Emo in the Casino

As if the smoke that’s slowly infiltrating my body and laying tar across the lining of my lungs wasn’t bad enough, everyone else seems to be doing just fine.  I walked into work the other day and found out that two people on my team had been promoted to better positions.  Then, one of my coworkers took out his wallet in front of me, opened it up, and pulled out a ten dollar bill, waving it in front of my face and smiling so wide I could see every one of his yellow teeth.  He bragged that he had received that money as a tip from one of the customers.  He and I never get tipped, although when we were first hired we were told we would be.  Then the gaming director changed his tune and told us our positions had the possibility of being tipped.  Well, sure, if you want to say it that way, every position in any job has the possibility of being tipped.  You could tip your accountant or the cashier at Blockbuster but most people don’t. 

“God is good,” he told me with his buttery mouth. 

That was not something I wanted to hear, as me and the G-man aren’t on good terms right now.

Not only that, but a lady won fifteen thousand dollars during the night and literally two minutes later, her husband won ten thousand dollars.  Needless to say, they were pretty happy.

At the end of the shift, I asked one of my coworkers who got promoted if she liked her new position better.

“I love it better,” she replied.

Well, good for you.

Paper cuts, ya know?  Paper cuts.

It just sucks to be surrounded by happy people when I feel like I am slowly suffocating both physically, emotionally and spiritually.  It's like being stuck inside a glass box that's slowly filling up with water and everyone on the outside is yucking it up and going about their merry way while I shriek and pound on the glass and no one notices or no one cares to.  Everyone is just so oblivious.

Plus, the ten-dollar tipped guy with the sulfur smile is so patronizing to me.  I suppose he sees himself as above me because he makes more money and because my job is basically bitch work.  He’s always so quick to say, “Oh, Brannon you’re doing such a good job around here.”  I can push up chairs in a straight line.  Thanks so much for telling me I do it well.  Jerk.   And he tells our supervisor, “Brannon’s the head customer service guy here.  He knows what the hell he’s doing.”  I know that sounds pretty nice but it’s his cadence, his inflection, his sliminess that corrupts the compliments.  What really ticks me off is the fact that I think he thinks I’m pretty stupid and we all know that I hate to be made to feel stupid and I hate for other people to think I’m stupid.  Just because I have such a low-end position doesn’t mean I’m unintelligent.  Crap, maybe I am unintelligent but he shouldn’t deem me as dumb just because of what I do.  Just because I have to scrape soot from ashtrays doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of your respect, you douche lord.

In other news, I started applying for jobs once again.  It's such a frustrating process because the only jobs that are ever offered are those of the manual labor, chicken deboning or medical variety.  Oh, three of my favorite things!  And all the office jobs require you to have all these years of experience, which I don't have.  I simply can't catch a break.  I keep applying, regardless.  I also applied for different jobs that were advertised within the company, including a bar back/bartender.  I wasn't too sure what a bar back was but I thought I'd give it a shot, reasoning that it couldn't be much worse than what I was already doing.  How silly of me to think such things.  It could always be worse.  Shouldn't I know that by now?  I got called into the bar manager's office and he went on to tell me that he was restructuring the bar (things change just about every ten minutes at this company) and that he wasn't in need of a bar back but that he would bring me on as a bartender's apprentice.  I'd start out stocking soda and then serve coffee and eventually work my way up to alcohol.  I'm completely anti-alcohol so I wasn't thrilled with this job description but I was so desperate to get out of my current situation that I blurted out, "Sounds great to me, thanks!"  It's sad that I have to contiually compromise my principles like that but I have to do what's necessary at this point.  I've sacrificed a lot to work here.  I drive an hour and a half to and from work.  I work in a smoke-filled environment (I'm also anti-smoking) and I'm generally uncomfortable all the time but this job was seriously the only decent opportunity to get out of my crap town so I had to take it.  I just told myself all these sacrifices would be worth it one day.  I'm having second thoughts.

A few days pass by and the bar manager told me he had placed me on his schedule.  I breathed a sigh of relief knowing I had escaped customer service slavedom.  I start on New Year's Eve.  While I'm excited that I won't have to scrape soot or clean up after disgusting people, I'm still not excited about what I'm doing.  I am looking forward to just working with the servers and not with the general public.  It's not a typical bar like you'd imagine.  Really, it's just a hole in the wall where the beverage servers go to pick up the drinks for the customers who are sitting.  Sometimes a random customer will come in and order something but those occasions are usually few and far between and I'm glad for that.  I'd much rather work with my peers instead of the filthy public.  Plus, I was told it would be a pay increase.  And I'll actually be getting tips this time.  So, that's a plus.

