So, as we wind down to the final days of Organized Chaos, I feel the need to reflect not on my many years of blogging (that will come later) but on the fact that those who once and still read this thing seem to love them some lists! In fact, I think it’s safe to assume that it was my lists that kept up interest even as it started to wane. I do seem to have a talent for creating them and rarely repeating myself.

So, here’s one literally off the top of my head. It’s about things that are really ******* me off at the moment, things I’m tired of.

I am TIRED of:

- Working for a place that penalizes me for having to take a shit!

- People who don’t turn their fucking TV’s down or off when they’re on the phone conducting business!

- Insincere fucks who pretend to be concerned for your well being then find ways to fuck you in the ear whenever possible!

- My mortgage company that calls to find out when my payment will be made, notates that date, then calls back again and again asking the same fucking question!

- The pop music scene and its sad over-reliance on manufactured controversy to remain relevant!

- Whiney Christians complaining about retailers not mentioning Christmas in their advertising when 95% of them mention nothing but!

- Being told I’m lucky to have a job as if the companies aren’t lucky to have employees helping them turn a profit in shitty financial times!

- People that are pissed off just to be pissed off because they are too passive in their everyday lives to take out their ire on the real causes of it!

- Everybody except me being rewarded for mediocrity in an environment where it is expected!

- Not having a sizable print run of my novel!

- Having to navigate around three dogs in my house, including one destructive puppy that (former) EFB cannot see as doing any wrong!

- Being surrounded by luscious asses and not being able to do shit about it!

- Terrible writers getting great publishing deals and being hailed by mindless simpletons whose taste is all in their mouths!

- People that won’t shut the flame up long enough to realize you’ve already anticipated their question, answered it and resolved whatever they’re complaining about!

- The phrase “My baby daddy” and the many variations thereof!

- Meetings, each more pointless and absurd than the last, existing merely to validate jobs and enforce inane policies!

I have thought long and hard about this and have finally reached a decision: Organized Chaos as it currently exists will be coming to an end on December 31, 2009.

For the few stragglers still reading this blog, you should already know that this year has been a struggle for me in all ways possible. Despite the fact that I had a novel “come out” this year, the ever-widening hole at the center of me has continued to grow. Everything is crashing down around me and I am finding it increasingly difficult to care.

As a consequence, updating this stupid fucking blog has become more of a chore than a joy. I find that I often have nothing to say and that when I do it is too hard to get people to listen these days. If it doesn’t come in the form of a one or two sentence snippet on Facebook, it is apparently considered too much work. Well, it has become even more work to write these posts anymore.

I have a lot of decisions awaiting me this December. Most of them I’ll not share with anyone not even the closest people to me. I don’t need input or help or words of wisdom. This is an informational post, no more, no less.

I enjoyed blogging while it lasted. Often times it helped me feel alive. I now realize that feeling was little more than a brief distraction from the harsh and cure realities of life. And like anything with a finite appeal, it no longer provides anything resembling what it once did.

I have started seeing a therapist, even though I know it’s too late for it to make a difference. I told her the same thing I’ll tell you: I am very good at hiding what goes on beneath the surface. You might see me laughing, cracking the occasional rare smile or even seeming to have a great time. It is an act. It always was but more now than ever. Is it any wonder why I see this whole thing as an exercise in futility?

I had several posts in mind to update those of you who still read this blog about my state of mind but I’ve come wonder at the wisdom of posting my innermost shit on a blog where people who now have access to a certain someone can link what I write at will. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I don’t trust anybody anymore. Still, my sense of loyalty to my vulturific readership demands that I at least provide a general overview of sorts.

Here are the highlights: Legal troubles early in the year where I almost wound up going to jail for ten days because some posturing, asshole judge didn’t want to give me 24 hours to pay a fine. A book that is out but has yet to see an actual, respectable print run. Horrible issues at work that have been so stressful and overwhelming I wound up seeing a shrink. Pressures from nearly all sides to accept my lot in life and pressure from a smaller contingent urging me not to do that. Constant reminders of my constant failures and lack of self-worth. And to top it all off, pictures posted online of the only person who ever made me feel like I mattered…on her wedding day!

I used to share my pain with you. I saw the blog as a form of catharsis. That was before everything just went to far. There is no cathartic release anymore. Everything that needed to be released is right here next to me all the time. The only left now is the decision I make about what happens next.

Aside from works of fiction, I have nothing left to say~

DUDE'S STORY: THE NEW ERA

Dude truly is an amazing creature. His actions have a resonance that survives all possible barriers including distance and denial. I really thought that once the Aussie left the U.S. the whole thing was over.

