Walkin’ the Dog, Walkin’ the Dog

Did you know that, over at the Lewis Black fan site, you can submit your own rants? It’s true, it’s true, and if your rant’s good enough, Black himself will read it for an audience in his own, inimitable style.

I decided to try my hand at it in a rant about the anxiety-ridden ordeal that is walking my dog. I don’t know if Black will ever read it, let alone perform it, so I figured, what the hell; I’ll post it here.

---

Dear Lewis,

I hate walking my dog. I do it everyday, and everyday I ask myself, “Why the fuck do I keep subjecting myself to this shit?”

Of course, I know why I subject myself to it: the little fucker’s a butterball. My fiancee has overfed him to the point that he looks like a burrito perched on sticks. One night he was sleeping under an old, stretched-out blanket my fiancee had crocheted, and he looked like one of those netted roasts you find at the supermarket.

So he needs the exercise, and, well, let’s face it, so do I. I recently turned forty, and the godly metabolism that kept me rail-thin from my teens to my thirties finally gave out like an old air conditioner. I’ve also spent a lot of 2020 drinking more than I usually do, but I doubt you need me to go into the whys about that. So I’ve developed a gut that I’m rather ashamed of, and I figure any activity is good activity, so out with the damn dog I go.

Some people say that they find walking their dogs pleasant and relaxing. They say it helps clear their heads. Not me. Not in the fucking slightest. There’s a lot of shit you have to put up with when you’re walking your dog.

First is the little bastard himself. He’s always fucking stopping. He stops so much that  you can hardly say I’m walking him. Sometimes he stops to investigate a square inch of grass that’s apparently so alluring that I have to drag him away from it. Seriously, he’ll dig in and resist me, leaving little nail scratches on the sidewalk. I’m amazed that his claws haven’t been filed down to flat little nubs. Eventually he’ll give up and get back on the trail, but only so he can continue his pissing schedule. Jesus Christ, how can one fat little dog have so much piss in him? Every five steps he’s lifting his leg and letting loose, whether there’s an object there or not. When I do that, people tell me I need a prescription.

Now, I’m so anxious around people that I won’t use a public bathroom unless I’m alone in it, but this damn dog LOVES a fucking audience. He always waits to shit until someone’s near enough to get a good look. All I can do is stand there like a moron, sheepishly grinning at passersby, while my idiot dog defiles someone’s lawn. Then I have the lovely pleasure of picking up after him. Honestly, it’s not the smell or the appearance of dog shit that makes this experience so unpleasant, it’s really the warmth. When my fingers close around that little lump of former Purina, I get a real sense of the temperature of my dog’s lower intestine. You might say it makes me feel closer to him, like I know the little guy inside and out, but don’t, because it’s a shitty joke.

Meanwhile, people are walking by and looking at the whole thing. Now, even when the dog’s not shitting, these people piss me off. They’re always going in the opposite direction from me, so when I first spot them, I get to enjoy a long period of dread, worrying about how I should address them, or if I should address them at all. What do I say? Should I say hello, or give a silent acknowledgment? Should I nod, or should I just smile politely? Will they even see my smile through this god-damned mask I’m wearing? What if they want to pet the damn dog, and I have to yank him away before he snaps their fucking fingers off?

Usually they just give my dog a compliment. I hate when people compliment my dog, because my dog can’t understand English, and he comes off as rude when he doesn’t fucking respond. So I have to answer on his behalf, and I never know what to say. They give me things like, “Oh, isn’t he cute,” and the only polite response I can ever come up with is, “Gee, thanks,” and I feel like a fucking dumbass. I have nothing to do with the way my dog looks; why am I taking fucking credit for it?

Still, as nerve-wracking as all that can be, the worst and most baffling thing about walking my dog are the intersections. God, I fucking hate intersections, but not because there’s a lot of traffic in my neighborhood. If there was, I actually wouldn’t hate them so much, if at all. No, the real reason I hate them is that at least once a day, invariably, when I approach an intersection with my dog, a single car will pull up and stop at the same fucking time.