Basically, I'm just hoping this position doesn't suck as much as customer service because I really just want to work my way over to being a point of sale clerk, which is basically handing customer's their winnings in cash.  It's easy and it pays pretty well.  And it's not that I'm lazy but this job is only to support my continued ventures into animation.  I can't even think straight when I get off work now, much less be creative and work on animation.  The work is literally too physically exhausting.  But, if I was a point of sale clerk, I would sit in a chair and work a cash register for eight hours.  Sounds pretty sweet to me!  It's not that I'm lazy, I'm just trying to concentrate on my hopefully eventual career.  That position wouldn't be as tiresome and I really feel like I'd be able to get off work and pick up a pencil and start drawing right after.

Plus, I'm not trying to change over jobs so soon.  If I were to do that and get a new job, that would mean three jobs in three months and that does not look good on my resume.  Also, since I am among the first employees, I have seniority over everyone else.  That could really help out if a point of sale position ever opens up and I apply for it.  Ya know, as much as I want to jump ship, I really am trying to be practical.  I don't want to do anything too drastic or irrational just because I'm miserable.  I don't want to get myself out of a sticky situation right now only to cause more problems down the road.

I'm going to be a freaking bartender?  Can you believe that crap?

Strangle me with the Christmas Cord

"that's me in the corner
that's me in the spotlight
losing my religion..."
-R.E.M.

Needless to say, Christmas sucked.  I spent it with hundreds of toothless rednecks who got drunk and blew their cigarette smoke in my face.  No, I actually wasn't with family, although that description isn't much of a stretch from the usual Jackson get-togethers.  I was working.  And it was crazy busy.  On Christmas Eve, the place was virtually dead but everyone came out to celebrate our savior's birth by drinking and gambling.  Ah, it warms my stagnant heart.

I'm not really a big fan of my extended family so I wasn't too terribly upset about missing Christmas with them this year.  I was a bit more upset about missing Christmas Eve, which is when my immediate family get together.  It's the one I enjoy the most.  And I missed it because I had to work.  But, like I said, it wouldn't be that big of a deal for me...if I liked my job.  I still hate it and things haven't gotten any better.  Throw away empty beer bottles.  Scrape ashtrays.  Wipe away fingerprints.  Scrub away the stickiness from spilled drinks on the machines.  Push up the chairs that people do not bother to put back in place.  Cry on the inside.  Rinse and repeat for eight hours.

I have never been this depressed on Christmas.  And just maybe I've never been this empty in general.  This is the day I was supposed to celebrate the birth of our lord and savior and yet He was the farthest thing from my mind, a common occurrence lately.  I'm depressed and then this whole God situation makes me even more depressed.  I don't know where to turn.

And to top it off, I found out the next day that my aunt died on Christmas.  Good timing, eh?  Celebrating the birth of one and mourning the loss of another.  As if the day wasn't emotionally exhaustive enough.  Don't feel bad, though.  Like most of my family, I wasn't that close to her, at least not in the later years.  She was a chain smoking drunk who caused a lot of problems for my grandmother, which caused Mom a lot of grief as well.  But, really, how many dead family members does this make now?  2009 has been a year full of celebrity and relative deaths.  It's pretty tiresome.

To me, it seems the older people get, the more disastrous major holidays like Christmas become.  I think one part of it is the fact that all that magic dissipates with age.  The myth of Santa is broken and then you get too old for toys and eventually your parents make your car payment for you or chip in with your rent money and that's your gift.  While necessary, it's not as fun as a Wii.  Then, the drama sets in.  With age comes insight and you start seeing your family for who they are and they are definitely imperfect.  Conflicts arise and family bonds are strained.  Then, one by one they start dying and those bonds are cut and everything starts to feel sore.  You have to work on Christmas or you find yourself alone and drinking.  You don't want your photo taken by the tree because you're too fat or your acne has flared up again.  You freak out about buying things for other people because you want to both please and impress.  It becomes less about God and more about gifts.  It's more stressful than satisfying.  The mask of magic is cracked by reality and it's all just so disenchanting.

It doesn't even feel like Christmas happened.  I've been so caught up in a swirl of working and sleeping that I've lost all track of time, space and reality.  And maybe it's for the best.  It's not like I would have enjoyed myself.  I have nothing in common with my family.  I certainly have nothing in common with the patrons at the bingo pavilion.  At least with the holidays out of the way, things can return to the normal numbness.  If I can just make it past New Year's, I can leave behind the year that was the death of my faith, family and me.

