Immersion Therapy

The Tell-Tale Heart scared me the first time I read it.

If I had not been able to emerge from the theater into the bright afternoon sun, I might have bee in trouble after first watching The Exorcist. Even so, it took a little while to calm down; my heart was beating fast.

Immersion therapy is a psychological technique used to help patients overcome fears, such as phobias. If one suffers from acrophobia (fear of heights), a therapist might gradually take the patient to ever greater heights, over a long period of time, acclimating them to the conditions around them and getting them to more accurately perceive the degree or level of danger they are in within a particular circumstance. In some cases, such a therapy might even allow a former acrophobic to work on constructing giant skyscrapers, or skydive, etc. For this person, the fear they may once have had about walking up a flight of stairs now seems silly and childish.

All of us have been in a kind of accidental immersion therapy for our whole lives; a relative few have become aware of this fact. Some of us have become aware of the real threats and dangers; that there is no realistic escape from them other than death, and so, trivial things like ghost stories are, at most, a momentary amusement compared to the real genocide in the abattoir that is our world. Most of us are shielded, most of the time, from the atrocities; sometimes physically, usually psychologically. Ignorance, quite often, is truly bliss.

Most have no realization that the only reason the protagonist in The Tell-Tale Heart - and most readers - experience guilt and fear, is because that is “the norm”, but those who experience no such things; are not hampered by such internal restrictions, will ALWAYS be the richest and the most powerful, the ruling elite. No matter what era or geography, this will always be true as long as humans are humans in the current sense. It is the height and epitome of foolishness to think that such a fundamental fact of human existence can be changed by “education” or “culture”. If you sit down to play a game of chess and you are restricted to the actual rules of the game but your opponent can ignore, change and make up any rules he likes...do you seriously have to be a mental giant to understand what your chances of winning the game are?

TRB

Escaping with salty tea

Sometimes it feels like I am a vessel, poured full of pain and sorrow, up to the overflow points, the eyes, and then, the liquid hurt just spills over and runs.... I’m tired.

The landlady’s grandson showed up with a tractor and bushhog to cut the grass here...some of it was well over my head. She had asked when she collected the rent earlier, what I planned to do about all that grass. I told her I had no idea. Then we got a wild hare (the one that sometimes runs through the backyard naked singing Janis Joplin tunes) on Mother’s Day and decided to go splurge at Waffle House. The car’s starter died.

My starter, still somewhat functional (dammitall) was wondering what would happen next. A nice young guy pounded on the starter for a while, as I kept trying to start the car and it finally worked...suddenly the engine was running and I realized I could let go of the key. We got ussuns and the car back home. Wasn’t about to risk getting stranded again even if it started again (it cooperates sometimes, and didn’t ever start again), so all the doc appointments were canceled. Still got 15 days till any money shows up. A friend sent another friend with a care package of half a carton of cigs (sans alcohol).

Slept as much as possible, then wakefulness bitch-slapped me and I was forced into the day. Drank the thermos of coffee. The fan in here died and it’s so damn quite I nearly hear the cosmic microwave background radiation over the air conditioner and my own wheezing. I crave Thorazine. I don’t think I would give a shit if I had enough of that. It’s the grind...(special house blend) I’m just about ground down. Things that should be, at most, only temporary and minor inconveniences get to be too much. We got about six big-ass garbage bags of garbage collected in the kitchen. No one comes to pick up garbage here, you carry your own down to the dumpster. If you can’t carry it... like if you can’t wipe your ass you sit in it. Funk startin’ to stank up in heah. Like a few grains of road salt dragged across bare nerve endings. Escape. I escape as much as I can.

Still watch Netflix a lot. Today went with concerts...not just little snippets and one song videos, whole concerts. On Youtube. Note...if you’re gonna watch an Elvis concert and a Bee Gees, do the Bee Gees first...those chipmonk voices are a little shattering after an hour of Elvis. Had some John Mayall, some Carpenters, Joe Cocker, and just to round up any stray neurons not quite melted yet, poured on a little Buckethead and That1Guy. Damn fly sitting over the “File” button on the tool bar.

