Petey's Stoopid Thought For The Day

Life is a vacation from being dead.

I shall take that thought and now merrily run through my vacation time with more glee than ever.

Thrusting

Thrusting into the previously unrevealed.

What was really becoming unknown to us was each other. What I felt was a turning point towards each other, the Planet viewed as the beginning of the spinning away. What I saw as my new found freedom of diminished pain, the Planet saw as the emergence of an new illness.

It was 1997 and the beginning of the economic times that the Federal reserve Chairman would describe as irrational exuberance. For me it truly was. Irrational with a capital I. But I could walk some distances now. Something I had done with glee for hours on end as a young man was now returned to me. Something that had become a looming dread with every other step for the last 17 years. Perhaps the pain had giving me a singular focus on my career. Now I saw the possibilities of living a life. I thought the Planet was included. Perhaps the Planet thought different. But the Planet stood mute, and only told me what she thought I wanted to hear. Seven years of marriage had not cracked the Planets conflict avoidance crust. I know not if the Planet had heard conflict avoidance until the end of or orbital time. Nor was I one to dive to the Planet to test the existence of gravity either. We all have our reasons. If the Planet would have shared more would things be different. If I had shared differently would things have changed. Things are never different. They just are. Until they are not.

So I spent the next year walking, quitting smoking, and thinking. The increased flow of oxygen to my brain was staggering. What had my life been up to that point? Why had I been blessed with so many things? I had attained more than I had ever dreamed. I was grateful. Yet something was lacking.

The singular pursuit of shilling for corporate America seemed less important. I was back to plunging into the bright lights of the big city by day. A big city I had been unable to enjoy was again open to me on foot. I was free to walk, explore, take long solo lunches outside. But those do not aide commerce, nor keep or increase billing numbers. Math is everything in the score keeping of the invisible hand. The self help mantra's the Planet oft repeated would ring in my ears.

What would you want to look back on and say you wished you had done more of when ringing the reapers doorbell? Would it be put more hours in at work? Editing of more feminine hygiene, beer, fast food, pharmaceutical television spots. Each night as I plunged down the South Shore into the depths of Indiana The Planet was apparently plunging into depths of her own.

Judith Janet Planet was not happy when I was there. Judith Janet Planet was not happy when I was not there. Judith Janet Planet was not happy. An unhappy Planet is never never a healthy Planet to inhabit. As entering the Planet became more infrequent, our orbits fell into decay. The Planet never denied entry, but it was clear the Planet was not seeking to be entered. At least not by me. Is timing everything? If I was staying up late, the Planet would retire early. If I retired early, the Planet might stay up all night. On those mornings when we woke together, rare since my Journey to the city called for early rising. The Planet did not rise early or easily ever. Only when the satellites rose did the Planet rise, and even then not necessarily so. The satellites, I had noticed in my stump health hiatus, had their morning down to an unusual and sometimes distressing self sufficiency for ones of seven and five. With a stay at home mother, perhaps too much so.

So it was in these climates of a seven year marriage, children of seven years and five years, career in it's seventeenth, when my alter ego Old Hatched Head appeared. Thick at the back, with a razor sharp leading edge, began to cleave into my new feeling of empowerment, health, and self confidence. The Head began to come to the fore. Slicing into my life; interpersonal, business, and spiritual relationships with the intention of making things better. Eek.

Can a hatchet ever make anything better?

Doctors Know

I had been living with pain for sixteen years, and it had begun to be unbearable. Re-fittings were all that was offered. Never did a doctor or anyone suggest a period of time off the limb to promote healing. After all, with employer paid insurance they seem to be reluctant to suggest such a remedy. Who's buttering who's bread is always in play on one level or another. There is also the consideration that time without a prosthetic may lead to a costly resizing and re-fitting regime, also not a very popular solution in our hyper productive age. As workman comp professional once told me, “Once the lazy bastards stop working they never want to work again.” So stuff some newspaper into a good solid lace up boot and get back to pounding the pavement and delivering optical elements like you were before, and stop your whining was the unstated message. So I had for the past sixteen years. No charity for me , thank you. But then pain and festering became intolerable. The solution from the medical experts was that if the infection couldn't be beat, they would have to amputate more of what remained of my poor mangled appendage.

So I did the unthinkable and took my treatment into my own hands. I followed there recommendations and took the antibiotics, and soaked the stump. But I also took a leave of absence from work, and instead of wearing a prosthesis 16 hours a day, I stayed off it and only wore it a few hours each day to do laundry and clean up after the Planets spinning. Two weeks later, on the visit to the doctor, he seemed pleased and said things were looking good, patting himself on another save. But of course there was the precautionary not out of the woods yet. I took it to heart and extended my leave for a total of two months. Was it the antibiotics? They never worked before. Or was it the combo platter of the pharmaceuticals and pedestrian prudence that saved the day. Well, research shows that research works and this will never be researched. Who knows?

