Wherein Jockeystreet Shakes His Fist At God

To top it all off, my coffee pot stopped working.

And my shoes. Dammit, my shoes. Do you understand?

I mean, no, to be fair, my coffee pot didn't stop working. It stopped working right. It stopped doing what it's supposed to do. It started doing other things entirely. Now, the clock, instead of showing the time, counts. Really fast. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Like that. Not out loud, just the little clock screen. Minutes, hours. Over and over. And while it's doing that, it won't really let you do anything else. You can keep jabbing "start brew" and it just completely ignores you. But it doesn't just count. Also the power button flashes on and off, and the "auto button" keeps setting itself, then turning itself off, and the brew strength goes from red to yellow to green to red to yellow to green. And so if you want a pot of coffee, you have to quickly jab a whole bunch of buttons in rapid succession so that it gets sort of confused, and for just this short window of time it stops going 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and then you have to jab the "start brew" (jab it, jab it hard) before it gets all wound up again, and maybe it'll start making your coffee. Then you've got to unplug it again as soon as its done or it will randomly try to start another brew and with no water in the tank will make these sickly dry gurgly sounds.

Damn coffee pot. Didn't need this. What I needed was a damn cup of coffee. And yeah, I got that. I got a few cups. But I needed it in a relaxing manner.

Because you may not have noticed this about me, and when I'm done saying it you're probably going to be like "no, no, I can't believe that that could be true," but it is true:

I have issues with stress.

And I don't even like saying that. I don't like saying that because "stress" seems like the wrong word. When I think "stress," I always get a visual of a squirrel in the back yard, holding on to an acorn or a peanut or something, and the neighbor's cat has just come out of the house, and the squirrel's eyes are all darting around and he's perfectly still except that you can pretty much see his heart beating through his fur, and he's looking like, "oh man, cat, the cat's out, aw crap, he doesn't see me, no he doesn't see me, crap the cat's out, oh man, I'm so screwed, Martha was right, didn't need any peanuts, should listened, aw crap."

"Stress" to me is like "imminent danger." I think stress, and I think that, you know, the strong possibility of losing your job is an occasion for stress. And I'm probably not going to lose my job. Some days I wish maybe I would, but I probably won't. I think being buried in debt, not being able to afford the mortgage or car repairs is stressful, but, though it's somehow awkward for me to say this, though I somehow feel sort of bad about it, really, I'm doing okay on that front. We're comfortable. No cruises, no sports cars, but we're doing pretty alright. I think stress, and I think about marriages that are falling apart with all this screaming and yelling and infidelity, but you know, my wife and I get along pretty well. Admittedly, I can be a hard person to live with, and so I wouldn't say that married life is without it's occasional strains, but for the most part, I think we like each other, we like to sometimes dance in the living room and I have even been known to say sweet things from time to time. Or when I think about stress, I think about the boss that screams at you and the deadlines that are bearing down that you just can't meet. But my boss doesn't really scream at me. My boss-- and my bosses' boss, and his boss-- all seem to like me and respect me, and they generally say very nice things to and about me. When I screw up, I certainly hear about it. But I don't screw up too badly too often. And I don't really have much trouble on deadlines; I sort of have the knack for what I'm doing, and while I won't blow anyone's mind with my creative new approaches to the field, I'm a pretty good soldier, know how to get things done, can take orders well enough, can remember multi-step directions and such.

So "stress" strikes me as sort of the wrong word.

When I say that I have issues with stress, I guess that what I mean is that I am prone to bouts of existential torment. Melancholy. Despair. And a general sort of dizzying nervousness.

I mean, the world, if you haven't noticed, is pretty completely fucked up. I think I've made that point often enough. I usually start with a statement like "Everything Is Wrong" or end by saying that we all really, really, really need to "leave Egypt." The world is pretty completely fucked up and I don't have cable, so it's hard to stay distracted, hard not to notice. And noticing can really bring you down. Lead you into a quagmire of existential torment, melancholy, despair.

And No Sweat is going out of business. Dammit, but No Sweat is going out of business. I didn't need that today. I didn't need that at all.

I have two pairs of quasi-dressy work shoes (one brown, one black; they go equally poorly with jeans or with a suit). I used to buy very cheap sneakers from Payless or wherever, spent maybe $20 per pair. They always fell apart. I don't use leather, and so I'm pretty limited in what I can find in a normal shoe store that meets my enlightened ethical standards. I always bought those cheap fake leather shoes, they always fell apart in seven or eight months, my feet always hurt. Finally, I decided to order what I considered wickedly expensive shoes from a place called Moo Shoes. Vegan, sweatshop free, really comfortable, nice looking shoes. A little over $120, which makes me kind of sick, but in reality, since they last for several years, it's not much more than I was paying before.

So I've had these "Earth Vegan" shoes for several years now, and I was sitting in the office the other day, happened to look down at my feet, and there's this huge damn hole in the sole of my shoe. A big crack, a crevasse. All the way across. So that if it rains, my socks will be soaked. Then I looked at the shoe on the other foot. Same damn thing. Both shoes. Shot. Wearable, for now, but I need some new shoes.

