What if this is as good as it gets?

Carol Connelly: How are you?

Simon Bishop: Don't ask. I'm tired of my own complaints. I need to get some new thoughts.

Carol Connelly: Why? What are you thinking about now?

Simon Bishop: How to die, mostly.

Well OK, so it hasn't been quite that bad, but that little exchange from a good film always comes to mind when I grow weary of listening to my own complaints, and nowhere are they more evident than here on my little patch of the Internet.

Updates are ready for my computer. I get that message every time I turn the damned thing on. Whether or not I want them, they're ready.

A little metaphor for life. Whether we're ready for it or not, it keeps coming. Sometimes in a relentless fashion that gives us no recourse than to shut down and find out where the leaks are. Which brings to mind an exchange of dialogue from another of my favorite films, "Apollo 13":

Sy Liebergot: Flight ... I recommend we shut down reactant valves to the fuel cells.

Gene Kranz: What the Hell good is that gonna do?

Sy Liebergot: If that's where the leak is, we can isolate it. We can save what's left in the tanks and we can run on the good cell.

Gene Kranz: You close 'em, you can't open 'em again! You can't land on the moon with one healthy fuel cell!

Sy Liebergot: Gene, the Odyssey is dying. From my chair here, this is the last option.

Sy was wrong about shutting down the valves, because the Odyssey was dying regardless, but he saw it as his last option. Like many of us, our last option isn't always our best, but we try it nonetheless. They never did land on the moon.

So I shut down my Facebook page because that was a conduit for my misery. And I temporarily shut this down. Besides, anyone who is really my "friend" knows where I am. The others are just those Internet friends who found me because I put out a beacon. Then I made a major financial decision (against all logic and common sense) that, from my chair here, was the last option. It was my last healthy fuel cell, and it was venting into space.

Meanwhile, I never intended this blog (I hate that word) to be a conduit for my complaints about life, more so a conduit for my complaints about society. There's a big difference, although lately, the differences have been cloudy.

Then, I got sick ... and tired (and tired always follows sick) of posting junk about what's wrong with society while society rambled happily along their path. In the meantime, several outside forces were pushing me in various directions that have forced me to shut down the reactant valves - so to speak. And if I'm wrong about my decisions, then the Odyssey will indeed die.

If that happens, I'll never get to the moon - if that's where I was headed to begin with.

Marilyn Lovell: Naturally, it's 13. Why 13?

Jim Lovell: It comes after 12, hon.

Melvin Udall: People who talk in metaphors oughta shampoo my crotch.