Phase 2 Bonus: When Christmas Came Crashing Down

I wrote another article for Phase 2 Studio about a particularly odd Christmas memory of mine.  Click here to read all aboot it.

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Oh my Gash!

I’ve come to the realization that I’m tired of feeling guilty for feeling the way I feel.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my negative attitude lately and wondering if it’s justified.  I’ve said before that I’ve never had anything too traumatic happen to me.  I’ve never had to deal with a car crash or cancer.  I’ve pretty much never wanted for much of anything and yet I’m depressed and defeated.  Sure, college didn’t work out how I had hoped but that happens to a lot of people.  Get over it.  Sure, I can’t be an animator straight from college but a lot of people have to work to get to their desired job.  Get over it.  Sure, I’m stuck in a job I hate but so are a lot of other people.  Get over it.  Sure, all the special people in my life have left me over time.  It’s called moving on.  Make new friends and get over it.  Sure, after all these years of yo-yo dieting, I’m fatter than I’ve been in years.  Get in the gym and just get over it already.  All these things are easy to tackle if they came as separate situations, few and far between but when you take all these problems, smash them together and then drop them on someone like me who already has a depressive personality, it equals disease and disaster.

I’ve been fortunate in many aspects of my life but I’ve also had the misfortune of missing out on a lot of things that others have not.  You can look at me and tell that I’ve been well taken care of.  I have clothing and plenty of food and I’ve never been without supplies for school or a place to sleep.  All in all, my family is healthy despite all of our bad habits and while we are all dysfunctional, no one is so bad that it creates an intolerable tension.  Yet, there is something so profound that is missing within me.  It’s God.  It’s relationships.  It’s connections with people.  I don’t have anyone significant in my life.  As much as I’ve gone on about being single and how there’s nothing wrong with it, it still sucks to be lonely.  And I think being single is just fine if you have other strong relationships in your life.  Someone once told me that humans are social creatures and not meant to be alone.  I agree with that wholeheartedly but I don’t think you have to be in a romantic relationship with someone to ease the loneliness.  I think you can find satisfaction in friends or family.  Yet, I’m so different from my family and can’t seem to find stability in friendships.  I wake up every day and can find no reason to stay conscious.  I have nothing to look forward to, no one that I want to see, no job that I can feel good about, no purpose in this afterlife.  No meaning. 

Some people might think it’s inappropriate for me to complain because of all the things that I have in my life and in some ways they might be right.  But, it’s just things.  I’ll never deny that I am more fortunate than a lot of people but it’s all on the outside.  I do have things but I have no genuine joy.  I’m empty where it counts.  I’m just a sad person and I have material things to get me through the day but I have no real relationships to carry me further than that.  And as far as who’s to blame, I don’t know.  I won’t say that it’s all everyone else’s fault because I realize that I have many problems of my own.  I’m jealous and impatient and easily irritated.  I’m a mess and not easy to get along with sometimes.  Yet, it just seems like someone should be able to handle me.  I wouldn’t say I’m that terrible of a person, although I’m slowly getting there.  So, for me, I think I have every right to complain because I might seem fine on the outside but I am actually torn apart internally.  I don’t have a best friend like most people do or a special relationship with my family like a lot of people do.  I’ve never had a true, genuine connection with anyone.  No romance.  Nothing physical.  Nothing emotional.  I am more alone that most people can even comprehend and the fact that school didn’t work out or the fact that I can’t get a decent job just makes everything worse.  So, while people might think I complain about petty things, I think people don’t understand how much stock I put into these “petty” things.  I wasn’t just hoping school would be a fun time.  I truly hoped it would change my life, that I would be surrounded by like-minded people and that I would forge lifelong friendships.  Yet, when I graduated I left college with nothing but a one hundred thousand dollar diploma.  I had hoped I could find a good job that would give me purpose, a reason for waking up and that didn’t happen, either.

While I’ve never had my hand chopped off, I’ve had many a paper cut.  You know how that pain is more of an irritation than a hurt?  It’s not something that stops your breath but it stays in your head.  Now, imagine multiple paper cuts, thousands of miniature slices that stem from your wrist to the tips of your fingers, that irritating pain multiplied a million times over.  The pain increases slowly, a hurt that builds upon itself, an agony that eventually surpasses soothing, an affliction that intensifies to the point of insanity.  The hand becomes swollen and useless and in time infection sets in until it amputation is the only option.  Whether things go down hard and fast or slow and methodically, either way something ends up missing. 

