John Cole Presents “This Fucking Old House”

I had a panic attack today for the first time in forever, and it was because, unsurprisingly, I had convinced myself briefly that I somehow had contracted the virus and spread it accidentally to everyone I had interacted with the past few days. In all likelihood I do not have the virus, just a continuation of the cold I have had for two days, but I worked myself into a lather. I used to have these quit frequently before I quit drinking, now I think I have had one in the past six years. Longtime readers will remember about a decade or more ago when I was diagnosed with a GAA, but only after having every test run to man because I thought I was having a heart attack and then convinced myself, with the help of WebMD, that I had MS because my hands and feet were going numb- all of the above are symptoms of anxiety attacks.

At any rate, it’s no surprised I am having a panic attack, and it would not surprise me if a lot of you are as well. This is an anxious time, our President is a malignant nincompoop, a lot of people are going to die, and shit is just crazy. On top of all that, I am at a point in my life where it feels like literally everyone around me needs something. Other than Tammy, it seems like everyone I know or interact with is having a problem or needs something done or needs me to do something. I legitimately can not go an hour without an email or a phone call or knock on the door about something that needs to be done. You have to do this because we can’t do it, we need you to do this because x is happening, so and so is pissed and you need to do this. On top of everything else, it just overwhelming. Can’t everyone just fuck off and deal with their own fucking problems, and beyond that, stop turning everyday issues into life altering disasters. Get a fucking grip.

For my mental health, I am just locking shit down. I have to make a god damned trip to South Carolina on Friday to load up stuff from my parent’s winter place, and I am going to get in the car with food already prepared, stop at gas stations for gas and pull over and piss on the side of the highway, get there, load up the car and go to bed, and then drive back the same way the next day. Other than that, I am done. I’m not leaving the house, I am not interacting with people. You need me, email me or call me, or leave a note on the front door. I don’t need to leave the house, so I am not. I’m not going to be responsible for killing someone.

I am stressed out and going caveman.

High Anxiety- Time to Just Lock This Shit DownPost + Comments (256)

I have a mouse, apparently, which means if you have a mouse you actually have mice. I should back up.

A couple weeks ago, I found two dead mice in the basement. I picked them up, threw them in the trash, yelled out “Solid work mate” to Steve, and went about my business. Today, I was cleaning up the kitchen, and I threw a bunch of leftover duck sauce and soy sauce packets from yesterday’s Chinese into the drawer where I keep that kind of shit. You know the kind of drawer I am talking about, because everyone has one. It has condiments and seasonings and unused disposable chopsticks and a couple random bandaids and some batteries (probably all dead) and that kind of shit. You never actually use anything in that drawer- you just put things in it that you are not ready to throw out YET, and then once a year you open it and say “MY GOD THIS IS A DISASTER” and throw everything out.

At any rate, I opened that drawer, and I saw shredded seasoning packets and mouse poop and all sorts of mess. So here is where my headspace is.

I don’t like to kill things. I definitely do not like to kill things with poison. And while I know that you definitely do not want mice in your house, at the same time, I have seen too many tv shows and cartoons and have anthropomorphized the little bastards to the point that I kind of like knowing that there is a mouse family in the house, much like I enjoy having birds nest on my front porch and the rabbit warren underneath the shed and the deer that visit the abandoned lot next door because I throw apples and stuff there.

So I think what I am going to do is just thoroughly scrub and sterilize all the drawers and cabinets and throw out anything that attracts the mice, make sure all dried goods are in impenetrable containers, and see if we can come up with an amicable living arrangement. They’re on their own with Steve, but I am willing to try out this non-aggression pact.

Mouse in the HousePost + Comments (140)

I am really struggling to make it through this “winter.” I know I have said this a couple times, but this has just been a brutal few months for me. I have had basically a sustained sinus headache/infection since November, and I just have no energy, no desire to do anything, I am apathetic and indifferent, don’t want to deal with people- it’s just been super bad this year. And please, I do not need medical advice or emotional support, I am just venting.

Normally after November, we get a sustained freeze, and all the mold and the bugs and everything dies off. Not this year- the temperature has been yo-yoing up and down and up and down, blowing up my sinuses, and there is nothing my doctors can do. I even went to the dentist a while back because I thought I had a toothache and needed a root canal, but nope, x-rays showed it was just my sinuses pushing into my teeth.

