The above is quite possibly the best ad I've ever seen. Beer for you and baby. Before the advent of Mother's Little Helpers, apparently. My first taste of beer didn't come until I was about 5 or 6 and my dad would make me fetch one for him from the kitchen because he couldn't get his alcoholic ass off the couch. "Can I have a sip, Daddy?" "Sure!" Glug glug glug. Beer wasn't my sneak drink of choice as a child, though. Far tastier were the Manhattan-drenched cherries from his stronger drink of choice. My memories of my dad continue to fade in relativity, for I only knew him for the first 11 years of my life, but I remember his drinking with clarity. It unfortunately defined him (and killed him). (Aw, ironically, Cat Stevens' "Oh, Very Young" just shuffled on iTunes. How appropriate.)
It's a bleak, rainy, chilly Monday morning in Chicago. I awakened at 5:00 am ready to surge through the day, though with my usual unpleasant bowel troubles, a little disjointed. Had a dream where I was trying desperately to please Dr. C at work, looking for something to do, only to find little dolls of Gumby and Pokey in his inbox. Anxiety dreams about work are increasing in frequency, though I must say they're better than the PTSD dreams about my relationship with my ex-boyfriend. Still, not pleasant dreams.
Ack. Another week with TOC off on vacation. Makes the works stress less, for there is one fewer doctor to manage during the course of the work day, but he's easy to manage and I thoroughly enjoy his presence, unlike, well, everyone else in the office quite frankly, and I will miss him. Last week, Nab interrupted our socializing to inform me there were patients at the desk waiting to check out that needed tending to. Yeah, fuck that. I was getting my groove on with my randy paddy git friend. Enjoy Jupiter FL, TOC, and be sure to visit the Burt Reynolds museum and bring me back a trinket.
The neighbor across the townhomes, Alanna, wakes up every morning at 6am. How do I know this? Because when she has her windows cracked open even an inch, you can hear her annoying, buzzing alarm clock going off. She leaves the alarm buzzing, though I assume she's up and getting ready for her day, for upwards of 2 hours. Buzz, buzz, buzz, over and over again. This used to particularly annoy Craig and I when we lived in the townhouse next door to my mom's where I live now, when we were married. So much that Craig wrote this insanely creative, rhyming poem about how irritating her alarm was (I wish to death I had a copy. It was brilliant.) Now, when I go out to smoke, or on the warm and sunny mornings when I can go outside to write on the patio, I hear the incessant noise in the background and it distracts me from my budding creative pursuits of the day. I have half a mind to type her an anonymous note encouraging her to turn her alarm off when she wakes up, but she's a Taylor Street Italian, and the last thing I want to do is get on her bad side, for she is fierce when agitated. So I put up with it in the interim.
(iTunes break: The Bee Gees' original version of the song made famous by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, "Islands in the Stream," really sucks. Shuffle! "Whole Lotta Love?" Much better.)
Yesterday, I heard an obscure, minor hit by Kansas from 1983, "Everybody's My Friend," a song about the downside of being a rock star and how everyone wants something from you by virtue of your fame. How everybody wants to get close to the rock star and use him for things. "They all want to know...do you make a lot of money?" (Relative to most professions, yes, he does.) "Did you change your name?"(With a name as cool as Drozd, why would you?) "What's it like to be a rock star?" (Exhausting.) Everybody wants to know when they can hang around. Everybody's my friend."
It made me think of Steven (my Flaming Lip, not my brother). It was a song he wasn't familiar with, but I explained the gist of it to him, and told him that I have never valued him because he was a rock star. I was in the middle of shopping at Target (yay, I DID get out of the house yesterday!) when his texts came through. I put my cart aside by the shoe department and texted him the following back:
"I don't value you because you're a rock star. I value you because you're compassionate, kind to me, supportive and creative. I throw bullshit at you that you don't have time or patience for sometimes, but you seldom turn me away. I really appreciate that, Steven." He is humble and has very little rock star ego (though he does get his blackheads removed, but he was metrosexual before the term was defined), so he takes compliments and gooeyisms with some degree of undeserving discomfort.
I've never defined my friend as a rock star, though people like to remind me that he is, in fact, one. I just love him because he's Steven. He's famous. He's won Grammy awards. He's a musical genius. All of that is very cool and makes him a unique friend to have, but it's hardly what he's all about. Sure, I get VIP treatment at Lips shows and get to hang out with the band, the best seats in the house, and the perks of knowing someone famous. That's all cool and I'm very appreciative of his generosity, but I'm not at a Flaming Lips show to experience just their music, though I do love it passionately. More so, I just want to see, hug, and catch up in person with my friend.
We're compadres in addiction and mental disease, both musicians, both intelligent and well-spoken and kinda nuts. We're both raising kids while managing our recovering maladies. He encouraged me, during my family's upcoming time away, to throw myself into something musically. That it really helps him cope. That's why I plan to use part of my day off to just kick back and learn some Who songs on the drums and jam.
It's sometimes charming and cool and sometimes gravely irritating when other fans of The Flaming Lips try to get close to me because I know Steven. Those fans are few, and I've become good friends with other Lips fans who share like-minded vibes with me. Through knowing Steven, I've met and become friends with some terrific people. So I guess his fame has an upside in my life. Still, my point being I'm not friends with him to go along for the rock-n-roll ride. I love the guy because of the guy he is, which is just an amazing guy.
Final thought for the morning: I can't promise you much, but, if nothing else, I promise you that something in a future edition of the DSM will be named after me. Or, once I'm a Psy.D, coined BY me. My blog may never reward me with fame, but I'll be dipped if a psychiatric syndrome escapes without the Miklasz name attached to it.
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