I'VE GOT THE DOOKIE BLUES

I've got the dookie blues. The dookie blues is a collection of feelings that I learned about a long time ago in a place far away. When I was young, I grew up in Watts...now called South Central. I had a crazy mother, crazy with drinking, drugs, self-hatred and a strong dislike of me. I thought I was a fairly reasonable child, I did have a lip on me, learned at her knee, by the way and I was certainly "too big for my britches." She was not a stupid woman, probably one of the smartest persons I have ever met. But, it was not a good life, for either of us.

I spent a great deal of time at other people's houses. Mabel lived down the block. I loved Mabel. She taught me to drink sweet tea out of mayonnaise jars, to love Robert Johnson and the blues, to play canasta...and she taught me about the dookie blues.

The dookie blues aren't out and out unhappiness. They are just a collection of feelings that come when you are feeling down, nothing is right, and you just don't care. That's where I am tonight.

There are a variety of reasons.

• It's January in Minnesota. I don't hate winter, but fall is my favorite. It has snowed tons and there is two feet of it on the roof that has to come down. The plows have plowed the streets and there is a striation of dirt that is exposed in the snow. There is salt and slush on the streets and everything looks dirty.
• It's the end of January and I am a bookkeeper. The only bookkeeper for a small publishing company. I had three sets of annual reports to compile and set about doing it today. I thought I was doing great when I happened to notice that there was this one journal entry that I had overlooked in November. This meant that my almost completed job was going to require a lot of undoing, re-publishing, admitting to everyone I had sent the first two sets to that I had goofed and delete those file and wait until Monday when I can redo them.
• I had a horrible Thursday. I came to the realization today that Thursday is the worst work day for me. Monday and Tuesday I am excited to be back, fresh start and all of that. Wednesday is hump day...halfway done and it should be downhill from here. Thursday is spent just waiting for Friday. It has no purpose except to keep me from Friday which is the last day of the work week.
• My birthday is next month. Now, don't get me wrong. I love my birthday. I reclaimed it a long time ago from the trauma of my youthful birthdays. It's just that the couple of weeks before it I get into a kind of maudlin mood about the passing of time...blah, blah, blah.
• Caden didn't come out tonight. He had a dinner dance after school and since he is in the fifth grade he went with his father. I went with him last year. It was painful. Loud music, screaming kids, but, I still wanted to go with him this year. That is really pitiful.

Now, if those aren't enough reasons for having the dookie blues, try this one on. I wanted to make pesto shrimp with fresh vegetables and pasta for dinner. I stopped at the store, got everything I needed, drove home (45 minutes) and realized I had forgotten the shrimp. That was the final straw. I fed the dog, crawled into bed with a package of donut holes (oh yeah, she remembered the donut holes!) turned on the laptop and here I will be until tomorrow morning when this latest case of dookie blues slinks out of my life.

I'll be fine. Hell, I've had donut holes for dinner before and I have the Alien vs Predator DVD from Netflix...if that doesn't burn it out of me, nothing will.