Coping Strategy: The Big Mozz

I know I am not a decent person because I eat meat. Imagine if you will, the life of a cow on an industrial cattle ranch. Cows as a species have been bred to the point of stupidity. Cattle ranchers have to reach into the mother's womb (the breeding sow), wrap a chain around the newborn's legs, then pull the little guy or gal out with some kind of tractor or a truck. Whatever they have on the farm. After that initial trauma, the calf is then shoved into a cage where it is subjected to hormone and steroid injections every single day for years. A man in a lab coat walks past each cage (there are hundreds), prodding the animal inside with a stick (with a little too much interest). When he finds a prime candidate, a voice that he no longer recognizes as his own  but his wife and children know all too well says, "It's time". The cow is pulled out of the cage and led to a group of other candidates, all huddled together, terrified but with no comprehension as to what terror actually is. Their collective filth, years in the making is hosed off with disinfectant. Single file, the cows march towards a death chute. One after the other, they fall in and down a chute face-first, and their necks crack on the hard ground. SPLAT. The ones who survive are beaten to death by hammers wielded by lunatic men.

I suspect this is what happens because it is actually considered terrorism to enter one of these facilities and film or photograph the meat-making process. That last bit isn't a joke.

So today, I thought about all of this and felt sad. So I bought and ate a burger.

Taking Inventory: Jan 2014

Yesterday, I listened to the interview that Maron did with Todd Hansen, a longtime writer and editor of The Onion. In the second half of the interview, Hansen details his failed suicide attempt and how he began to rebuild his life after that. Something that resonated to me was that in the two years following his suicide attempt in 2009, he took inventory of the relatively good days in the year. After all, if I'm going to get self-help advice from somebody, I might as well get it from somebody who has been on the other side.

YouTuber TF Grillah uploaded the interview (begins at 11:29, heavy shit begins at 1:00:00):

My Depressive Adult Life

I should have included a trigger warning in my previous post, so I apologize for that.  I want to give a trigger warning to anybody dealing with sexual assault/harassment and/or suicide for this post.

This is a quick and dirty guide to my brain. I'll preface it with this: I'm not a particularly great person but thankfully I only live inside my head, so I'm not that much of a threat to anything outside of it.

Relax! It's Just Ideation!

Monday, I caved. I drove to Sheetz, bought a pack of cigarettes, then drove to the hotel parking lot across the street. I took off my jacket and sweater (because in my mind I wasn't relapsing because I couldn't smell smoke on ALL of my clothes), tossed them in the back of the car where I still have my graduation cap and gown, and fired up--staring across the road to a small field where somebody's horses were grazing. Their butts were towards me and their tails swatted at flies. Throughout this whole sequence of events, I was consumed by my favorite fantasy: That I was going to turn my radio to the Top 40 pop channel, grab the steering wheel with both hands, and veer my car into oncoming traffic.