Can’t believe I got through all those years of quiet before I had noisemakers...course I didn’t wheeze as much then. I wish, instead of just going immediately black when I kick, I could do a cool fade out, traveling outward to a God’s eye view of the planet first. Meh. Elvis tossed out scarves at his concert. Buckethead is handing out stuff from a garbage bag...what the hell is that? Should I want one? Anybody know something that can put you out fer a couple weeks? Little Joe Cartwright never had these problems...’course he was rich. See if I can be on Facebook for a couple hours without getting too fluximated. Tears make the tea taste weird.

TRB

Anything's Possible?

Why do people say that? Maybe, for some, it’s just a throw-away phrase, something that seems agreeable and supportive to say to fill in an otherwise blank conversational space. I wonder if there are people who actually give it serious thought and actually believe that anything really is possible? Maybe. Some people are just unconnected to reality. How many people have been injured or killed jumping off high places because they genuinely thought they could fly...maybe, if only they believed it hard enough? Besides the ones under the influence of drugs, I mean.

Imagine: You’re standing on the ground beside a twenty-story building. Is it possible for you to jump hard enough to land on the rood of that building? The question is not whether it’s possible to get to the roof. Not whether it’s possible to devise or use some sort of device like giant springs, or maybe a jet pack, to get you there. The question is whether it is possible for you to stand on the ground and jump hard enough, using only the power of your body, to get to the roof. What about people who would say that’s very unlikely...leaving some shred of doubt, however small it may be, that you could make that jump?

There are many things that are flatly impossible. Not things whose possibility is remote...things that are impossible. There are people who will argue that there is nothing that is really impossible. Why? There are people who genuinely, and with all seriousness, do not believe that the earth is round, rather than flat. Why? Does the sincerity of their belief give the belief any more credibility...any more chance that they might be right? How would YOU refer to such a person? Just mistaken? Deluded? I don’t know what label, if any, the mental health professionals might attach to such a person. I do know, no matter whether they have any sort of official label or not, if they believe things like that they are not perceiving or interpreting reality as it is. Don’t you?

It’s much harder to say that “impossible" would apply to human behaviors that would not violate the laws of physics. Is it impossible that I could marry Valerie Bertinelli and we could live on the moon? No. There is no violation of the laws of physics in that. The likelihood or probability of that happening is vanishingly remote...but not impossible. If there were sufficient motivation for enough people for this to happen, it could be made to happen. Motivation is not relevant to the jumping to the roof.

TRB

Rat

Thursday evening:

I was lying on the couch watching some show on Netflix. I saw him by the time he got almost even with my head...I was startled and almost said something. Then I noticed he wasn’t moving very fast. I see him/them almost every evening scurrying along the baseboard, or making the mad dash to or from the old console TV set and behind this couch. Sometimes I watch while one runs by Tucker’s food bowl, hides behind it for a few seconds then jumps in and grabs some food and hauls ass with the loot.

But this one wasn’t really scurrying...or trying to hide. He was also smaller than what I’m used to. A lot of thoughts...should I shoo him away? Should I grab something and smack him? Should I try to trap him with something? I watched as he took tiny little spurts of running and eventually made it to the base of the little bookcase next to me. Stopped...sniffed. Whirled around for no apparent reason (is he related to me...I do stuff for no apparent reason).

I’m wondering if he is a rat or a mouse...I don’t really care but it nags at a corner of my brain. Maybe he’s a baby, too little to be on his own. Maybe something is wrong with him (rabies!). Maybe he got into some old poison somewhere back there. I picked up one of the novelty back scratchers Melinda got from the Wild Animal Park and poked him. I decided a rodent living in my house is a rat...period. (Stop niggling me already.)