I don’t feel bad about complaining anymore because while I might be fortunate in some areas, I suffer in others.  My life is just a series of paper cuts, small gashes that never heal, only spread and sicken me.  It’s one event after another, stacked on top of each other and never dissipating, only growing and magnifying and weighing me down.  And really, complaining is just another form of expression after all, just like crying or laughing.  It’s just a way to vent and I don’t think it’s immature or selfish for me to have my own set of complaints.  Everyone has a legitimate struggle that they have the right to express.  I will not be made to feel bad about the bad stuff in my life.  You don’t know me and you don’t know what I’ve been through so don’t tell me I am not fit to fuss.

Frankly, all I have left is coffee and complaining.  I can’t help how I feel and I don’t choose to be gloomy, at least not consciously, and I know people are tired of this barrage of negativity that’s blooming forth but this is the situation I find myself in right now and the only thing I can do is what I’ve always done: write my way through it.  Does it suck?  Surely.  But what other choice do I have?  Food hasn’t been able to fix my fumbles.  Prayer hasn’t penetrated my problems.  Movies haven’t worked their magic and so now I just sit here and try to purge this poison from my head.  It doesn’t necessarily work but I suppose there’s worse ways to spend my time.  So, I complain.  At least I’m not out getting drunk almost every single night like some people.  At least I’m not going from one sexual partner to another like some people.  At least I’m not getting high and pushing my pain on others.  I’m just simply trying to bandage my cuts the best way I know how.

And I just can’t apologize for that.

Phase 2 Friday: Breaking up with Birthdays

Thanks to my crap work schedule, I didn't have time to write this yesterday and make it calendar appropriate but here is my latest Phase 2 article.  It's about my birthday, which was yesterday.  Well, it wasn't about my birthday specifically but about my general feelings regarding my birthday.

Click here and enjoy. 

Putting Holes in Happiness

Well, I know you’re not going to want to hear this and I definitely didn’t want to have to say this but I hate my new job!

There’s a lot going on with my mind and my feelings right now and I’m pretty much sick of it.  I’ve been reduced to nothing more than a whiner and I do realize how pathetic I seem.  I’m just as tired of complaining as everyone is reading/hearing about it.  All I know is that I can’t believe I’ve had another pile of crap dropped on me yet again.  And the difference is I was feeling really good about things this time.  I tried that whole sham positivity thing and it got me nowhere.  It’s times like these that only reinforce my negativity and dark outlook on life.  I keep trying to compromise, keep trying to settle, keep trying to make things work with what I have and what I’ve been given but even that never seems to work out. 

School didn’t turn out how I expected and I had to overcome so much disappointment but I eventually I tried to accept it and tried to make the best of it and just get through.  After graduation, I struggled to cope with how everything turned out, from my work, art, relationships and even myself, and how nothing went as I had hoped it would.  I put my dream of becoming an animator aside because I didn’t learn as much as I should have in school.  I instead decided to be more sensible and take a nice office job so that I could start earning enough money to move out of my parents’ home and become independent and self-sufficient.  After I had settled myself, I’d pick up on pursuing animation again.  Okay, fine.  Well, a ton of applications and dozens of interviews later, I had to take a crap job at a skank shop working with the public, something I did not want to do because I hate working with the public.  The more I work in customer service, the more I realize how crappy people are.  Plus, I just really like doing office work.  My experience at Paris Packaging was fun and interesting and while it didn’t involve my passion for writing or animating, it did involve an interest of mine in some capacity and hey, that’s better than doing something you loathe.  Yet, I had to stoop to the level of working with people, had to compromise, had to settle yet again.  And I hated it but that’s all I could get.  A few weeks later, I am offered this new job and am told how upscale the facility was going to be and how easy my job was going to be and how I was going to be tipped and all these appealing things.  I thought things were looking up, that maybe the goal of getting out of the house might come true. 

Cut to two weeks ago when I actually started working and it was nothing like they described.  And now I’d rather just stay home and take a lower paying job that will at least make me not want to drive into a tree instead of driving into work.

I feel like I’ll never be on my own, never make enough money to pay for anything except my debts and I’ll never be happy, satisfied or at peace.  And the reason why is because every goal I ever have is always slightly out of each, always never as wonderful as I hope, never as merciful as it seems.

