My two cents

For some reason that escapes me right now, I recently Googled the question, "Is suicide wrong?" The number of hits was astounding. A lot of people mull the philosphical considerations of this question, apparently.

There's one site where you can post answers, so I put in my two cents. I had to do something to counteract all of the Bible thumpers who, no matter how things turn out for me, believe I'm going to hell anyway. I don't think atheists can go to hell. One person wrote that only atheists commit suicide. Really? I'd like to see the empirical evidence supporting that assertion.

No, suicide is not wrong. It is just one more path to the inevitable death all humans eventually experience. Our own death is not a moral issue. It is just death. Having been born does not obligate us to keep living. Our birth is biological happenstance, but we have a lot more control over how our life ends.

It is possible some may mourn the successful suicide, but wouldn't they also mourn if the person died unexpectedly in a car accident or from a sudden heart attack? Is living a risky and unhealthy life that shortens life span any different than suicide? No, it just takes longer and burdens the caretakers.

Suicide is not about weakness or character. It is about pain. Unbearable, relentless pain. Everyone experiences pain differently and it seems damned arrogant to say a person's pain is not valid. It is ignorant to say that another's pain is temporary. If it's not you, then you don't know that. Not all pain can be alleviated, not all problems can be fixed.

We have only one thing that we truly, totally own, and that is the body we live in and the life in which we exist. Nobody, absolutely nobody, has the right to overtake a person who has decided to control this most fundamental of life--or end-of-life--decisions. Frankly, it's nobody's business except for the person who feels it is the appropriate choice for him- or herSELF to be free of unrelenting emotional or physical burdens.

The time to care is before the person commits suicide, but not even love can fix everything.

If you believe you are morally superior to those who commit suicide, consider a really insightful Dear Abby column on the subject. http://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/

Dying isn't wrong. Suicide isn't wrong. It's meant to bring relief--finally.

The cold is getting to me

Sometimes, I have a true need to look through my photo files to revisit favorite places with better weather than here. I can almost see the view from The Hurricane, although my heart really yearns for an afternoon at the Swigwam. Seriously.

Pass-A-Grille/St. Pete Beach, Florida March 18, 2006

Say it ain't so, Joe

It was one thing to hear Iggy Pop's Lust for Life, an ode to all things drug-culture related, used to advertise for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. I think it's weird, but Iggy is getting on in years and his drug-addled brain may have cost him some capacity for good artistic judgment.

Frankly, I love the Timpani foundation on Lust for Life, and when the commercials come on, I prefer to just enjoy the drums and overlook the bigger issues of selling out. The Who have made an entire career out of advertising, not to mention three, count 'em, three CSI theme songs. The songs are matched so perfectly to the shows that no real cringing is necessary.

All artists are not created equal. Joe Jackson is an enigma, a cerebral innovator with a bad temper. In the early 1980s, Joe dared to be different with a musical style that blew apart the prevailing styles of the day. He was the outsider's outsider, a sharp observer and documentarian of a changing Zeitgeist. Edgy. Innovative. Original. A Serious Artists who took himself more seriously than anyone else.

Shock and awe. There it was, a sound so strange being emitted from my television, I could not bear to take it in. My eyes could see, my ears could hear, but my brain could not process and my heart could not accept. There it was on prime time network television just this week: A Taco Bell commercial, Taco Bell, for chrissake, with Joe Jackson's 1979 classic, One More Time, from the amazing Look Sharp album, providing the jingle.

I have just known a new kind of pain.

Joe, I bought your last CD. I saw you the last time you came through town. Is it the money? Is it a need to stay in the public mind? Does somebody else own the rights to the music?

Argh! Why not something like chocolate, or ice cream, or a sweet car? Taco Bell?

Oprah

My last appointment of the day was close to home, so I was able to catch today's Oprah show. The topic was "Wives Confess they are Gay."

The show really got me thinking, even though I don't have any particular interest in homosexuality. I don't have any particular interest in heterosexuality. I have no interest in sexuality at all--mine or anyone else's.

My asexuality doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that it doesn't bother my husband. I think we're in the same boat. Bed. Whatever.

It's been a very long time and we couldn't care less...