Let me repeat that: a single car — that is, with no cars before it, and no cars after it — will pull up and stop at the same time that I approach an intersection. If I had arrived at the intersection a minute earlier, or a minute later, this wouldn’t happen, but it DOES. What’s more, since the state of California apparently deemed turn signals optional at some point, I have no way of knowing what these fuckwads are going to DO. So, I’m standing there with my dog, wondering whether this fucking driver is going straight, or will turn in front of me. Again, the anxious questions run rampant. Should I assert myself and go forward, or is this guy a fucking nut-bag who will gladly run me over? Should I play it safe and let HIM go ahead, or is he one of those overly careful douche-nozzles who likes to feel good about himself by letting everyone else go first? When that turns out to be the case, the two of us end up staring at each other like a couple of dimwits with no plans on a Friday night.

“So, uh, what do you wanna do tonight?”
“I dunno, whadda YOU wanna do?”

This happens everyday, Lewis, and everyday it’s a different car, at a different intersection, at a different time. It happens so often that I have to wonder that it happens at all. I mean, think of all the variables involved in this sort of occurrence.

The time that I leave the house. My energy level, which determines my walking speed that morning. The number of times my dog stops to sniff shit, and the amount of time he takes sniffing all that shit. The number of times he stops to MAKE shit, and the amount of time he takes making that shit. The number of times he stops to piss, and the amount of time he takes doing all that pissing. The number of people I have to slow down and talk to, and how lengthy each of those social interactions becomes.

Those are just a few of the factors on MY end. The fucker driving adds even greater dimension to the equation. What time the asshole left the house. Whether his car started properly. The numbers of stop signs and stoplights he encountered. The amount of time he spent in the drive-thru at Starbucks because those fucking baristas always take FOR-GOD-DAMN-EVER. The number of homeless people he fucking ran over on the way — you get the idea. With so many factors to be aligned, you’d think the odds of a single car arriving at the same fucking intersection as I do each day would be astronomical. Yet, without fail, the mathematics always add up to: GOD-FUCKING-DAMN IT, HERE’S ANOTHER ASSHOLE I HAVE TO DEAL WITH!

After hours of pondering this strange choreography of the universe, I believe I have determined the way that I am going to die.

You see, ten-thousand years ago, the inhabitants of the planet Zebulon discovered how to harness geothermal energy, and use it to power their cities. Since the Zebulonites hired Chespeake Energy to do the work, however, they dug too deep into the Great Magoovian Fault. This caused a massive explosion at Zebulon’s core, and split the damn thing in half like a jawbreaker. The planet’s two hemispheres went sailing across the galaxy as though hurled by heavenly hands. One of the halves came into the path of an Abraxian battlecruiser on deployment, which blasted it out of its way with a photon torpedo. This sent chunks of debris in all directions, and one such chunk was sent on a trajectory that, in time, will bring it into contact with a small blue planet called Earth.

As of now, the chunk is still many millions of miles away, but soon it will enter Earth’s atmosphere, where it will come ablaze and crumble, until it’s about the size of a .32 caliber bullet. Then, it will fall seven miles out of the sky, and right onto my god-damned head.

They’ll find me splayed on the corner of Third and Atchison, where I was waiting at a crosswalk for a car to pass by, still clutching my dog’s leash. The coroner will say something like, “Poor bastard; he never knew what hit him.” But I DID, Lewis. I DID.

Now, I know that this isn’t really how things work. I’m not so egocentric that I really believe that the universe has it out for me, like some cosmic version of The Fucking Truman Show…

…but it sure FEELS that way sometimes.

Your fan,

Daniel

A Pain in the Brain

The mental pain that I experience during and following a panic attack is always the same. There’s a sense of anguish, a physical reaction that’s not far removed from the reaction to physical pain. It’s frightening to know that thoughts can sear as effectively as any fiery brand.

What I believe is happening is a clashing of philosophies. Throughout my life, I’ve attempted to juggle two diametrical modes of thought. I’ve considered describing them as “conservative” and “liberal,” but I think a more accurate terminology is “Shore” and “Ocean.” They are armies at constant odds, columns of artillery continually shelling each other, but there’s never any attrition. One side or the other merely retreats and regroups, and then makes another charge with full force. The only possible casualty in this conflict is myself.

