I Am Like This When The Police Finally Find Me

Yes, I know, my entries have trickled down to one a week. I have only myself to blame for my no highs no lows only a dull medium lifestyle that I have these days. The upside is that there are no feelings like dark reptilian things barely seen in murky waters swimming around my conscious. I may never be Marty Sunshine, but it is a nice change not to have black sheets of rain falling in my head.

Anyway, back in my days of being a public policy/psych double major (oh Spin Doctors, so cruelly cut down by your own lack of talent when people realized that all your songs had the same exact goddamn harmony), I read about this study done back when colleges were allowed to lie and pretend electrocute people and generally fuck with your mind.

I think it was Columbia University who did this study, but I could be wrong--whudya expect, I learned about this over a decade ago. So the psych flaks paid students to come in and take a pill. All the students were told that the pills were vitamins. Half the students were given vitamins. The other half were actually given caffeine pills.

So each student was left to himself for about 15 minutes, and then another psych flak came in. The psych flak said he was also a student participating in the vitamin study. Then half the psych flaks started acting pissed, getting angry that they were being kept waiting. The other half started acting giddy, making paper airplanes and doing other things what were considered wacky back in the 50s. After a while, the students were asked to record their feelings.

Out of the students who really were given vitamins, almost all of them reported feeling a little annoyed by the other student, regardless of whether they were in with the pissed flak or the giddy flak.

Out of the students who were secretly given caffeine pills, the students who were with the pissed flaks felt pissed, while the students with the giddy students felt giddy.

OK, so what does this all mean? Well, that whole mind/body duality thing should be shaking in its boots. You got all these neurotransmitters, enzymes and, to quote Begbie from "Trainspotting", "it's all fookin' chemicals" coursing through you, and it's the environment that determines how you perceive the effect of all these fookin' chemicals. Without that flood of oxytocin and dopamine that your brain releases that floods your body like a rush of warm, you might still think that pretty l'il Asian thang on the dance floor shaking her rump is hawt, but only in an analytical way, much like you would think "the apple is red" or "quadratic equations are hard."

The problem with shy people is that their threshold for these neurotransmitters is too low, so that even a small influx shorts the fuse and leaves them looking for a corner to hide. The problem with moody people is that a shift in the wind sends these chemicals pouring through them like beef through the intestinal tract of a Berkely vegan. So if you're shy and moody, well, you're fucked.

So what does this have to do with me? I've been trying to lay low, intentionally trying to keep those fookin' chemicals at bay. I've been trying to envision those chemicals, those hormones like the sea, and trying to force a low tide in the summer. And slowly, the sea has receded into the distance, leaving bare rock in the sun, and all those dark things that had been swimming in the sea lay open, gasping and dying in the hot sun. But I know that the tide will be back eventually, and where there is sun now will be underwater later, and the large predators that have been in the sea for millions of years will be back. So for now, I'm just trying to enjoy the land and the sun. And preparing harpoons. Big fucking harpoons.

Clint Eastwood

I was going to say dealing with stupid opposing counsel is like trying to teach a dog algebra, but with a dog, you expect it to look at you quizically, pant, and then proceed to lick its balls or its ass. You don't really expect that with opposing counsel though.

Anyway, I spent a thirty frickin' minutes explaining to opposing counsel how the treatise says we can do something, the law doesn't prevent us from doing something, so going to court to tell the judge tomorrow that we can't do it is stupid. And I got him to admit that he doesn't like what we're doing because it makes him do more work. Yet, he's still going to court tomorrow morning.

Yeah, it is nice to know that there are folks who are dumber than a bucket of mice out there. At the same time, it sucks to know that they are wasting thirty minutes that you will never ever get back in your life.

Tie You Up Until You Call To Me

For the past couple of nights, every time that I logged on to blog, I'd get random IMs from folks needing relationship advice. I know, if they need relationship advice from me, you know they're in trouble with a fucking capital TROUBLE. I guess that's just the karmic cost for having a blog that regularly and in nauseous maudling detail describes Marty's Adventures in Lalaland with stalkers, co-workers, chicks who live with their fiances and generally bad social decisions.

Anyway, I admit that I'm not just a glass is half-emtpy sorta guy, I'm a hey the glass is half empty who the fuck drank my water outta the fucking glass I'm gonna kill that fuck no I don't want to calm down get outta my way aaaaaaaaaargh type of guy. But lately, I've been realizing that, in reality, I am a lucky guy.