Truer words were never spoken

Let Go

This song has been drifting through the few not-yet-crammed-full areas of my brain lately. It speaks to me, so I really must be as exhausted as I feel. I know the song as the work of Sara Hickman, although it was written by Amy Tiven. You can hear it on Sara Hickman's album, Two Kinds of Laughter (Sleeveless, 1998). Buy it. It's yummy.

Let go... just let them get ahead of you
And nothing will happen
Let them leave you behind...
Let go... just let your mind wander...
Over houses and roadsides
Over planes in the sky

You are so tired, you cannot sit down
You just pace on the floor
With your cigarette smoke angels above you

Stop... all the hoping and waiting the while
Let the hunger and hating sit down
And be nothing but air in a big, empty room

It's good... good enough to just sit there in peace
And the world can go right on without you
And forget what they want you to be...

Someone... took a picture of you as a child
Dressed in blue polyester
Holding an umbrella to the sun...

Look now... you just need to let go again
Let your insides just float away
You can even forget what you've done

You are so tired, you cannot sit down
You just pace on the floor
With your cigarette smoke angels above you

Let go... and I will take care of you
And I will surround you
With nothing at all
Let go... you don't have to be anyone
And I will surround you
With nothing at all
Nothing at all

Law and Order, SVU

Last night (1/8/08), my husband and I watched the newest episode of Law and Order SVU. My husband fell asleep halfway though, but was in and out enough to catch snippets of the story.

In the last 60 seconds of the episode, one of the characters, a young FBI agent, commits suicide rather than face a trial and possibly prison. She shoots herself in the head while Olivia and her partner are just a few feet away. This causes Olivia to scream and start crying. Overcome with emotion she leaves the room, horrified, and the episode ends.

My husband stirred and said, "What made her scream like that?" I explained and then I kind of shrugged and waited for the news to come on. I really like all of the Law and Order series and I think the writing is good with stories that aren't overly sensationalized. I knew, though, that like Olivia, I was supposed to be appalled and saddened by the suicide of this young woman who showed such potential.

I was not horrified in the least. I just sat there, never flinched, and thought, "Well, we all find the solutions that work for us. Choices are so personal. She saw her future and chose not to suffer." Why is that so hard for most people to understand? Choice is empowerment. Choice is freedom.

Maybe I've just become a very cold person.

I am so insecure

It comes in waves and cycles. I start to believe that nobody likes me. I feel that nobody can stand to be around me. I know I irritate everyone. I am irritating. I am hard to be around. I make people angry. I offend everyone eventually, even if they don't come out and say it.

Eventually, I offend everyone who has contact with me. I'm pretty great at first blush, but it wears off and ultimately leads to the true reason I must, must, must learn to be comfortable and content living emotionally isolated.

I try to be likeable, but sooner or later, I show my true colors. It seems I am incapable of doing otherwise, and that's a shame because it always leads to this alienation.

I'm so much better on paper.

Oh, Britney, Britney

Is there anything dignified in the discovery of mental illness in a person? Despite my being fed a steady diet of National Public Radio, academic magazines, books, research papers, and so much more brain food, I also watch Entertainment Tonight every night. I must allow the pop culture beast inside of me to snack liberally at the trough.

I may roll my eyes, talk back to the TV, or even channel surf during the program, but until tonight, I hadn't gotten upset to the point of tears. and it was all on account of Britney.

I understand that there is some entertainment value in following the drama that is a celebrity divorce/child custody case. This is the foundation for magazines like The Star. Who gained weight, lost weight, found true love, or had a bad hair day makes for yummy brain candy, but being taken away from one's house in an ambulance in order to be put on a 72-hour psych hold is not, I repeat, not entertainment for national television or tabloid publications.

And yet, there it was in pre-prime time. The host of ET kept coming back around to the "Britney in lockdown!!!!" story. My husband stood in the doorway and said, "Aren't lockdowns for, like, prisons and schools that are under siege?"

Britney, Britney. There she was, unfocused, disheveled, trying to take it all in as she was wheeled down the driveway on a gurney. Camera flashes exploded in the Los Angeles night as paparazzi surrounded the ambulance. Brit didn't panic--she was obviously mentally detached and docile.

