Keep Hope Alive!

I know I have not finished my vacation recap yet, but I’ve had a few other things on my mind that I need to write down, so here I am.

If you know me personally, you know that I struggle with trying to remain “positive”, even though I’d consider sarcasm and negativity as something that I’ve developed since puberty as a means of self-defense, self-preservation, and overall, a means to deal with all The Crazy that I have to deal with in my life (and if you only know me through this blog, you also know that dealing with The Crazy is not easy, and I have my days where I snap and the negativity takes over).

Definition of The Crazy
Pronunciation: thə \ˈkrā-zē\
Function: noun
(1) My family (mostly having to do with My Mother, but also includes My Brother, My Dad and all of the other extended family members that I choose not to speak to or include in my life because they’re truly nuts);
(2) My depression issues (which is mostly controlled nicely by pharmaceuticals, although since I switched meds in November/December, I have noticed I am having a harder time controlling my anger – NOT GOOD – but so far, I haven’t killed anyone, so we will consider that a “win”);
(3) My A.D.D. issues (which again, are supposedly being controlled by the new medication, although I can’t decide whether it’s working or not and would just rather go back on my old meds).

This morning, on my drive into work, I was listening to The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick and Keith Price, on Sirius OutQ. You know I love this morning show, since I’ve mentioned it before in my blog. I came to their discussion topic right in the middle, however, what I gleamed was they were talking about things that make you feel hopeful. One woman called into the show and said that she stopped watching the evening news, and stopped reading the newspaper, because all of the news is always so depressing. Apparently, she read my rant and agreed with me (and I guess I’m not so crazy after all). Anywhose, I started thinking about things that made me feel hopeful – which being who I am and being forced to deal with The Crazy on a daily basis – sometimes is not the easiest thing to do.

At first, the only thing I could think of that made me feel hopeful, was Daughter. Recently, I’ve noticed she has started developing her sense of humor in a more clever way (and not just in that little-kid way where poop jokes are funny or where knock-knock jokes are funny). This is demonstrated by the way she taunted Husband during our most recent game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, where she was clucking like a chicken and egging him on. I love watching her personality develop and I love spending time with her. Now it’s twice as better because she’s funny. I made this remark to Husband this weekend and he said “You didn’t think she’d grow up in THIS house without forming some sort of twisted sense of humor, did you?” (And no, I didn’t think so. But it’s nice to be reassured that she’s going to understand and appreciate our sarcasm and dark senses of humor. *WHEW*)

Then I realized the sun was shining, I was alert and awake (relatively), and I was healthy (again, relatively). Not too shabby, and good reasons to feel hope in my heart. I hoped the weather would stay sunny, that I would stay alert and awake (and just in case I did, I had a whole stock of 5-hour-energy drinks thanks to Walgreen’s Buy 2, get 1 free sale this weekend), and I hoped my health would stay good.

As my thoughts grew deeper, and I passed over the superficial stuff like the sunshine and being alive (and by superficial, I mean – those are all typical things people are happy about – “well, be happy you woke up this morning!”….check), I started to think of things that made me feel hopeful:

1. Music makes me feel hopeful. Especially any kind of dance or pop music. It’s just fun and easy and you don’t have to think too hard about it. I know a few people who are very serious about music and would scoff at my love of Britney or the Black Eyed Peas or whoever. I want to tell them to get over themselves, because it’s not like music is going create world peace or feed the starving children in Africa. Well, unless your Bono or you bought “We are the World.” And that wasn’t a knock because I love Bono, and I enjoyed “We are the World” and Live Aid when I was in 8th Grade.

2. Pharmaceutical drugs make me feel hopeful. Laugh all you want at that one, but it’s a good thing I didn’t become a pharmacist, because I would be stealing from the pharmacy like nobody’s business. I love anti-depressants, Xanax and Ambien. Without those drugs, my life would be HELL. Me AND a bunch of my friends. Oh, and you can’t forget birth control pills (thank you Seasonique for my 4 periods a year) and my thyroid meds (without which, I’m sure I would have died or something).