He doesn’t run away when he’s poked. Whirls around again. What to do? Tucker hasn’t noticed...what if he ate him? The wind from the fan moves a wrapper from a pack of crackers out from under the couch. I push the wrapper over toward the rat. Doesn’t move. Tucker’s up from his nap...maybe he won’t notice.

Friday evening:

The fan died. Just simply stopped...like I suppose we all will. Not really surprising since it was very seldom turned off since it came here. Been running almost continually for over a year I guess. I like some white noise and also REALLY need some moving air. Doesn’t matter if it’s fifty degrees in here, I still sweat unless there’s moving air. Crap. I check to see if rat has gone...I thought he might have a few more of the little spurts of running left in him. Guess not. He’s still there, curled up in the little pile of Tucker hair and dust and dirt collected by the base of the bookcase.

Melinda gets out the tiny little fan we got for some reason. It works but it’s...tiny; a 12-incher. Yeah, the party in my head is laughing at “a tiny 12-incher”... I blame Facebook. It’s ok at night, when it’s pretty cool anyway. But quiet...almost TOO quiet. I hear wheezing...is that me? Turn up the volume on Netflix...working our way through all of Law & Order: SVU and Criminal Intent...already up to Jeff Goldblum. What? How did he get in a story about a rat? Oh...poke the rat with the back scratcher...he doesn’t move. Tucker isn’t wise to it. I cover him with the cracker wrapper...his shroud. How many rats get a shroud?

Saturday afternoon:

Thought the landlady might come by for the rent...she usually goes to the house next door and sometimes comes over here on Saturday morning. She never showed, so after the pills and shot we went to sleep. Didn’t sleep long...damn, it’s only noon. Haven’t heard from my friend Jordan in what...two days? He’s having a VERY rough time since his mom died on Sunday. I go check the Facebook peeps and get a few smiles. I check the email and still nothing from Jordan.

The rat is stiff as a board...he’s in full rigor. Odd how that sounds like “vigor” which...well. I’m about to collect rat and dispose of his remains...rats have remains too, right? I thought I heard someone say something. Glance out the kitchen window...crap! Landlady has shown up in afternoon!? Melinda and Tucker are still in bed...no, it aint like that. I had the foresight to have her check already written out yesterday...the landladys’...Melinda has no need for a check from me. I grab it and hurry to the door. I want to go out quietly and shut the door without waking up Tucker so I don’t have to deal with putting him on his string.

Follow the landlady to her truck for the receipt. “What you gonna do about all this grass?”, she asks. I feel the blood pressure...seems like it goes from my belly to my head and rings a bell there, like one of those attractions at the Fair. A dozen responses wrangling furiously around in my attic...wondering which one might get out through a window. “I have no idea....I thought I might get the sling blade and whack some of it down after while.” It was an acceptable response...better than running back inside and collecting the rat and shaking it at her and yelling, “What the hell you gonna do about these rats!?”

Damn, I’m sweating now...blogging. Oh the rat? Yeah, I’ll get it into the trash in a minute. Happy weekend, y’all. I like the third of June better than Cinco de Mayo for two reasons: 1) It’s the date in “Ode to Billy Joe” and 2) the third is check day...but we’re past the rat now, right? *sigh*

TRB

Writing a Book

“So. How do you write a book?”

“Hallie Phino. I guess you just start off writin’ like you would a letter.”

“Naw...you need to have some limits on it. Like...what it’s gonna be about. You might use one o’ them twelve dollars words like ‘parameters’. You can’t just chunk a bucket o’ words up there and expect to have a readable book. And why would anybody try to write any book if they didn’t want someone else to read it? You gonna write about history or math or religion or some other fiction....?”

“Yeah, I see yer pernt.”

“I think if I was gonna write a book it would prolly be ‘technically’ a ‘biography’...meanin’ about me. After all, I think I know more about that than anything else.”

“Yeah...but you ain’t famous. I can see why somebody might want to read a book about Johnny Cash or Oprah but who would wanna read a whole book about a funny lookin’ weird fat feller from Felton that no body ever heard of?”