Like you, I went through update withdrawals. Who didn’t thrill to the stunningly moronic adventures of the man who believed everything a woman on the Internet told him? Who didn’t want to know what would happen next once they knew she looked nothing like she represented and was evil incarnate? Was it not the icing on the cake when we found out she’d turned his family against him in less than two months? What could possibly trump that little tidbit?

Shut up and I’ll tell ya.

When the Aussie left for home, Dude had visions of a hottie in Canada dancing around in his mostly empty head. During the Aussie’s stay here, he and the hottie exchanged text messages about how deceitful the former was and how the hottie was just becoming interested in him before he brought the evil to his home. Determined to meet up with this much more attractive mammal, Dude did everything he could to make the Aussie’s stay miserable. Soon as she was gone, the hottie suddenly decided she was going through a lot of things and wasn’t ready for any type of relationship. Typical. But what happened next was not.

Dude made the egregious error of writing that he was “missing someone” on his Facebook status update. The Aussie saw it because, for some reason, he never removed her from his friends list. She wrote something like, “Awww, miss you too, mate,” or words to that effect. The hottie in Canada saw this and lit into her.

She basically wrote that Dude was not talking about her, not the Aussie, and that the recently departed moose-like creature misrepresented herself before they met. As if that weren’t enough, as the argument proceeded, the hottie asked her the following incendiary question: “Did you know that what you stepped off the airplane and Dude saw you, he was texting me saying, ‘Oh, God no?’”

Excuse me a moment…Bwaaa haaa haaa haaa haaaaaa aahhhhaaa haaaa!!!

Ok, I’m back. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing she went into greater detail than that judging by her reaction and subsequent actions. Apparently, Hell hath no fury like a marsupial scorned. One can understand her ire. She did help him out financially while she was here and played the domestic role rather well. To find out he was already in contact with another woman while she was arriving would naturally anger anyone but to also find out he was referring to her as repugnant and biding his time until he could hook up with someone else must surely have been the last straw.

So the Aussie’s coming after his ass. I have no idea how realistic her claims are, but she is planning to file a lawsuit for defamation of character and have him arrested by the Michigan State Police for conning her out of her money. How she plans to prove any of this is the greatest mystery of all but it could cause a major headache for Dude at a terrible time.

Dude is losing his house. His pointless attempts to become a real estate agent in a historically awful housing market have caused financial ruin. In addition, losing his wife who worked two jobs and the Aussie situation going bust has left him without options. It is too late to get a roommate now and his family will not offer any more assistance. Now he’s afraid he’s going to be arrested!

If I wrote this as a novel, people would find it preposterous. It would be the worst sort of Joe Esterhaus type story filled with plot contrivances and convenient developments. Yet life often provides exactly that and this time it has come in the form of one nasty-lookin’ chick from Down Under. Maybe that’s why I’m having trouble writing lately because something much more interesting is happening for real!

I’ll keep you posted~

THE "EFB" QUESTION

For the past year or more, the vultures have been asking me why EFB is now (former) EFB. And for that time I have avoided answering the question, mainly because I wasn’t sure I knew. After all, she’s still the same person, for the most part. So what has changed?

She’s still a conservative, although she voted for Obama in the most recent election. Apparently, Catholic conservatives don’t feel comfortable with right-wing wing nuts like Sara Palin in the White House. Or maybe it was just her, considering her brother had no problem with the former Alaskan governor turned undeserved successful author.

She still has questionable views on race, especially as it pertains to the American condition and the causes for the issues we face on this side of the world. (Yes, lccb I’m including Central & South America).

She certainly hasn’t stopped believing in the “superiority” of white physical attractiveness. She still get into creaming, swearing, psychotic arguments with her mom both in person and over the phone which often culminate in her screeching, “evil old fucking bitch!” But most of you who have been reading me for years know her mom is an evil, insane old racist filled with more hate than the legal limit allows.

And if you know that, you probably also know that her siblings are a collective hive mind of intolerant, judgmental, superior minded assholes. So, what’s changed? What makes a peon like that no longer a total EFB? Well, it starts with me and my own hypocrisy.

As a left-leaning individual, I often cite environment as a determining factor in one’s behavior and actions. Having met she and her family that argument has grown in intensity; conservatives tend to judge based on moments without context and they are no exception. Well, she is an exception now.

Perhaps it has come from knowing me for so long or listening to what I had to say. Perhaps she’s literally never heard anyone present an intelligent argument to the contrary of what her sainted Libertarian brother said about all things political and social. Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s the case.