Like this week, I did my taxes, and I could've bought a luxury sedan with what I owe the federal government, state government, and hospitals (I'd like to say that I'm exaggerating, but sadly, I am not). But I still have enough in my savings to take a year and a half off if I wanted to.

Like some of my medication cuts my IQ down 'bout 10 points. But that just means I may not be Einstein, but at least I'm still Oppenheimer.

Like I don't have any job security right now. But in a pinch, I know someone who'll give me a six-figure-job in a heartbeat.

Yup, just call my Lucky Marty.

Head Like A Hole

Morally Flexible Partner is a caricature, a cliche, a stereotypical fat slob. He's so grossly over the top that you can't believe he's a genuine human being. Remember the Fat Guy in the French restaurant in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life? OK, Morally Flexible Partner is not that fat, but he has the same manners. He called me into his office a week ago to discuss a pleading, and he was shovelling his face full of food. Morally Flexible Partner started talking while he was chewing, and in between moist chomps, exhaling heavily. As soon as he was finished forking pasta salad into his maw, he then tore open a bag of chips, grabbed a fistful in his sausage fingers and just smashed them into his mouth.

During work hours, you can hear his loud craw (and oddly girlish giggle) when he talks on the phone, even with his door closed. And he's not talking about work usually. No, he's talking about his ex-wife who's taken the furniture, or making slightly racist comments (then lowering his voice realizing that the word processor, who is black, is sitting in the cubicle outside his office).

I've heard the tapes of this guy on another case back when I was at another firm. The man is Morally Flexible, and even worse, not that great of a lawyer (though I wonder how the hell he became partner at all these BigLaws).

So added to my many prayers (well, since I'm agnostic, I guess wishes on a rainbow or some other such crap) is that I hope I don't end up like Morally Flexible Partner.

I Predict A Riot

For a while, you can ignore it. You do your research on Lexis. You write your arguments built on simple sentences and solid logic. You distill the points you're really trying to get across into tight little beads of clarity so that your words don't get tarnished and unformed like so much dross. Sometimes, you even feel a sliver of joy when you're able to tear an opposing argument to shreds.

And then, like an alcoholic's moment of clarity, you remember it. And what you remember is this: litigation is simply a bunch of people saying "fuck you" to each other. Don't get me wrong, more often than not, at least one of those people have good reason to say "fuck you." But they're still saying "fuck you." Remember getting into arguments with mom and pop as a teenager, screaming your lungs out until you wanted to do something stupid and angry? Remember some jagoff cutting you off on the freeway and him flippin' you the bird after a long honk on your horn? And remember how wound up you'd be, unable to just chill and replaying it over and over in your head, your jaw clenching and your hands unconsciously turning into fists for days after?

Now imagine that day after day after day. Because, as I said before, ligitation is simply a bunch of people saying "fuck you" to each other. As litigators, we get paid to stand in for our clients and say "fuck you" in more technical ways (though once in a while, we do say simply "fuck you" to opposing counsel). Yes, most days are dull days of paperwork, cyas and research--but you know you're doing it all in support saying "hey dickwad, come suck on it." And whereas yelling at mom and pop blew over in a day or two, litigation can last for years. Just imagine yelling at mom and pop for every single day of your life for forty years. Or to put it in a more descriptive way, an argument is a scratch while ligitation is that tumor slowly metastisizing in your brain.

And you wonder why I'm called Angry Yellow.

Taking Different Roads

Who woulda thunk that someone could cover Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" to sound like something The O.C. would play, and even more disturbing, that it could sound so good?

Orpheus

In a purely unscientific survey of people, including greg and Da Goddess, of whether I should give the Betty I met on Saturday who broke up with her fiance only a week and a half ago, still lives with him, but made it quite clear that she was gagging to get married NOWNOWNOWNOW because she was in her mid-thirties, we have one vote for "sure, give her a call" (sorry Katharine) and four votes of "RUN FOR THE FRIGGIN' HILLS."

Feh, I already did the going out with a woman who just broke up with her fiance thing anyway, and boy is that schtick tired. ('Course, I was the one who caused her to break up with fiance that time, but same dif.)

