it around in my mouth before swallowing. For maximum effect, of course.

I'm sure I'll find out the next time I visit Gramps. If I remember to take a sniff.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #492: THE HILL

 Wait a minute. What happened to GF #491? I assure you, it exists. But just as I was hovering over the publish button, a weird sensation came over me. Whenever I get that, I don't publish whatever I'm about to publish. In this case, it's because I got even more personal than I've ever been here before, and it was a little unsettling. I decided not to publish MY DEEPEST DARKEST SECRET. I saved the draft, so if someone finds it after I'm dead, they can feel free to publish it. I won't care by then. Think of it as the LOST GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS COLUMN. People like uncovering "lost" things.

So let's not get grim tonight. I haven't been in a good mind frame in quite a while, now, so let's think about something pleasant. A happy memory. Back when I was a kid, my grandfather would drive my cousin and I to school every day. It was down the street from where we lived at the time, and there was always this hill we'd go down. And if Gramps hit it just right, it would make us jump off the seat and hit our heads on the ceiling.

Wait, what? Seatbelts, I hear you ask? It was the mid-'Eighties. It would have been shocking if we were in the front seat wearing them, much less the back.

But every weekday we would go through the ritual, and it made us laugh each and every time. I miss doing that. I still live near that hill, but they did something to it near the end of the 'Eighties that made it impossible to replicate the experience. It was a shame, and even though it was probably dangerous, I wish I could still do that. I'm sure the size I am now would prevent it from happening even if I went back in time, but still.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #458: BE CONSISTENT

 "Oh dear God. Please don't be a serious rant about how we're all getting fucked by corporations. Please be one of the funny columns. I need a laugh before bed."

Don't worry. Tonight's GF won't be serious. It's going to be about a childhood memory that is, I think, funny and pretty gross, too.

I don't remember much about this man. Except for one thing, which we're going to get to. I think he was related to someone a relative of mine married. I also remember his name, but I won't mention it here. I'm being vague because I'm almost certain this is a story he wouldn't want me to tell. I'm not even sure he's still alive, but why take the chance?

I actually learned something valuable from him, something I practice every day, but when he departed this wisdom to me, it wasn't what I immediately remembered. That thing that I still remember. We're getting to that.

I don't recall how young I was. Maybe ten? I know I hadn't hit my growth spurt yet. It was a family reunion for a family I was related to by marriage (probably), and it was the first time I met most of them. Anyway, after he and I and someone else (sorry, I'm in protect-the-innocent mode for this one) finished up going fishing, we returned to civilization and I had to piss. So did this guy I'm talking about. There were two urinals, so we wound up next to each other.

He said to me, "Paul, if you learn nothing else from me, I want you to remember this. Be consistent."

(He called me by my middle name because that's how family referred to me. I've never really liked my middle name, which is why only a select few are currently allowed to call me that. And no, it's not because of all the questions I'm asked because of it, like, "Where's George and Ringo?" And, "Were you born before John Paul II was named Pope?" I just never liked the sound of Paul Bruni. John Bruni sounds a lot better to me.)

So he kept talking about being consistent, but I zoned out because while he was talking to me and pissing, he'd turned to look at me, practically shoving his huge cock in my face. Up to that point in my life, the biggest dick I'd ever seen was my grandfather's. While he wasn't a nudist exactly, he wasn't shy to be in the house naked. But now I had this giant porn cock mere inches from me. If I sneezed, or he did, I would have been in danger of getting cock slapped. It was kind of terrifying, actually.

But I'll be goddammed if that lesson didn't stick with me. Every once in a while I say something that I think is witty and new, and someone reminds me that I said it years ago. So I'm nothing if not consistent. There was even one time I mentioned something on Twitter that I could have sworn I'd never said before, but sure enough I'd posted it verbatim almost a year previous to the day.

So what the hell? Be consistent.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #369: ICKY STICKY POO LAND

 Tee-hee! I said 69 . . .

*ahem*

Anyway.

Huh. 69.

All right. Give me a second here.

When I was a kid, maybe four or five, somewhere around there, my grandfather used to walk me to the park in Berkeley, which was just on the other side of the viaduct. It was my favorite park because it was ideal for playing Star Wars. There was a bridge that was perfect for pretending you were in a lightsaber battle in Empire, and the ground at the end of the slide kinda looked like a Sarlacc pit. But that's besides the point.

Along the way we passed under the viaduct, and I always liked going all the way to the back where it was dark and grimy and nasty. It was always flooded, so it seemed like there was a small creek, and it was always filled with garbage, just like everything in the 'Eighties was filled with garbage.

