I wanted to vent about a lot of little troubling things I have seen the past few months. I want to vent, not about world news stuff, that I can do with no problem, no what has me in a venting mood is personal. It’s about people who are close to me, or who I thought were close to me. I was all ready to just let stuff out but in the background on TV, this late at night, was Private Practice.

As much as I like Scandal I can’t stand Private Practice. Why? To me, the men are incredibly wimpy and the overly sappy, barely whispering, fake meaning songs they play makes me gag. I like strong women and I like the strong women on the show but I would like some balance in the male characters. I mean, Cooper? He has to be the sappiest doctor / boyfriend in the world. The receptionist with the drug addict for a girlfriend. Can you just fire the guy? The indecision of him and the rest of the male cast, is embarrassing. One or two characters I can see having that for drama but every male, and their doctors to boot? Why would anyone go to them for their primary care?

Look, of course I could change the channel, or even turn off the TV, but at midnight I need some sound to break the insomnia and ever since Art Bell left Coast to Coast the show hasn’t been the same. So I’m stuck with infomercials, interesting but dry PBS shows, a Law and Order, spinoff, wannabe or Canadian derivative of Law and Order. All things considered, I’d rather vent at Private Practice.

The reason why I’m not venting about my private life now is because of Private Practice. I don’t want to be Cooper or Dell or any of the guys on the show. I don’t want to say things that I know will fall on deaf ears. The people who need to hear what I have to say won’t listen to me because they are so caught up in their own drama they don’t have time or the inclination to see some of the residual trauma of their drama.

I see the Facebook posts of the people I wanted to vent against, and the ‘revelations’ have given month after month are so TV show pabulum it would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad. Like an old song says, “It’s so funny that we don’t talk anymore.” When I look at people who want to say something, or who want to convince people of a certain position, they don’t write down their feelings. They will post a meme or link to a page that links to a page to show their feelings. How do I know what you’re thinking when someone constantly puts up a George Takei meme and puts “There you go”? What? OK, I know how George Takei feels but what do you feel?

The other reason why I can’t dwell on venting is because, surprise, I have my own personal drama to contend with. I’ll admit it’s a little boring but I have thousands of comic books I have to catalog, hours’ worth of music videos to transfer, clean up and catalog and an assortment of film, TV and comic book projects to work on. Of course that doesn’t count the usual bits of boring stuff like making ends meet, paying bills and dealing with diabetes. When I woke up this morning, after 3 hours of sleep, I had a splitting headache. It was caused by what I feared was happening, my glucose level was close to 500. So I did what I could without insulin or other drugs, because insurance is too high for me to afford, and drank a lot of water to ease the pain and flush the system.

If you have gotten to this point in the article, you’ve seen what I’ve done. In saying I wasn’t going to vent about the people I was having issue with I still managed to vent about them. I am doing the same passive aggressive dance the men do in Private Practice. It’s funny when I think about it because I’ve been wanting to say something about this for some time but I haven’t wanted to face the fact that some issues are with me and some can be laid at the feet of others. Maybe trying to sort out who is at fault for what is confusing. Maybe there are other factors making me hesitate in facing down what is bothering me. Maybe I hate the Private Practice men because they remind me of me? If I have to be a Private Practice guy, do I have to be Cooper? Why can’t I be Sam? If I am to be a Private Practice man I will have some dignity. Cue in Lisa Loeb’s Stay.