46
18. 2002
HUMOR
High anxiety
All stressed up and nowhere to blow
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Oct 31st
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N oV. 3rd
1038 SW Stark St
Portland, Or 97205
3 ìs * a 0 0 ts
219 NW Davis Street
Portland, Oregon
503.227.5887
503-248-9135
wWw.cc-slaughters.com
UPCO M ING EVENTS
check online for details
Jared & Jimmy’s
PJ/Underwear Party
10/18
A Celebration of the Rose
10/21
Halloween Party!
10//26
The Hooker’ Ball
11/15
The Harvest Party!
11/29
CC’s Christmas Party!
12/14
CC’s New Years Eve ’03
12/31
Northbank
g a y -o w n e d & o p e ra te d
106 W 6th St
Vancouver, WA
360-695-3862
Featuring
the infamous
Boogie Boys
in the FLESH!
Start at 8pm
Make us your
First Stop!
NEW OWNERS
NEW MANAGEMENT
NEW ATTITUDE
We w elcom e ALL diversities
Hours
Tues&Wed - 12pm-12am
Thurs - 12pm-lam
Fri&Sat - 12pm-2am
Sun - 12pm- 12am
2512 “NE” Broadway
I
2512 NE Broadway » (503) 287-4210
|
“Make us your first & last stop’
Patrick iiul<‘iv n
on the piano
liallcw een Costume t ontest
Thursday, Oct. 31!
~ Casual Dining
~ Lounge
~ Game Room
~ Open 4:00 Daily
120 N W Third Avenue, Portland, OR 97209 • (503) 224-3285
Parking Validated Smart Park Davis & Front
www hobos citysearch.com
~
~
~
~
t’s said that the Roman Empire was
destroyed not by one attack hut by “a thou
I
sand small cuts”— that the continual barrage
of hostility from Barbarian armies eventually
wore the empire down.
1 know just how Rome felt.
I don’t handle stress well. Last year after the
Twin Towers collapsed and some of my friends
and family hack east weren’t accounted for, I
coped in my usual time-honored way: 1 ate an
entire half-gallon of ice cream. “It’s World
War HI,” I thought. “Screw the diet.”
But it’s the day-to-day hassles that really
work my nerves. I’m partially responsible, of
course. Working two jobs for the past five
years has left me feeling overworked and
underlaid. My personal to-do list looks some
thing like this:
Pick up last year’s dry cleaning.
Buy groceries.
Never mind about the groceries. Be creative
with remaining contents in fridge.
Go to gym. Avoid eye contact with hostile
straight guys.
Fix broken lamp.
Fix broken table.
Fix broken promises.
Write screenplay you can sell for obscene
amounts of money to escape this mundane life.
Wallow in doubt and self-pity.
And that’s just before I get to work. It’s no
wonder I’m so cranky and impatient. The other
day I found myself standing in front of the fax
machine screaming: “For Chrissake, hurry up! I
haven’t got all minute!”
But I also blame my family. Not just because
it’s convenient and fun, hut because I’ve inher
ited a genetic predisposition for anxiety,
descending as I do from a long line of small,
worried people. Consequently, anytime I get a
backache I always think, “That’s it, the cancer
has eaten away at the hone, just like it did
Debra Winger in Shadowbnds."
I’m easily overwhelmed by the simplest
aspects of everyday living, like using a cell
phone, for instance. I finally had to stop wear
ing mine on my hip— not only did it spoil the
line, hut every time I put my seat belt on it
speed-dialed my friend Tim (the ptxu soul who
made the mistake of showing me how to set up
speed dial in the first place).
So now I leave it in my car, which is fine,
except I don’t know how to retrieve my
calls. My phone will say, “You have
three unplayed messages,” and I’ll
just think, “Hmm.. .hummer.”
It’s the same with comput
ers. It t(X)k me the longest
time just to realize there was
no such thing as the “Any"
key. And as far as I’m.con
cerned, chatting online still means
flirting with the hag hoy at
the grocery store.
But since my CPU
insists on making a noise
that sounds like a
flock of pigeons, I
have to enlist the
THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING
TO MARC
b y M a r c A c ito
aid of more technologically advanced people
(like anyone without a serious head injury).
But they always end up showing me some fea
ture I don’t care about like how my monitor
can he used as a microwave oven or as a means
of contacting the dead.
Above all else, though, it’s home ownership
that pushes me over the edge. We have a very
unhealthy relationship, my house and I. It’s
always coming to me with some problem or
other (“I’m leaking, I’m rotting, blah, blah,
blah"), and I’m always hailing it out by writing
checks. I was just about to organize an inter
vention when my HVAC system started
smelling like dead fish.
That was two years ago.
Since then a changing cast of repair guys
(some with butt cleavage, some without) have
come out to fix the problem, hut all they know
for certain is that a fish did not crawl into my
ductwork and die there. Meanwhile I’m con
vinced Floyd and 1 are going to develop
leukemia from breathing tainted air. I’m ready
to call Erin Brockovich.
It’s endlessly frustrating to tum to experts
for solutions only to discover they don’t know
what to do, but it did make me come to an
important realization: Nobody really knows
anything— not me, not the HVAC guys, not
diKtors or ministers or even Oprah. All we can
do is guess.
Most of us woke up Sept. 11 thinking it
would he just another day, maybe a really g(xxl
one because the weather was so beautiful. Now
every time an ambulance passes I think, “Right
new someone is having the worst day (if their
lives.” It’s very humbling, and it proves you can
never know what will happen.
So I’ve stopped trying to resolve every little
inconvenience in my life, which means I prob
ably won’t get around to fixing my house until
I try to sell it. But I figure with so much truly
beyond my control, there’s really nothing to he
gained by worrying.
And that, my friends, is The Gospel
According to Marc. JH
M a r c A c it o ’ s column appears in a dozen papers
nationwide. Write him at m arcacito@atthi.com .