I charted some of this out. Perhaps I’m naive to think that I can make sense of it, but if there’s anything I can make sense of in this world, I’d like to think that it’s my own mind. There are many rivers of thought and possibility flowing through both sides, so I’ve had to filter and condense many of them. Here’s how I broke them down:

The “Shore,” or “Western” nation, fights on the side of culture. It is masculine, hierarchical, goal-oriented, and irrevocably sold on the immortality of the human empire. The motto of the Shore-dweller is “Suck it up, Nancy!” On the shore, you put your head down, you accept your position as it’s assigned from birth, and you collect things (artificial ones) to soothe yourself. The mark of success on the Shore is the accomplishment, or the creation, or the purchase of something “valuable,” as determined by the Shore’s inhabitants. By the Shore’s standards, if you labor long on a work that only has value to yourself, you die a failure, a sad little person who is soon forgotten.

Sounds pretty horrible, doesn’t it? Yet, this is the mode that many people not only accept, but embrace. It thrives, not because it is the truth, but because it only needs money to keep it going. The more money that is pumped into it, the bigger and more intrusive it gets. It analyzes us, seduces us, and makes us feel secure. The Message is so pervasive, at all phases of our lives, that it becomes familiar, and therefore comfortable.

Recent events prove that this mode is outdated and dying. Once-sacred institutions are undergoing entropic failures, but more importantly than that, we are aware of these failures. We know that our idols are false, and yet we continue to erect new ones, because we don’t know how else things can work.

We’re scared to leave the Shore.

The “Ocean,” or “Eastern” nation, fights for the individual. It doesn’t believe in boundaries or categorization. It doesn’t believe in grinding and burning one’s life away in a box for a machine. It seeks opportunity and fights for it, usually at great material risk. Money is a minor concern to those on Ocean; meaning is what matters to them. Any activity that doesn’t reap fulfillment or personal satisfaction is wasteful and pointless. Instead of seeking to collect, the Ocean seeks to prune. It asks, “What can I do without? Where can I simplify, reduce my encumbrance? What shall I release, and what shall I nurture?” The Ocean does not trust in artificial structures built to corral large groups. It takes pride in refusal.

Most profoundly, the Ocean-dweller accepts the possibility that there is no “real” answer, no promise to be kept at the end of life. It clings to nothing, and fluctuates at all times. It knows that humanity and all its creations are finite, and that life is a cycle of birth and destruction. It does not need the opinions of culture as they relate to “lasting” or “enduring” value. The “why” of the universe may never be revealed, so the Ocean-dweller simply hunts for occupation and joy wherever it might occur.

This mode of thought sounds pleasant and idealistic, even heavenly, but the rub is that it demands immense, unshakeable courage. The Shore-dweller dismisses the Ocean-dweller as a loser, a looney, a whack-job…unless he or she makes a lot of money.

The root of my anxiety lies in the conflict between these two ideologies. I’m sure that a philosophy major would tell me that I’m not making any revelations here. I’m sure that I’m just inadvertently repeating the positions of Nietzsche or Heidegger or Plato or some such person. Still, while I’m sure that studying the works of these gentlemen would improve my articulation, I also think that I’d do better to develop my own ideas, basing them on my own personal experience.

Eleventh Hour Desperation

Day Eleven, Depression and Friends: All these things that I’ve been talking about, these things that made this year so lousy, they fucking sucked. They disrupted, ruined, or flat out ended lives. I was very fortunate, however, in that none of them directly affected me. I was insulated, viewing them comfortably through the filter of a computer screen. I’m just a little fellow, in a wide world, after all. Sadly, knowing this doesn’t make my problems feel any smaller.

Just a few months ago, my life was very different from what it is now. I had a full-time job and my own apartment. I was doing pretty well. I had lived that way for four years before the relapse. When the depression struck me, it struck hard. I lost my will to work, and worse, my will to do anything. I lost all interest in life. It didn’t help that it seemed like my peers were doing great, building families and buying houses.

