Down In The Dumps

That could be the title of every fucking post I've ever written, actually...

Yes, the Positive Thinker is back, a week before he takes off with his wife and assorted relatives for a cruise to the Bahamas.  You'd think I wouldn't be down in the dumps considering I'm about to leave the country for a sun-soaked cruise.  But hey, I wouldn't be me if I wasn't thinking about negative aspects of this life I've been given.  So no bulletpoints, no checklist, no particular order, what's up my ass??

I never, never wanted to take a cruise.  Before boats started catching fire and stranding folks with no running water or food, I never heard good things about cruises.  Fat strangers eating nonstop with whom you must dine, in close quarters with these people no matter what boat activity you want to do, and occasionally someone dies on the boat and you're stuck sailing with a corpse, but hey, maybe they'll pay you hush money as you're leaving so that you don't tell everyone how terrible the experience is.  Okay, I'm exacerbating, but this isn't something I want to do.  I intend to try and not be the total wet blanket that I usually am, and I'm telling everyone who asks that I'm excited and looking forward to it, but I'm actually anticipating this whole thing to be a pain in the ass.  The very first aspect of this trip is flying from Memphis to Miami this Sunday, and the service my wife wanted to use to park our car and get shuttled to the Memphis airport just went out of business.  So she was telling me how we're now going to have to park somewhere that doesn't offer shuttle service, and we're going to have to hustle all of our luggage on foot to the terminal, wherever that may be, and this is already feeling like the trip from hell.  She also put a lot of effort into finding somewhere to have dinner in Miami for the one night we're going to be there, and I appreciate that, but it's not looking good.  The hotel has a hoity-toity restaurant that's probably overpriced, and it appears any other place is going to be a hike on foot, unless we want to cough up cash for a half-mile cab ride to and fro.  Same thing for breakfast the next day before we hit the port and board the cruise ship.  In a really half-assed effort to build up some wind in my 400-lb. body before next week, I tried to do a 10-minute cardio interval workout this morning.  I lasted about 4 minutes.  It felt like a half-hour.  Pathetic.  That put me in a dark mood that has little to do with the trip.  Even though I've worked very hard and long to make my body fat and unhealthy, I'm still in a bit of disbelief just how out of shape I am.  There's a road to getting healthy, and I've seen several people close to me go down that road successfully, but the finish line is so far away for me that I feel really, really sad about it.  It seems like something I could never achieve, which of course stops me from starting down the road, which guarantees that I won't ever get there.  You know what else I can't do until I get in better shape?  Fuck my wife.  Nope, still hasn't happened.  Every time we try, my erection only lasts about 30 seconds while we attempt to stick Mr. Happy in, but it doesn't fit, and before we can try other positions, I lose the erection.  She insists that I wear a condom, and that has a negative effect as well because the last woman with whom I attempted to use a condom was "Shelley," and go read about how that turned out.  But the whole feeling of failure overcomes me every time I try to penetrate, whether with a condom or not, so as much as I want to blame the condom, that's not the problem.  I'm relying on my wife to guide it in because I can't see what's going on down there due to having a stomach the size of a Goodyear tire.  But she being a virgin isn't skilled in placing someone inside her, so it just hasn't worked out, and I'm really depressed about it.  Let's see, what else...I'm feeling pressure from myself to get the equipment needed to start a podcast with "Jacob" so that I can have a voice out there in sports.  If I actually want to be in sports broadcasting, I should have some sample of my voice, and so long as I don't have the equipment, I can't share my voice.  But equipment costs money, and this computer probably can't handle the podcast applications considering it likes to freeze and crash while doing simpler things like blogging and steaming music.  So new equipment and a new computer and football season starts in less than two months and I don't know what the fuck I'm doing and yes, it is easy for me to overwhelm myself before I even take the first step.  Hey, just like exercising!  At least I'm consistent. 

I did make a bold move toward getting my first broadcasting experience.  I went to a women's football game a few weeks back, because it was taking place less than ten minutes from home and it was the WPFL championship game and the Memphis team was playing and because something about watching women play tackle football makes my mouth water.  Anyhow, the PA announcer had this very Kentucky Fried hick voice and also wasn't very good at the job, constantly calling false start "illegal procedure" and shit like that, and then he decided to let everyone know during the 2nd quarter that he actually owns the Arkansas team Memphis was beating and that he was only doing the announcing "because the Memphis team was too cheap to hire someone."  I didn't know if that was a bad joke or true, so on a whim I e-mailed the Memphis team and told them if they need an announcer next season, I'd volunteer.  The great news is that an admin got back to me and said she'd get in touch if they needed me, but the bad news is that many women left the team--sorry, "retired"--after they won the title and they may not have a team next season.

Oops, forgot I was supposed to be whining and bitching about stuff.  I would like to be in water at some point during this cruise thing, either the pool on the ship or the ocean itself, but I'd have to take my shirt off to do that.  I really don't want to take my shirt off in public.  I hope the money I'm taking with me will be enough to enjoy myself, because all of the tipping and cab rides and extra fees that I can't anticipate because I've never taken a cruise might drain me before I get a chance to play poker in the boat's casino or buy souvenirs or even rent a chair in Nassau or Turks and Caicos to sit on the beach and sunbathe.  I don't even know if you have to rent a chair, but the pictures sure make it look like the beaches are preposterously crowded and one may have to pay for the privilege of having space in the sand to lay out.  I'm also worried about being able to take a bottle of distilled water for my CPAP machine, because the airports are Nazis about the size of liquids you're allowed to transport, and can I even take my can of aerosol deodorant, and what if our luggage weighs too much and they charge $200 in fees, and what if they don't let us off the boat at the end of the cruise in time for us to catch our flight back home, which is already going to be a bitch because we couldn't get a direct flight to Memphis so it's going to be Miami to Chicago to Memphis, which will take all damn day, and why does my uncle insist that we all have to participate in karaoke at some point on this cruise because don't he know that I can't fucking sing, and in the midst of all this worrying will I ever find a moment to actually enjoy myself???  (Probably more important:  Can I mask my worry and frustration when I'm in the presence of my wife and family so that I don't ruin everyone else's good time?)  The topper on this post is, the whole time I've been typing this up, there's been a Miami sax music smooth jazz station streaming in another browser window, and that should be putting me in a fantastic frame of mind.  Why isn't it?  Because when I turn it off, I've got a shitload of house cleaning to do, and errands to run, and laundry tomorrow, and three days of work before the flight Sunday, and I haven't started to pack yet.  No matter how much I love the song "Honey-Dipped" by Dave Koz (and if you need four minutes of relaxing and feeling good, then by all means Google that track), when it's over, my life is still there, with all its flaws and tasks.  God dammit to hell.