Val Kilmer's Fat Face, Demerol, and the Fear of Death

Today I bought a small quantity of a higher quality vodka, or so the bottle insinuated. The cheaper stuff I'd been buying attracted me by it's promise of having been distilled four times, rather than the mere three times promoted by a more expensive brand. Then, this Swedish stuff topped THAT with no less than five, count 'em, five distillations. I bit. I bought. Now, I probably committed an atrocity by mixing this fine elixir with the cheapest store brand orange juice I could have gotten, but hell, all things being relative, this is one smoooooooooooooooooth screwdriver I'm enjoying as I type this post. I would also like to qualify all this by mentioning that this vodka was on sale. I am, after all, a caviar individual on a fish egg budget.

I was just watching a better-than-I-expected movie entitled "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", starring Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer. Val has gotten a bit fat in the face. OK, the point. If you want to achieve a certain immortality or fame beyond your own accomplishments, raise a brilliant kid and name him Junior. That "Jr." tagged onto his name insures that in a roundabout you will not be forgotten for an additional generation, hopefully by his good works and not the trouble he gets into. Junior is as famous for his civilian hijinks as he is for his acting. So much for immortality.

I know there's no way in hell that I could be elected president. However, let's go out on a limb here and imagine I could, and that I have. What is it that The Michael wants to do that stands him apart from every other dickweed that has occupied that hallowed office? First off, I would (as far as I know) be the first American president ever to apologize to the world in general for what the last president did in the name of the American People. I would direct the Attorney General of the United States to find any possible reasoning he can think up to bring that asshole up on charges, and no, no amount of bribes would buy him a pardon. I would enact and shame congress into passing sweeping legislation to reform the corporate structure, and I would force the oil companies, or any company that sells necessary commodities, to charge what it actually costs to produce these products, plus a reasonable profit.
I would reform the credit system in this country so that you either get credit at reasonable interest rates, or you don't get it at all. No more of this piling debt up on the American people to prop up a wobbly economy so that people can pile up junk in their garages. And yes, I would expect to be assassinated during my first term.

As a young man, had I really had the capacity to contemplate living till my nineties, I probably would have thought it a worthy goal. Even now, I am not all that keen on the possibility of dropping dead with a heat attack at this keyboard, getting blindsided by an SUV tomorrow as I run errands in my Ford Focus, or dying for some other freak reason. However, I have reached this magic stage in my life when the idea of death doesn't have that horrifying texture to it that it once might have had. I suppose it's because I have worked side by side with death for more than ten years now. I suppose it's because it seems I have reached the end of my journeys for this trip around. I suppose it's because I have discovered so many more horribly worse situations to be in then dead. And, I suppose it's because I have been liberated from the fear of hellfire as promised me by those who tried to make me believe in a "loving" God. Whatever the reason, it may yet be early, but I am ready. I know that instinctively I am going to experience at least some minor terror should I realize that I truly am going to die fairly soon, but at least at this moment, I am not afraid. I wish I could convey how comforting that is.

Right now the wife is going through a rough patch. Her finger is really hurting her after her surgery. We had to call the surgeon and ask for stronger pain killers and he prescribed Demerol. It's an improvement, but I have been around this sensation long enough to know that the term "painkiller" is an optimistic term at best. Personally, I have only experienced a few episodes of extreme pain, once when my finger was crushed in a machine and another when my ribs were broken by another machine. Yes, I suppose machines have it out for me. Oh, and that bad case of shingles was no picnic either. So I am trying to empathize with The Wife right now having to hear her cry at night because the pain pills she was initially prescribed were not up to the task. I try not to allow my feelings of inadequacy overshadow my concern for her suffering. As a husband, there is some rule written somewhere that states I am to kiss it and make it better. You Moms know what I mean. That kiss helps, in some manner, but it doesn't make it better. I really feel so helpless right now. The new pills seem to be working at least a little better. I wish there was a pill for my own failures.

I'm beginning to wonder if having so much to write about is necessarily a good thing. Sometimes boring is preferable to having plenty of blog fodder, if you know what I mean. Please believe me when I say that in the grand scheme of things, if stuff like my wife is suffering and vodka distilled five times is really smooth and the world sucks and I'm not afraid to die is the best I can come up with for a blog, well, it is what it is. This is reality, folks. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.