On top of all that, the political situation is just shit. I honestly am starting to feel like there is no Democrat who will beat Trump in November. I just am not feeling it. I definitely do not think that Bernie will win should he win the nomination. Man, I wish I had the confidence of a Bernie stan. They just seem so confident, so convinced, so sure. I personally think he would lose 40 states if he got nominated. I think the notion he would have won WV in 2016 is a fucking pipe dream, but I hear them claim it all the time. The only thing that reassures me is that I am so frequently wrong about everything. I mean, fer fucks sake, I was a lifelong Republican in WV until 2005, the moment I switched to Democrat the state all went Republican. So the one thing you can really bank on is me being wrong.

And then there is just Trump. All fucking day every fucking day that fucking name. Trump. Trump. Trump. There’s no fucking escape. Every day he does something new and awful. It’s just a relentless stream of bile. And the nihilism. No one fucking believes in anything. It’s all just bullshit.

So yeah. That’s my headspace right about now. I just keep getting up and plodding forward. In a couple weeks I will see light at the end of the tunnel and plant my seedlings, and then it will start to become spring and I will begin to feel human again. But man, this year has been rough.

I’d kill for three weeks of below 20 weather and snow. Honestly, I would.

Struggling This YearPost + Comments (246)

Steve sleeps with flair and panache:

If you are wondering why the lighting is all screwy, it’s because that is the coveted pet bed underneath the desk at my feet, and I just have a light strip down there set to a little blueish purple hue. The second most coveted bed in the room is the lounge chair behind me, and the #3 spot is the other dog bed by the armchair. Usually 2-3 are occupied at a time.

Regardless, it is Friday. Be like Steve. Kick a leg up.

It’s Friday Night. Be Like Steve.Post + Comments (102)

First things first, thanks to everyone who contributed by clicking the paypal link the past two weeks, the server is paid up to June 1st, so we got that going for us.

Second, the pet calendar will be here shortly. I swear.

Third, I went out to an early dinner tonight. To spare you all the energy of having to make age related early-bird special jokes, I was there BEFORE the early birds. I had a late breakfast and skipped lunch and was hungry and wanted to get out of the house. And off I went.

Dinner was fine, but what I want to talk about was the salad. It was fucking horrible. One of my biggest peeves about dining in the US, and I am sure it is worse here in the Ohio Valley, is the sad state of salads at restaurants. Most establishments just do not give a shit, and even though they are on the menu, you get this sad fucking melange of lettuce (worst case scenario browned iceberg) and uninspiring vegetables and then they give you a tiny container of some shit they invariably call a vinaigrette (unless, of course, they hand you fucking Ranch).

It’s awful. It’s upsetting. I really like a good salad, and I am not very good at making them myself, so I would really like to be able to get one now and again. BFF Tammy and my father are both EXCEPTIONALLY skilled at making good salads, so they occasionally spoil me.

But many if not most restaurants simply fail to execute or simply do not even try. My lemon “vinaigrette” this evening was tart, flat, one dimensional, and wholly uninspiring. It just made me angry. This was not my experience in Europe. I still remember the insalata italiana from a small greek/mediterranean place in downtown Fulda, and that has been over thirty years since I had it. God, it was so good.

That is all. Also, check out this ANGEL:

I feel better now.

Let Us TalkPost + Comments (162)

Gerald and his wife are at a work Christmas party, so I got to play Uncle Buck tonight and I took to this dive spaghetti bar in Steubenville called Naples. They all got hoagies that were the largest most ridiculous things I have ever seen:

Her order was the “half” hoagie- what she is holding is a quarter. It’s just absurd. I got physically ill watching the boys eat their entire dinner. I would be full for two days and I am a fatbody.

***

At any rate, if you haven’t been able to tell by my lack of posting and my diminished wit, I have been in a funk the last few months. I get depressed in the winter every year, but this year has been particularly bad. It’s just so harsh- you go from everything being green and lush to just damp, dark, and depressing. Even my house plants look like shit. Then you add in the rest of the usual shit we go through, work, worrying about money, the health of your parents, etc., and I just go into a funk. And then there is the website.

On top of all this is just the never-ending barrage of shit in the political sector. It’s just overfuckingwhelming. Every god damned day it’s something new and worse than the day before. It just never fucking ends. It wears you down.

I’ll be fine, of course. But I do worry about some of you out there who may be going through the same thing but aren’t willing or able to get help. Please do so. Talk to someone- talk to a professional. I don’t have anything else more helpful than that other than to stay hydrated and get some exercise, but definitely talk to someone.

Harumph.