There was a helicopter circling the scene. A helicopter. A helicopter with camera people getting close-up shots of Britney like some all-seeing omniscient tabloid eye. By the time Brit was whisked away, there were six police cars and three ambulances at the property. It was chaos, it was a circus, and it must have been humiliating as hell for Ms. Spears. Fully half of the 21 minutes of ET's on-air content was devoted to the Britney drama.

My stomach clenched. How is this legal? How is this ethical? How can people honestly think it is OK to make mental illness, or at the very least, a 72-hour psych hold, a spectator sport? this is not harmless. It greatly adds to the stigma when these episodes happen to average people.

A helicopter? Ms. spears should have been given the privacy she so desperately needed today. Privacy, dignity, respect, basic human decency.

She's on suicide watch. I can't imagine why, having just had such a party in her honor. She must be feeling so loved with all of this attention.

Blech. There oughtta be a law. Oh, there is, actually, and you can read a tidy little summary of it on the Newsweek Website by clicking here. Maybe it's just me, but the doctor being interviewed seems to be dodging the specifics of that 5150. Why do they dance around these criteria questions? What's the big secret? Why do the police have so much leeway in deciding who's normal and who isn't?

These things keep me up at night, and if Brit finds herself unable to sleep, she can call me anytime and we can commiserate about how it feels when other people decide they have every right to step in and run your life.

Why not just take the kids and let Britney be who she will, doing what she wants? She's an adult. Leave her alone.

Maybe we can invoke the spirit of Anna Nicole to explain it all...

I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille

And infomercial day arrived. Again. Somehow I still thought this couldn't be legit, but when I arrived at the studio, there was the crew, the camera, the lights, and Bob.

This means two days in a row wearing makeup--a practice I gave up long ago based on the apparent futility of its intended purpose. Having had decent success with the sewing scissors last night, I rummaged around this morning and found my blow-dryer, some mousse, and some hairspray. This was all the talk at work today. I kept getting compliments on my haircut and comments like, Wow! you look different. What did you do?

I dried my hair and used product. Does this speak to my normal disheveled appearance?

I sat down and answered questions about my experience with the Pilates machine. As we went along, the producer got more and more excited, saying my answers were great and just the kind of "language style" they were looking for. The original interview only had five questions, but every time I thought we were finished, they would add more just because they liked my interview style.

It was excruciating. I can't stand to be photographed, so videotaping was agonizing. I am just happy it's over.

Someday soon when you're channel-surfing, you might come upon a commercial for a wonderful Pilates machine, and you'll see testimonials from several middle-aged people. I'm the one with the purple glasses and the interesting hair.

The fine print

The great Pilates research study had a clause in the contract I thought was just filler. Turned out it was real. When I signed the participation agreement, I also agreed to sit for a taped interview discussing the experience.

I showed up today, wearing some makeup and with my hair actually having made contact with a brush. That's when I was informed there were technical difficulties and I would have to apply mascara, lipstick, and mousse two days in a row.

I was expecting a short taped conversation with a Handi-Cam. Ummmm, no. This is a real-deal professional gig with a producer/director, a camera guy, a lighting guy, and a sound guy. They are making....an infomercial. And I agreed to participate because I am a research slut who wanted a free Pilates Reformer.

Pretty funny considering I don't allow anyone to take my picture. I just trimmed my bangs and the hair framing my face using my Fiskar's Razor-Sharp sewing scissors. It didn't counteract the homeliness, but at least I can see again. And, we know I can still be trusted to use Fiskar's Razor-Sharp sewing scissors around my face and neck without severing my jugular.

Bedtime or I won't be ready for my closeup, Mr. Demille.

The ironic thing was

Writing the copious reams I did about the incident with the police has had an effect on me. The anger is becoming manageable. I haven't been blindsided so much by the memories and the anxiety they trigger.

The one thought that continues to roll around in my head, the big funny is this: For all of the times I was truly, precipitously close to killing myself, how frustrating it is that I was a subjected to a police intervention at a time when I was not even remotely close to killing myself.

How perceptive those idiots are. Where were they when I was sitting on the couch leafing through the suicide instruction manual with great little hangman graphic on the cover?