I admit I’m not a poetry lover. I don’t even like poetry. I like it better when it rhymes, like the Ancient Mariner. Sometimes I read the poetry in The New Yorker, and inevitably sneer or mutter “Jesus Christ.” I used to think it was a failure on my part, but now I’m comfortable with all of my biases.

I once had a job that involved stupid magazines with stupid ads for suckers, like devices to enlarge your breasts overnight. One of the ads was for a poetry contest, that was clearly a scam. It was something like “YOU TOO COULD BE A POET! ENTER THIS CONTEST AND WIN $10,000!”

I showed it to my young teenager and we decided to send in a poem to find out what the scam was. It was back in 1990, but I still remember laughing as we took turns composing it. Max was reading Stephen King at the time, who was a master of the idiotic mixed metaphor, and you can see the Stephen King influence throughout.

Sure enough, our poem won an Honorable Mention! and we could see it published in a nice anthology for only $49.95! We decided to pass. *If you want to try this too, go here.

Keeping in mind my disappreciation for poetry, I was excited to discover a poem by my husband’s ex-wife, my bête noire and the Anti-me. While I try to follow her monthly column in her community newspaper, somehow the poem escaped my attention until now. “Escaped my attention” is the kind of thing she would write, so I apologize, but she would have prefaced it with “hitherto.”

I won’t pretend to “get” this poem; You don’t need to get it to enjoy it, right? But once I figured out its subject, I was inspired to write my own elegy:

Ode To The Tennessee 3

What fresh hell is this! Voting
To kick them out for
Protesting

Even the fat white lady knew how
Wrong
This was. Plus

The 2 young black guys
Are so hot!
Especially the Brother with
The earring and long hair

I even followed
Him
On Instagram.

I shared it with my friend M, a published novelist and hardcore fan of the Ex’s work, and he countered with this:

Tennessee 3 braving
and behaving
No
The guy with the Afro is the hotter of the 2

Whew! I’d hate to have to pick the winner here, but I would love to pick the winner of your entries! So, (YOU TOO COULD BE A POET!) please submit a poem about the Tennessee Three and the winner will get a nice certificate! If anyone out there is an artist, you can help design it.

Don’t be shy! There are no losers, only winners!

I’m Glad My Mom Died is the title of a new memoir by a former child actress I’ve never heard of, and it’s a best seller. It has received more attention than any other recent book that’s not about Donald Trump, and the response to it seems uniformly favorable.

For all I know, Jeanette McCurdy is a good writer. But it’s the shocking title that seems to please reviewers most. How daring of her! Good for her! The book is a chronicle of abuse by a terrible, exploitative and seemingly mentally ill stage mother whose conduct sounds like something from a Grimms’ Fairy Tale.

But now the mom is safely dead from cancer and Jeanette is sharing her story of suffering and redemption all over the internet to hearty accolades, not least from others who hate their parents and share her bold sentiment. A piece in the Huffington Post reveals that “it’s not uncommon to feel that way.” Uh-oh.

Naturally, as a mother I find this chilling. As a mother estranged from an adult child, I can’t help feeling the title embodies my worst fears. I know my adult child wants nothing to do with me for reasons only he understands. I mean, I know I wasn’t perfect and I yelled a lot. And abuse is in the eye, and narrative, of the self-proclaimed abused party.

But it pains me to think that my death will actually be celebrated, you know? I guess it won’t matter since I won’t be around to be horrified.

Back when I learned about forums for adult children who hate their mothers, I had to stop looking at their posts when someone admitted to feeling no grief upon losing their parent. They weren’t exactly proud of their reaction, like Jeanette seems to be, but rather a little defensive. The other mommy-haters on the forum reassured the griefless adult child that they looked forward to the death of their parent and the relief it would bring.

Since I can only speak for myself, and my own narrative of my experience as both a mother and an adult child of a mother, I guess it’s not for me to judge these damaged victims of bad parents. But it seems like the title “I’m Glad My Mom Died” is somehow acceptable in today’s zeitgeist (sorry!) of proud victimhood and trauma survivors, whereas the title “I’m Glad My Daughter Died” would never be published, let alone applauded.

Is it because it’s reasonable to hate your mom but not your daughter? What about “I’m Glad My Dog Died” or even “I’m Glad My Neighbor Died’? None of these work, do they?

My guess is it’s because the Awful Mother is now a staple of our cultural landscape, from Carrie to Mommy Dearest and beyond.