My leg had never felt so good after that time. I felt rejuvenated and was walking and feeling better about than since the date of the accidental dismembering. I was in heaven. It was the best I had felt walking since my foot and I were separated by a Checker taxi. I felt alive. I was a mobile mono ped without alternating interior winces.

But the planet didn't like me being around that much. I should have noticed. Me being there was interfering in the arrangement with her girl Header, as the young lads Clark and Addison dubbed her. Even though her business was never a money maker, I always heard how her Director had explained you have to have things in place so you can focus on your goals. That meant money out of pocket to create conditions conducive to opening the abundance the universe has to offer. Priming the pump , so to speak. It was nineteen hundred and ninety six, six years down the South Shore path of Indiana, and we had already refinanced once and had taken out a home improvement loan. Half went to improve, the other went to pay down Planet incurred credit card debt. Or as we used to call it, "The Saturday Morning Supprise,” being the time I would sit down to do bills and books for the household. This was before internet access to account statements was prevalent, but with me being home statements were no longer as likely to disappear from the mailbox. There was more to quickly follow. But the Planet wasn't worried. The Planet's trajectory was hooked into the cosmos. I was frantic and insecure while feeling quite full of my ability to heal myself. Those were heady times and long before I even had an inkling that the Planet and I were never on the same page. For that matter we were never reading the same book.

I was reading from the the " I don't want to be crippled and alone at fifty" script of post Rene Abuduh and pre Planet days, whereas the Planet was reading the current version of what these days is called "The Secret". The Planet planned and little else occurred during the day. The Planet did not like having anyone other than toddlers and Header around to witness her day to day routine. Once revealed the Planet wisely sought professional help leading to the many diagnoses's of everything from ADHD, to Thyroid distress and everything in between. Plus the depression and the most importantly concealed manic part that was never caught or revealed, with the ensuing multitude of chemical concoctions du jour in the search of the magic combination of legally prescribed drugs. In the meantime I had a beer or three, but no longer to take the edge of the physical pain, but the edge off the other pains and anxieties. Excuses abound. It was no secret that there was trouble afoot.

Also Sprach The Planet

Also Sprach The Planet


There we were. The planet and I were locked in each others gravitational pull. Each dependent on the other. The inevitable exchange of energies both expressed and unexpressed. Communications continue on all levels of existence, aware and unaware. Things are communicated and exchanged always, over distances vast and small. Effects are caused and visa versa.

The use of resources expends them, does replacement ever really keep up. The important question should always be are they being squandered, or wisely used for enhancement of the sojourn. Just as natural resources can be expended in decades while taking millions of years to create, so leveraging futures of satellites for the Planets and my goals can make the balance show a negative flow. But then was paying attention to the net loss flow creating more of the same. Was not acknowledging it going to change that trend? When do you stop throwing good energy after failed outcomes? When you start looking at the world and begin to feel total connectedness of all things many things become apparent. I wasn't looking or feeling, so nothing was apparent. As for my present hindsight? Delusion, deduction, or dementia? But whilst in the gravitational pull of the Planet, either needy, selfish, or on a mission and not aware of the total interconnectedness of things, one only feels drained.

Yet as merged as we both unknowingly were, looking back on things that you can never change much becomes apparent. Or so it seems now. The Planet and I were wearing each other out. Hopefully some of that energy was transferred to the satellites. Because they were just that. Open and receptive little sponges soaking in all around them. Bless the little sputniks hearts. While the Planet and I were draining all our energies in some sort of gravitational fracas, just as the earth from a distance may appear the calm blue marble spinning in the vastness of open space; while on ground level the dirt is full of rot, decay, and festering malignancies, so all appeared serene on the surface of our existence. But from such things birth comes forth.

As the unchanging landscape of the bleak and economically depressed South Shore panorama snaked by dailey, these were the thoughts that would fill my brain. I felt less and less connected to the world of business, more and more drawn to the world created in the depths of Indiana. My heart was drawn to what I really cared about. The Planet and the satellites. The next eye candy moving picture show to hawk and maintain market share of the newest snake oil or must have widget that must be possessed for fulfillment and prosperity was losing it's importance to my existence. But the cash flow this generated did not. Twenty years of success, which felt effortless, had lulled me into to a false sense of security. But our DNA demands competitiveness. It also gives us awareness of damage being done to it's structures. The pain, the demands had given me had made me numb to what was a living chronic infection. Only I could address the pain because it was mine. Each step was being counted. Measurements were taken on the necessity and benefit each step would produce. But the seeping festering wounds must be cauterized.

I knew what I had to do.