The past two weeks have been such a blur.  I worked a fifty-hour week the first week, driving and working and sleeping and crying and that’s all I did.  I didn’t even have time to write anything down and that was a big struggle for me.  It was like my mind was shut off, just focusing on making it to the weekend so that I could rest.  What kind of life is this to wake up, cry on the way to work, work, cry on the way back home, go to sleep and do it again the next day?  I have to drive an hour and a half on the way to work and the way home so I’m putting in eleven hours a day for this crap job and by the time I come back home, I’m too exhausted to eat or write or do much of anything besides wash the stink of smoke out of my skin and collapse onto the bed.  And the job itself is not at all how it was described to me when I was first offered the position.  I am not in customer service, as I was told I would be.  I’m nothing more than a janitor, not that there’s anything wrong with that but that’s just not what I signed up for at all.  I spend my eight hours walking in circles wiping fingerprints of electronic bingo machines, picking up empty beer bottles and emptying ashtrays and this past week we received new instructions to scrape the soot from the ashtrays.  So, as if dumping out those dirty things wasn’t bad enough, I gotta get in there with a crusty rag and release all that soot and ash from the tray right into my face and carry around that soot soaked rag with me during the entirety of my shift.  It’s mind numbing and I feel like it’s going to slowly rot my brain with the monotony and repetition.  Plus, I’m not getting tipped, which I was told I would be.  Plus, I’ve had to buy my uniforms, shoes, walkie-talkies and even the cloth that I use to wipe down the machines and all of that’s being taken out of my check, which I think is such crap.  Oh, and I wasn’t trained on how to use the machines so when people ask me I just shrug like an idiot ‘cause no one told me.  There is no satisfaction, there is no sense of accomplishment, there is only inane cleaning and pushing up chairs and walking and walking and walking.  Plus, the company is being unreasonable at this point, making us come in early and leave late and changing rules every other day and generally driving me crazy and telling us not to complain.  I still don’t have my uniform pants because the company decided not to order them until the last minute and the place is still under construction.  It’s not even finished being built and on the first night, almost all of the machines went haywire, which made every guest that came in angry and of course they took it out on me because I was there first point of contact.  That was the day I had to work eleven hours (sans driving) and was only allowed a half an hour lunch break after working nine of them.  That’s just some of the crap I’ve had to endure so far.    

I just can’t believe my life has been reduced to cleaning up after dirty old people and having them blow smoke in my face so much that I can barely breathe sometimes.  And I seriously hate working with the public, another reason I wanted an office job.  And speaking of the public, I have never seen so many toothless people and women with mustaches in my entire life.  People will piddle away money on electronic bingo but they can’t save a few bucks for a toothbrush or for some depilatory?  And frankly, some of the other employees don’t look much better and yet this place is an “upscale” facility.  Please.  And my job isn’t “upscale” at all.  There is no pride in what I do.  I’m college educated, smart, articulate and I’m picking up cigarette butts off the ash laden floor for eight hours a day.  I understand that you gotta do what you gotta do and life doesn’t always work out how you’ve planned and sometimes you just gotta suck it up but this is just yet another example of how I’ve had to reduce the scope of my dreams in favor of a little bit of practicality.  Couldn’t be an animator so let’s at least do some office work.  Can’t do that so let’s go back to JCPenney, where I at least know the job and can feel comfortable there.  I couldn’t believe I lowered myself to going back there because when I quit all those years ago, I vowed I’d never return.  Now, I realize it wasn’t as bad as I remember or at least it wasn’t as bad as my job is now.  Yet, I can’t even go back there ‘cause they aren’t hiring so I have to take crappy job after crappy job and drive and hour and half just to get there because there is literally no other opportunities close by.  I am trapped by location and circumstance.

It’s sad but I’ve already started applying to other places and I’ve even applied for different positions within the company because I can’t do this much longer.  I’ll literally go insane or drive my car off a bridge.  And the positions within the company probably aren’t much better.  It’s just sad that I’ve spent so many years in school and yet I still have to wish and hope and grovel for one lousy position after another because I can’t do any better.  I have no other skills or experience besides customer service and the animation thing hasn’t gotten me anywhere and it won’t get me anywhere around here and it frustrates me.  I thought about going back to school but I can’t because I can’t afford it.  I’m stuck.

