by j-a

Mar, 2002
3-1-02

March first. The sun is shining brightly, but it's still cold outside. A false hope of spring. Winter's really beginning to settle into me now. My back aches, I don't want to do anything (although I'm still managing to remain minimally productive--I've backed off on the high protein diet, so maybe that's what the causing this malaise), the old paranoid themes are creeping back into my dreams.

3-2-02

Slept overnight last night and got up early this morning and started to work, but I didn't feel like doing anything. After only two hours, I gave up and crawled back into bed and watched movies all day. Maybe it's having gone back to eating carbs that's responsible. Or maybe it's jet lag (in my case, sleep lag.) Or maybe it's just the same old winter lack of motive. Or whatever--a complicated hodge-podge of affect-stimulators whose cause is too complex to understand. I'm forcing myself to work right now (11 pm).

3-3-02

Circumstances converge that compel me toward ponderous inaction.
I fight off this attitude and search for ideas from my past to counter it.
Old notes, long set aside, prompt me to recover buried feelings.
"I don't want to work at a repetitive job. I can do a different thing
every day, I can express my changing basic nature every day."
I have worn myself into a daily ritual, a rut I try to climb out of.
Unconsciously, I struggle to remain productive, doing, lists of tasks.
I predetermine my essential sense of accomplishment and purpose.
I play with fire, trying to use up old paper stored for a year or more.
The woodstove roars, but briefly, only until the paper turns to ash.
I'm almost out of wood, and so conserve it, gleaning heat from paper.
I could burn up old notes too, if only I could process info fast enough.
Fire slows as sap crystallizes in the wood, awaiting warmer weather.

3-4-02

Today I went out into the cold weather, even though I didn't have to. Why did I do that? It was caustic. And now I feel like I'm coming down with a cold. I have a little scratchy business in my throat. So, just as I'm falling asleep this afternoon, I force myself to get up and take a massive dose of vitamin C and gargle with Listerine. That usually works if the process hasn't progressed too far, if I catch it in time.
Before I went out shopping for stuff that could have waited for warmer weather, I went down into the basement to split two loads of firewood. I've been doing this off and on all winter, trying to get rid of the remaining logs I've accumulated. But neighbors and friends keep giving me more. Steve just last week gave me some good apple wood that he had sitting in front of his house awaiting a friend of his to pick it up, but he never showed. But it's still too green. It needs to age a few more seasons. I couldn't even split a small log.




I've been having heart palpitations occasionally over the past month. This is after over a year without them. It's my back, which has been acting up, partly because of the extra exercise cutting wood, but mostly because of the winter (and possibly because of the added stress of the cold). Winter cold always causes palpitations and other maladies, even though most of my back pain occurs in the spring and fall, at the changing of the seasons. I always try to see this general syndrome as less than it is, because I don't want to define myself as decrepit, which I certainly am not--but look who's doing the defining. I am as robust as I ever was, if a bit less agile. How's that for a positive, self-serving self-definition?

3-5-02

Each day my motive runs down a little bit more. I'm turning more and more inward as I anticipate the spring. I'm speaking metaphorically, I think. I'm burning scrap wood and paper to stay warm without using the gas furnace. What a way to live. It's the middle of the night, and I'm feeling not so well. Got a slight lower-back twinge and I'm beginning to worry about it. If it turns into full-fledged pain, I'll be incapacitated. Maybe I should declare a vacation and stop working, stop trying, go to bed and rest up for an extended period and do nothing but read and watch tv. But I don't want to backslide. I've been doing so well for several months now. Once I stop, I may not start again for quite a while.

3-6-02

Cleaned the last aquarium today. Number five. That series of tasks was an ordeal. I knew it'd be. That's why I resisted doing it for so many years. Spent two hours on each tank, scrubbing and scraping the lime deposits left by years of evaporating standing water after the last of the former fish died off. (I have only one tank of fish now. The others are empty.) The tanks look good, all clean and nested back in their recesses in the wall between the office and the living room. Other than this task, I've done very little over the last few days. I'm still fighting off the ennui of deep winter.