Mother’s can’t win, is my feeling. The best of us are still not good enough, although Donald Winnicott disagrees. (More about the concept of the good-enough mother here.) Our mistakes engender bitter resentments that time cannot eradicate for many. But it’s my belief that whatever you do as a parent will be wrong. All you can do is try your hardest to make the best decisions you can, to get help if you see you’re fucking up, and to love your kids unconditionally.

I’ve come to forgive my mother for her shortcomings and her bad behavior with the awareness that she was a complicated person shaped by her own difficult childhood. I’m not glad she died; I’m screwed up but I’m not heartless.

Jennette McCurdy tells an interviewer somewhat self-righteously that she’s “done the work” to earn the right to her title. Whatever that means. Is she sorry she was born? I’d like to ask her that. Because she owes her existence to her mother, which is not nothing.

And now she’s making a fortune by speaking Her Truth about her mother. She also complains in the book about her Nickelodeon co-star Ariana Grande’s greater success, which could lead to another brave best seller if Ariana could only die.

Just kidding! You do you, mommy haters.

Thoughts and insults, anyone?

* Giaquinto di Corrado Bottega, Medea, 1752, Hinton Ampner National Trust

After violently coughing for a week, I broke a rib, specifically rib #5, which an x-ray revealed to be “minimally displaced.” This means, not broken in pieces but not a neat crack either. It is extremely painful, because it hurts with each breath. When you cough, it’s like being stabbed in the chest with an ice-pick. I had to sleep sitting up at first, because it was worse lying down. Obviously there are a million worse things but still, it is awful in its own right.

This constant pain and misery have reminded me acutely of  A Voice Through a Cloud, one of the best books I’ve ever read, an autobiographical novel about a young man whose bicycle accident destroys his health, and led to the author’s early death. The novel beings in the hospital, where the narrator regains consciousness in terrible, unspeakable pain.

Over the years since first reading it, I’ve come to think of my accidents and illnesses as a Voice Through a Cloud, meaning the sense of isolation you feel when in pain. You’re not really you anymore, you have entered a new consciousness as unlike reality as an acid trip. All your sensations are distorted, food is different, the sheets feel different, other people are shadowy figures who live outside your membrane of suffering.

This has gone on too long but it takes at least six weeks for a bone to mend and sometimes longer. Let this be a lesson to you to get enough calcium!

My brain has been altered throughout this ordeal, focused primarily on How long can I stand this, and Why doesn’t anything help, even opiates.

When I’ve been able to think outside the rib pain, my thoughts have turned to deep philosophical questions interrupted by the need to check on Kim and Pete. They are more real to me than my family at this point, and their relationship more momentous and consequential than any other. I mean, all the tattoos, the dinner dates, the threats from Kanye, the impossibility of their whole coupledom, the thought of him dealing with her enormous fake ass…

I’ve been mentally and spiritually haunted by a friend’s angry statement that she doesn’t want to hear about Ukraine because the world didn’t care about the war in Syria. I believe this is a stance of the far left, the wokity woke, who resent the privilege of the white, European Ukrainians. When I said, But what about those poor women evacuated from the maternity hospital only to be killed in the theater they took shelter in, my friend sneered, They don’t even have maternity hospitals in Syria!

I keep compulsively reviewing this, trying to figure out if one of us is just nuts. I am trying to focus on East Africa, which is facing a terrible famine that will only get worse. At least we can all agree on the heartbreaking unfairness of this, except for a guy in a NYT comment thread who insists that it’s Africa’s fault for not controlling its population.

Then, I wondered whether anyone can have a philosophy or value system that is entirely rational and not an outcome of one’s own psychology and, ahem, personal issues. Just think about that. Do I hate capitalism become I’m not rich and I hate the rich (which I do)? Do I think truth is important because the liars in my family have betrayed me so often? Do my white friends who see racist micro-aggressions everywhere feel guilty or an unconscious need to subscribe to all tenets of the progressive left? Does my half-brother, a staunch determinist, just dread the notion of having free will?

These are the rambling preoccupations of an altered consciousness, plus the worry that the internet has ruined life as we knew it without any off-ramp.

Denton Welch‘s A Voice Through a Cloud on the other hand is a masterpiece that I can’t recommend highly enough. The astounding intelligence of it’s author proves that pain can be an impetus to art in the right hands (rather than a drive to see what Kim and Pete are up to.) It is a work of genius that raises a faint hope for humanity and will elevate your soul at least temporarily while the world careens toward oblivion.

I have already complained about my trouble retrieving words, and about my senility, which is currently resulting in the escalating loss of jewelry and household objects. But here’s something new: Along with the loss of my vocabulary, is an increased sensitivity to word usage.

