I am slowly getting used to the fact that part of my getting older is having very specific memories suddenly come swimming up out of the morass into my consciousness and just kind of sit there, shining and eerily distinct, until I do something to connect to or otherwise acknowledge them.
The image in my head is of a big shiny koi swimming to the surface of a Japanese ornamental pond and eyeballing me till I pat it on the head.
Then it says something in a jarringly deep voice and swims away.
Sadly, it says it in Japanese, so I have no idea what it means.
God, it’s fun being weird.
Anyhow, my latest koi was the absolutely mindblowingly joyful and righteous Daryl Hammond as Bill Clinton bit he did after Clinton was acquitted in his impeachment trial.
The famous “I. Am. Bulletproof. ” bit.
In it, Clinton looks at the camera and says the above, and the audience (including me) absolutely explodes with exultant joy.
We had just been through many months of bullshit with the GOP trying to impeach Clinton any way they could and failing miserably because back then, there were things some GOP legislators would NOT do and one of them was impeach the President on such bullshit charges.
So Hammond’s Clinton announcing his victory with such swagger was exactly the tension breaker we all needed.
He goes on to say things like, “Next time you step to me, you best bring some kryptonite” and “There’s no good way to beat the comeback kid!”.
Hammond and the SNL writers could not have matched the moment better. The whole piece made me want to throw a big party, and I’m an introvert.
Big parties are not my thing.
Especially if they are also really crowded, because then the claustrophobia kicks in too. And let me tell you, having social anxiety and claustrophobia going full blast at the same time is not fun.
It’s what drove me out of the local furry community that I founded and ran for a long time. The furmeets were increasingly at Rat’s apartment and there were way too many bodies packed into a small space and I ended up spending most of the meet out on the balcony trying to catch my breath and calm the fuck down.
Took me a while to figure out what was freaking me out and a while after that to come to the very sad conclusion that I couldn’t come to the meets any more.
And from there, I just lost contact with my community entirely.
Oh look, past emotional trauma, here to bum me out again.
And the worst part is, I didn’t even fight it. Dunno what I would have done. Probably started a more bite-sized event with just the furries I knew well from Back In The Day when I first founded the thing.
But no, I just dropped out of this community I had been such a vital part of for almost a decade and was so proud of, and disappeared forever.
Kind of like when I dropped out of UPEI and abandoned all my friends, leaving them to drift apart without my unifying influence and presumably wondering why.
Because I was incapable of disagreeing with my parents back then, that’s why. My whole life, I had done what I was told and stayed where I was put. My job was to enthusiastically agree to whatever they asked of me and never object or assert my own needs or anything because I knew that’s what they wanted of me and that little bit of acknowledgement I got when I was a good boy was precious to me.
Be a good boy and have no needs, desires, or even interests so we can do what we love most and forget you exist most of the time, OK? Great.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
More after the break.
Hmph. I ordered the chips and queso and got chips and gauc instead.
Heads must roll!
Migosh, does Coke Zero (or Coke Zero Sugar, as it is now known) taste weird when you haven’t had it in a while.
It’s like the first time I tried it, only worse, because this time it caught me off-guard.
It tastes like some kind of weird plum, mint, and tamarind sauce you’d try once at a Chinese buffet, say “Well that was interesting. ” and never touch again.
And the thing is, I can’t be the only person who thinks it tastes weird. They presumably spent a whole stack of millions on consumer research for this stuff and yet somehow they missed the people saying “This tastes weird in a very bad way. I feel dirty. ”
I will just stick with my good ol’ Diet Coke for now.
The Big Bad Bear
Working title for an id personification I am developing in my head.
Look, we writers have weird ways of coping, Just roll with it.
Now, where do I start..
The Big Bad Bear (BBB) is selfish, greedy, arrogant, manipulative, and uses his great size, strength, and intelligence to push others around and casually squeeze what he wants out of people before leaving them broken and depleted as he moves on to his next victim… er. associate.
After all, he reasons somewhat facetiously, he’s not doing anything other people aren’t doing. Hustling for a dollar, trying to get laid. looking for a good time. So why should he hold back more than anyone else?
He knows the answer – because he’s naturally gifted on many levels and therefore the playing field is anything but level.
The fact that he’s also extremely ruthless doesn’t help either.
But he also knows that 99 percent of the population cannot even begin to articulate that answer, and in his world of solipsistic sophistry, that means it’s okay.
After all, if you can’t tell me what I am doing wrong, I must not be doing anything wrong.
The best thing you can say about him is that in his own twisted way, he’s gentle and good-natured. He is, at all times, soft and melodious of speech, kindly and friendly of demeanor, and exquisitely polite to everyone.
In fact, if one only meets him casually, you would think him the very soul of civilization and the gentlest of all possible giants.
And he would happily let you continue to think that until he either had use for you or you got in between him and what he wanted.
This has no effect on his very high opinion of himself as a gentleman and a gentle man.
After all, he declares in tones of pious innocence, it’s not like he wants to hurt people.
He just doesn’t care if he does.
All in all, he is a very bad bear indeed.
And I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.