That got me thinking about my sneakers. I have some olive high tops from No Sweat, the coolest vegan friendly sweatshop-free shoes and t-shirts place on the web. I love those sneakers. Love them. Have loved them long and hard enough that they are now in pretty rough shape. So I figured, "hey, I'm buying shoes, what the hell." I went to No Sweat. And they're going out of business. They don't have those olive shoes in my size anymore. Just kids sizes, basically.

So, you know, I'm experiencing some existential turmoil already, okay? The kind where I'm convinced that happiness is an illusion, life is pain and despair, etc, etc. 10th grade-writing-on-black-paper-with-black-ink-while-listening-to-The-Cure-in-the-dark stuff. And now my coffee pot is broken, my black dress shoes have crevasses in them (and I've got a damn Chamber dinner to go to next week!), and No Sweat is going out of businesses, which means I'll never have another pair of those olive high tops.

Nothing for it but to lean out the window, stare into the sky, get a face full of cold rain, and shake your fist at God.

Am I right?

It's been a hell of a couple of weeks. My very favorite kind of stress (existential torment, whatever) is the kind where nothing is actually wrong. It's great when people know you're down, when you clearly haven't slept in weeks, when people can sense you're not entirely present during a conversation, and then, when asked what's wrong, you get to say "well, nothing actually." "Nothing actually" being a better way to answer your secretary on a Monday morning than "has it ever occurred to you that it's all wrong, that it all has to change, and that it all has to start with me?"

I got an email from a good friend that I don't see nearly often enough the other day. He told me he was going through a "rough patch." As I was in what you might call a "rough patch" myself, that really got me thinking. He's a good guy. A very good guy. One of the better ones I know. It seems to me, best as I can put it together, that he's been in this rough patch off and on for a good four or five years now. Before that, of course, we were young and stupid, and it was all a rough patch, but it didn't matter. Now that we're old and responsible, we're supposed to have this stuff figured out.

In his email, he mentioned another friend, another rough patch. Another good friend, good guy, someone who could never really quite get his shit together, now from what I understand going off the deep end a little with drugs that he's not equipped to handle, lady-friends who don't have his best interests in mind, shitty jobs, bad health, bad choices.

Which got me thinking about another friend, the one who has a panic attack every day before he goes to work, who hates his job so much that it makes him feel a little bit like he's going to die, who is so buried in debt that he can't even play with the idea of quitting.

Or another, who always seems so happy and put together on the surface, who has it figured out, but spends days at a time in bed during his fits of depression, can't work, can't be around people. Another good guy. With rough patches.

Or the old friend who never could quite get out of our twenty-somethings, could never exactly move on, could never meet that right person or find that right job or discover that right purpose in life, is still sleeping it off in the parking lot before driving home from the bar, still getting pulled over for weaving, still wanting to hit that loudmouth on the other side of the room, still angry, still metal... but getting gray, getting tired, getting too old for it, very aware of it.

And here's the thing: I don't expect life to be "fair." I know better. Really. I'm an idealist, but I know how it is.

I look at people lately, though, and for too many, I have to ask if life is "good." And I feel angry. I feel disappointed. I feel like they deserve better. I've come to realize that almost everyone I know needs medication to get through a stressful day, or looks at themselves in the mirror and hates their appearance, or is full of debilitating self-doubt, or hides in a dark room until the depression passes, or is terrified of the future, or drinks themself to oblivion most nights of the week, or has to go into the bathroom to get composure after a panic attack, or, or, or, on and on and on.

And I think, "really?" I think, "is this it? is this how it's supposed to be? is this what we've got? is this it?"

The idealist in me doesn't necessarily want fair, but it sure as shit wants "better." The idealist in me can't believe that this is the best the world has to offer, that this is what it means to be here, to be alive. This aching melancholy bullshit isn't by a long shot "enough."

And then, for some reason, I think of Lillian.

Lillian was just about the coolest person I ever knew.

I don't remember how I met Lillian. I remember where I met her, and when. I was in my early twenties, 21, maybe 22. I was working in a hospital cafeteria, serving food on the line to staff and visitors. And Lillian had a friend, Vivian, who had recently been admitted to the long term care floor. Vivian, I think, was pushing 90. Lillian was younger, maybe 60, maybe 65. I'm bad with ages, I don't know.

I can't remember how Lillian and I started talking, but I would sit with her often for coffee on my breaks. She took me at least once to see Vivian, who was somehow affiliated with Houghton College (the school I'd dropped out of a few times).

Lillian didn't say a lot. She talked, and she asked me questions about my life, and she commented on that, but she used only the words that were necessary. And somehow she said everything with a certain "authority." She said things like she knew them to be true.

I enjoyed Lillian. I wrote her into one of the songs I was playing back then.

I have forgotten most of the things she said, but one line from one conversation stands out, always will.

"Peace?" she said. "Peace is an illusion. There is no peace."

She said it like she meant it. With authority. Like she knew it was true.

Maybe it's strange, but I find that thought very comforting right now. Peaceful, almost.

Maybe that' the answer to my melancholy, my disappointed idealism. Maybe that's why others go through "rough patches" but still call themselves happy, while I dive headfirst into despair, refuse to be consoled, shake my fist at God. They get that there is no peace, are okay with it, and move on.