3. Technology makes me feel hopeful. Husband and I were talking about this yesterday. Well, not technology in general – we were talking about cell phones. The conversation when something like this:

Him: Who knew that cell phones would be so popular as they are.
Me: I know. I know people who get satellite TV on their cell phones. And who knew you’d use it for more than making a phone call.
Him: You can’t even leave home without it now.
Me: Pretty soon they’ll do everything for you – like they’ll cook dinner someday.
Him: *laughs*

He laughed because it’s probably true. Like you’ll press a button and your food will be beamed right to you from somewhere. Punch up McDonalds and *beam* there’s your Big Mac and fries. Hey, it could happen. If they can make cats and dogs glow in the dark, your cell phone will be able to cook your dinner someday. Mark my words.

4. Summertime makes me feel hopeful. I’m so glad the weather is getting nicer. Because it’s about time. I know we still have a little ways to go before we go into full-on Summer, but these 60-degree days filled with sunshine sure are nice. I am one of those people that stops wearing a jacket about mid-March, just daring Mother Nature to give me cold weather. I love when the Ice Cream Man comes to the neighborhood, and I love opening the windows in my house. It’s nice to hear the birds singing in the morning, and to breathe in that fresh cool morning air while laying in bed. Of course, pretty soon the weather will get too hot to leave the windows open, but I decided last year that I love the summer – even the humid 98-degree days where I stick to everything. Sure beats the snow and grey days.

5. The Red Wings make me feel hopeful. This one might sound corny, but I have had a thought during the last several playoff games I’ve watched (which I’ll share in a minute). If you’ve ever been to Joe Louis Arena during the playoffs, it’s certainly a special place to be. It has this electricity running through it that is hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it. Since Husband and I could not afford to buy playoff tickets this year, we are forced to watch the games from the comfort of our living room – and watching the past couple of games (WINS) gave me the aforementioned thought: For all of the shitty news coming out of Detroit (Chrysler filing for bankruptcy, the fears that GM will soon follow suit, the high unemployment rate, people losing their homes due to foreclosure, etc. etc. etc.), you’d never know it looking at the people at The Joe. The Red Wings make people forget the shit all around them for a few hours and gives them a reason to smile and give high-fives and shout “Woooooo!”. The excitement is enough to give you a heart attack (especially game 7s, when the score is tied until the last three minutes of the game) – but the excitement is also enough to make you believe that everything will be OK with the world.

What makes you feel hopeful?

Old School Fridays

I was driving to work last Friday, listening to my Sirius radio. As you may or may not know, I have a long commute to work now (it's about 50 miles one way) and so I am extremely thankful for my satellite radio.

I usually listen to Howard Stern, but Fridays is is "Best of the Week" show, and of course, the rebroadcast of something I already heard during the week will most likely happen during my morning commute. And if it's not anything that I found particularly funny, I go find entertainment elsewhere.

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I sometimes listen to Sirius' station, OutQ, which is a station dedicated to the LGBT community. Most of the shows on the station are extremely entertaining to me. Their morning show is one of those that I enjoy frequently. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed, however, that the format of the morning show was different. It’s now called “The Morning Jolt” and the host is still the host (Larry Flick), and his sidekick is still there (Keith Price) -- but the bi-sexual woman was gone (Cynthia) and they were playing music between their morning banter, instead of just having a morning talk show.

I couldn't decide whether I loved this new format...because one one hand, there is the stereotype of how gays are on the forefront of all the new, fun, club music (which I am a fan of) but then on the other hand, I loved the talk format so much, I didn't want to listen to music. I wanted to hear what Larry, Keith and Cynthia were chatting about -- and where in the hell did Cynthia go anyway???

My opinion changed this past Friday, when Larry announced it was Old School Friday, then played "La Freak" by Chic. Holy shit! I haven't heard that song in a million years...or at least it felt like a million years. It reminded me of my childhood and where a lot of my love of music came from....