3-7-02

Sat outside on the back porch for an hour this afternoon reading and soaking up the sun. Temperature: 68 degrees. Read an article in Atlantic Monthly about "tipping," a sociological/economic concept that proposes that a kind of "contagion" permeates society and, when it gets to a certain point, it "tips" the society over into a different kind of social structure. I first heard of this idea the other day on CSPAN. The author (Epstein, I think, who's mentioned in the Atlantic article) of a book entitled (I think) Tipping the Balance (or maybe that was the subtitle) demonstrates that teen suicides Indonesia (I think; I'm a bit fuzzy on the facts here) were the result of a contagion that spread, independently of conscious awareness. In the Atlantic article, the author wrote about how racism doesn't determine segregation, that in fact, a society of non-racist people can unconsciously create a segregated society just by wanting to live in a racially balanced neighborhood (as opposed to a neighborhood where they are the minority race.) It's a complicated theory, but it's worth checking out, because the implications are profound. It could mean (And this is my idea here now) that racism proceeds from segregation. That seems logical to me, in light of the theory of tipping, because, once segregated, individuals can arrive at the conclusion (a la Bem) that they are racist because they observe that they're living in a segregated (i.e., racist) manner. Thus, it would appear that the busing, affirmative action, and quotas proponents may have been right all along in their proposed cures for racism. So, what's next? Governmental mandates on the ethnic composition of neighborhoods, enabled by dictating which houses may be sold to which ethnicities? It could work, but only if the situation would proceed far enough to allow the tip-over to occur. I doubt that it would ever happen, though, because racism is too ingrained into the social fabric of this country.
That's way far more than I intended to write about this subject. What I intended to write about was coincidence. Is it coincidental that I decided to go ahead and read the article after I had decided not to (because I always read The Atlantic very selectively, trying to stay away from the complicated social stuff--and now I'm thinking that maybe I should read it every month from cover to cover, to improve my social, and other, education), not knowing it was related to the CSPAN show, which I also had not wanted to watch, preferring to surf on to other content, but became caught up in the material. Is someone, or some force, trying to tell me something? Is there a conscious (or even an unconscious) message here? I don't know. Sometimes I believe in directed coincidence; sometimes I don't.

3-8-02

It's a Starz free preview weekend. Time to stock up on movies that I can watch later at my leisure. With all the turmoil and angst over Napster, Morpheus, Kaaza, etc., I wonder how it's possible that I can copy and tape movies and get away with it. I guess it's the tape v. digital thing. Tape deteriorates; digital is forever. Tape is difficult to trade; digital is easy.
Watching movies is a bad habit. It's easy to fall into the habit of existing. And it may not even be a bad thing. Imagine going thru life existing in the moment. That's an ideal of Zen. But that's not really what I'm talking about, is it? No. I'm describing a state of perfect ennui, whereas existing in a Zen now is pretty much the opposite thing, and yet, the actual physical state appears to be pretty much the same. It's the psychological state that's different. And this is the essence of the problem. I can easily exist, but I don't pay attention to the pristine state I'm in. We are, all, all of the time, in this pristine state, but we don't pay attention to it, choosing instead to tune it out and distract ourselves with... whatever, television, gossip, our erratic fantasizing or wandering minds. This is the nasty habit of existing without attention. We even do it when we go to work at jobs we hate, while we think we're being so productive. It's not really very sensible production if you don't like what you're doing. Sometimes, I don't like what I'm doing no matter what I do. Sometimes, even when I'm doing what I want to do, I don't like doing it. Like right now. I'd rather be fantasizing. Very early this morning (or late last night) I fantasized for over six hours, when I should have been sleeping. As a result, now, I need sleep, but I want to do it some more. It's a kind of addiction. I feel so...unproductive. But I'm managing to get my daily minimum quota of production done--just.



Just after dark, the electricity failed. I'd been working on the computer, and fortunately, I had everything backed up. It's always a magical time when the electricity fails, especially when it's dark and you have to get the candles out. Usually, I'll get them out and set the house up to be fully, if dimly, illuminated by them, and then the power will come back on. But tonight it was off for several hours. I read by candlelight, pretending I was Abraham Lincoln.