Baby You Be Sweet

Yeah, I know it's a gift to be loved by anyone and to take attraction as flattery. Count your blessings and such (though having a stalker kinda puts a crimp in those platitudes). So in my life, I've been pursued in succession by, shall we say, the overly voluptuous, and there was a long run in which I kept getting "winks" on match.com from FOBs. Now it seems that there's been a stretch of women who have shown interest (no matter how briefly) in Marty that share a rather strange trait in common--they've all recently broken up with their significant others (2 fiances and a boyfriend). What the heck kinda vibe am I giving off?

Age of Greed

I don't mind if you want to stuff yourself so full of food that you breathe hard simply by breathing, that no matter how extra large the shirt it doesn't hide your white ass cracker belly that hangs out like a burst bratwurst. Look, there are only a few things that brighten the day, and if food does that for you, by all means, enjoy what you can and stuff your life to the fullest. I myself have a weakness for chili cheese fries.

But you know, when your enjoyment begins to affect others, c'mon. Like if your stomach is so large that it comes dangerously close to touching the office urinals even when you stand a foot back so that your after drops miss the porcelain by a good six inches, and that a normal guy has to spread his legs to avoid the puddle from your shakes when he uses said urinals, that's friggin' ridiculous.

I'm not saying Morally Flexible Partner is guilty of making the office men's room smell like a frat party's john on hazing night. I'm just saying that since he started, we need sawdust in the office men's room.

Risingson

Sometimes I wonder where this dark streak comes from, that part of me that wants to run into the night and never come back, that part of me that wants to cut the rope and just fall.

I wasn't always like this. As a child, I used to run up strangers and tell them it was my birthday, and get a nickel for my smile. In high school, I was known as Marty Sunshine. Even now, there are people whose first impression of me is "the Nice Guy" instead of "the Psycho."

As much as I look back at my childhood and the mindgames that served as my upbringing, I can't put full blame on my parents. The rational part of me knows that there are many people who were abused much worse than I and are well-adjusted members of society.

So this darkness must come from within me, that it is part of my nature. I take the medication, I take comfort in the presence of my friends, and yet there's that urge. Not for death--the instinct for self-preservation is still strong. I take my blood pressure pills every morning, I eat, I sleep, I look both ways when I cross the street. What I mean is the urge just to let everything go, for entropy.

I have good days, brief moments of clarity when I realize that bad times are only transitory moments in a life that is long and warm. But that pull is always there, that urge. And maybe that's why every small setback snaps me back. I already have the weight of that darkness, that intertia constantly pulling me down.

And I worry that, at some point, the medication won't be enough, that my friends will finally have had it. I have seen that happen to other people, not that those other people don't deserve it--bitter people who drag everyone down with them. So I try to stay afloat, but I get tired.

And I worry that, at some point, I just won't give a shit anymore.

Cellar Door

OK, so I understand how people have recurring dreams about being back in school, or being naked in public, or having sex while being naked in school. There are strong emotions associated with each, everday tensions and feelings bubbling up in the subconscious. But what the hell does being an member of a live studio audience for a sitcom mean? Two nights in a row but in very different dreams (one relaxed, one disturbing) but both containing me being a member of a live studio audience for a sitcom--including the boring parts such as waiting for the taping to start. What the hell is bubbling up in my subconscious?

Yeah, I Want To Travel South This Year

So I've had this recurring daydream going through my head in some form or another. One day, after a heavy sigh and hopeless heart, I just pack up with my cat and move out to the desert--someplace like the Salton Sea or Kingman, Arizona. No warning, no sign, just dust floating through time left of my old life.

And I get some trailer out in the middle of the desert with nothing but the sun and cracked ground around me. I spend my years grinding away my days working at a Walmart, drinking cheap beer at night to make me forget. I get old and leathery, my face becomes a cracked walnut in the dry air and heat. If the slow alkaline poisoning from the land doesn't get me, the liver damage will. I wonder how different this is from my life now.

But the problem is I'm such a pop culture junkie that I'd tear my way back down the 5 to get to the nearest Borders or Tower Records after two hours fucking about in the desert. I guess being a dispossessed desert rat isn't my path.

