Being Illegal

I tried to write a check at the stupidmarket the other day, and the cashier asked to see my I.D. "Probably because it's the new year," she said. "I've had three of them already today."

I dutifully handed over my driver's license and was logging the amount of the check in my checkbook when the cashier said, "This has expired."

I said, "What?" Driver's Licenses don't just expire. The state sends you a renewal notice long before that ever happens. I hadn't received anything. I snatched the card back and tried to make out the teeny little numbers. She was right, but how could that be?

"Oh, and when you go down to get it renewed?" she added. "They're going to ask for your birth certificate. Just so you know. It's a new rule they have."

I said, "What?" I used to know where my birth certificate was, but that was before the move. I couldn't find it now to save my life. I'll probably have to get a new one, but how in hell do you do that?

I have a little bit of time to launch a search. The BMV mobile unit won't be back in my town until next Friday, and I'm damned if I'm going to drive to Augusta just to sit on my ass in the DMV lobby for three hours,.

Why didn't I get a notification anyhow? It should have been forwarded to me with all my other mail.

Last night, my kitchen lamp, one of my mother's colorful creations, decided to fall apart for the umpteenth time. I managed to get it back together again, but the bulb wouldn't light, and when I changed it I realized that the fixture itself was broken. This is something that I can fix, but a means a special trip to the hardware store, buying a new socket, and then fiddling around with doodads and knickknacks and tiny little screws -- not my favorite activity in the world. I'll get frustrated and my hands will start to shake and I'll start dropping bits and pieces on the floor where they'll roll away into purgatory. Come to think of it, maybe I won't fix the damn lamp.

And just this morning, my oven decided not to light. It was working fine last night. This morning -- nothing! What am I going to do about that? Who fixes ovens? You can't just look in the phone book under "Oven Repair Guy." And even if I can find someone to do the work, it means I have to take time off from work to be there.

It's a True Fact of my life that Stuff seems to break down a lot at my touch, and it looks as though that curse has followed me into my Brave New World.

The big question is, what in hell am I going to have for dinner tonight? My options just got a lot thinner.

Some days I just deeply hate Being Alive.

-- Freder.

Backtracking The Doctor

I spent nearly all of the last day of 2011 with The Doctor: the two final episodes of Christopher Eccleston's ninth doctor, and the first two of David Tennant's tenth.

Yeah, I broke down and bought the lot.

Matt Smith is still my current Doctor of Choice, and Stephen Moffat, the current head writer, is simply the best thing ever to happen to Doctor Who, but  I wanted to watch Moffat's earlier episodes on something other than my computer, and I wanted to see how it began, and how it evolved -- And the price was right.  I wouldn't have  paid fifty to seventy dollars a set for these, believe you me.

I give credit to Russell T Davies where it is due; he's a workmanlike writer and he managed to update the series in a way that really caught on with viewers. But I really dislike all the traveling companions that he created (OK, Rose has some good qualities when you get to know her better, but I hate her frowzy bleach-blonde hair and her Cockney accent and the fact that she's just nineteen. I hate her stupid boyfriend and I hate her Cockney mother.) -- and all of the best episodes during his tenure as head writer were scripted by others.

"Dalek" and the WW2 two-parter by Stephen Moffat are smashing examples. This is where the show really takes off. We get to see what one single Dalek can do against a whole army, and we get the first taste of Gothic Horror that oftentimes flavored the classic series.

Christopher Eccleston seems, on the face of it, to be an odd choice for the Doctor, but he's quite good. I ended up liking him a lot. He evokes Tom Baker's manic Doctor, and the gruffness of William Hartnell and adds a scruffy arrogance of his own.

Davies isn't nearly as refined a writer as Moffat, nor as clever, and he's kind of coarse at times (farting aliens? Please!) -- but this is recognizably Doctor Who, streamlined and given the production values it always lacked, and at its best it's great TV.

But just two episodes into the second season, I can already see it going a bit pear-shaped. I like Tennant as the Doctor, but he's barely in the first episode ("The Christmas Invasion"), which, without the Doctor's presence, plays more like a downmarket version of Independence Day. Torchwood is already being mentioned, and the supporting cast is starting to grow. Based on what I've seen of season four, by the time it gets to that stage there are so many other characters getting so much attention that the Doctor is reduced to being a supporting character in his own show!

It was the best possible thing (and the kindest thing that he could do for incoming producer Moffat) to finally strip away all that dead weight and produce one final "season" of one-off specials that featured the Doctor traveling alone. In effect, he pressed the "reset" button so that Moffat could come in and work his magic.