3-9-02

The wind is shaking up the house. The neighbors are outside washing their cars or generally talking in an agitated manner, thinking they are being normal, sociable, taking advantage of the last of the summer-like temperature as the cold front pushes in. You can see the effect of the weather. They're all disturbed and don't know it. But I know it for them and document it here. I don't so much feel it myself. I'm still too groggy from having slept all afternoon. I'm still too caught up in a summer ennui. But it's going to get cold again and my blood will be stirred. I feel a little bit guilty. I had a whole list of things I wanted to do outside while the weather was warm: trim the apple tree before the spring sap rises; put the old fence my brother gave me years ago into place up behind the house before the weeds grow up, making it more difficult, and so that the growing weeds and saplings can hold it in place as they grow through it. Maybe I can still get to these things tomorrow. Mañana. I think I need another siesta.



The wind has quieted down now and the neighbors have all gone in. Life proceeds in windy spurts and settles down between them.

3-10-02

It's late morning. It's starting to get cold again. After having worked all morning, I'm getting ready to settle back into bed to watch movies, but first I decide to take a hot bath. I sink down into the tub, stretch out as the heat begins to soak into me, and all of a sudden, I feel a "pop" in my lower back. I know what that means. I won't feel its full effect until I get out of the tub and begin to cool down, but I know I'm going to be incapacitated for at least a week as the pain prevents me from standing immediately up straight or bending over and I have to ease slowly into every change of position.



Joyce keeps calling. She want to come over and explain something about her next paper instead of just dropping it off, and I've been on a sleep schedule that conflicts with her stopping-by schedule. I hear her phone calls as I awaken when the phone rings, but I've conditioned myself to awaken just enough to hear the message so that I can disconsider it and fall immediately back to sleep.



Slept for nine hours, and when I awoke, as I expected, the pain had settled into my lower back. Only thing to do is to take painkillers, keep my back hot with a heating pad and wait for it to heal. I'm going to try to sit at the computer and work, which I'll probably be able to do, but I've already noticed that replenishing and stoking the woodstove is going to be a bitch. Too much getting up from my chair and bending over involved.



7 A.M. Been on the Internet all night, catching up. I'm going to bed now and watch all the movies I taped from the free Starz preview over the weekend. I think I should declare a sick day and do nothing but watch tv and tapes.

3-11-02

Watched movies all day. Joe and Max, 13 Days, Unbreakable, and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. All good films, even the Flintstone thing. Not very profound, but interesting for the acting. Better than the first one. Stephen Baldwin played a better Barney than Rick Moranis. And Jane Krakowski was perfect as Betty. Joyce breezed by at five in the afternoon to drop off her paper to be edited and I went to bed shortly thereafter and slept until two in the morning. This is the kind of day I've been putting in, generally wasting time. It turns out that Joyce didn't want to explain anything at all, she just didn't want to leave the floppy out in the cold since the last time I set it outside for her, she couldn't open the file (which was strange because she could open all of the other files on the disk.) Fortunately, I'd copied the file to my hard drive, and I don't know why I did that, because I hadn't copied any of the others. Maybe I had one of my unconscious fits of prescience. If I could make these events conscious, I could make a fortune.

3-12-02

Blitzed the posting tasks today to make up for my day of laze yesterday. Didn't want to do it, especially since my back is exceptionally bad, after I thought that yesterday it had all but healed. But I managed to get up out of bed and sit down at the computer, and then I managed to stay there for awhile. I have a lot of other things to do, but I don't want to do them. I hate to admit this to myself, but the real cure for my back is not lying around, but moving around, exercising the joints in a mild way. The back pain is just an excuse for lying in bed. I have a lot of excuses that I rotate so that I don't clue myself in to what I'm really up to. It's like calling in sick to a job: you don't want to use the same excuse too often. The difference here is that I'm my own employer, so who do I think I'm fooling?

