January 20, 2011; All The Sad People

I do not know if it is the weather (wintery) or the world (wintery) but people are walking around like zombies and some of these zombies are walking through my life. Take Boo-Boo and his problems which—now that the school year is in full swing and the holidays over—are back.

And Cate who came over to visit after a disastrous Christmas trip down south; she was one sad puppy. She, like Skeeter, is a victim of the made-at-the-American-banks recession that is crushing so many. Skeet, though, with the help of his new project and fists-full of anti-depressants has more or less pulled himself out of the endless gray days. The problem with Boo and Cate is that they both despise doctors—which, to some extent, everyone should—to the detriment of their health.

Also, it's the mental thing. People don't have too much of a qualm when it comes to talking about having cancer or ulcers, but when it comes to their head there is stigma. Skeeter told me this but that means nothing 'cause Skeeter, who is just a big, fat skin-bag of health issues of all sorts (that appliance and his depression and what-have-you), talks about them all and all the fucking time. Anyhoo...Skeeter says that a lot of people, hold-overs from the olden days, don't like to admit they are nuts. (He also says that people in some circles talk ENDLESSLY about therapy and their little brain-bugs.)

It's a funny old world. And it appears to be getting awfully hard for a lot of people.

My old owner, Frank—now deceased—had a theory about this (as he had a theory about everything). He found Skeet's, Cate's and Boo's generation truly sad. Actually he found his daughter's generation sad. Same difference. But he explained it thusly:

"We gave that generation everything: health care, jobs, money, a glorious world, electronics, the internet, good TV and lots of it. And what did they do? Ruin it. They went to the fucking hospital for every case of sniffles and took pills for every fucking ache and bankrupted the system; they took jobs that were built in the turrets of sand-castles like dot-coms; they spent their money looking for quick and obscene profits in the housing market and lost everything; they polluted more than ever even as they all pretended they were 'doing their bit' by fucking recycling; they created gadgets which are obsolete weeks after they come out and they all want the latest version of their toy and so create more garbage; they take the internet and jam it up with blogs about what they had for fucking breakfast; and instead of watching good shows on TV they watch reality shows about facelifts and brides-to-be who are just gaggles of twats."

Sometimes Frank would take a breath here before continuing. Sometimes not. "So, little feller," he would say to me, "they are sad and badly equipped for the very shitstorm they have created. And lots of them are going to get run over by it. Sad but true. When they are as old as I am and the world they ruined is decaying around them and they are too decrepit to protect themselves from it they will simply succumb...sanity, hope...all gone."

I've said it to Boo. "Fight back!"

If I was talking to Cate or if her aging, crotchety dog was talking to her we'd say, "Fight back! Getting angry is better and more productive than being sad! For the love of all that is holy, put your dukes up! Protect yourselves!"

And I'd add to all the middle-aged people who are ready to give up right now, "FIGHT THE FUCK BACK OR ELSE!" But they will never listen 'cause I'm "just" a dog.

Thank God I'll be dead well before the shit goes down.