There's one other thing about the Davies iteration (and one that Moffat has expanded upon) that vaguely bothers me. It's what conservatives would call his "Gay Agenda." But introducing Gay characters is not what I'm having some difficulty facing. It's the introduction -- rather, the acknowledgement -- of sex at all! The classic series never, ever acknowledged that people have a sexual instinct. The closest one got to an acknowledgement of sex on the classic series was probably Leela's leather bikini! I'm not saying that it shouldn't have been done (but thank goodness the Doctor himself is still chaste). It's just that for an old fan it takes a little bit of getting used to! Hank Panky -- in the TARDIS! I'm shocked! Shocked!

-- Freder.

Woolgathering

I'd never heard of this before, but it's apparantly real: Today is Good Riddance Day! This is something that we need! Although, if I were to set all my anxieties, grievances, fears and regrets on fire, I might inadvertantly end up torching half the neighborhood. If I had to narrow it down to one thing that I could put through the shredder and be done with forever after, it would be this: Grief.

Back in my younger days, my friend BC introduced us to an annual tradition he'd invented, called a "Year Burning." Everyone brought a calendar with them, and we threw it in the fireplace and theraputically watched the dates blacken, curl and disintegrate into ash. In effect, we said "Good Riddance" to that Damn Year, and told ourselves that the next one would be better.

I kept up the tradition for several years until I realized that the new year is NEVER any better and sometimes it's a good deal worse. The ones that you burned start to look good by comparison.

*

Here's something for the bonfire: In the interest of provoking hilarity at my expense, let me tell you how I came to color my hair early this week and how badly it turned out.

For some time I've considered coloring my hair snow white. I'm going grey anyhow, and I figured what the hell? Might as well go all the way, right? What I had was just mousy and undistinguished. So during the holiday weekend I gathered all the products I'd bought secretly and separately, disappeared into my bathroom and began my bold plan to remake myself for the next era.

I read all the instructions. I did everything right.

You can see it coming, can't you? If I can possibly find a way to humiate myself publically, I do. I came out of the process looking like a tall, plump munchkin. My hair is now orangey yellow, like a member of the Lollypop Guild. Honestly, I look like I drank a bottle of Grecian Formula.

Go ahead and laugh. I can be a sport about it now. Nothing I can do but wait for it to grow out and then never, ever do that again!

I need to get me one of those little angels to sit on my shoulder. Every time I got a Supposedly Great Idea, the angel could whisper into my ear, "Don't DO it, putz! PLEASE don't do it. You KNOW that you ruin everything you touch. There's nothing wrong with mousy."

*

Typing of re-making myself, Christmas was at least good for one thing this year: It proved to me conclusively that I still don't know who in the hell I am anymore.

Recently, I have made Advances and Retreats in the area of Being Social. I make a bold move; then I run for the hills, duck and cover, hide in cringing embarrassment.

After the four days off surrounding Christmas, I now understand why. Once upon a time, I knew who I was. I wrote two novels and enough short stories to fill a book. I was finally getting back in gear with a third novel, some one my best work to date. I had a website going and for at least two years I made deadline with significant installments of TWO online comic strips. I was a bustle of activity, I was. Life was good-ish. "Ish" because I wasn't a terrible success for all that work.

Then it all fell apart. And I know now that I haven't gained anything back. Over the four days of Christmas Holiday, I literally did not know what to do with myself. I don't know who I am anymore.

I can't inflict myself on a woman in this condition. A man seeking a partner needs to know what he is about, to be a Real Person with hopes, aspirations and goals.

This holiday weekend showed me that I am far away from that point. The job in front of me now is simply: Become a Real Boy.

-- Freder.

Blue Christmas

Gah. Christmas Day was one long, severe bout of anxiety punctuated by tears. My father and his wife called around noon and we made small talk for five minutes or so. When I hung up the phone I unexpectedly burst into tears all over again.

I had spent Christmas Eve with Laurel and Hardy in Pack Up Your Troubles, and that went down well, so on Christmas afternoon I tried fighting fire with even bigger guns and put on the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business. Alas, I seem to have gone off the Marx Brothers completely.

At first it was funny and I laughed out loud in a couple of places. . . I still love Harpo chasing women all over the ship, and it's something that you wouldn't be able to get away with in a movie today. But then it was more of the same and more of the same, and it seemed endless, and I nearly fell asleep on it. Finally I shut it down and went to putter around in the kitchen.

I decided on an early dinner, not so much because I was hungry (although I was), as because I knew that my rationed two drinks that I allow myself with dinner would help with the anxiety that was still digging its claws in my chest.

I cooked up some asparagus and a big batch of chicken wings for me, and a breast for the quats. I ate every damn one of those wings, too. They turned out well this time.