3-13-02

My cyclical early spring affect is really settling in now. I don't want to do anything at all. (Or maybe it is, after all, the result of being back on a carbohydrate diet.) And I'm suffering from that perennial malady of wanting to change the form and format of my work. Both for the purpose of unifying content and to make posting to the Website easier, I want to make one journal the destination of everything I write. But, at the same time, I want to split apart this existing main journal (thoughthistory) into two separate ones, the second using as its title the current subtitle, "autobio," because the original idea was to have a journal that literally documented my thought history, whereas the fact that that history would be a kind of autobiography was an afterthought, based on an epiphany I had that I could document my actual life, as opposed to my mere thought (as if my life were not the sum total of my thoughts, but was instead my actions). This overall view, the understanding that I am more my thought than merely my actions, reveals my first current motive, to have everything logged sequentially, thought and action mixed, whereas the desire to split the current journal into two reveals the second motive, that there is a fundamental difference between the two modes of being that should be elucidated separately. I'll probably go with the second motive, because that is the impetus of my work, my "art" thus far, to split apart the continuous nature that I am into discrete segments that make a kind of "logical" sense. Thus I become further fragmented, when my overall (life, not work) motive is to become more whole. But art is art, a thing apart from self (despite what most artists maintain--that's just wishful thinking), and the most sensible thing to do would be to meld everything into one continuous work, except that it would then lack a quality of comprehension, especially the fiction and fantasy stuff (which would be fragmented across years of discrete journal entries) and even the pastiches (which are collections of "like" material arranged, more or less, thematically. So, to make everything one continuous whole could be as fragmenting a practice as actually fragmenting it into parts would be. This is so confusing. This is who I am. Maybe I'll just leave it the way it is. Or maybe not.
[The obsessiveness with which I write about some (most) of the subjects in my journals leads me to believe that maybe this all does belong in one (series of) document(s) and that that document should be therapy.]

3-14-02

I awoke today to the idea that I would like to be of social use. (I must have been dreaming.) Everything else being equal, I'd actually like to fit into society. But everything else, as I very well know, is not equal. I greatly resent the fact that in order to serve society, I have to be of procrustean character. No one wants me for who I am, because I can't make myself conform to expected activities [like working regular work days/hours or worse, working overtime, extending my work day to benefit employers who don't feel that hiring additional employees during workload peaks (which tend to be more frequent than they want to admit to) is a sound business practice] or conventional ideas. [Employers, although most of them will not admit it, want you to think exactly as they do, especially about the value of work, which they feel builds character and soul via the Work Ethic, which it does not, necessarily.)
I use to be of significant social use, but I almost killed myself doing it. Now, I'm wiser, and thus I do not fit in. (Actually, I never fitted in, but only pretended to, which accounts, in part, for the stress.) Employers do not want wise employees. They want intelligent ones who can nevertheless be programmed not to see through an employer's ploys. [That's why they call them employers.] I could become self-employed, but I don't have the temperament or social inclination for that activity either. Let's face it: I'm exactly the type of person who is best off being financially independent. But I wish I could be of social use. I'd volunteer, if I had enough money that I could afford to run my car all over the place and replace it every few years. I wouldn't mind volunteering, except that Bush nixes that idea in my mind by opining that American volunteerism needs to be increased. It's that same old government/business ploy: if you can convince (influence/manipulate) people into giving their time free of charge (or working for a lower wage) [by speaking of it from the Presidential pulpit or keeping immigration policy easy (Do you think the INS is unintentionally ineffective?], then you can better maximize profits. Nope. Fuck you, Georgie. I'll start volunteering when you decide to forgo your salary and expense account.

3-15-02

Gained a pound by eating a lot of carbo crap. It's time to get serious again. I'm drifting. Back to the regimen of dedication and will power. I got to get it together again. I'm slacking. Too much fantasy, not enough work.

3-16-02

It became obvious to me this morning where my art is heading. An ideal art, I want to believe, would be a full and actual recording of my life, a videotape of me from moment to moment--which is not an art at all, but a literal rendering. Art is a rendering of well-chosen moments, properly displayed.
Art and real life merge, where art is abandoned in favor of life. So, do I give up my art and begin to live my life? Not yet. Some day? Maybe. Or do I backtrack to fiction and semi-fiction, giving up the futility of trying to artistically render my life and thought as art? Why must I always tend toward seeking the extreme? Why can't I be satisfied with the mean, the middle of the road between art and life?
It's just occurred to me that I could write out all of these ideas on paper (like I'm doing now), and instead of transferring them to computer files (like I'm doing now) after the need to express the thoughts is met, as catharsis, symbolically burn the paper, as a ritual of art. Nah. I'm too possessive of my work. But it would be a great real-time art.