Maybe being with a person of mixed race has provided her with an outlook and perspective he never could have achieved with what I like to call a mono-toned person. That is mot likely the case as recent development have shown. (More on those in a later post)

Basically, I realized that in order for me to make my argument about environment, I had to acknowledge that she too is a product of hers. To do anything else would make me a hypocrite, like her family members that deal with their screed up kids then criticize “urban youth.”

So, I took a long hard look at my inner Scribe. Then I looked at her background. Then I watched how she related to her family members as oppose to when I first met her. Then I watched some “South Park” reruns and laughed hysterically and went to bed at which point I forgot about my little experiment for about three years. Or maybe it was three weeks, whatever. I got back to it eventually so who are you to criticize?

I used that objective journalistic training I never received and wound up seeing some disturbingly shocking truths; most notably that EFB was indeed a product of her environment. Without making excuses (and really, why would I?) I considered the type of family from which she’d come. A mom whose every moment is ruled by agenda and emotion, siblings who are of a hive mentality while still insisting they are individuals with their own minds, angered whenever she strays from the mold. In particular, she has two oppressive, incredibly sexist brothers who refute anything they don’t like hearing or that makes the white race look negative. I mentioned the brothers because her sisters seem to see thinking as a man’s game, especially the two married ones. The single, eldest sister has some ideas but spends most of her time garnering sympathy from their mother and turning her against EFB.

Add to this a father that would inflict physical punishment for such horrible transgressions as elbows on the dinner table and you gain a pretty clear insight into just how fucked up she should be.

However, EFB is nothing if not strong-willed. Somehow she has continued to carve out her own identity or at least as much as she can in light of the dictatorship he grew up under. Having finally stopped resisting listening to other forms of thought, namely that which occurs above the brain stem, she has become far more well rounded than those to whom she is related.

I call her former EFB because I no longer believe the “E” is accurate anymore than I would call the angry criminal evil because he succumbed to the often insurmountable bullshit in his environment. It’s easy to judge others when our own lives were far stabler. Yes, my parents also divorced when I was in single digits. Yes, my dad was about a useful in life as a third testicle. But my support system was strong and open-minded and I was never made to feel like a failure because I disagreed with someone or chose a different path. My mother never called me such lovely things as (list a many as possible) when I disappointed her in the name of tough love, which is obviously thinly disguised resentment.

It’s easy to judge someone who, on the surface, had ever advantage in modern American life. But then I look at her nieces and nephews who have even more and realize that doesn’t mean shit.

So, it was fun using the acronym but I can’t in good conscience continue to do so. That’s why she’s (former) EFB~

REPLIES TO DEATH POST COMMENTS:

Instead of replying in the comments section of my previous post, I thought I’d write an actual response to all you splendiferous mothafukas that took the time to write such impassioned comments. Y’all is some truly delightful sum bitches.

Okay, enough gooey praise.

I’ll respond to Green first, as he has been my most ardent commenter and loyal reader, especially over the past year as Facebook has taken my Blogger family away from me one by one:

I’m not afraid of death either, I’m afraid of a wasted life. I don’t scoff at your belief in a bright and sunny reward in the after-life, I simply don’t share it. I have my own beliefs about what happens once we’re no longer in our bodies and it isn’t based on a reward system of faith and devout observation. I disagree strongly with the idea that what happens after we die doesn’t matter if there’s nothing after. In fact, I think that’s insane. AG is absolutely right when he writes that it matters even more what we do if we don’t have the luxury of faith in a pleasant reward. In that scenario, we only have one time to get “it” right and whatever we do would have lasting implications on future generations. I suppose if you have no conscience, that doesn’t matter but most of us do. And yes, perhaps I do seek “inner peace,” but easy answers and fairytales don’t provide them.

AG: Yeah, funerals are for the living in most cases, unless you’re former EFB’s egomaniacal Dad. His funeral was very much for himself. I guess if it helps those I leave behind to mourn me in a building with music and flowers and endless religious platitudes so be it, but like you I don’t really care what happens next. I do care about how my body is disposed of, however. I choose cremation, which many Christians frown upon because they believe the body must be intact for when Christ rides down on Pegasus and reanimates corpses and, hopefully, brings lots of Lysol. I guess God can’t reanimate ashes; there they go again, putting the all-powerful God in a box.

Madge: You are absotively correct. My gripe is with my life itself. I do feel that I came close to having lived but I backed away and wound up in some sort of cocoon. Whether or not I have touched anyone deeply, I suppose I have had a definite impact on lives. I know I’ve touched people on Blogger that’s why you guys are special to me and why I tagged you in the Facebook note. The rest of those fair-weather fuckheads will come and go like the fad-chasers they are. You guys are my core and I love every single one of you for it, even those of you who read but no longer comment. Being over 35 doesn’t matter to me, it’s just that I never thought I’d live as long as I have. As far as life being a gift, I would like my gift receipt!