I was born in 1971. My parents met when I was 4 years old, and they got married when I was 8. I spent much of my childhood (the years up until I was 8) moving around, either living with my mom or my grandpa. It was never stable, and constantly changing. (And Pete wonders why I find discomfort in being spontaneous – another story for another time, but you can understand, right?) During the time I lived/spent with my mom, some interesting music memories have stuck out. One was she took me to see an Elton John concert when I was 3 or 4 years old -- I don't remember much from it other than the crazy costumes that he wore and it being really dark except for the spotlight on Elton. Another was when she was driving me to daycare one morning (so again, I’m guessing I was probably about 3 or 4) we were in her Pinto listening to “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin. In case you don’t remember it, it’s the song that goes “Cats in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man on the moon…when you coming home dad, I don’t know when, but we’ll be together then, dad, I know we’ll be together then.” Nice little diddy about being abandoned by your father. I find that memory particularly interesting, considering my biological father (whom I like to refer to as The Sperm Donor) never wanted anything to do with me and basically abandoned my mother and I. (Does anyone wonder why I am so nutty??) Anyway, back to the music memories…

I remember looking through my mother’s album collection, and here’s a sampling of the kind of music she was into: Led Zepplin, Elton John (of course), Jethro Tull, The Beatles, and of course, Barry Manilow. Looking back, I find browsing her record collection to be particularly interesting, because she doesn’t strike me as the type of girl who would rock out to a little Led Zepplin, but apparently, she did. Actually, she’s not all that into music, nor has she ever been. I don’t ever remember her just putting on a record and enjoying it. Ever. My awesome musical memories are thanks to my dad.

Now you all have heard me gripe about my dad. Yes, he’s a shithead sometimes, but he’s still my dad. When he married my mom, he took the steps to adopt me and The Sperm Donor was gracious enough to give up his parental rights so my dad could assume his. I always found this admirable, because after all, I’m not really his kid – you know what I mean. But he always treated me like I was, and more importantly, went to court to rewrite history. And no matter how mad he makes me, or how disappointed I get with him and his irresponsible behavior, I will never forget that he came along and became my dad (albeit a dysfunctional one), but hey. It could have been worse! I digress….

My dad grew up in Highland Park and his high school was racially mixed. Looking through my dad’s album collection, I found records by The Jackson 5, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder – lots and lots of Motown. In the later 1970s, he played a lot of Earth, Wind and Fire, The Commodores, Donna Summer, Rick James, Michael Jackson (when he was still normal)…I could go on and on. Of course, there was also a lot of disco being played – you couldn’t escape the Bee Gees. One of my favorite memories is of my dad playing “Superfreak” when it came out. He would play it loud (a good stereo was always very important to my dad) and he would play it over and over. I also have the same memories of Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls”. Not exactly the most appropriate music for an elementary-school aged child, but it’s not like I knew what they were talking about and the music was funky and enjoyable. Even today, my dad likes to listen to music loud – especially in the car. He’s one of those people. I looked through his CD collection once a couple of years ago just to see if there was anything “good”. Along with Earth, Wind and Fire (one of my favorites too) was Madonna, Prince and Ricky Martin (the good Ricky Martin CD with “Livin La Vida Loca” on it and not the one that came after that one). I can’t scoff at those artists.

Which brings me back to last Friday and The Morning Jolt. When I heard “La Freak” -- I could see my dad, dancing his heart out in the living room. Even though he doesn’t look like Sherman Helmsley, my dad always kind of reminded me of George Jefferson from “The Jeffersons”. Maybe it’s because he sort of moves like George did, maybe it’s because he is balding like George, or maybe it’s because I swear deep inside my dad, there beats the heart of a black man. Or at least there used to be, until he became a Republican. :) The Morning Jolt reminded me how much joy I get from music and I have my dad to thank for exposing me to a lot of R&B, soul and funk music growing up.

I can’t wait for this Friday to come along, so I can tune into another installment of “Old School Fridays” with Larry and Keith. It’s fun to remember this music and experience it with a couple of middle-aged queens (and I’m not being derogatory here, because trust me, they’ve referred to each other as queens) who have a true appreciation for the music and the fun it brings. And you’ll know it’s me when I’m tuning in – I’ll be the one with the volume turned up and singing my heart out, just like dad did in our living room when I was a kid …”Awwww… Freak OUT…La Freak, so chic…Freak Out!....” HELLYES!