3-17-02

If I can just manage to get my few hours of work done each day, if I can get the short list of tasks completed, then the rest of my day seems not so wasted, even if I lie around and do nothing else except watch tv. Today I managed, for the first time in a while, to get through the entire work list. Previously (for several weeks), I had been stopping short of completing the list and picking it up again late in the night, after sleeping for a while, finishing it off in the morning, and then doing only the most basic of preliminaries of the next day's list before going back to bed, repeating the catch-up pattern late the next night after another bout of tv--until the pattern was broken two days ago when I decided to take a vacation day. As it is, even though I'm hardly able to keep up, I'm ahead of my quantity goals, but just.
I'm writing about this because I have nothing else to write about.
Social life is so much easier to write about, but I wait for my social life to happen to me, and lately, it's not been so forthcoming.
What's the difference between writing about this kind of content, writing about a social life, or writing fiction? Nothing. It's all fiction, being reportage on a world of illusion. Or it isn't. Ain't Zen great?

3-18-02

Took a nap this afternoon and awoke out of a dream in which I'm sneaking out of a church service through a long empty room located between the front doors and the church proper. [The church was at the intersection of Verona and Poketa Roads, near the southeast corner.] As I hurry along, my mother's voice echoes after me, telling me not leave because it's cold and lonely out there. But I feel compelled to get away, despite a feeling of dread and isolation, and a fear that I can not survive on my own, without some kind of social support. As I come into waking consciousness, the dread persists.
I get up and start to work, doubting that my Website is an accurate reflection of my state-of-mind, feeling that I should radically change it once again. I rewrite the introduction:

This is the story of a psychologist/novelist
who reports on the condition of his life and world,
some of which is true, and some of which is
(semi-)fiction, which is which being the mystery.

But this doesn't seem any more accurate or satisfying than the existing one.

3-19-02

I've been thinking, for a long while now, that watching movies is a waste of time. This is contrasted in my mind with an old motive that tells me it is not, but is valuable experience. Cognitive dissonance rages. [One of the great series of memories I cherish is sitting up late at night when I was a teenager watching old movies on tv.] I fight the misperception that I waste my life. The more recent thought (that I waste my time) is just plain wrong. Or else, all life is wasted. I live, and that is enough. Any additional accomplishment is gravy. I have to rationalize this in this way because I must provide a basis for the next conclusion: if watching films is a good use of my time, then so is fantasizing, because it's the same thing, really. I construct plots and see them through to their conclusions. It's a form of entertainment, a better one even than watching films, because I can control the outcome. It's a form of interactive movie watching where I can pause, rewind, edit, and re-edit until I get the story exactly the way I want it. I can lie in bed for hours after I awaken reviewing my dreams and turning them into movies. It's not wasted time, it's life, watching itself create. Now, if only I'd turn them into novels. But that's a lot of work, and once fantasized, the motive is used up.

3-20-02

Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.
 
Arab proverb
Trusting in God is a fine quality. I'd do it a lot more often if I believed it could result in the avoidance of difficulties in my life. But, if there is a God, and if It's nature is such that it takes a personal interest in our lives (which I very much doubt), then It also sees fit to test us by putting adversity in our paths. These two possibilities, the benefits of trust and trial by adversity, go hand-in-hand. Thus, it's better, I believe, to balance trust in God with sensible and educated foresight and a plan of action, the execution of which results in the development of a hedge against adversity. I'd call this latter strategy a trust in self.
Farmers must trust in God, to bring timely rains and to hold off untimely frosts and freezes. But the farmer, who does not store surplus or sell it and save the monetary proceeds, will soon find himself cold and hungry in the winter. If I were a farmer, I would have to choose my land wisely, favoring fairly high ground (so as to avoid seasonal flooding) adjacent to a good river (that can be used to feed an irrigation system). To trust in God to provide rain and freedom from floods is foolishness. There are plenty of people in the world who place too much trust in God and so live a foolish, non-prosperous life--or else they're just too stupid to make it in life and trust in God as an alternative to intelligence. Often, trust in God is compensation engaged in by people who have little else going for them.
Successful people in all professions balance a trust in God with the application of their best intelligent action to avoid future catastrophe. God provides abundance and opportunity in his own good time, but It is also the source of hard times and neglect that tries our souls. Trust provides a meager baseline living that is often inadequate. The rest we achieve by our own wits. If you want to live hand-to-mouth, trust in God. It will provide. Look at the birds of the air . . . Trusting in God is fine, if you're a bird. What else have you got going for you if you've got a bird brain? But if you've got a human brain, use it and plan ahead.



