A true story about a very small world, part III.

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake (continued)

It is a truth universally acknowledged generally recognized known to the few stalwarts who have put up with my presence for any length of time that Mrs. E has only two strategies when confronted with potential personal crisis: a) unplug the phone, curl up in a ball on the bathroom floor and lock the door or b) dive headfirst into the deeps and attempt to surf the roiling waves of human strife with honesty (rudeness), integrity (bullheadedness) and wit (sarcasm). Both involve nausea, cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, chills and a constant heartrate only slightly lower than a hummingbird’s. Neither is fun to watch. Neither works very well.

B never, ever happens until she has been forced out of the bathroom.

Thanks to The Kid, I didn’t even have time for the puking to begin.

Thirteen ways to say the same thing.

for a fellow multi-faceted lunatic

1. Paranoid: You’re lying to me, aren’t you? Everyone lies to me.
2. Schizoid: Who cares what you think, asshole?
3. Schizotypal: The birds want you all to be quiet now. Tweet tweet woof.
4. Antisocial: Shut up or I’ll shoot you again.
5. Borderline: I’m going to kill myself now and it’s your fault.
6. Histrionic: Has anyone ever in the history of pain suffered under undeserved criticism as I am suffering now?
7. Narcissistic: Perhaps you should talk to my famous friend the psychotherapist to adjust your inaccurate opinion of me.
8. Avoidant: _________.
9. Dependent: You’re right about me. You’re so, so right. What do I do now? Could you make me a list? And call me every day to make sure I’m doing it right?
10. Obsessive-compulsive: According to the DSM-IV, I only meet five of the six necessary criteria for that particular diagnosis, and having taken the test eighteen times I think I know best.
11. Depressive: *bleeds quietly*
12. Passive-aggressive: You’re probably right. What’s for dinner? No, I’m not angry. No I’m not. Why do you always ask me that? What’s wrong with you?
13. I’m afraid. I’m alone in here. I hurt.

I think I hit at least eight of these in a recent conversation… and that’s not even trying hard.

Crazy is à la carte, not prix-fixe. You pay for everything, but you can have all you want.

A true story about a very small world, part II.

(I published the first part of this before and took it down; now parts 2 and 3 are finished and I thought what the hell. Sue me. Part 1 is below.)

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake (continued)

Because of course, I was lying through my lovely veneered teeth.

We had dated, if the definition of “dating” can be understood to include “screwing around during a season of summer rep before Ms. Euphrosyne had matured enough to end an existing relationship honestly, thereby employing the classic technique of using the fling as a catalyst with no intention of ever taking it, or him, seriously.” It had seemed so perfect, in a sleazy way. He was almost ten years older, living and going to graduate school across the country in the fairytale world of C___________, and most importantly, he had played the end of the summer beautifully in harmony with my narcissistic needs.

Yes, it was fine that we date other people. Yes, we should stay in touch. Yes, maybe we could arrange a meeting at some unspecified future time, but there was to be no pressure, no obligation. I was nineteen, a late bloomer in full and raging efflorescence, and the last thing I wanted was a commitment of any kind. He was almost insultingly fine with that. I cried when I left my new friends that August; I could barely speak to the man I truly had a terrible crush on; I said good-bye to the fling with not a flutter of regret, and he was just as calm.

A true story about a very small world.

(I published the first part of this before and took it down; now parts 2 and 3 are finished and I thought what the hell. Sue me.)

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake

There is no doubt that I showed spectacularly poor judgment; not head-through-a-windshield or hey-I’m-in-jail poor judgment, but poor nonetheless. In retrospect, however, I feel a substantial portion of blame (and isn’t that what it’s all about, really?) should rest squarely on the skinny shoulders of The Kid Who Should Have Been in Honors English. You always get at least one in the chaos of wildly varied adolescent humanity that is “regular” freshman English: the transfer whose records haven’t made it yet, the eighth-grade binge drinker who is now sober with a 1.3 grade average, the emotionally disturbed introvert disguising rage as apathy, or the most depressing type, the hard-drugging 17-year-old total waste of potential.

The Kid in this instance was a classic transfer delay. He was polite, he was smart, he knew all the answers, he was a typical late-maturing male – he was exactly like most of the guys in all my own high school classes. Fortunately for The Kid’s health and well-being, he was also funny and rather pretty, a favorite with the regular English pep squad girls, although their approval did not extend to thinking of him as a potential sexual partner. The popular girls adopted him, petted him, laughed at his jokes – and you can bet your sweet ass that meant most of the boys did not give in to their natural instinct to kill off the weakest pack member. Even the most hormone-addled teenage boy knows you don’t kick the hot chick’s dog. So The Kid, unlike most of his misplaced kind, enjoyed a relatively peaceful scholastic existence.

