Little Weirds(23)

Oh, Ms. Slate, you do know that telling people things is not the same as living by the principle of the things, right?

Clearly you do not know. If you insist on peddling these psychological wares without sampling them yourself, if you insist on talking about things that you only know about in form but not in function, you will put this entire operation in jeopardy of looking like a fraud, and you will drag this whole initiative toward time-wasting and identity failure.

It is with deep regret that we inform you that you have been put on probation. You will no longer be able to access this subject matter in conversational form; nor will you be able to casually email it around. Be advised, should you try to speak about this article or sort of bat around this super-ego stuff in general, we have activated the emergency system, and there is no override.

If you are to open your mouth and then plan to say something like “The super-ego has very tight margins and doesn’t allow for variance,” while secretly listening to that actual super-ego voice inside of yourself, the system will be alerted and you will be supplied with an emergency sentence and you will find yourself saying things like “Summer is the warm time,” or “Babies are the youngest ones we have,” or “Horses are too big,” or anything that is true but rather hazy-sounding.

We believe that choice builds strength, and so we have provided a list of approved chat items for you. As we grow more confident in your ability to not secretly shit on yourself all of the time, we shall expand the list. Our hope is that one day, you will not need this list at all, and will be able to speak freely and without the secret sibling of self-abuse and shaming.

But for now, your approved topics are as follows:

“I want to learn to be a better gardener,” “Veal is a bummer and it’s not even that good,” “Library,” “Baryshnikov: any and all performances/his face/his voice/him,” “How to do bagels,” “Swimming in the Atlantic Ocean,” “Swimming in the Pacific Ocean,” “Evergreen trees,” “Why celery is not exactly what you wish,” “Fits of bras,” “Fits of jeans,” “Caves,” “Explain Easter?” “Paper cut stories,” “Grandmothers,” “Mustards of the world,” “The astronaut who wore the diapers so that she didn’t have to stop on her way to murder somebody,” “Snowboarding: I can’t try,” “Aunts and their houses,” “Ghosts, of course,” “Going to the bathroom on the plane or the train,” “Jars,” “Maggots and mold,” “Pumpkin carving,” “Doritos,” “Can a skunk be de-skunked and become a pet or will it be fundamentally gloomy without its stink?” and the follow-up “I love skunk smell, actually.” Furthermore you may access themes around “Grapes,” “Tropical fruits,” “Volcano,” “Cucumber,” “Sesame Street in the past,” “Wars,” and “Gaudí was the One and Only and I love how he stuck fruits and shells into the holy structures he was inspired to create,” “Monochromatic outfits,” “New Year’s resolutions,” “Silk outfits,” “Graves,” “In Peter Pan, did you ever notice that the actor who plays the dad also usually plays Captain Hook? But not in Hook the movie,” “Potluck dinners,” “Swamps, marshes, and bogs,” “What mushrooms do,” “Acrimony,” “Scoliosis,” “Wells and buckets,” and “The amazing Dukakis family.”

We’re aware that this list may seem limited but it simply mirrors the limits that you have shown to the community. Hopefully adherence to these guidelines will condition you to be able to take deeper dives on your own and become honest and free.

We look forward to watching your progress and growth. We yearn for it, even, Ms. Slate. We yearn for it. It is with faith and love that we say: It doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t need to do this anymore, and judging from what we caught you murmuring while you were on drugs by yourself at five in the morning, you know this to be true.

Sincerely yours,

The Office of Internal Affairs





Creed

Yes, it has been a long day and there have been strings of days recently, weeks, of empty and painful situations. There has been a rash of experiences that are empty and painful at once. There have been only empty times when there was no pain, only emptiness, and my body felt cold and dry and the sky looked white during the day and the night.

Then there were times that were only painful, during which I’ve lumbered through regret, humiliation, self-doubt, and feelings with loud blabbering blubbering voices that say, “Well, here it is. I’m the ugliest I’ve ever been,” or “Well, this is it. This is how it starts. This is how it all starts. Watch, watch your career, relationships, and youthful physique just float away from you like trash in outer space. You’ve begun the docking process that signifies the start of terminal failure. And you, you brain-peasant, won’t give up, so this whole thing is most likely going to last another seven years before you really admit it’s even happening and then four years after that until you finally can see that the shape of your failure is final and hardly spectacular or unique. Here you are now. Nothing that happens now or after will count as much as anything you’ve done before.”

Things like that. Yes, there have been lots of feelings that have felt like breaths in with no out breaths.