Getting degrees.

Depression and panic attacks first visited upon me when I moved to USC in 1997. They immobilized me and made it impossible for me to leave my dorm, let alone succeed in class. I had to withdraw, and give up a substantial scholarship.

I’ve since developed an indelible fear of college that’s left me scrabbling for dead-end jobs, and I had trouble keeping those. As for a social life, forget it; I had no foundation, no sense of who I was, and I shrank from the friendly faces that approached me. I finally thought I had a sturdy handle on things in 2008, when I got a fine job that I got pretty damned good at. The company was well-run, successful even in the dark days of the recession, and my supervisors treated me like a prince. Before long, I had enough money to finally get out of my parents’ house again, and live on a modest budget. I started going to parties, making pals, dating girls. Life was looking up, and I was grateful.

But I overreached. Lost sight of the sunny spot I was in. I became afraid of looking lazy, or unambitious, and I requested more responsibility. I got it, and it turned out to be a heavier weight than I could bear. I became tense, and then stressed, and then miserable. I stopped socializing. I stopped drawing. I stopped doing anything, really. As soon as I got home, I fell into bed. The days smeared into a dreary, gray blur of work, sleep, work, and sleep. I requested my old job back, only to find that it wasn’t available, at least not in full-time. There was nothing for it. I had to leave.

I found another job, but it paid less than my old job did, and my budget was crunched. I found yet another job, and it paid more than my old job did, but by then the panic attacks were in full swing, and I couldn’t bring myself to go there.

I was in a spot. I had already been living hand-to-mouth before the depression hit. Now I was too crippled to bring anything home. I burned through what little money I had saved. I had to give up the apartment and move back in with my folks. For the third time. Not long before, life looked like a shining skyline of upward mobility and romance. Now it was a bleak flatland of counseling and disability claims.

Turned out I wasn’t the only one in the house having a hard time. My father was fighting a long, tiresome battle against his former employers and insurance companies for workman’s compensation. He needed back surgery for years, and it looked like it was finally going to happen. My mother knew that he’d need help once the operation was through, so she struggled with the idea of retiring. She’d been at her job for over twenty years, and it paid a tidy sum that she was loth to give up. Still, she decided to take the plunge for the sake of my dad and I.

Meanwhile, my grandmother was ailing terribly. She was suffering with congestive heart failure, a condition that made it a challenge for her to simply walk across a room. It was clear she was going to need open-heart surgery. At eighty years old. As this was in the wake of Joan Rivers’s death, my whole family was on edge.

This year has felt like the final act of a very long movie, where everything is at stake, the tension is at its height, and long-running threads converge and, for better or for worse, resolve.

I thought about resolving them for good many, many times.

My saving grace was recognizing that I had support. I’ve known for years that I could count on my parents, for they are good people who help others in need. However, I also know that they are still just people, and can only give so much before they break, and my guilt often overwhelms me. What I only recently discovered, when I was so deep in the jungles of despair that I thought I’d never get out, was that my parents weren’t the only ones looking out for me. Someone, or something I can’t explain, was waiting for me to call out to it, too.

From the Journal

Dear God, Angels, Spirits, or Whoever’s Out There,

My brother, father, mother, and grandmother are all suffering right now. My sister-in-law and close friends are having personal crises too. We need your help. I feel that a massive shift is happening, something that will change us all, and I am frightened and nervous.

I just have to trust that things will be okay, possibly even better than they were before things went wrong. I just have to trust in you. I know you’ve answered prayers of mine, and prayers of my Dad’s, and I’m grateful for that.

I hate to say it, but we need your help more than ever right now. We are all in scary places, waiting on answers or results that are slow in coming. Please help us to find ways to douse that fear hanging over our family. We miss the peace and stability we once enjoyed.

Of course, I understand that we’re are only now confronting the conclusions of events set in motion long ago: I with my depression, Mom with her retirement, Dad with his bad back. Getting through them will be challenging, but somehow, I know it’ll be worth it in the end. It just has to be.

With Hope,

Daniel