Pain

Pain becomes part of life. Everyday takes into consideration the number of steps, or better to say the minimum number of steps to complete a task. But I moved blindly from day to day, searching to find an accommodation between my workaholic ways, and my new responsibilities. The stress that I felt, and the pain that I felt grew and grew everyday. It had been hard to feel good about myself for years. Accomplishment in a career that seemed to be slowly killing me, and the new weekly regiment that left little time to enjoy the things that I thought I was working for. This is not an uncommon feeling for many of us. Yet the increase in economic compensation was steadily losing ground to the economic demands of the Planet and the satellites. Any mention of receiving an accounting from the Planet was greeted by a flood of defensive maneuvers from Janet. I was unaware, and still am to this day, of the depth of emotions any mention of expenditures elicited from the Planet.  She was on a different operating system from the one I was on , and there was no finding an interface between the two.

Perhaps it was the Planets way of dealing with an empty life. For some  having a home and two satellites would be a fulfilling challenge. The opportunity to be a stay at home mom to some would be the most precious of gifts. The most ideal situation that this existence can bestow some would say. So many in our time cannot affords that luxury. The chance to be there through the early years long after maternal corporate leave runs out to many is an unattainable extravagance. Apparently it was. Yet there is so much to do and to experience watching the growth of a new human, who would choose to turn them over for ten hours a day to well investigated strangers. Good references or not you still never really know.

But the planet was an adrenaline junkie as well. She thrived on the company of others. The challenges of a career creating and transacting commerce is a drug all it's own. The appreciation of peers, the social interaction of others, and the feeling of a job well done is a reward we are all bred for these days. It is how our society bestows perceived value on us all. Although much lip service is given to the value of the interplanetary family unit, the rewards are not at all apparent externally. It is a value that can only be felt within. I can only speculate that the Planet need more exterior assurance than she received from within, and to my shame from me as well.

So to the planet it was like being cast adrift in space with no communication other than the arduous tasks demanded by the new moons. A vast emptiness that needed to be filled with the only tool she felt were available to her.

Credit Cards.  

  Credit Cards can be a blessing. Used judiciously they can facilitate immediate gratification, help retailers and governments keep track of your spending, and even make a profit for those that issue them on the juice especially if you get a little behind for a month or two.

  They can also become toxic when used on a planetary scale. When you add to the mix the legalized pyramid schemes commonly known as Multi Level Marketing, the dreaded MLM, it can only set the stage for a disaster of global proportions.

  While the Planet was gestating satellite number two, she began to dabble in that most insidious and ever present grandmother of all MLM schemes, Our Lady of the Pink Cadillac. Mary Kay.  Well the planet began to nibble at that bait but birthing took priority. But after young Addison was orbited, The Planet bought into Pink Caddy dreams with a vengeance.

Now I am sure that thousands of woman have made this work for them by building their business a little at a time , reinvesting their sales to resupply their inventory, and slowly build their pyramids. This however was not how the Planet operated.

  Judith Janet Planet not only needed to buy monthly inventory at levels that would put her on pace for her ultimate dream, regardless of the existence of any sales at all, but she also needed to have people do the housework, and care for the satellites as well. The Planet, a true aficionado of self help books, had read that to achieve success you had to live your life like that success had been achieved already. Step one of business plan apparently was to run this enterprise on credit cards till it was in the black.

  However the only black on the horizon was the black hole our unwholey union was spinning into.


Yes , unwholey.

Prelude

It was  Friday afternoon and I had a great sense of relief. I saw them all walking to the South Shore station and I knew what lay ahead of them. Herds of them filing into the underground . Lines and lines of them, heading out of their weekly veneer of civilization. Running away from the concrete, fine restaurants, theater, opera. All the finer things in life. Weekends they throw off these trappings and strip down to their basic, primordial selves. Oh how I shudder when I think of what goes on out there at any given moment. Why did I take that journey. What primitive and vile urge brought me to the very edge of my humanity. One thing I know. In Indiana...No one can hear you scream


I am a wiser man and have used as well as been used now. It is unfortunate that often it is unrealized at the time by all parties. But upon reflection ,after having pulled myself out of the wilderness, and looking back on the events there is no longer a need for forgiveness. What was done was done . Whether out of necessity of survival, or just basic animal instinct. Perhaps both the same. Is it the actions or the motivations that really matter? Or is it in fact only the results that count. Perhaps that is the true measure of my journey into Indiana.


What was it that brought people down that South Shore line, many on a daily basis. Others beginning on a day to day trek ,only to eventually be swallowed up, churned inside the guts of mills, industry, and eventually corn. None but the brave or foolish returned there to toil. The lure of cheap cigarettes, cheap property, low gas prices would seem to be the immediate and easy answer. There where also whispers of white trash trailer park women who could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch, but most thought that was just rumor to draw the young males back to the corn fields. Whatever the draw, the land was ripe to be plundered as a century before the robber barons located their mills. They sang there song of the south drawing hundreds of thousands from Kentucky and Tennessee to labor in the newly industrialized lake front. In many ways the new migration out of the big city was much more insidious. To the point: what was it that drew me. But I have yet to mention


The Planet