None of us, including me, are totally immune from slipping into abject self-pity. I’ve certainly had my times of Kleenex, Ben & Jerry’s, and late-night calls to tolerant friends. I even have a bathrobe I reserve for miserable times. It’s gray, fuzzy, oversized, and as warm as a blanket. It’s about twenty years old, has tissues in the pocket, and tear stains on the sleeves. There’s nothing sexy about it — in fact it’s so unsexy that the few people who’ve seen me in it have threatened to throw it away. No way. That bathrobe has seen me through some hard times. I expect I’ll be rolled into the nursing home wearing my gray robe and my favorite pair of Frye buckle boots, clutching a carton of Marlboro Lights and a pound of coffee against my saggy chest. Now that’s a pathetic image.
It would seem that for some people, though, being pathetic isn’t just a passing phase, but an all-encompassing lifestyle.
Oh, R.W. Hill. What is the world to do with 93 poems detailing your “one man quest…to find true love but none was to be found, in this world for him. For he was looking in a love-less world. And now he is to old and grey for to find true love.” Gosh, I’m really not certain. Part of me wants to tell you to put down the pen and go somewhere. For the worst Bingo game, R.W., has got to be better than writing another stanza that starts with the word “for“.
Maybe R.W. can get together with Leonard. Poor Leonard. He’s both anti-social and lonely, which is a horrible combination.
“The Life of a Loner has always been the life I lived since I never had any close friends I hardly ever even go to a Restaurant to eat, I usually go get something and come back to my Apartment and eat where I can eat in peace and write my books…”
It’s important to be able to eat in peace. No one wants a noisy crowd hanging over them as they’re trying to concentrate on their soup. It’s also an ideal time to work on your next self-published romance novel where the principal characters are The Woman and The Man. I understand. But seriously, Leonard? I see couples at the stores, in the malls, everywhere, and a whole bunch of them aren’t pretty or handsome or even terribly social. You can do it, Leonard! Go to that restaurant, go to that park, meet some people, Leonard. Writing about The Woman will be much more gratifying when, you know, you’ve actually met one or two.
R.W. and Leonard have fine company in INXS’s former rock and roll protege J.D. Fortune. After a 23-month tour and an album with the aging rock band, the winner of Rockstar: INXS claimed he had been fired in a Hong Kong airport and was sleeping in his car. That story was disputed by INXS, and J.D. retracted his comments about getting fired. “I don’t know where I am going, from sofa to sofa, from night to night. I am trying to get through my life,” J.D. was quoted as saying. It appears that whatever money J.D. earned went up his nose in the form of cocaine. That Gold Dust Woman can be wicked.
The funny thing is that J.D.’s contract had expired, but the band had planned to call him for their next recording session. That’s not happening now, and it’s not going to help J.D.’s career that he bit the backs of those who fed him in order to get tabloid sympathy.
There are a lot of other examples but I’m already on Pathetic Overkill.
Experiencing the real grit of life, from the joyous to the tragic is, I think, what keeps me feeling whole and grounded. There’s a difference, though, between sharing stories of despair, and making a lifestyle out of despairing. There are 8760 hours in a year — they can’t all be miserable.
There’s nothing wrong with digging the gray robe out of the back of the closet once-in-awhile, but when it becomes the outfit of choice, it’s really time to burn it, put on some walking shoes, and get out into the world — where you’ll find that there are a whole lot of other people who really aren’t all that different from you. Or maybe they are, and you’ll find something interesting, telling, redeeming, or beautiful in the difference.