You know, the job sucks and all but that isn’t even all of it.  It’s just a small contribution to my cracked emotions.  It’s the job, yes, but it’s also that deep disappointment that’s setting in once again.  And this particularly hurts because I had felt so good about it, thought this job would be the first step in the process of moving out and becoming independent.  I was actually on the verge of feeling good about something, of actually being...happy?  But I see that it won’t happen.  That chance at happiness was shot down real quick, bullet-ridden and ruined.  I see that I’m still miserable, still lost, still behind in life and it hurts because I try to make things better.  I tried to go to school and follow my dreams because I’ve always been told to follow my dreams.  Well, I did and I fell on my butt.  I wasn’t satisfied with staying at home so I tried to venture out, within reason, to find something better, something that would allow me to move out and start my own life and that fell through as well.  No one can say I haven’t tried to better things but I keep being pushed down at every turn and it’s exhausting.  I’m so tired and there are times when I feel like giving up.  I feel like a failure as it is and yet I keep trying but sometimes I don’t want to try anymore.  It feels hopeless so I might as well not exert any more energy than is necessary.  I know the true failure isn’t in not succeeding but in giving up but it’s really hard to keep going when everything goes wrong all the time. 

As I mentioned, I’m too exhausted to write and can’t find the time to do it anyway because if I’m not sleeping or working, I’m driving.  And that sucks because I really wanted to work on my book and my blog and I started this new gig at Phase 2 Studio and I just simply won’t be able to do it all.  In fact, this entry you’re reading now was written during one of my days off and right now I’m probably either working, sleeping, driving or sobbing.  I just don’t understand why I can’t have a job that isn’t all consuming and horrible.  I’m not asking for the moon, just something that I can do to help me get to where I want to be.

I don’t even have a reprieve.  I can’t get lost in writing or reading or watching movies because I’m too tired and I can’t even catch a break in my sleep.  I’ve been dreaming about my job just about every night that I can remember.  That doesn’t bring a restful sleep.  I have two days off but it really just feels like one and a half because on my first day off, I basically sleep for most of the day.  I don’t set an alarm clock because I feel I need all the recuperative sleep I can get and if that means wasting away half the day, then so be it.

I’m just pretty sure nothing is going to be okay ever again.  As I’ve said, I have no other skills besides customer service and it’s funny because I hate people.  And yet I’m trapped with them.  I’ll never break through to something better because I have no skills, training or experience in anything else and no one will hire a guy with no skills, training or experience.  I had applied for a position within the company that I had never done before but as I pleaded my case to the lady in human resources, telling her I was easily trainable and willing to learn, she told me other people with experience had applied for the job and they would be the ones to get it.  There will always be someone more suited for the job and why shouldn’t they get it?  I’ll never be an animator, writer, or a real person.

I am just a shell at this point.

Murder is Delicious

I went to the mall the other day to pick up a pair of shoes for work.  When I walked up to the front entrance, two Salvation Army volunteers were standing in front of the doors, ringing that freaking bell like they were using a shake weight.  In my annoyance, I slipped a dollar out of my wallet and slid it in the red kettle.  The lady stopped ringing that bell long enough to hand me a coupon from Chick-fl-A.  Free chicken sandwich with the purchase of a medium Coca-Cola.  Yikes.  Lost on me.  I accepted it anyway because it was free and I didn’t feel like explaining to her that I was a vegetarian.  It was a small slap in the face, another reminder of how frustrating being a vegetarian can be sometimes, how I miss out on fun and free foods, how my willpower is slowly crumbling under the weight of dead, delectable flesh.

October marked the two-year anniversary of becoming meat free.  I can’t say it’s been a good two years.  I became a vegetarian because I am a huge animal lover and advocate so it just felt wrong to me to eat them.  It seemed pretty hypocritical to cuddle up to cats while chewing on chickens.  All animals should be respected equally, even slimy, disgusting snakes.  Plus, I’m abhorred by the absolutely terrible conditions the poor creatures are forced to endure before their demise.  They are tortured and starved and pumped full of chemicals and hormones that probably have terrible side effects on them before they are inefficiently killed.  I can’t even begin to describe how horrible it all is.  If you check out footage of slaughterhouses, you’ll see for yourself the indescribable pain, mutilation, torture, the agonizing life and death of these helpless animals.  So, two years ago I decided not to be a part of that madness.  Of course, I had no misconceptions that slaughterhouses would shut down and people would stop killing cows and impaling pigs but I knew that I wasn’t going to be a part of it.  And that made me feel good. 

At first.

