It All Boils Down to Four Options

I am shedding my skin. Literally. Following an enormous lapse of judgement that found me frolicking on the beach for hours on my second day in Florida without reapplying sunscreen even once, I have gone through several stages of hell and purgatory to arrive at this: Instead of dwelling on the dire prophecy of dermatologists everywhere that I cannot avoid the cancer that will soon cover my entire body, (gee, I seem to remember preaching at Veronica at one point during our endless sunsoaked and otherwise-soaked week that our skin is an organ!), I am choosing to look at this metaphorically.

Yesterday, in the middle of a marathon viewing of the first season of Deadwood on DVD, I suddenly realized during the 6th episode that I am going through a great metamorphosis! (I cried through episodes 3 and 4, tearily applying layers of moisure mousse whipped body lotion to my itchy skin. Chalk it up to transitioning back to the real world with $185 tickets, student loans and all the normal bullshit.) Some might look at me and see Job, beset with pestilence (the roofer says there is carpenter ant damage. Ching ching. Price goes up.), plague and loss. But no. Look at Deadwood! The town was visited by the plague and Andy, who was dying of smallpox, was dropped into the forest to die... and he recovered. Calamity Jane's nurturing tendencies became apparent to the doc, the dying preacher struggled with the thought that his relationship with god might just be chemicals in his head but maintained his goodness... and through the darkness the evil saloon-owner even seems somewhat benevolent.

Yesterday in the midst of my TV-induced stupor several connections popped into my head. First, the realization that the peeling of my skin was just the outer manifestation of inner transformation. Second, that this transformation was somehow connected with a search for whether our life simply consists of the physical and it's effects or whether there is "something else" at work. Third, that I must decide how to approach the rest of my life. Right now it looks like I have four options:

1. Like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane: Fuck you, cocksucker. Get out of here and let me destroy myself whichever way I want.
2. Like the Hardware Store Owners: Get involved with other people, and do what I can to make society right.
3. Like the Whores: Give you a blow job and quietly lie in wait for the moment of escape.
4. Like the Preacher: Stoically endure my affliction while experiencing inner turmoil, anguish and doubt about the nature of reality.

Hmmm... unlike George Bush, I never was a very good decider. Anybody got any suggestions?

Later: How about this one, from the last episode of the first season, which I finished today:
"Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh."