Continuing Ed

I'm thinking of auditing a class. An AA meeting. Can you do that? There's one that meets every Monday evening in the church which houses the preschool where I teach. They come by the multitudes, packed into the caffeinated ambience of the Fellowship Hall as I pass through the kitchen with garbage and recycling on my way out of the building.

My idea of fellowship is enough wine to go around.

It's not that I'm looking for community per se. Certainly not human community. Or even commiseration. I'm fully capable of commiserating all on my own, thankyouverymuch. And I don't need a bunch of strangers to tell me what an asshole I am. I figured that out long ago. It drove me to drink.

In the final words of W.C. Fields, a lifelong atheist, purportedly spoken on his deathbed when a friend asked why he was reading the Bible, "Just lookin' for loopholes."

loop-hole (loop-hohl), noun, 1. a small or narrow opening, as in a wall, for looking through, for admitting light and air; 2. a means of escape or evasion (from Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2006, italics mine).

I'm getting desperate about the world. About the continuing pathological indifference of humanity to the chaos that surrounds us. Chaos we've created. The clock is ticking or maybe it's a bomb but it's not in my neighborhood (yet) so give me my uzi and my 24-oz. steak and my 900-channel high resolution flat panel TV and my teeth-whitening agents and build the landfills and the stockyards and the nuclear dumpsites and the missile silos in somebody else's backyard and leave me the fuck alone and BTW, turn up the lights on your way out.

We've allowed ourselves to become so dumb-downed that anyone who isn't a card-carrying member of the NRA and the National Right to Life is suspect. When did "educated" and "intelligent" become synonymous with "elitist"? Hillary, shame on you. BTW, it's time to take your ball(s) and go home.

A few weeks ago a headline in the paper read "Studies have shown an alarming number of children are suffering from 'Nature Deficit Disorder'." Quote-unquote, I kid you not. Ala Woody Allen, who makes it a point to, quote-unquote, "give trees a wide berth," these poor unfortunates are struggling through their obesity-prone childhoods not knowing their way around the local green space, let alone an actual "natural woods experience," what an alarming proposition, are you suggesting a field trip? Better bring an uzi. A cellphone. A GPS unit. A dozen Quarter Pounders with Cheese. Better yet, just stay home and watch "The Nature Channel" on your high resolution flat panel TV and order in.

Driving my daughter to school the other day, I told her she was beautiful and that I loved her. I did this to divert her attention from the dead cat lying in the middle of 42nd Avenue. It worked. Her eyes rolled heavenward. On my way home the cat was still there. Some asshole's young calico was roadkill, and everyone was driving right on by. Then it occurred to me...so was I.

Why didn't I turn around and do the right thing? Because, as stated, I'm an asshole. As much as the next guy. Only in my own unique way, remember, all of god's children are individuals, precious in the eyes of the lord. I wept and raged half the morning over that cat, over all the cats, the dogs, the birds, the monkeys, the wolves and deer and moose and dolphins and elephants and mice and doves and monkeys and chipmunks and geese and whales and lions and tigers and bears.

Sometimes it seems my life is one long continuum of weeping and raging. And what good have tears and rage ever done, the Moving Finger keeps writing. I'm just looking for respite from all the words. I'm just looking for an opening for admitting light and air. A means of escape or evasion. I'm just searching for other desperados, with their heads sticking through the loopholes, hollering, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!"

That Monday-night bunch seems compatible enough with my needs, but for one snafu. I don't drink coffee after 3 in the afternoon. It keeps me awake. Then I'm lying in bed half the night, eyes wide shut, thinking about how desperate things have become, trying not to weep and rage. Which also keeps me awake. No, I'd be better off looking for a less, um, stimulating venue.