If this sounds contradictory, think again. The loss of my words makes existing words all the more potent. Or maybe it’s just an autistic sensory thing, like reacting to the seams in your socks. I’m trying to read a long essay about friendship in the Atlantic, but each misjudgement in the prose is killing me.

I can say misjudgement not out of pedantry ( is that the correct word??) but simply because my ear knows right from wrong. I can’t help it. It’s not an achievement, it’s just innate, like a sense of smell. It’s sprachgefühl.

I asked my husband, a musician, what it feels like to hear someone play the wrong note, but it turns out there are several kinds of wrong in music. Plus, he doesn’t “feel” things as acutely as I do, according to him. But he agreed that a singer who can’t follow a tune is exasperating.

I might not be able to know a wrong note from a hole in the ground, but I do know this: The following sentence is ruined by one single word.

Most of us have [Problem Friends] though we may wish we could tweeze them from our lives.

Right? The word tweeze right there is so awful. It makes you wince. Clearly the author chose that word deliberately but did she want us to wince? Why not just use expunge or expel? Even “jettison” would be better, although I hate that word and would be glad to forget it. Or if she’s trying to be funny, how about “defenestrate”?  Defenestrate is always funny, even when applied to actual defenestration!

So the essay has become a challenge, since I’m keenly interested in the subject of friendship, but the lapses in judgement are like potholes interrupting my flow. Was potholes good for you? Are you glad I said it was a challenge rather than calling it “problematic?” I could have said, “like nails on a chalkboard” but then I’d feel bad about myself.

You see how troublesome this shit is. Before I forget, I wanted to share a list of words I couldn’t retrieve in the last few weeks. My plan was to keep a comprehensive list and then try to compose haiku with them. But I keep forgetting to write them down, because senility. Here’s my list:

mariachi
linens
Napoleon Dynamite
rapport
attention
shingles
surface
hindrance
concierge
kangaroos
concierge
tsunami.

I wrote concierge twice because I keep forgetting it. I keep wanting to say “Courvoisier” even though I didn’t know what it was before googling it.

Getting back to the Atlantic essay, try this sentence:

But the lacuna in the literature is also a little odd.

God, what the fuck?? Lacuna, for fucksake? Why not just gap? I mean, I see that it’s an alliteration, but when an alliteration interrupts the idea being conveyed because it’s so stupid and uncalled for, why use it? When I used to read books and screenplays for a living, I remember having to read something by Danielle Steele. Her writing is so bad that I started screaming “editor!’ every few minutes. I guess that’s what makes a best seller.

Anyway, I plan to finish reading the essay and see if I can retrieve enough words to write my own essay on friendship, or rather the break-up of friendships, and how painful or liberating it can be. I am getting to be an expert on this. In the time of Covid, I’m finding I have no tolerance of craziness in my relations, despite being desperate for companionship. I use to quip that “I want to be the craziest person in a relationship” and this holds true more than ever. Or, if you prefer, “now more than ever.”

I’ve always scoffed at people who redecorate their homes. It seems like such a waste of time and money, not to mention the most bourgeois activity I could imagine.

Now, I’m thinking about redecorating, so I finally understand the motivation: I’m dead inside.

Being dead inside, I’m looking outward at my environment. I hate my curtains. Why do we have to have these ugly curtains that we bought at Target under duress when we moved into this house seven years ago?  And why should I live with corroded hardware in my bathroom sink when I can get vintage replacements from a special bathroom fixtures website? And while I’m at it, why are all the walls white? I used to love colored walls. Which walls should I paint and which colors?

Really, who cares? My house is perfectly fine as is. It’s comfortable and reflects our personalities. Redecorating is just an effort to externalize your loss of identity and self-worth. It’s an act of desperation.

I knew a couple who spend $50,000 to revamp their kitchen. They were wealthy, obviously, and they both wanted to sleep with me. I did sleep with one of them, in the end, but I can’t recall anything about their kitchen. What losers.

I know a divorced guy whose new girlfriend redecorated his entire condo in grey and black, with shit from Macy’s, it looked like. She wanted to erase all signs of his former partner, and eventually she took over every aspect of his life. He appeared to have no opinion on this. When he’s finally dead inside, he might take notice.

But with each passing day, my curtains are an increasing blight on my existence. If only I knew what to replace them with!

I have started following interior design pages on Instagram. I am especially drawn to chinoiserie. Jewel-toned velvet couches are nice too.  I could start hunting in thrift-shops for furniture instead of old cashmere sweaters and Levis!

