Amy Winehouse: Hopefully Not Too Soon Now

With some distance between us and the tragedy itself, in retrospect does Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" come off more like a desperate cry for help, or a preemptive suicide note along?

You know, like anything by Nirvana ever.

Think Scary Thoughts

When I imagine jumping in front of a speeding city bus, and the notion seems an overreaction, then I know that I am not suicidal.

Today I considered becoming a functioning alcoholic. I may only have a few drinks a month, but having enjoyed quite a few more than that over my recent vacation, I find I went back to work only grudgingly, considering a shot of courage to ease the bitter medicine that is tech support.

I recognize the social frowning upon of drinking before work. Very unprofessional. And yet the thought came slowly, from the ground up as it congealed into a real possibility. If I were nervous and unhappy, why not take a relaxant? What harm is that but for the possibility of growing dependent? Truly, would drinking a beer at lunch be any worse than the Red Bull I guzzle every few days to stay awake?

And the thought frightens me, because short of seeing it as an emotional crutch, I find no qualms with this line of behavior. Mad Men may be horrifyingly excessive, but a grown adult can certainly enjoy a single beer at lunch without being called a drunkard on-the-clock. Honestly, it frightens me more that I would require such a crutch.

So I choose to neither be a drunkard, nor a caffeine addict. I choose to soldier on sober and with a bit of malice in my heart because it is a part of me not to be drowned or overlooked. If I am frightened or unhappy to do what must be done, I will acknowledge that and perform my duties regardless, because to simply complete those duties to the best of my ability without slack or chemical aid pushes my natural limits. Frightening thoughts only prove that I am still considering every possible universe in front of me, even those I and others find unattractive. It's a comfort, to meet my own rigorous standards and to find I have something more left to give.

My friends tell me there's a point in drinking beyond regular drunk, where you become more awake and manageable, where to stop drinking is to fall asleep. You go beyond drunk. It's the Super Saiyan of drinking. Frankly, after my BAC tops about 0.01 I want to take a nap. As much as it might help my image as a crotchety old lush/writer, I think I'm going to steer clear of the Hemmingway school of thought.

Unless I really need a nap, then I'm hitting up happy hour.

On Suicidal Tendencies

Let's be clear, I'm keeping this conversation far away from actual self-destructive impulses. It's more in the vein of the vintage LA Skate Punk above. Or, possibly in even closer parallel, if you're a pop-alt fan, maybe you'd prefer Motion City Soundtrack's "Let's Get Fucked Up and Die."

It's just recognizing the poetry of a satisfying ending in a well-told life story. As much as it might seem sad for a few years, how awesome would it be to die an old man, exactly on your birthday? It's so … even. People would be amazed after passively, accidentally passing by the tomb stone. A person at one funeral, unsure of what to do or how to feel, or how to act so as to not seem like he is unsure of what to do or how to feel, might notice it, and find a simple joy or even enlightenment in a miraculously improbable set of dates scrawled into my adjacent limestone marker.

Or perhaps I just mean that desire when looking out over a perilous height and sense the almost overwhelming impulse to jump (High Place Anxiety). Again, not in the truthful sense. I frequently consider jumping in front of a moving bus or some other such decidedly fatal notion. So long as it still seems a gross overreaction and ineffectual solution to any predicament, I can rest assured that I am safe, mostly sane, and still at least desirous of continued living.

More simplistically, today I felt a slight impulse to not post a blog update, in fact to never post again.

Because I had 1,221 entries already posted, and that's such a nice, linear palindrome.

Again, it's the bus. Obviously I'm posting something, likely something half-assed and weak, since I tend to write around midnight. However, the facts that I wish to continue my blog, to earn revenue from it, hell, just to continue an uninterrupted line of over one thousand blog posts all still seem pretty reasonable.

So you get another post about digital career suicide. And some fun music.

Happiness is a Warm Puppy…

We have a little note pad at work with this image on it. It's very cute. People forget that originally Snoopy was just a "neighborhood dog" and all the kids could claim partial ownership.

People also forget Lucy could be anything other than a stone-cold bitch.

Sometimes they even forget about the comic "Love Is…."

Apparently Charles Schulz at least always forgets about the Beatles song "Happiness is a Warm Gun," and the horrifying connotations it caries when applied to Peanuts characters.

This, for example, I found in two Googles.