Hah!

Satan Had A Bad Childhood

One thing that used to be tremendously obvious to me is that everyone is desperate for more love, most people don't get enough love and some people did not get enough at crucial moments are just ratfucked in various ways because of it.

What the hell kind of evolutionary purpose does this serve? Our need for attachment serves a purpose. But then, why not make us so that we could be satisfied with a pat on the head or two? Why do we need so much?

There are these people in my life, these two people. In their way, they are so bad, so very bad. They have done me some (minor) harms. And what's even worse is that they wish me ill.

Horribly, they make my life more interesting in ways. Of course, I'd rather not have someone actively attempting to make sure I lose my job. On the other hand, both these people are damaged narcissists and there is probably nothing more fascinating than a narcissist. If you are going to get compelled by others' neuroses, as I am.

Sometimes it's like I can feel the love they didn't get but I almost wish I knew when it was or what it was. Like: What the hell happened there? One of them, I met their parents. And the mother and father were both classic narcissists. The amazing kind, the kind who don't even meet your gaze. That is, the kind that live in a solipsistic universe of a kind. Also, famous! Rich, successful. So their child is just a bit horrible. But in a kind of fascinating way where he is horrible/not horrible/horrible/struggling not to be horrible. Later, rinse, repeat.

They are both like this, actually. They are kind of awful and then they try to be better and then they descend into a kind of backstabbing, crazed insecurity they can barely help. And then they emerge again, almost as normal people.

The missing love thing could all be in my head. I swear, I feel it though, the love they didn't get at the crucial moment. I don't know when that was. It can't just be infancy.

This used to make me excuse others' insanity, that empathy. My empathy now is just a kind of fascinated voyeurism. If they win, I suppose I'll be unemployed. I can always write a novel. Or at least I can always wish I can write a novel.

These people terrify me and yet they also entertain me.

Are there any truly great novels with narcissistic characters? I know that Phillip Roth's characters are always narcissists. And he is himself, I am sure, because he is unaware this is true of his characters. Or seems to be. John Updike is also a narcissist, with narcissistic characters. I guess those are OK novels.

Maybe Lolita is a novel about a narcissist who is cured by recognition of his own evil and his love of the person he destroyed? Lolita. That is a great novel.

Of course, my question is: Why me? Why am I the target of these narcissists? Narcissists usually love me. But it's all a matter of positioning. In the Shakespearean drama, I am the heir, they imagine.

It's odd and yet I've gradually come to understand it. Truly, I am as innocuous as hell. I think perhaps I have shaped myself that way for fear of others' envy. But sometimes people envy you anyway.

Two

1. There is this street I sometimes walk down that has a gigantic sign on it on one side window that says PAIN. On the other side window is a sign that flashes ARE YOU IN PAIN?

Then the store is kind of empty and strange.

But they sell shoe inserts of some kind.

2. I am an awful person because Mimi Smartypants linked to a murder story because some block near her house was cordoned off while the murderer committed suicide and I looked up the murderer on Facebook. Yes, he's on there and more awful is that someone with the last name as his victim (who was his girlfriend) is right there among his friends. (I didn't click on the friends--it just sort of shows up next to him.)

Why do I do things like that?  Such rubbernecking.

I'm going to say three Hail Marys right now.

The thing about the pain store is that if they just branched out and sold everything for everyone in pain they would make a mint. We need to have a PAIN STORE that is just for people in every kind of pain. They could sell Advil, Jack Daniels, backrubs. That store would never go out of business.

Please don't steal this idea. I may need a job soon.

(By the way I have no idea where those ads came from. They just appeared the other day. I do not know why or how.)

Retail Ghostown

We went to Macy's on one of those shopping days where many people shop. Men's shoes were 65% off and I wanted my man to buy shoes.

The store was swarming with humanity. People searching, searching, searching for something, they know not what until they find it. They are wanting to find the thing that they want.

I wanted a 3/4 sleeve shirt with color in it. Something with buttons, lightweight. Something not white, grey, black or brown as are all my other shirts. With a retro pattern. Red, grey, black or purple, green blue. I know that when you overimagine a nonexistent shirt that shirt is never to be found but there is always the hope that the approximate thing exists, or something even better than one can imagine. And yet, it never does.

There was hubbub, murmurs, a conflagration.  I wondered away from the crowds and suddenly it was as if I had stepped into a parallel universe, a quiet universe. The store went on and on with rack after rack of untouched clothing, clothing I could not wear, would not wear. It was unimaginable to me that all this clothing would be bought and worn ever. That it had even been made and that more was being made right now to replace it. Where? Why? Whose idea was all this clothing, anyway?