Gramps called the place Icky Sticky Poo Land, and I fucking loved that place. No one was ever there except for us. It was a filthy place, and I've always loved filthy places. I wanted to jump into the water and revel in filth, and while Gramps indulged me at times, he never let me go that far. I still kinda want to go swimming in that muck.

It's gone now. Fuckers cleaned the place up. Now Berkeley uses it to store their public works trucks, and construction vehicles are sometimes parked there. They even have lights over there now. Dammit, why does everything have to be so clean? I miss that place.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #260: THE NEW NORMAL

"How do you define normal?" --Fox Mulder, THE X-FILES


Very good question, Agent Mulder. To my knowledge there is no such thing as normal. There is a perception of normal, usually fed to us by sitcoms and commercials, but that shit just doesn't happen in real life. The human experience is too varied and wide to ever define normal. But there is "a" normal subjective to each and every one of us. In the normal course of my day, I go to work, grumble about my commute, read, write, drink, go to bed and get ready to do it all over again the next day. That's "my" normal. Your mileage may vary.


My grandfather passed away, and that changed my normal. He was my father figure. He raised me as his own. He was there to offer advice and to teach me things and so on and so forth. Now there is a vacuum in my life, and it has thrown everything up into the whirlwind. That's what my recent breakdown was truly about.


I remember that Gramps always got on my back about putting my city sticker on my car. All. The. Time. He would even do it for me, which I let him do because it seemed to bring him some small piece of pleasure, and who was I to take that away from him? When he started losing it, when he started not being able to get around so well, I had to deny him. I put the sticker on myself because, goddammit, I'm a grown man. I know how to do this. He taught me over and over how to do it, and I could do it in my sleep. Of course, I had to PROVE to him that I did it by bringing back the husk of the old sticker. But, well, you know.


I just put the new city sticker on my car. The first time without Gramps in the world. I thought about him as I put it on, though.


And now I seek my new normal. Some of the stuff is the same. Others, different. I have an enlarged liver, so I no longer drink to get to sleep. I have anti-anxiety/depression pills I take now. In case you were wondering which of the side effects I got on that roulette wheel, it's impotence. I haven't had an orgasm in weeks. That sucks, but I guess it's better than the others, like spontaneous ejaculation, herpes and whatever else they said.


Part of taking those pills is going to a therapist. I guess it helps. I think the pills help better.


I haven't been able to write for months now. Nothing new, anyway. I recently finished efforts on bringing a WIP back from the grave. A wise friend of mine pointed out that that's what I'm doing with myself. He also pointed out that most people write to create better worlds than the one they live in, and he told me that I write to create worlds even worse, but where I have control over everything. There's a lot to be said for that. Like I said, he's a wise friend.


But I've had a few projects on my backburner, and I'm just going to have to crack into them. Move forward instead of wallowing in my misery.


My therapist said that depression is in the past, and anxiety is in the future. I see the wisdom in that. Maybe now that the one event that made me most nervous has finally happened--the death of my grandfather--maybe I can move it into the backseat of depression and on out, vanishing into the rearview mirror where it will only sneak up on me every once in a while instead of constantly.


But I still have Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to bring me comfort. Just watched the season four premiere, and it was one of the best episodes of Star Trek ever.


The new normal. Easing in. Caring about myself again. Realizing that maybe I'm not as doomed as I thought.


A funny thing happened at my grandfather's funeral. I was there with my family, waiting for my brothers in Crystal Lake to show up. They were late, and it turned out that they'd sprung a coolant leak, just barely making it to the funeral home. When the service was over, and we were heading out for the burial, I looked at the trail of coolant they'd left. It went from the opening of the parking lot to where they'd parked. They split up between my other brother and me.


After the burial we had a wonderful lunch at a pizza place I'd never heard of down the road from the cemetery. They were wondering what the hell they were going to do about the car. I suggested getting a sealant from an auto parts store, pouring it in the coolant reservoir and then putting more coolant in.


Let me state for the record that I am not a cars kind of guy. I can change a tire (just so long as it's not with one of those skimpy little jacks that come with the car), I can change oil and I can do some basic stuff, but this kind of advice from me was unheard of. But it worked. Why?


I remember the same thing happening to my grandparents' old Cavalier. That's how Gramps fixed the problem. Even after all these years his teachings came back to me like he'd just imparted them yesterday.


Gramps is gone, but he lives through me. He is still a part of my new normal.