Although I identify myself as a Christian, I've never been too terribly devout.  Also, I’m not into politics and basically, for the entirety of my life, I’ve never had a strong opinion about anything or stood up for any cause.  This was my chance to affiliate myself with something I deemed important.  I had something tangible to believe in.  I felt good, like I had a purpose.  Plus, I dropped about fifteen pounds within a few weeks of cutting meat out of my diet.  A bonus.  And the longer I went without meat, the easier it got.  For the first year.

Things all changed when I graduated from college and moved back home. 

Let me just say that I’m an incredibly picky eater.  I don’t like anything.  And even when I ate meat, I usually only ate chicken.  I had chicken almost daily.  So, when I didn’t have chicken anymore, I settled for chicken substitutes.  And the really funny thing is I became a vegetarian but I hate vegetables.  I loathe leafy greens and will not touch a salad.  So you may ask what exactly it is that I ate?  Nothing good.  Mostly breads, pastas, junk food.  Carbohydrates and crap.  But, I tried to limit all of that.  I mostly ate baked chips and meat substitutes and low calorie candies.  That was when I was in school and I had more options and I was more occupied.

Now, unfortunately, there aren’t nearly as many meat substitute options available in my small town.  Sure, I have the choice between a garden burger or…oh, wait, that’s it!  So, to make up for the lack of meat and meat alternatives, I supplemented my diet with a lot more junk food, more than I had in school.  That coupled with the fact that I was not in school and jobless with a lot of time on my hands led to me ballooning up in a matter of months.  I started to think meat might be more satisfying.  If I could just get a hold of a nicely grilled chicken breast, I wouldn’t be in such need of a chocolate cake.  Yet, I felt bad.  Any time I thought about returning to roasted flesh, I thought about the reasons why I became a vegetarian in the first place.  I didn’t want to lose that conviction that I clung to so firmly.   

I went to a health food store one day to inquire about a supplement that was supposed to be a good source of protein.  I was met by a hippie/bohemian lady and I asked her if the pills would be good for me since I was a vegetarian.  She said they were and then she told me she was a vegetarian for thirteen years.  My ears perked up, interested in hearing about her experiences as a non-meat eater.  I was caught off guard and a little disappointed when she said, “And I said to myself one day, ‘I’m not doing a damn thing for these animals!’”  She went back to eating meat after that.  I guess that simple revelation was all she needed to convert to carnivorism again.  She also said that a lot of meat substitutes can mess up your system and throw it off balance.  All about how they are overly processed and can disrupt your hormones.  She really made me think.  I thought If anyone would be a vegetarian or vegan, it would be that lady.  And the fact that she wasn’t almost made me feel like it was okay to eat meat again.  Plus, I ate meat substitutes almost every single day so there was no telling what kind of processed hormonal garbage that was running through me.

But if I went back to eating meat, meat is full of hormones as well.  I can either consume a bunch of soy that’s going to throw my body out of whack and give me man breasts or I can eat a bunch of meat filled with hormones that'll make me grow a second pair of testicles or something.  I’m screwed either way I go.  What about organic, hormone free meats, you ask?  That’s a great idea, in theory, but once again, there isn’t that kind of option in this small town.  There aren’t even any good meat substitutes or hormone-free meats in any surrounding towns!  I’m back to where I started.

So I think about staying a vegetarian but I hate vegetables.  And I still drink milk and eat eggs and wear leather and that is just as bad as eating meat ‘cause the animals are still tortured and killed for diary and eggs and leather.  So, really, what am I accomplishing?  Not much of anything.  But I have to wonder if I’m just going through a phase of doubt or if I really want to go back to eating meat.  Frankly, I don’t feel better about myself and I don’t feel like I have a clean conscious like I thought I would.  I just feel like I haven’t made any great strides with my diet or my morals.  In fact, I’m almost embarrassed when people ask me why I don’t eat meat.  I’m worried they’ll automatically think I’m one of those PETA people but it’s not like that at all.  I don’t care if other people eat meat.  And I know me not eating meat probably won’t make any difference in the world but it was just a personal decision I made to try to make myself feel better about a situation that I thought was horrid. 

I just don’t know.  I know once I have that first taste of meat, I would have undone two entire years of any kind of progress toward a goal that I thought I was making.  Would I even enjoy it anymore knowing what I know?  Even when I was eating meat, I was picky about the kind of meat I would eat.  I don’t like the skin on chicken and the fat on beef always made me queasy.  What if I order a steak and once it’s plated and put in front of me, I just see a diseased piece of dead flesh?  Or what if I taste ambrosia?  I’m sitting here freaking out about going back to eating meat after only two years.  I couldn’t imagine making that decision after thirteen years like that lady.  I think after that long, I’d just see it through.  It just feels like way too much time to dedicate to something to just give it up so easily.