I’ve Been DepressedPost + Comments (121)

So this morning I popped up, drove from Charlotte to Charleston, SC, and got my car and my parents care unloaded and the folks settled in. They went off to a bar to watch the Steelers game, and I hopped back in the family truckster and headed north so I only have half the drive to do tomorrow.

I know it takes a lot of balls for someone from WV to say they are in the middle of nowhere, but right now I am in the middle of fucking nowhere and the only dining option was a Snickers bar in the vending machine or a waffle house. I have never been to a Waffle House, so I went. I got the chili with extra raw onions because I hate myself, and an omelet and some hash browns. It was precisely what I expected- hot and greasy and salty, I am full, and I will probably have the shits tomorrow.

In other news, we are slowly getting some ads installed and in the right places. Bear with us. This god damned blog will pay for itself.

Greetings From the Middle of Nowhere, VirginiaPost + Comments (168)

Made to the island, and am now sitting outside at a cafe waiting for lunch and waiting on my parents to get to the rental so I can unpack their car and then head back north to home crap home. Stopped at a gas station this morning, and they proudly offered boiled peanuts with multiple seasonings.

WTF people, why are you boiling your peanuts?

Speaking of boiled nuts, this is the first campaign billboard I have seen this election cycle:

Apparently either Tulsi has a following outside of Columbia, SC, or the Republicans are trying to ratfuck the primary. Either is equally possible, because South Carolina.

Boiled NutsPost + Comments (153)

Currently sitting in a hotel in an undisclosed location somewhere in the city of Charlotte, NC. It’s been seven years since I was last here (not counting driving through it on the highway to get to destination farther south), so I think most of the warrants have expired. Not sure if that is the case for AngryBlackLady, but she is on the west coast and they’ll never catch her, the coppers.

At any rate, I am here because I am helping my parents transition to their winter place down in South Carolina. It’s just too much for them and the dogs to go the full distance in one day, so we stopped here. Tomorrow we will finish the drive, unpack, and then on Monday I will return back home to my lovely critters.

I was going to bring Lily with me, but when I asked her this morning if she wanted to go for a ride, she woke up long enough to lift her head, look at me, and then fall back asleep, so I just left the old gal at home. I also thought about taking Thurston when Lily said no, and then immediately thought “WHY WOULD I DO THAT TO MYSELF?”

So I am alone in a room with the tv off and no animals, and the sensory deprivation of it all may mean I will be in bed by 9:30. And I am ok with that.

COMING TO YOU LIVE FROM THE CITY OF CHARLOTTE, NCPost + Comments (92)

Dad: “Did you ever take that DNA test?”

Me: “What DNA test? And no, I wouldn’t have taken it anyway.”

Dad: “Why not? Don’t you want to know about your family history?”

Me: “I know enough about you people and I don’t want the government to have my DNA.”

Dad: “How would the government get your DNA?”

Me: “All those companies give their data to law enforcement. How do you think they caught the Golden Gate killer?”

Dad: “Are you a Golden Gate killer?”

Me: “No, not yet.”

Dad: “But don’t you want to know about your heritage?”

Me: “You took the test, mom took the test, and the other kids took the test. I think we have it narrowed down by now. Unless there is something you or mom want to tell me.”

Dad: “Goodbye.”

I’ve always been the ‘difficult’ child. Part of it is instinctive, though- if everyone is doing something I generally don’t want to do it just because they are. I need a reason I should do it.

Conversations With DadPost + Comments (141)

Cancer 0, Lily 1:

Just got back from the veterinary hospital for Lily’s final round of treatment, and she was given a clean bill of health and t hey all just gushed about how she was really tough and was doing great. Been a long 18 months, but we did it. And now we nap:

We don’t have any more treatments, I just need to monitor her and in three months go back for some bloodwork.

Lily’s Big DayPost + Comments (101)

I am very excited to report that the maple out front, in the last 24-28 hours, has had its leaves change, and I can look forward to many years of a deep majestic red tree:

I am so excited for it to grow big and tower over everything.

In other news, I remain consistently horrified by the random thoughts that run through my head. I saw a pumpkin today and my thought was “Oh god when do those little fuckers dress up and come mugging for sweets I need to get candy bars in 50 years I don’t want to be remembered as the guy with the shitty candy.” I can do nice things and pretend to be civil but the monster on the inside is terrifying to me.

Speaking of terrifying, I just finished reading the Taylor intro that Adam linked to. Jesus christ.

Very Exciting Tree NewsPost + Comments (64)