The roof is leaking again, this time over the kitchen sink. How convenient. Thank you, Lord. I've got to get to the bottom of this problem, as soon as it gets warm enough to keep the tar on the roof soft. Meanwhile, I'm going to trust in God to keep me dry. [Actually, I'm trusting in my past activity that bought me this house and paid it off so that it is now free and clear of encumbrances. But the time is past due where I must do some repairs or suffer the consequences. You can't trust in God to fix your roof.]

3-21-02

My new label, Psycho-Literature opens up a whole new vista for me. It almost legitimizes (in my mind) my weird little stories that no one seems to like (except me). And it defines (sort of) my idiosyncratic postmod mix of pop psychology and (anti-)lit. I'm hoping this will lead me in a new direction. My work is really getting stale.

3-22-02

I like existing within my mind far better than existing in "reality."
Given the choice, I almost always opt for mind. I always have.
It's a far more interesting place that I have more control over.
A second place choice, preferable to reality, is my Website.
I'm thinking about, imagining, in my mind, changing the Website.

Again, I'm playing with the idea of running threads in a (chronological series of) document(s) instead of posting pieces into separate projects. Either way has its advantages and drawbacks. It's a matter of control. With threads, I can post directly without having to worry about where anything is going or has gone. With projects, there is a more clear-cut delineation between the separate compartments/functions of my thought. Neither way is perfect; neither way is "right."

3-23-02

Since I keep such irregular hours, and since my bedroom has heavy curtains, I sometimes find myself awakening out of a three or four hour sleep, when I have been so very far away, not knowing if it's day or night. This evening I awoke at ten in such a state. In this condition, I imagine I get a glimpse of what it's like to have Alzheimer's. Although I don't so much mind being in this state, trying to decipher subtle clues, investigating the mystery that is my life as I am out of it momentarily, I don't imagine it could be too pleasant to be like this for exceptionally long periods of time. I can't decide whether it would be outright unpleasant or just confusing for an afflicted person. I mean, maybe it'd be so confusing that unpleasantness wouldn't even enter into it. Maybe, beyond a certain state of confusion, you just don't know enough to be concerned about it. What an odd state this must be, to be, at least for some given length of time, so continually out of it as to be disconcerned with even who you are. In some ways, it might even be relaxing, not to have to think so much. It might even be that ideal state of Zen "enlightenment" we search for, but don't very often find because we do not pursue it in so dedicated a way. Alzheimer's could be that perfect state of now--and we're trying to cure it. Wouldn't that be just about right for this society?

3-24-02

Life seems to be loosening up, so very slightly. I'm uncovering new ways of doing things, both re my art and my life. But my consciousness is uncovering them begrudgingly. It's been like pulling teeth, and now I feel like I'm gumming everything.