I hate to say this but as much as I love animals and as much as I tried to do good, there comes a time when I guess you have to put yourself first and if your health is being compromised, maybe you should throw in the towel.  I don’t want to have man boobs and I do want to be able to have more options when it comes to food.  I suppose the only option is to try to go organic and buy hormone-free meats but that would have to be after I’ve moved away to a place that offered such.  And that’s definitely not here.  I feel very limited and very screwed.  I want to do the right thing, to be healthy and happy and feel good about standing up for a cause but at this point all I feel is tired and busty.  I don’t want to eat a bunch of hormones and chemicals, no matter whether I’m eating meat or meat substitutes.  I want to do what’s best for my body but I still keep thinking about those poor animals and I want to try to make some kind of stand against their terrible treatment but I just feel defeated.  I’m not making any difference and I’m not making any progress but I also can’t see myself going back after so long going without.

I said I’d make a decision by Thanksgiving.  If I was going to stay meat-free, I’d purchase a tofurkey and call it a day but I I was gonna go back to meat, I’d go back to being a carnivore in style, with some delicious turkey and ham.  Yet, I was still apprehensive and when Thanksgiving arrived, I didn’t eat any meat.  That doesn’t mean I decided to stay a vegetarian.  It just meant I still hadn’t made a decision.  I was never worried about eating when over at my grandmother’s house because there was usually some sort of bread I could munch on but this year there was nothing.  No cornbread.  No macaroni and cheese.  Nothing to put on my plate to give the illusion that I was eating.  I ended up having some banana pudding.  My sister, Shannon, looked at my plate in disgust and asked me why I wasn’t eating anything else.  I told her I couldn’t have any of the turkey.

“You can have turkey!” she declared with a tilt of disapproval in her voice.

Meat eaters just don’t understand.

I didn’t argue with her but that’s the kind of attitude I get all the time when I refuse Mom’s cooked meats or when I tell people I’m a vegetarian.  I don’t understand why people have such a block against not consuming meat.  It’s like I’m explaining Calculus in a different language to these people and it’s frustrating and I’m just tired of having to justify my decision.  Yeah, I hate to say it but people are another one of the reasons I’m thinking about jumping onto the ol’ bacon bandwagon.  Yet, I can’t get over the fact that I worked on being a vegetarian for two years and if I go back now it’ll feel like two years wasted, although I suppose it wouldn’t be a waste.  It would have been a good effort.  Perhaps I can be proud of myself for at least sticking it out this long.  I don’t want to be selfish but I don’t want my health to be compromised, either.  As important as I think those cows and chickens are, I have to admit I care more about myself than I care about them.  And that goes with my whole newly embittered attitude.  As careless as I’m becoming with myself and with people, I suppose animals are the next in line to face my apathetic wrath.  I also think about the few vegetarian acquaintances I’ve made and to go back to eating meat would make me feel like I was betraying them.  I’m worried they might not like me anymore, might call me a traitor.  Of course, if they only befriended me or only liked me just because I didn’t suck on sausage, then what kind of acquaintances were they in the first place?  But I have so few contacts nowadays that I try to hold on to the ones I have, no matter how crappy they might be. 

I’m at a loss.  Meat is murder but…I have to admit, murder is delicious.

Cantus Mortis

looking over the discourse of earth
living and dying and back to birth
cycles of dissonance and depression
these filtered feelings and mental regression
the bodies line up along the white wall
falling in line with those about to fall

so we’ll chant
“death! death! death!”
‘cause there is nothing
left! left! left!
we’ll march toward
our final day
God has never been
so far away

pills have raped our bodies of feeling
sex has kept our hearts from healing
what’s the use of this substance abuse
but to numb the soul and tighten the noose
filling the void with prescriptions and pain
yet there is no hope, no life, nothing to gain

so we’ll chant
“death! death! death!”
‘cause there is nothing
left! left! left!
we’ll march toward
our final day
God has never 
been so far away

is this what life means
to walk holes in floors and make filth clean?
the swirls of smoke leave my skin sagged
the only comfort in the form of a body bag
zip it up and shut out the light that isn’t there
faith is dead and so is peace
and i simply do not care

there is no god
no blood no flesh no love
there is no kind of redemption
only dead space up above

so we’ll chant
“death! death! death!”
‘cause there is nothing
left! left! left!
please, God, tell me
you’ve not gone away
that you’ve never left me
You were only misplaced