Tell a story.

It’s fiction, don’t worry, and not important fiction at that. A story for the lunch table at work, a story for waiting in line in the women’s room. A good one, and parts of it need to be whispered, but not a new one.  The best bits are the oldest.

Tell a story. It’s not hard if you have the narrative well in mind; easiest if the protagonist is based on the person you know best. Make it yourself. It will be, anyway. Change her name just in case.

Then tell the story. Tell what she did, what she said, who was there and who wasn’t. Put in what she was thinking when she made the call, when she crossed the line, when she left the room; the name is different, remember. Don’t make it pretty. No one will know.

Just tell the story. Tell it all. Bring it up into the screenlight, the smell of bleached and rotting cotton, the mirror she checked her lipstick with. The cat she left behind. The green bile in the chipped white toilet bowl, her head on her knees and nothing left inside. The lies she told. The lies and lies.

Then write it down.

Read it.

Try another ending. It’s fiction, remember?

Tell a story.

Further bull from My Holiness: new religion

for Jason

I realize one of my previous posts may have seemed a bit anti-religion. Maybe it’s important to clarify: I’m not anti-religion. I’m anti-human-beings-as-interpreters-of-messages-no-one-else-can-hear-but-which-give-them-the-idea-that-what-they-think-is-right-should-be-what-everyone-does.

Hmm. No, there are still a couple of… well… okay.

I don’t like “con’s” without corollary “pro’s,” though. It’s far too easy to bitch and moan without suggesting a solution, an alternative or at least a palliative. So after years of research (and that part’s true), I’ve put together what I consider the most universally workable, humane, loving messages from every major religion and laboriously conflated them into a modest proposal for an entirely new creed:

The Church of Don’t Be an Asshole.

A lexicon of beaglery.

Today my Facebook friend Deanna posted a link to this article in the NYT: “Good Dog, Smart Dog,” a look at changing ideas about the cognitive abilities of the canine set, the point being that, hey, they might be smarter than those brainiac science-types thought.  My layperson reaction? “Finally, some scientists who actually live with dogs.”

A beagle I once knew and still love (not a breed that ever makes the “smartest” list, by the way) would purposely sit and stare intently at our French doors, squeak to go outside, let the younger male mutt assert his dominance by rushing out first as the door opened… and then drop to the ground to indicate that she wanted to stay in, thank you. As soon as the door closed, she would hop to her feet, head to the middle of the rug and do the rolling, squirming dance of beagle joy as the mutt stared bleakly inside through the glass, gaslighted yet again into losing possession of the indoor realm.

Do dogs think? Of course they do, about dog things and in dog ways. That beagle changed my ideas of the capabilities of canine manipulation and the effects of sheer doggie force of personality. We developed an entirely new vocabulary to describe the machinations of The Beagle Known as Alice.

Ague and goiters and boils, oh my.

One thing I knew about walking pneumonia:

• You can sing it to the tune of “Waltzing Mathilda.” Similarly, “diverticulitis” scans beautifully to “Gary, Indiana” from The Music Man.

Two things I didn’t know about walking pneumonia:

• It is not merely a vernacular reference to an undefined group of diseases; it is in fact a generally accepted name for a specific atypical pneumococcal virus.
• I have it.

Which gives me medically-sanctioned and spousally-enforced time to rest, recover and ponder other things, like: what about all those other folksy disease names? The ones from Chaucer through Shakespeare and well into Wodehouse, a vast array with which I am casually acquainted but not intimately familiar? “Chilblains,” said the husband, and I replied, “Frostbite… maybe? Hmmm.”

A poem, by me.

nil desperandum

if legitimate news only gives you the blues
and to cogitate causes distress
if crazed peroration fills you with elation
and bile never fails to impress

if your pupils dilate during civil debate
as you long for a rushian screed
and the times and the post and the bleeding heart host
are far too much trouble to read

no need to be glum, simply wriggle your thumb
as you point at the idiot box
let the clicking device transport you in a trice
to the magical land of the fox

where a mad hatter shrewd comes adroitly unglued
(though he’s trapped in falafel fixation)
while a sweaty white rabbit of opioid habit
weeps loud at the fate of the nation

where a grin and good hair keep a cat on the air
long after his claws have worn thin
where evangelic glee plus a jesus degree
will soothe your election chagrin

ah, that land of ideals where the women wear heels
and no one that you know is gay
and the problems you face disappear without trace
if to the right godhead you pray

so be of good cheer, have a (domestic) beer
as polemic lulls worry away
for the evil and lazy and thriftless and crazy
must be kept well in hand and at bay

your job may be shaky, your pulse a bit quaky
your child to the left might still stray
but if you take care to sound like papa bear
you are not one of them.
for today.