Skip Along

My friend Skip had a heart attack on Tuesday night and died yesterday morning.  He was a good man who had a hard past six months dealing with a discordant situation at home, worry and stress over finances and the insanity of drug addiction - a housemate's addiction - not his own.  While it is tempting to blame the housemate for driving Skip to a premature grave, the truth is that on some level, Skip chose his own poison.  He had options.  He also had suffered a previous heart attack and still smoked three packs a day.  I spoke with him on the phone at length on Monday night, and he told me that he had just received his cigarette shipment from back east (in order to sidestep Washington state tobacco prices).

Personally I'm tired of the melodrama.  Tonight I'm going to partake in Morita therapy, which is the therapy of puttering, peace through action.  It's Japanese.  It works.  You get lost in simple tasks.  It's very peaceful.  I'll organize, clean, tidy, and vacuum, do laundry, the sundry domestic chores that take the mind away from pain.  And in the end, I will have accomplished something--a clean house, as well as avoiding heaping misery upon misery by acting out.