Yeah, People Come Up

I wish I could sing but, since I can’t, I’m thankful that no one heard me doing a bad imitation thereof in my car this morning. “People of the Sun” by Rage Against the Machine was crankin’. I haven’t got those guttural “uh!s” down yet. For instance, my favorite part of that song is: “Ya spine cracked for tobacco, oh I'm the Marlboro man, uh”. But my “uh” comes out sounding like I have Down’s Syndrome – you know, like Corky from Life Goes On. It makes me feel like I should be singing “Ob La Di, Ob La Da” instead. No Zack de La Rocha am I. But, hey, it’s all good. No one has to hear my awful attempt at singing and I get all fired up for work.

Last night I was reading my usual coterie of blogs which included The Dulcinea’s. I read something – don’t remember exactly what – and then something clicked in my head. A sudden sense of guilt, of shame lodged itself firmly in my head and heart. You try reading & writing about philosophy, about acting morally and such. It’s like I’d close my eyes and I’d see the Categorical Imperative in big, bold stern letters floating around the insides of my eyelids with this authoritative voice echoing, “Treat people as ends in themselves and never as means to ends…ends in themselves…ends in themselves…” I kinda feel like Rick in that episode of The Young Ones when he kills Neil and his conscience plagues him while he’s trying to sleep. “Rick…Rick…this is your conscience. You killed Neil…”

I was also being tired of feeling how I do. Tired of acting in opposition to what I really want. I keep having flashbacks to certain things my father did and find myself making the same mistakes he did. I should know better and I’ve spent a good chunk of my life trying to avoid making those same mistakes – trying to be unlike him. Didn’t Santayana have something addressing this?

It felt imperative that I not end 2004 in the ASSHOLE category. I was going to leave a comment on her blog but that wouldn’t be right. Then it was going to be an email but it too felt highly inappropriate. So I ended up writing her a letter. Better. But it occurs to me that saying what I’ve got say would be best done in person. So I emailed her asking if she could stand to be in my presence for a minute. I expect not so I’ve kept the letter ready for mailing. If you fuck up, you try to set things right. I fucked up and I have to try to set things right. I’ll meet you down there by the train…

Ooh! D20 for listen check! I just overheard a conversation in which a co-worker of mine revealed that he grew up with Gary Gygax’s kids and knows the guy. (Gygax is one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons.)