Betty Blue

"I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains."
- Rob Gordon in "High Fidelity" (film version)

So yeah, when I fall, I tend to fall fast and I tend to fall hard. I've been through it enough that I should be able to identify the warning signs and prep myself. You know, like how some epileptics get a funny feeling--a word that's one the tip of the tongue waiting to break free, a lightheaded dizzy giddiness--right before a seizure so they can sit down or get away from sharp objects. I guess I'm a luuuuuuuv epileptic. (And for those of you too literal, or maybe my analogies are too forced, no, I don't have epilepsy though I do tend to fall flat on my face in my love life without any warning.) Except I haven't been smart enough to recognize the funny feeling and sit down.

I've looked at my past entries recently. What have I learned? That except for Her, I can honestly say that what I've felt was just an short-term influx of chemicals--dopamine and oxytocin mostly--making my heart go a flutter and my mind go completely and utterly bugfuck. Seizure baby seizure.

And so now, I'm trying to figure out what I'm feeling and sit down. My friends are saying to let these feelings pass, because if I do follow them, there is no happy ending. Why? This one dropped her career and followed her boyfriend across the ocean six months ago, only to have the relationship break up in November. I only got out of a relationship in December. Two rebounders? That's some bad chowder, Harry.

Before you get the wrong idea, I haven't fallen yet. That's the point, I'm trying not to. Feel free to drop a "Run! Run for the hills!" comment.

"Don't think about all those things you feel,
Just be glad to be here . . ."
-FC/Kahuna

Pull Me Out Of The Aircrash

Back when I had the malignant hypertension, I couldn't unwind. I'd lay in bed, trying to sleep, but my mind and my heart were pulling a techno beat. I was so tense that I'd wake up with pulled calves and sucking my breath in pain. I chalked all this up to work stress instead of blood pressure so high that the emergency room put me on drip within five minutes, just seconds before a gunshot victim.

Well, two weeks into work, and that inability to unwind is creeping back. The blood pressure isn't back up to 250/180, but it is higher than it's supposed to be.

Tuesday is the attorney lunch day at GatewayGig. We sit around eating a catered lunch and discuss what we're working on--a way for the firm to figure out who's busy and who's not. It's kinda weird being a contract attorney and attending those meetings, because technically I'm a temp. I'm not supposed to be busy as hell on a regular basis given that I'm being paid on an hourly basis. Yet I feel somewhat guilty when it's my turn to give an update on my work and it's on one or two projects, while everyone else spends five to ten minutes going over what they're doing.

Anyway, so there I was today, eating a chicken that was way too salty, and half-paying attention to what the other attorneys were saying. Then the dread hit me bigtime. Listening to words like "demurrer" and "discovery" and "summary judgment," I was bored. Then I realized that I couldn't imagine hearing these words 520, 1040 more times while eating salty chicken in a white sterile room overlooking suburbs. This was just another version of pulling out staples for eight hours a day (a summer job I had in high school)--rote repetitive mind-numbing tasks with no meaning with no end in sight. I began craving shots of Jack Daniels. I still crave shots of JD.

It doesn't matter that I happened to be dead right on a point of law and the partner who slammed my analysis at lunch was dead wrong. It doesn't matter that Morally Flexible Parther who blew off one of my tactical suggestions in the morning came around to my thinking in the afternoon. I just don't take pleasure in being right anymore.

And now I'm home, still keyed up, still hypertense.

"Pull Me Out Of The Aircrash
Pull me Out Of The Lake"
-"Lucky" by Radiohead

Old Moon Fades Into The New

So I'll save the hopelessness for another day. Instead, even though I hate this holiday, I give you the lyrics that best sum up that feeling we're supposed to be celebrating today.

When I'm weak, I draw strength from you
And when you're lost, I know how to change your mood
And when I'm down, you breathe life over me
Even though we're miles apart, we are each other's destiny.
-"Destiny" by Zero 7

Love love is a verb
Love is a doing word
-"Teardrop" by Massive Attack

You don’t have a clue,
What it is like
To be next to you.

I’m here to tell you,
That it is good,
That it is true.

Birds singing a song,
Old pain is peeling,
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling.
Words can’t be that strong,
My heart is real,
This is that fresh,
That fresh feeling.
-"Fresh Feeling" by The Eels

Oh you've got green eyes
Oh you've got blue eyes
Oh you've got grey eyes
No I've never seen anyone quite like you before
No I've never met anyone quite like you before
-"Temptation" by New Order

"I am waiting for the stars to change"
-"Cherry" by Curve