I'm not a prude. I enjoy alcohol, food and sex. My freak level with sex would surprise anyone who knows me outside the bedroom, and anyone who knows me knows my appetites for food and alcohol. I kicked the drug habit thirty years ago, but there was a time that the only thing that stopped me  from trying any drug was if it went into a needle. As long as I could snort, smoke, lick or eat a drug, I would try anything. But those needles were the dividing line between me and someone with a drug problem. Warped thinking, huh?

I say this because over the last twenty years I have watched out society devolve slowly but surely. History repeats itself and it's also cyclical. I came to realize long ago that the reason history repeats itself is because people are people, no matter what race, nationality or religion they are, where they live, or in what era they lived. Human nature remains the same.

I posit this theory: we, as a society, are heading directly down the same paths that led to the collapse of the Roman Empire. At one time, Rome was the dominating political, social and religious power in the world. Not long ago, so was the United States. A few bad presidents, some terrible congressmen and senators, some failed economic plans and a general lack of care about the way things were heading led to where we are today. We are no longer respected on the world stage. We are barely even feared.

We demand instant gratification. We want money, power, authority, the big office, the nice car, the expensive house in the nouveau riche neighborhood, paying three grand a month on a $600,000 McMansion. We have children not to procreate but to complete the package of the successful middle-class consumer; they are marked off the checklist of what we need to prove success.

We have somehow blurred the lines of what constitutes sex, love and cheating. Young girls today believe that as long as they have anal sex and not vaginal sex, they are virgins. In the strictest sense of the word, yes, if the hymen is intact, they are vaginal virgins. But taking a dick in the ass hardly equates to purity in my book. Many younger people have no problem with having sex with someone other than their chosen partner. They have managed to differentiate between "sex" and "love." In other words, if they hook up with someone and fuck, there really isn't anything wrong with that because there are no emotions to tangle things up. I don't understand that. If I'm in a relationship with a woman and my dick is out of my pants when a woman other than my wife is in the room, I have cheated. People don't see it like that.

The Romans were famous for their unbridled, uninhibited sexual liaisons. From what I understand, they didn't concern themselves if a partner was male or female, and in many cases even human! If there was a hole that could be filled, fill it! Young, old, male, goat, female, cow...if it was receptive, take it. If not, take it anyway.

The Romans loved the carnage that took place at the Coliseum. Watching men battle each other to death was considered prime entertainment. When that wasn't enough, Caligula introduced lions and tigers...more blood....more gore...more exciting. Well, I remember when boxing was just two guys with gloves and mouth guards fighting under the scrutiny of a referee and a sanctioning body. Fights ended when there was a knockout or one of the fighters clearly could no longer defend himself and it became slaughter. Now we have "mixed martial arts." No longer happy with just punching someone's lights out, now we include martial arts - kickboxing, karate and tae kwan do to go along with the traditional fist fighting. Profuse bleeding is the only thing that stops the fight.

Where else can this go? Gluttony really isn't an issue...yet. People are so concerned about putting perfect foods into themselves that this might never rear its ugly head again. But I still maintain that we are steadily leaving civility behind and heading to a hedonistic, morally abject society that will eventually collapse on itself. Just like the Roman Empire did. Think about it. 

I'm a cynic and a smartass. I can be cruel and heartless in some of the things I say and do, and especially think to myself. That eased off about six years ago.

Many was the time I'd go to Wal Mart or a grocery store and I'd see a someone who appeared to be completely normal using one of those electric shopping carts. My immediate thought was, "Fat lazy fucker. Too lazy too walk." Well, over the course of my fiftieth year on earth, I began to experience some intense and inexplicable pain throughout my body. I had trouble standing for long periods of time, steps were becoming very difficult to ascend and descend and my hands hurt more and more. Eventually the pain in my legs got bad enough that I went to a doctor. Naturally a series of tests ensued and after a few weeks it was determined that I suffered from psoriatic arthritis. It wasn't bad enough to just have the ugly skin patches...no...now I had to deal with this disease attacking my joints from the inside.

I won't go into a lot of detail, but the arthritis is caused by psoriasis, the famous skin disease of "heartbreak of psoriasis" fame. I had no idea that it causes arthritis too. But it does, and it's painful. Very quickly I changed my tune at stores when I saw people using those carts. I've used one only once in the six years since my diagnosis. I try not to use them because I can lean on the cart for support. However, I've been grocery shopping and finished in a sweat because it took so much effort for me to move.


So I guess my point is that one shouldn't be so quick to make fun. You have no idea what a person is going through. To look at me, you'd never know that I was in pain. You don't know how much effort it takes just to get out of a car. Or to walk up stairs. You'd never know that I can never get comfortable lying in bed because I move my legs so much trying to find a comfortable position.

Take it easy folks. There are a lot of folks out there who suffer in silence. Try saying a prayer for them instead of thinking how lazy they are.

Today is November 3, 2015...barely into the month. Once Halloween was over - and the accompanying mania of all things pumpkin flavored - I noticed that the Christmas movies are starting to run on the cable channels. And two weeks ago...two full weeks before Halloween I was in my favorite plant store/nursery and was bombarded with artificial Christmas trees and all things Christmas related. The temperature outside was well above seventy degrees. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. And yet there it all stood: Christmas, Christmas, Christmas.

One might surmise that I have a problem with this. And one would be correct. It didn't used to be this way. The Christmas season began the day after Thanksgiving and ended January 2 of the new year. The weekend after Thanksgiving wasn't spent sitting in front of stores in the middle of the night waiting for bargains. It was spent shopping for and decorating the tree. And eating leftovers. In fact, I can't recall when the term "Black Friday" came into existence. As long as the New Year fell on a weekend, we took the second day to dismantle the tree and put things away for next year. If it didn't fall on a weekend, the first full weekend of the new year was used for that. And the season was over.

It was simpler. There was no pressure to find the best deal. People didn't fight in parking lots so as to acquire a position one person closer to the front door of the store. No lotteries for sale items. None of that. And people were much, much less stressed about the holidays.

I see so many commercials that talk about finding the right gift for someone, and how it's so important to make that person happy. Hey...if I buy you a gift and you don't like it, exchange it. You won't hurt my feelings. But I'm not going to lose sleep over whether I bought you the perfect gift either.

Retailers have created this monster. Each upcoming holiday seems to have a two-month lead-in when it comes to buying things. The stores will be putting away the Christmas stuff at the same time they're bringing out the stuff for Valentine's Day. And then two months before Easter, that stuff comes out as the Valentine's Day stuff goes back. It's ridiculous.

I like to think that eventually everything will have started early enough so that it will keep moving earlier and earlier on the calendar and then, for one year, all of the holidays and their "seasons" will end up on the right days. It will take a while and I might not live to see it, but I really hope it happens.