Happy VD

These are still some of my proudest creations.

The first rule of Valentine's Day is, you do not celebrate Valentine's Day.

I call them "Fightentines". It would do my blackened heart good to see them shared.

Fightentines

The first rule of Valentine's Day is, you do not celebrate Valentine's Day.

Self-Improvement Through Self-Immolation

So, I seem to be stuck in a Fight Club kind of mood today. Which is cool, because I really like that movie. It's been a while since I saw it, but for a while there I made a point to watch it every six months or so.

That movie still speaks to me, and it's not because of its existentialist philosophy (to which I partially subscribe) or the fantastic acting of Ed Norton. It's because it helped me through a very rough time in my life, back when I had been dumped by my fiancee (3/21/03, R.M.E., I still haven't forgotten) and it felt like I had lost everything of value in my life. In fact, I felt like I had nothing worth living for, and I would have killed myself were it not for the fact that I knew that doing so would have hurt, in the most terrible and personal way possible, those few people left who still cared about me.

And then I watched Fight Club, and realized something:

• Evolve or Die.
• The Universe doesn't care which path I choose.
  
• Entropy, however, wants to keep me from evolving, because that's the path of least resistance.
  
• Therefore, anything that prevents me from improving myself is my mortal enemy, and I must kill it with fire.
  

Which is pretty heady philosophy, you must admit, but it's a bit shoddy in practice. I can rage all day long at things which I perceive as obstacles to self-improvement, but it's not at all productive, and if I take that last line a bit too literally it would result in criminal charges.

Prison, I felt, would be a definite hindrance to my own journey of evolution.

It wasn't until later -- years later, sadly -- that I realized the second, crucial, element of this binary philosophy. It began at my Goth club, where I was quite happily depressed, when I noticed that some woman was giving readings of Tarot cards. I decided to get a piece of this action, because there's little I enjoy more than saying "Nope, you're wrong" when someone tries to analyze me.

I went into it blind, with all the arrogance of "If you're a psychic, you already know who I am and what I want." The woman obligingly cast my future, and one of the cards -- I don't recall which one, and I know she wasn't using a standard deck like a Rider-Waite -- had a dragon on it. I do recall that this card was in the "present" position, and she started to do a fairly typical spiel along the lines of the "Striking the Dragon's Tail" scenario.

"That's me," I interrupted her, stabbing the dragon with my finger. "I'm not that stupid farmer. I'm the dragon." I said this mostly because I was getting irritated with the predictability of the reading and wanted to throw her for a loop, but also because I dislike being categorized so neatly.

I was hoping she'd sputter in an amusing manner. Instead, she quietly murmured, "Friend, get out of your own way." I didn't really know what she meant by that, but I knew that whatever it was, it was important. Not because it was Tarot, but because she had hit a very sensitive and vulnerable spot I didn't know I had. I chewed on this for a long time, trying to puzzle it out.

I finally figured it out last year when I realized that I am the source of all my problems.

Of course, I'm not about to set myself on fire. That would be foolishly self-destructive. What I aspire to do, what I have been trying to accomplish for nearly a year now, is to systematically destroy those obstacles in my life which I have placed in my path. And believe me, it's hard going, because while it's very easy to say "I would sure be motivated to make more of myself if I was starving and freezing in a ditch," the human desire for comfort is a very hard thing to short-circuit. I suspect this is because our minds equate comfort with survival.

I guess, then, the entire point of my post is this: 2009 is my Year of the Phoenix. Either I burn away all my dross and am reborn, resplendent, and rise to the heights to which I know I can climb... or I burn out forever, and accept a life of mediocrity.

Evolve or die.

Self-improvement through self-immolation.

Come watch me, my friends. This is the year I burn brightly, and even if I fail, I'll go out like a viking.

It'll be a hell of a show.

Palette's Rule for Dealing with Bill Collectors

I laugh at them.

No, seriously. It's a great technique and I recommend it for everyone.

Example:

[phone rings]

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Shit-Sucking Debt Acquisitions Company from Hauppage, New York. We'd like to speak to Erin Palette in vaguely threatening tones." [Editor's note: some dialog changed to reflect what I heard, rather than what was actually said.]

"Ah, Shit-Suckers. I should have known it was you from your preceding fecal halitosis."

"Yes, you really should have. At any rate, we want you to pay us, oh, $700 for a debt that was charged off four years ago, which we bought for pennies on the dollar in the hopes that we could extort money from you with threats, when clearly the original amount wasn't important enough for your old creditor to pursue."

"I see."

"So, you'll be paying us all at once with a credit card, yes?"

"Not at all, Shit-Suckers. I find your attempts at extortion to be laughable, and thus I mock you. Ha hah."

[there is a brief pause at the other end]

"Um... well, you realize that if you do not pay us, we will be forced to take action against you which will adversely affect your credit rating."

"What you fail to comprehend about this situation is that I don't give a flying fuck about my credit rating." [Note: I actually said this line.]

"...."

"I see that my remarkable candor has rendered you speechless. Allow me to continue. You see, since this debt is under a thousand dollars, I know it's not worth the time and effort of an attorney to collect, because his services would cost more than you'd get from me. Therefore, I know you can't sue me, and thus you're a paper tiger."

"But..."

"Furthermore, seeing as how I live with my parents, have no sustainable income, and have no possessions worth taking -- including my car, which is over 10 years old and has over 130,000 miles on it -- you can't put a lien on my salary or seize anything of value."

"If I could..."

"Therefore, I am calling your bluff, you anal remoras, and invite you to spend additional time and money on form letters and telephone calls which will only earn you further contempt and increasingly polysyllabic verbiage, you cretinous decerebrates."

"What..?"

"Insalubrious regards, my fine young catamite."

[hang up]

~ FIN ~

Of course, not everyone has the requisite fucked finances to pull it off like I can. As Troy so delicately put it a few days ago, I am a deadbeat, and the one nice thing about a shitty financial situation is the knowledge that things can't get worse. Once you realize you can't fall off the floor, you find a remarkable freedom.

Tyler Durden says: It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.