3-25-02

While going through old papers, filing them away or discarding them, I come across an old job dismissal letter. I read its contents with more depth perception than when I read it way back when, when I felt so badly that I had to push it consciously out of the front of my mind. It affects me still the way the dismissal affected me then. It's painful, not so painful as the incident, of course, but...
I don't want to write about it. I want it not to be true, that I treated people poorly in my desperate attempt to do my job to the best of my ability. (That's the saddest thing about it; if I'd been a slacker, or if I'd not cared, not tried so hard to do so good a job, it wouldn't have mattered. The fact that I had vested everything, every ounce of my being and effort in the job is what made it hurt so bad.)
I have all kinds of excuses for why things did not go well at that place, and they're all true--except they fall short of the full explanation and are a means of trying to vindicate myself, to purge myself of my faults. But I cannot. But neither can I allow myself the perception that I am a miserable turd for having failed, which is what you always feel like in these situations if you have any conscience at all.
Okay. I'm flawed. So what? Despite being the best supervisor they had in most areas of the job, I failed in one of the most important, employee relations. The fact that I had been so stressed out that I could barely see a metaphorical foot in front of my face is no excuse. The fact that my boss lied his bald ass off in the dismissal letter doesn't negate the fact that I deserved to be dismissed. I'm flawed.
I make this my defense, a good offense: Fuck you anyway. I embrace you're negative perception. I'm an asshole. But at least I know it. I don't hide the fact behind a self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude. And at least I was otherwise competent and didn't rely on everyone else to do my job and cover my tracks and my flaws while I blamed them for why I couldn't do my work. (Well, maybe I did a bit of that too.)
I was let go because I deserved it, not so much because they were so right (they were only slightly right, and a lot less right in my case than in others where they failed, for political reasons, to act.) I deserved it because I'd treated others as coldly and callously as they treated me, with as much disregard. What goes around, comes around. So, fuck them all. Fuck everyone who ever acted against me, for whatever good reason.
Yeah, I'm flawed. I'm an asshole. I'm an incorrigible paragon of arrogant self-interest. I'm a selfish dickhead. I'll take your blame. I'll eat your sins. No I won't! Not now. Fuck you. I'm done doing it. It's over. I admit my flaws, and I revel in them. Suffer, all you bastards who remain chained to the business shit you wallow it. I'm free of it all. Ha ha! Fuck you. And fuck you too, everyone one of you.
I didn't mean to do it, it was all entirely unconscious and unfortunate, and if I had it all to do over, I'd do it a lot differently, maybe even to the point of not doing it at all, but now that it's done, I'm glad I did it, even the unthinking, abusive stuff. You all deserved it. I'm the avenging angel who wrecked havoc on your business world for over twelve years (twenty, if you count it all), and it took you that long to get rid of me! Wimps.
I may not have treated them so well, but they didn't treat me so well either. And in a lot of cases, their acts of maltreatment occurred first. We exist within a system, always, an environment, and no one is at fault unless everyone is at fault. When they dismiss someone, they dismiss themselves. You cannot do to others what you do not do already to yourselves. My big flaw was that I allowed myself to work for them for so long.
You're all a bunch of cowardly, shriveling fools. I took your money and I did exactly what I wanted to do. (No I didn't, actually. I restrained myself severely most of the time. If only you knew. If only you'd all gotten what you deserved. But wait. It'll come, your turn, sooner or later.) I'm free of it now. I make my own way, balancing my karma day to day. That's why I can afford right now to say, "Fuck you."
I fight the urge to burn the final letter. I want to say I put my past behind me, starting over with a completely clean slate, ala Wayne Dyer. But I don't think I really believe that stuff. It'd be a nice symbolic gesture, but you never really leave your past behind, not even, I think, if you'd lose all conscious memory of it. You are who you are. I keep the letter, so that I might, in the future, purge this incident again, if need be. [Cf. addendum]

3-26-02

All the fuss about blaming priests for abusing kids is so much bullshit, just a way to find another scapegoat for the social problem. Yeah, priests abuse school kids. So do parents. So do teachers. Let's deal with the real problem and stop trying to blame one group for it. Not that I have any sympathy for pedophile priests, or any other kind of priest for that matter. As far as I'm concerned, they're all a little twisted for wanting to be priests in the first place. (I was raised a Catholic, but I grew up.) Let's grow up now and deal with the more general social problem. Kids are being abused, and no amount of priest-bashing is going to relieve our social guilt. We, the society, are guilty, for not having dealt with this problem sooner, when we have known about it for so long. Don't let the crimes of priests distract you from the others who are doing the same thing. Deal with whole problem, not a scapegoat token of it. [more]

3-27-02

On South Park, Stan gets sick while barricaded in his bedroom with the guys and 23 calves that they rescued from the slaughterhouse. Stan refuses to eat meat any kind of as a result of his epiphany that veal is actually the meat of baby cows. He contracts an illness and is saved from a horrible fate just in the nick of time (before the program ends). The doctor explains that Stan has "vaginitis" and that the sores all over his body are actually tiny vaginas. It seems that Cartman was right when he told Stan that if he didn't eat meat, he'd turn into a pussy. Classic.

3-28-02

Went on a brief shopping trip. Nice day. Life flows smoothly. Got everything I planned to get (nothing sold out). Should have been a day that I went out for an extended period of time, but I wasn't mentally into it, despite the psychic weather.