At one point I was entirely, utterly alone. Somehow, even though there were hundreds of teeming masses at one place in the store there was this strange corner of the store devoid of all humanity.Some sub-section of the women's section where no one ever ventured, a lost and forgotten world. Even the checkout counter was empty. No one was there. It was how I imagine the world would be after some kind of virus wipes out everyone. Me, alone, Macy's my only haven.

Out of all those thousands of shirts there was not a single shirt I wanted. Or could imagine wanting. I was overcome with something, a weariness, overwhelmed by abundance. I desperately wanted out.  The problem was that I had to go to the bathroom. Naively, I thought I should find one, there in the store. It was five more hours before I extricated myself.

I found dozens of shirts for my husband though and he bought some of these and two pairs of shoes. And then I wanted to cry and cry. Later, I did cry, although I didn't tell him that. There was something so sad about all those things I bought him. When I buy things for myself I get nervous and guilty but buying things for him made me feel like we were sharing some sad illusion, that we weren't desperately poor, that we weren't desperate at all, that there was abundance, that we will not die.

As if we bought the shirts then things would not be so bad because we could buy the shirts. Some tragic American retail prayer, like Gogol's overcoat.

it reminded me of the time when we were first married, before we'd lost our life savings buying a house that is worth half of what we paid and we thought things would be good, later on. Before I was facing unemployment and bankruptcy and complete and utter failure. We were starting something and thought that we would go somewhere better. Middle class adulthood, an ordinary life.

I took a million dollars of life insurance out on myself a couple of years ago but my husband says he doesn't want it without me. I have hopes, though, that he'll get it soon.

The sale was great. The shirts and shoes are groovy. It was fun to pick them out.

I think I'm going to do my shopping online from now on.

I Sometimes Have Trouble Enjoying Myself

So, I read Dwell in the checkout line at Whole Foods.

I think this is why, a few days later I was sort of musing about getting one of those prefab houses someday on some incredible piece of land, with no other houses, far as the eye can see, a glorious vista of wilderness but somehow inexplicably near enough to some urban area that I can drive in for bagels and The Times on Sunday. OK, it has to be Manhattan because those bagels need to be good.

You know, I'm being realistic. It doesn't have to be the actual Phillip Johnson house. It doesn't have to be designed by a famous architect or nothin'. It can be a knockoff of a house designed by a famous architect. I'm not that picky.

So I'm envisioning in my mind's eye the amazing wall of windows that I will have after I win the lottery or it turns out my husband is a billionaire and never told me because he wanted me to love him for himself and then the niggling thought arises: But what about the collapse?

The hordes, you know? The hordes will find us. After the collapse. I mean, I'm not crazy enough to think they'll be actual zombies at that point but they probably will be reduced to savagery from hunger and the radiation or the microbes or whatever follows the overall collapse.

Yeah, a wall of windows. What was I thinking?

I try to sustain the pleasant imaginary life I was leading by considering that perhaps we could have an incredible alarm system or maybe an electrified fence but that's just downright impractical. There won't be electricity after the collapse. Of course, we can have a windmill but who knows if it will still give us electricity once civilization falls.

OK, maybe I'm thinking concrete walls, industrial style, high windows, lookout tower, a few gun sights but with a rooftop deck?

Absurd Dream #412

I dreamed I was with Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

I ridiculed the Playboy Mansion as being a cross between a miniature golf course and the world's ugliest county courthouse. Mostly, I ridiculed the mansion as full of 'exit' signs. Everywhere you went, there were 'exit' signs. What kind of mansion has 'exit' signs?

Hugh would brook no criticism. He vowed to show me how classy the Playboy Mansion really is.

He gave me a tour.

We first inspected the many inscriptions on the side of the mansion. Out of context quotes from great philosophy and literature. Most shocking, he began quoting passages in the original language. We lingered on the quote from Schopenhauer. Hugh began speaking German. "Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world."

I left, unable to shake my sudden deep respect for Hugh Hefner. But then, as I walked along I remembered "Schopenhauer was a misogynist!"

Dear Customer

I received a strange letter in the mail today.

Dear Customer,

We hope you will enjoy this product
Thank you for buying this product
We hope this product will bring you joy
We know it’s not always easy
We know that the world is going to hell in a handbasket
Thank you purchasing this product
For optimum performance and safety, please read these instructions carefully
If you don’t do this, we aren’t responsible for what might happen
Responsibility is a funny thing
It floats around and attaches itself to the most unlikely objects
You never know where it’s going until it gets there
We’re hoping this product will help
We made this product especially for you
We’ve been following your life from day one
It’s been slow, but there’ve been a few interesting bits
There have been times it’s been hard not to jump in with advice
We know this product won’t be enough
But don’t take it for granted