“Yeah, I see... HEY! Some folk have heard of me! I ain’t completely invisible yanno!”

“Oh sure, but like 17 people and most of them already know all about you they would wanna know, and you wouldn’t want the other 14 knowing too much.”

“Look, Sedgewick. You startin’ to press on me nerve, son. Jeebers. It wouldn’t have to be ALL about me I guess... Maybe have some other stuff about what I think about things.”

(Flash warning look at Sedgewick)

“I’d have to figger out how long a book too. I know a feller recently wrote a book and it ended up being published in three volumes. All told it took him something like ten years. It was actually published too, even if it was by one of the “vanity publishers”. Hey, it’s actually three physical books you can hold in your hand and you can buy ‘em on Amazon and stuff. Ten years...cornflakes, I’d be pushing it to go ten days doing something like that.”

“Short book.”

(snort pfffft)

“They got them E lectronic books now...can ya write one like that?”

“Prolly more my speed, only I dunno the tech stuff about publishing it in that format. You know, even though it’s cool to have a physical book, I wouldn’t want to even try to make any money or sell it. It just ain’t me.”

“Ok, so you wanna write a book you want somebody to read it, you want it be about you and....some other stuff. You do know some HTML and maybe a few other furrin words, right? You could write it in a website and tell folk where it’s at and then them what was painful hard up fer sumpin’ to do could come over and peer at it fer a while.”

(The stare bores through Sedgewick like a split beam phaser set on fuk up.

“You know, Bloomfeld, sometimes I think you do have a few brain cells left after all. A’ight. Less giver a shot and see if she falls over.”

“Ok, but besides being about you what else ya gonna chunk in there?”

“I guess some o’ my philosophizin’, throw in some stuff about religion and polly ticks (You know they have thousands of books just on them things)...”

“Yeah, so why would you want to do another one?”

(Back up Fernbank.)

“Yanno, it occurs to mah three brain cells, if you wuz gonna write a book and you just started off writing one, you’d have a couple pages by now, instead of a couple pages about how you might write a book.”

“Ok, Lum Bar. Youzza pressin’ me.

....and so it goes....

TRB

Blogs

Having a personal web site and/or blog are their own respective gradients of hell/insanity. You can work on both an entire lifetime and they are never any closer to finished...when you kick off they’ll just stop in mid-sentence, like the rest of you might. Some people have a web site to sell stuff (Gawd I hate monetary system), some bloggers get big bucks (the size of Cadillac Escalades) from someone somewhere. I suppose some use a blog as a drainage valve; if some of the crap that builds up in yer head can be converted into words and poured out onto a page, even a digital page, it seems to relieve the pressure for a while. Trouble is, if you have a blog readership, unless you’re famous and/or highly paid, your readership is small and it’s not too long before most all of them have heard your various drivels before...then the blog is almost literally a personal drainage valve. *sigh*

I’m working on totally reconstructing my web site over at Lycos/Tripod because they changed platforms a coupla times and some of the stuff there went poof. It’s still an embarrassing mess at the moment. Trying to force myself to pay attention and do the work to get it right. They also have a blog option there, but any blog which does not allow embedding of videos sucks swamp gas, so I’m sticking with my blogger site for that. Funny how, even if I were rich, I wouldn’t pay 12 cents to make a beautiful home in which to host visiting guests....but I’ll spend days trying to get the HTML right to make my web site purty...to me anyway.

My best friend here in town is having a rough time...his mom died on Sunday. I try to stay out of his way...say supportive stuff if/when we talk. When I write stuff online I wanna link to EVERY DAMN THING! Plus I’m scatterbrained. It’s partly why I couldn’t write a print book...no frackin’ clickable links. Meh. That’s a word I never would have learned except for the Internet. Maybe I’ll see if I can blog on a topic...or work on the site HTML some more. Drink ‘em if ya got ‘em.

TRB

Boo!

Just making the earthshaking announcement that I am back here to blog again. Guess I gotta go write one now...be back soon.