My dearest Autumn: as usual, you hit the donkey on the nail with the head and tail thingee! It is the story that matters. As a writer, I find it to be true for me even more than it is for others. It’s not the peaceful death of the well-lived life that effects me, it’s the tragic ending of the guy everybody loved who died trying to mend fences with a stubborn, arrogant family. It’s the idea of me having made no significant impact on the world being snuffed out like a Roman candle. These are the tales that send me into such deep thoughts of despair. But I am touched that I have served as an inspiration to you. I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before. I’m also glad to read that some of you find my sense of humor helpful in hard times. If nothing else, I strive for that. Making people think outside their comfort zones (Green is exempt from this ‘cause he’s all righteous with Gawd) is what I’ve considered to be my mission in life. It’s gratifying to know I’ve accomplished this on a relatively sizable scale. Trust me, not having to support anyone does not fill me with sadness LOL

Oh, and thanks for the womb offer. We’ll chat later. Love you, too.

Blanche: I almost posted this without your comment because it came through after I’d written this. I actually attended both the wake and the funeral. Catholics are huge into displaying dead bodies and talking around them so there he was all exposed for everyone to see. And like you said, it has stuck with me for days now. The tragedy of a guy I think I might have liked who seemed to be loved by so many is a powerful concept. I may well die a successful man, but the “good” part is debatable. I am so intensely flawed. And I am writing another book and have the sequel to the one that’s for sale coming out in the next few months, so there!

THOUGHTS ON DEATH & DYING

I’ve had death on my mind quite a bit lately.

That’s a lie. I’ve always had death on my mind. Since I was an adolescent, I’ve always believed my life would be a short one. When both of my parents died relatively young (Dad at 47 from lung cancer, Mom at 54 from type I Diabetes) that feeling became even more prevalent.

Ironically, I never thought I’d make it past thirty-five. Now that I have, I think I’m living on borrowed time, each year a surprise. It’s okay, though. Some people aren’t cut out for this world and don’t do very well in it if they have to stick around past their welcome. But what will I leave behind when I’m gone?

A few swollen eyes? Some genuine sadness? What else? A few books bearing my name that may or may not become considered worthy of mention as the years wear on? Maybe that’s all I can hope for anyway.

I have no children to carry on my name and DNA. I may never have any. There are no foundations bearing my name and I’m not a well-known celebrity. I don’t believe in anything so people of faith won’t look at me as someone of deep, abiding belief that has gone on to a just reward. My family is small and getting smaller all the time and I have no siblings to recall funny stories about me when I was a kid. I have lived a life unseen and unnoticed and when I am gone I doubt there will be very many stories worth telling at my funeral.

That beings me to the funeral itself. What kind would I want? Truthfully, I would prefer not to have one at all. I’ve never considered them to be useful for the living and my ego isn’t over-developed enough to ensure that people cry when I’m gone. I don’t want people looking on in amazement because it looks nothing like me. It isn’t me. It is a suit I wore until whatever was inside could no longer remain there. I don’t want a holy man speaking about me because that would just be hypocritical.

But I can’t help wondering what people would say about me. Would they say I was funny or generous or talented or smart? Would people have a difficult time standing in front of an I’m sure small group of people and lying about what a wonderful person I was? I don’t know. Unlike former EFB’s dad, I’m not megalomaniacal enough to script my own funeral so that a horrible person cannot help but be mourned.

I don’t have much to leave behind, at least not at this point. Without children, I don’t have to worry about the futures of my progeny and that simplifies matters quite a bit. So, the only persons I need to worry about after I’m dead are those that mattered to me while I was alive. That brings me to my will.

I can’t help but smirk a bit as I write this because, honestly, what the hell do I have to leave anybody? My book and music collections? The comic books of my youth and more recent years? A car nobody could possibly want except for the scrap metal and spare parts opportunities? Oh, I know. My unfinished work! There’s a collector’s item. I can assure you there is no family member worthy of leaving my half of the house to. It’s going to be a very succinct will.

I suppose the same could be said of my life thus far. I won’t be presumptuous enough to make the blanket statement that I have had little to no effect on the lives of others. During my father’s funeral, a man whose life was less than exemplary and whose inability to form lasting relationships was legendary, so many people showed up that the priest apologized for not having enough room to accommodate them all.

We have no idea how many lives we touch and change while we’re here and we probably never will. Those of us that think nobody noticed them or took something they did to heart are deluded fools. So yes, there probably will be a few more people at my funeral than I think, assuming there is a funeral at all.

