I used to feel pretty good about the fact that I was straight edge. Not saying I felt superior about it, I just liked the fact that I didn't cope with hard times and difficult seasons by getting drunk or buzzed or high. (I have on occasion wondered what a bottle of vodka could do for my worst miseries, but I've never followed through.)

Until I realized I just have my own addictions. I don't face life head on, bravely and with a sober acceptance. Not even CLOSE.

The Cliff of Alienated Rage

Right now I am listening to the new album by Bruno Mars on Spotify. When that's done I'll either replay it or find something else to pump into my ears. If Spotify in the future limits my free account to 10 or 20 hours a month, I will use up my hours, then use up hours with Pandora's free account, playing lots of Grooveshark on the way. And if Grooveshark is closed or turned into a premium service I will frequent YouTube even more. If the RIAA takes a big bite out of YouTube I will scrape up my music wherever I can get it, with copyright law nipping at my heels. I will suck music out of ashtrays if I have to, if you catch my drift.

Anything to keep from resorting to the radio.

Trust me, it keeps me calm. I'm not immune to the BS that passes for 2011. The politics and the economy and the very fact that there is something called "Super Committee" anywhere outside of a College Humor video pisses me right off The Cliff of Alienated Rage if I let it. Hence the practice of dulling my senses with crack cocaine Bruno Mars tracks. And Depeche Mode and Seal and Linkin Park and Nine Inch Nails and whichever brave souls risk their sanity to produce speedcore. Now would not be a good time to cut me off. So think twice before organizing an intervention.

(Shortly after 9/11, I meandered through K-Mart in that fuzzy way we all had that September, listening to Marilyn Manson's "Rock is Dead" over and over on repeat. Someone had stuck it in one of the floor-model CD players and put it on "repeat one". "ROCK IS BETTER THAN DEAD! SO F*** ALL YOUR PROTESTS AND PUT 'EM TO BED!!!" I knew a young employee had done that. I was so grateful, because the country had aged thirty years overnight and seemed to think the answer to 300 million primal screams was big, plain billboards ("UNITED WE STAND") and an opera-singing cop. Screw that, I was in my early 20s and not in the mood. Body parts were rolling in the gutters of NYC,  and I didn't know if anyone would try to draft my equal-opportunity butt for this war I already knew was going to be completely beside the point. I did not need an opera-singing cop. I needed Marilyn Manson declaring rock dead a few million times in a row. This was before I was immersed in the oeuvre of JG Thirlwell.)

There Is Nothing Educational About This

I require music. It is not an option. I self-medicate like a wino who'll slurp up stolen fingernail polish if need be, and where music fails books step in to succeed.

NOVELS. FICTION. The legends and myths of latter-day heroes pacify my brain and possibly kill extraneous brain cells that would otherwise be plotting revolution or at the very least a storm of hostile internet comments. Trust me again, I need my reading material, and I am eternally grateful to my fellow addicts who have convinced the top 1% that the presence of public libraries are a sign of a country's civilization. Not sure how anyone fell for that, but it means that I and others like me don't resort to consuming the rotgut of bathtub fiction, corrosive items brewed from wish fulfillment fantasies and slash fic.

I keep adding books to my to-read list. The library keeps pace with my choices on the hold queue, but there are always more, more, more. A few titles I want to swallow before the objectivists who run this country catch on that there is nothing educational about this:

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

Soulless by Gail Carriger

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

Neuromancer by William Gibson

I'll Be Just Fine

I'm pretty catholic in my tastes, favoring anything that holds my interest. That is, anything that saves me from running out into the street to do something stupid. I once saw some people gathered by the highway and holding "Vote for Ron Paul" signs as if that guy's presidential aspirations have a Kindle's chance in a Luddite convention. Me, I read and listen to music and I'll be just fine so long as the psychopaths in charge don't kill the internet and close the libraries.

If that day ever comes, I'll just have to take up the vodka. What could possibly go wrong.

Best friend.

Boyfriend.

Confidant and support.

You still look up once in a while and are awestruck. You got what you wanted. So often the things you've wanted were adulterated or withheld completely. They weren't the sorts of things you could go get. This is real life we're talking about, not politics. And this isn't user-friendly religion, here. Sometimes the patience turns into simply wondering if your prayers have been answered with "no".

It happens.

You read tweets from the singlehood subculture and your impression now is even worse than it was when you were single. Before December of 2010 they disgusted you; you hated to see your fellow singletons brag over big fistfuls of sour grapes. So, so sour. They claimed nothing could be better than to wait night after night for the one you DESERVED. You could think of much better things though. You always could. Now you can't even look at the hysterical smug Internet lonelies without knowing how incorrect they are.

This is what you wanted.

You waited, and it sucked to wait, and you don't feel like you paid any dues. You didn't earn this. It was just that, suddenly, best friend, boyfriend, confidant and support. Like grace, it wasn't bought, worked for, or DESERVED. The singlehood subculture of the Internet with the endless stream of tweeted quotes- you wish you could help them understand that it's not about waiting for the one you deserve. It's about realizing once you've already waded in up to your waist that oh your God you have what you wanted and you'd better make sure you are everything HE deserves. No matter what, you will fail. But that's why it's like grace. And just like faith, your state of mind drives you to fight failure- your works have to be evidence that you are not the same as you once were, back before December of 2010. And as in salvation, your failures will be tolerated or even not noticed.

It's the times when your screwups aren't noticed that really get ya'.

A lifetime of screwing up vanishes like unrecorded history when you make him smile, which makes you smile, and you're both smiling.

The other night something happened that made you realize something you already knew on a wordless level. If he chose to leave, it would make you very, very sad for a silently long time, but if something took him from you there's no way to know what you would feel or do. The first you would accept as a personal decision. The second you couldn't accept. That's all you know.

You got what you wanted. It's more than you deserve. Sometimes you look up from the new routine and are awestruck.

Let me ask you all something.

Please look at this advertisement.



Does something about this ad offend you?

(If you already know why the ad is controversial, please don't mention it in the comments as a spoiler, just tell me how you feel about the image.)

There is no right or wrong answer, I genuinely want to know how people feel about it.