Joyce called, saying she has two favors to ask of me. 1) If she drops it off tomorrow, can I edit a paper that Jimmie has written for school--before Sunday? "Sure." 2) Do I want to come over for dinner on Sunday? ("It's Easter, you know." I often miss the standard holidays, so people feel they have to remind me.) [This is not the favor, but it almost seems as if she structured her content to make it seem that way. Perhaps unconsciously, she's using it as a reward for what's to come. (She has this backwards. You apply the reward as a contingency based on getting the desired response. But then, maybe the desired response is my answer to the first question. Of course.)] "Sure." 2a) "On Sunday, while you're here, can you help me put together an outline for my paper?" (A fifteen pager.) "Sure." (By which I really mean, "Well, okay. If I have to.")
After I hang up, I want to consider the manipulative way she treats me (always), but I dismiss the idea. Life's too short. If I really don't want to be manipulated by her, I'll move to California, or in some other way arrange my circumstances to avoid her. At least I got her to a point where she's considering my feelings. When she told me about Jimmie's paper, she said "It's all written. All you have to do is read it over and make corrections." I'd been trying to get her to do this for at least four years before it finally began to sink in late last year. Some goals are more difficult to achieve than others.

3-29-02

Jimmie came over this afternoon to drop off his paper to be edited. He showed me his new car that he proudly announced his parents had bought him, a 1988 Chevy Corsica. Nice. 109,000 miles, but in top condition. They bought it from the neighbors across the street, an old couple whose son lives next to them and owns a car repair shop. He took good care of the car. Jimmie beams with pride as he shows off the vehicle. He's going to school at the community college this fall and he needs the car for transportation.

3-30-02

I dreamed I woke up in 1932 as a film director lying beside my movie star wife in our luxurious home in the Hollywood Hills. Her stage name was Juliet Love, short for her real name, Julia Lowenski, whom I met on location in rural Pennsylvania shooting a film in which she was a bit player. She's the daughter of immigrants from Poland. I fell in love with her, married her, and took her to Hollywood and made her a star. She awakens beside me and we begin a conversation about people we know in 1932. When I wake up for real, I continue the conversation I was having with her as if she is still lying in bed beside me. It makes me sad that she's not really here.

3-31-02

Easter at my brother's house. Normal stuff. Not too bad, though. A bit more peaceful than usual. Early in the day, as Joyce and I discussed life topics in the kitchen as she prepared dinner, the subject of social interaction came up. We were discussing movies and I mentioned that I should have gone to film school when I was young and become a movie director. She said that it's not too late. I countered with the fact that movie-making is a social art. I don't exactly have the temperament for it. (So, you see, I encourage an "anti-social" opinion of myself.) This reminded her of something my brother had said to her about me, that when we were growing up, I thought I was an only child. This should have insulted me, that is, I should have felt it unjustified, a stereotypical remark, but I didn't. I can see how people will adopt that attitude toward me, especially people who don't know so well the other (social) side of me (which I haven't, I admit, been exercising so much over the past six or seven years). Joyce mentioned how much different Jim and I are, based, I think, on how I was talking to her, interested, allowing her to have her own opinion without insisting she is wrong (when I think she is). I said that we (my brother and I) really aren't so much different, deep down, that our superficial psychologies are very different (by which I meant our personalities, but I didn't use that word, it didn't come to me at the time), but deep down we are the same.


Saw a great movie on one of the premium channels, Strange Relations, with Paul Reiser and Julie Walters, about a guy who discovers he's dying of Leukemia and so goes to England looking for long lost relatives who may qualify as bone marrow donors. I remarked that I didn't know Paul Reiser could act. (Every time I've seen him, he's always playing himself.) Joyce said, "He's pretty good, though." I agreed. He was great. And, of course, so was Julie Walters. But she hasn't aged too well, has she?



As it turns out, Jim didn't buy the new car for Jimmie, but for the whole family. Since Jimmie gets to use it for school, he thinks it's his. When I first got to Jim's house, I said, "So you bought Jimmie a car," because Jim always said if Jimmie wanted a car, he'd have to buy it for himself. And Jim said, simply. "No." Nothing more. I said, "He thinks it's his." But he didn't answer me.

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