What’s causing such maudlin thoughts to run through my head and spill over onto this screen? I attended a funeral the other day of a man who died of cancer at the age of 49.

I never met him because he is related to former EFB’s mother and there has been a long-standing three-decade feud between she and her siblings. But from what I’ve heard, he would have been the one person in her entire family I genuinely liked. So, naturally he died before I got the chance.

Ironically, he was the one that tried for years to bring his family back together, facing constant ridicule and hostility for the effort. How ironic that his dying wish was to have them come see him one last time. Watching him breathe on his own when he shouldn’t have been able to and hearing his death rattle, lungs filled with fluid, I could tell he was a man with a strong life-force and love for life in general.

I am neither.

I hate life and I don’t much care for people and if I suddenly found out I was dying I would not have the strength to keep doing the things I did and to refuse oxygen when my time came. I would be angry about the suffering and bitter about my wasted time on Earth and would want nothing to do with anyone in my final days.

There would be no celebration of a life lived for Scribe. No packed church with weeping children and an entire town mourning my passing. Call me a fatalist if you must, but I am only being realistic. As we left the service and headed for the eating area, former EFB’s brother turned to me and said, “He’s got some really big shoes, doesn’t he?” Still choked up by the service, I nodded and looked away. If this was coming from a guy whose life could put him in those shoes, what the hell chance do I have of filling them?

Maybe that’s what my eulogy should say: “He did what he could when he thought about it, but most times he just existed.”

What else is there to say?

SOME RANDOM SCRIBE SHIT BEFORE THE NEXT BIG POST:

DUDE: Hiatus is over. After all that Dude falderal, I needed to take a blogging break. Besides, like some of you, I was a bit let down by no longer having old Dude to kick around anymore.

Still, that wasn’t the end of the story. There are snippets of further developments from the past couple weeks since she went home. For one thing, that fucking idiot actually misses her. Damn!And I thought I had a co-dependency issue! He actually MISSES the evil, manipulative genius that plotted against him and turned his family into enemies within less than a two-month period.

Dude is quite the study in social backwardness. Nobody likes him, he doesn’t seem to like anybody, yet he can’t stand to be alone for longer than a short time. He wants so badly to be with someone that he is capable of lamenting the loss of a horrible mistake. So much for all that “happy dance” shit.

As you may recall, there is a Canadian woman who expressed interest in his Dudeness while the evil Aussie was here. Somehow, magically, her interest has waned since he became available again. Apparently, she told him that, had he been stronger in dealing with the Aussie, she might not have started to “lose that lovin’ feeling.” First, does that sound like a reference a young chick would make? Second, even Dude wasn’t so obtuse as to not realize she might only be interested in the hunt.

However, he decided to put an update on his Facebook page saying how much he missed “someone.” The Aussie who is apparently still his Facebook Friend wrote back one of those, “Aww, miss you too,” etc replies. The Canuck wrote, “No, he’s talking about me. And you don’t look anything like your profile pic.”
(This one has promise)

ME: I wrote about this a while back but because nothing seems to be changing, I am writing it again. This has been one of the worst years of my life. My next post will provide more details. I can’t believe the same year my book is released is the year I rank as possibly number two in a long list of bad years. You’d think this would have been an automatic great one but alas, no.

Thus my Big Publication Moment has been a mixed blessing, a tiny pinpoint of light in a veil of darkness and, in many cases, the only thing keeping me going. Well, that and the positive reviews I’ve received both professionally and personally.

When I post how my year has gone this year, you will see what I mean.

NEWS STUFF: My former hero David Letterman is a cockhound. Why is he my former hero? Not because of his recently revealed lewd workplace conduct. In the Eighties, Dave was my TV god, the anti-Carson whose show was a study in pure anarchy. Enjoyment of his show got me through some pretty bad times as it always gave me something to look forward to. When he was fucked over in favor of Lantern Jaw Leno, I was the loudest protestor in underwear shaking a grilled cheese sammitch of rage at the TV. And in the beginning, when Dave went to CBS, he was still great. But somewhere along the way he fell from grace and began boring me to tears. He was still better than Leno, but so is an unwiped homeless man's ass.

If I'd known about his sexual proclivities, my opinion might have changed even sooner. How dare he sleep with women who work him...and not brag about it? What kinda pimp daddy does that? Fuck you, Dave! You bastard! I thought you were cool. You ain't bad! You ain't nothin'!

Well, that's the only newsstory worthy of me. When next I post, I'll tell y'allz about my run-in with John Law...(That's the legal system for those of us born after 1947)