Again, Not So Good

I took Vicodins again this weekend. I've been feeling so low that I felt I couldn't help myself. I resisted the temptation for as long as I could, but it never got any better or easier. If you've never felt the intolerable dreariness of depression, then you cannot understand the overwhelming temptation of chemical means to release you and make you not care for a little while.

"Now I'm not looking for absolution
Forgiveness for the things I do
But before you come to any conclusions
Try walking in my shoes
Try walking in my shoes
You'll stumble in my footsteps
Keep the same appointments I kept
If you try walking in my shoes..."
—Depeche Mode, "Walking In My Shoes"

It sounds so foolish in my head (and a thousand times more foolish putting it in print), but I can't shake the anxiety that God will punish me for my continued relapses. Not that I feel drinking and drugs (and certainly not caffeine) are sins in themselves. It just that I made promises to God to give them up for a while in the hopes that He would help me in building a better life.

"When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it."
—The Book of Ecclesiastes 5:4-5

The Dark Reflection in the Funny Pages

I really like the Cathy cartoon. After all, I am a gay man with the mentation of a woman. But when I read a whole bunch of the strips at once, I start to get pissed off. I want to tell the lead character: "Stop complaining about your self-created shortcomings! Stop blaming others for your lack of direction! Stop being so weak-willed and self-indulgent and take the responsibility of constructing your existence!" Of course, the only reason I have such a vitriolic reaction is that it reminds me so vividly of my own messed-up life. I'm telling myself to stop whinging and take control of things. If I truly want my life to be a certain way, then I need to quit playing the games of others as well as my own, show some self-discipline and develop a slow, but steady long-range plan to get what I want, instead of sitting and waiting for some magical panacea in the form of an unrealistically perfect mate, a sudden lottery win, etc.—expectations bourne from a self-absorbed sense of entitlement. (After all, that's one of the core messages of existentialism, a philosophy I embrace.) Like most things, this is so much easier said than done, however.

Bottom Feeders of the Internet

I've had to turn the "Word Verification" feature on for my blog. In the past few days, I've gotten 30-40 spam comments, so now I have to go through entry by entry to get their shit off my posts. That really pisses me off. These people need to get a life and/or a job.