Wrestling Or Rasslin'?

What a struggle. I personally know what it felt like for the Titanic to go down. It broke in eight separate pieces and it wasn't pleasant. There's a similar titanic struggle, a dilemma playing out in my spirit. It's a combined show, three rings, death-defying, as painful as shingles.

I'm on the verge potentially of one of my greatest successes. Likewise I'm on the verge, probably, of one of my greatest failures. I'm so keyed up I feel like cussing. But I will refrain from that -- come what may -- because I don't like anything blue. Grandpa was the mad cusser of our family, F-bomb this, F-bomb that. But I vowed that I would keep my mouth pure and not traumatize my own grandchildren, if I ever had them, which it is starting to look like I won't.

No, instead of settling down with a good woman 35 years ago, I'm out here on my own, everything I got basically shrivelling up and worthless. I had such stupid ideas as a kid, like thinking I'd have to go downtown and stand on the street corner and ask women at random, "Would you marry me?" I don't know where I picked that up. Anyway, that's all past; I blew it. But past is sometimes prologue. And so here I sit, wrestling with the various demons of my soul. Or is it rasslin'?

Wrestling or rasslin'? Which is it? Wrestling is what they do in school. But rasslin' is what they do in the mud. You wrestle in a ring. You rassle in the slop, you rassle an alligator, you rassle when the stakes are to the death. Wrestling is a dainty sport. Rasslin' is two men or two women doing a take-down for all the marbles. Wrestling, you have rules and stick out your little finger to let the judge know you're refined. Rasslin', you put a finger in someone's eye with about a can full of mud. Wrestling is like a waltz or a minuet. Rasslin' is grinding it out like a cigarette butt. Wrestling's what they do in the Olympics, then have their urine test. In rasslin' the only test is survival.

Will Old Faithful blow? Will I look like the town's biggest fool. This is what I'm rasslin' with. Every day is torture, every night torment. My bed is swimming. I sweat through my clothes. I can barely hold myself together.