After dinner it was a matter of killing time, resuming my project of duping old VHS onto DVD and playing a round of the Hell's Kitchen computer game until 9:00 PM, when the only Big Event of the day was due to premiere: This year's Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe.

I thought it got off to a bit of a rocky start. But once we got past the ridiculous bit of The Doctor somehow surviving a fall to earth from outer space, it turned lovely quite quickly. When he tries to return a favor to a British war widow in the early days of WWII, it all goes pear-shaped rather quickly and this time it's not the Doctor who saves the day.

It was exciting and interesting and sweet, but in the end its sentiment about the Power of Mums (that's Mothers to us Americans, not flowers!) came in a little below the belt for me and set me off all over again. In this case, this mother actually succeeds in bringing her fighter pilot husband back from the dead, guiding his plane back along the time corridor. Happy Christmas, indeed.

But not for me.

Today has been much better, dramatically better. The anxiety has been little more than a mild background noise, and I haven't teared up at all, except a little bit, just now, writing about the widow's Happy Ending. I won't need to have an early dinner.

My kitties are all settled in front of the fire. It's time for me to whip up a late lunch and join them there.

-- Freder.

I'll Be Home for Christmas

Last year at this time there was no room for reflection. My days off were filled with the move. This year it's awfully quiet by comparison, and I'm trying not to let that get to me, but I've already been in tears once today and I expect it won't be the last. Sending a holiday greeting out to friends and especially my uncle and aunt was unexpectedly tough. I got through Thanksgiving all right, but Christmas is a different sort of holiday and there's no escaping the fact that my kitties are all I've got.

My lawyer sent me a card wishing me, in part, "All that your heart might desire," and that kind of cuts to the chase. When my friends C_____ and S_______ brought me a cake on my birthday and told me to make a wish, I couldn't think of anything. Not one single thing. I had to pretend. I'm still empty inside.

When I'm done here, I'm going to whip up a snack and settle down to watch Laurel & Hardy in their second feature film, Pack Up Your Troubles. I expect a cat or two to join me. Guess I couldn't wish for more than that on Christmas Eve.

Happy Happy, Merry Merry, and thanks for taking the trouble of reading my blog. No matter what holiday you celebrate at this time of year, make it a memorable one!

-- Freder.

The First Annualversity

One year ago today, I grabbed up my pussycats one by one and clutched them to my chest, ever so tightly, so that none could get away from me, and slagged through my snow-filled front yard, the yard I knew like it was a part of me for having shared it for more than 35 years, and one by one stuffed them in the car. They screamed and cried. Whitey crawled under the passenger seat and hunched and clutched the carpet with his claws. I had made -- for me -- a Bold Decision to move the family into the New House, before it was ready for Prime Time, but also before the Old House became such a bare and horrible place that living in it was unbearable.

So began four months of busting my butt to make life bearable again, to make a new home.

Acclimating the cats to the new place proved to be even harder than acclimating myself. It was horrible at first.

It's all here on the blog. It was an experience that I would liken -- frivolously, because my life was never at stake -- to being plopped down in the middle of a land war.

Tonight I stood in the bay window at the side of my house and looked out on the neighborhood. A HOME that I am comfortable and happy in stood behind me.

We lost another Family Member along the way. But the survivors are comfy and safe. Even content.

There's still work to do. I am not where I want to be in terms of reclaiming my life as a creative person. But -- in the year just passed? It was unreasonable of me to beat myself up for failing in that regard, when I had so much infrastructure to rebuild.

But now the launch pad is built. To deeply mix my metaphors, I've begun weaving the cocoon. I need to stop whipping myself, and give myself the slack to re-develop. These things don't happen overnight.

Something in looking back at where I was a year ago at this time makes me think that it can possibly, maybe, be done...

-- Freder.

PS -- The Green Children. Check 'em out. Good music for a rebirth.

Big Change in the Weather

And now, the War in Iraq is officially declared over. It seems quite arbitrary to me. If they were able to end it so suddenly now (and not one nanosecond before President Obama needed it to live up to at least one campaign promise), why couldn't it have happened sooner?

I'm one of those people who believed that we never should have gone there in the first place. Iraq had done nothing to us. W. was so smug and so certain that "Shock and Awe" would have the nation on its knees, begging for mercy, that it would all be over in a few days. When has that ever happened?

The loss of life associated with the Iraq war seems particularly shameful to me. Our soldiers were led to believe that they were fighting in Iraq for "our freedom." They were not. Our freedom was never in jeopardy, except when the Bush administration started doing things like creating the Patriot act and eavesdropping on civilians. Was Saddam Hussein a bad guy? Yes, obviously. But it wasn't any of our business to go in there and kill tens of thousands of people to get rid of him. As other countries in the region have proved during this long summer of protest, when the people get angry enough, they can topple their own kingpins with much greater efficiency.

I join the President in welcoming the soldiers home. They never should have had to go. What did we accomplish in Iraq? What was it all for?

*

It's common knowledge that in New England, we talk about the weather. A lot. Possibly because it's it's less contentious than talking about politics, except when it comes down to those weirdoes out there who actually like snow. They must be Republicans.

So far, this winter has been a lot more benign than most, and certainly more so than the one we had last year. That changed quite suddenly yesterday as a cold front pushed through and temps dropped from the high forties and low fifties into the high teens. A sudden shift like that is almost harder to take than a long stretch, and it must be particularly hard on the animals living outdoors. The ground tightens up quickly like a clenched fist. As I walked out on my deck this morning, it creaked and moaned underneath me. Recently, I've been able to turn the gas fire off at night without the indoor temperature dropping below 60. Last night it ran all night long, and never got above 64 in the place. I expect that the oil furnace will kick in today, for the first time this winter.

It had to happen, sooner or later. We've been fortunate up to now.

*

The prospect of Newt Gingrich as Republican front runner has me alternately horrified and pleased. Republicans profess to hate Government, yet they're leaning towards a man who is as deeply intrenched in Government as they come. But he's also an Arrogant Ass, and that's a quality they seem to admire. In Maine, our new Republican governor is as Arrogant an Ass as they come, and he sweetens the pot by also being a delusional, ignorant loudmouth.

I shudder to think of Gingrich in the Oval Office, but then I look at the pack of candidates, and, really, there isn't a single one that doesn't make me shudder! A part of me does want to say to Republicans, go ahead, give Mr. Gingrich the nomination, please! Please give the nomination to someone like him who can't possibly get elected!

But I don't want to jinx the nation. I said the same exact thing about W., and look at what happened. . .

-- Freder.

Small Box, Big Frown. . .

I keep hearing that printed-on-paper books are becoming extinct and will, in very short order, be replaced by e-books. I guess the folks that are saying it are the same ones that predicted that television would kill off movie theaters. Television certainly changed the industry and presented it with some big challenges, but look around you: the movie theaters are still here (and you should go to one to see Hugo!). I didn't originate this observation, but it bears repeating: we tend not to throw away old tech, but to add new technologies on to what we have.

The thing that killed Borders (well, in part) was mismanagement. I happen to know that interest in paper books isn't going away anytime soon, and sales are not in decline. I help run a bookstore, and am the book buyer for the place. Paper books are under attack from so many directions (even by the people who publish them!) that it's kind of remarkable that the market is as strong as it is.

The thing that's happening is that our share of the market (and by "our" I mean all brick-and-mortar stores) is dwindling by the year. It's not going to e-books (I count that, and I bet most businesses do, too, as an additional revenue stream). It's going to Jeff Bezos.

Amazon changed the whole equation for book lovers. When I was growing up and well into my adulthood, you never thought twice about paying retail for a book. It was just one of those things. Sale books have always been strong, but if you wanted something new you just paid retail for it.

Amazon has created a whole new mind-set: now people know that they don't have to pay retail price for books, and they don't want to, and I don't blame them. Amazon caused us all to believe that if you pay retail for a book, that makes you a sucker.

I didn't feel this way until recently, but it does amount to unfair competition. As many others have pointed out, Amazon's not making money on books anymore, it's using them as a loss-leader. Brick-and-mortar stores can't afford to do that.

But the thing that Jeff Bezos did last week really crosses the line. It's so far over the top that I honestly thought it was a hoax at first. Amazon is now using its customers to spy on retail stores, and rewarding them with discounts. Their selling point is that they are doing it to help keep prices low. This, all by itself, is a Big Lie. They're doing it to see how high they can raise their prices while still under-selling brick-and-mortar stores!

Now, I'm somewhat of a hypocrite because I'm an Amazon customer (although I mostly buy DVDs from them, which I can not get locally). People who work in bookstores don't have a lot of disposable cash. But this latest thing is so underhanded that it's driving home the "buy local" message even to me.

In the early days I liked Amazon because it was smart, spunky, convenient, and because it didn't replace bookstores. But through this and other strong-arm tactics that he's taken to using in recent years, it's clear that Jeff Bezos has joined Darth Vader on the dark side of the force and is trying to hammer all small business into the ground. Amazon may have been a genius idea at one time, but now it's being run by an Evil genius. And, y'know -- maybe it was that way all along.

-- Freder.