But I would still be me, this me. This me has no social life and no mental life to speak of. I can’t turn off the TV because the silence will make me anxious. I feel I have already thought about everything there is to think about. I can’t think about the past or I will feel deprived, guilty, and pathetic. I can’t remember how I occupied myself before Covid but I didn’t watch TV all day and night.

People who exercise or go sight-seeing or attend events seem so poignantly deluded. It’s like, Aww, look at them thinking this will change anything! The more fun people appear to be having on boats, at parties, standing on mountains, the more tragic they seem.

The only time I feel at ease is when I go to bed. Being asleep is my idea of living my best life. There is just too much loss to incorporate when I’m conscious, I guess. But meanwhile, I want curtains. There are four big windows in my bedroom and I want complete darkness at night. I want flowing, floor-length velvet curtains or maybe gauzy white curtains. Or maybe white blinds to match the walls. Or maybe custom black-out shades. Something Victorian to match my dresser, or something in keeping with the craftsman style of the house. Or maybe I need to paint the walls a deep cherry red or midnight blue?

The next time someone brings up redecorating, just feel sorry for them. Explain that they are dead inside and I know they will thank you.

Thoughts on my windows, anyone?

Surprise, I’m focusing on the positive! Because there are still good things, and here’s a short list.

 Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian

Isn’t this fantastic! Who could have imagined this?? When she broke up with Kanye, it seemed preordained that Kim would hook up with a wealthy Black athlete or maybe another rap “artist”. But no, instead she chose a scrawny white guy and self-professed stoner. Pete has plowed, ahem, his way through every other single female celeb, so maybe it had to happen, or maybe his Big Dick Energy was the attraction? I guess Kim likes her men to be bi-polar, and why not? I hope this goes on for eternity or at least the next few months. Please don’t let me down, Pete and Kim. You’re living your best lives! Take that, Ariana!

The Beatles Documentary. If you’re a boomer or even a culturally literate Gen X or Y, this is just heaven. I actually changed my mind about Paul, who I’ve hated for years and years. Watching these talented, witty, charismatic young men hang out together and create the soundtrack to our youth is enthralling. I never realized their beauty, because I was too young to recognize it. Their glossy hair and beautiful skin and radiant smiles are pure  magic. Just think: we’ve seem more images of the Beatles than of our own families or anything else. They are the best part of us, aren’t they, boomers? George’s style is a nice surprise (to me), as is Yoko’s relative harmlessness. Be prepared for a flood of nostalgia.

Norsemen.  Another gift from TV, Norsemen is a Norwegian series filmed in English, a deranged satire of Vikings, reminiscent of What We Do in the Shadows but more outrageous in it’s extreme battle scenes and it’s over-the-top homo-erotic (or homophobic) subtext. Every actor is totally committed to the deadpan insanity. There are three seasons to binge or savor, on Netflix.

Jean Stafford. What a great writer who I just discovered this year! She won a Pulitzer prize for a collection of short stories, but even more impressive is her second novel, The Mountain Lion. I’m about 3/4 into it and could not be more envious of her brilliance. If you love Flannery O’Connor, I think you will love The Mountain Lion. Jean Stafford has a similarly dark sensibility that seems well-earned, given her miserable life.

Idiotic Word Usage. I am really enjoying the use of “rescue” to mean “dog.” I just heard a news corespondent say “Oh sorry, that’s my rescue barking.” Haha, you idiot, JUST SAY DOG. We’re not giving out points for how you acquired your pet, for fucksake. I’ve read about celebrities enjoying family life with their two rescues. What do you call other dogs….mill-bred? Store-bought?

Then there is “space.”

“In the world, the eating disorder space, and the body positivity space, I don’t think there’s enough time, energy, or resources spent on people on the higher end of the weight spectrum, people who are fat, and people who are gender queer, trans, non-binary,” she said.

This usage is like nails on a chalkboard to me. It was bad enough when “space” meant your apartment. “I like what you’ve done with this space.” Ewwwwwwwwwww! While thinking about this usage, I came across this great glossary of activist terms. It is pretty comprehensive and I would even say poignant. It includes a few words to not use, like “diversity.” Fine with me! Done!

Well, there you go. It’s not much but it’s something. I’m trying to be the shepherd, you know?

If you have some other things to feel good about, let’s hear from you!

I stopped writing here because I felt I had nothing to say that I haven’t already said. I still feel that but now I’m worried that “use it or lose it” might apply to my ability to put words together in a pleasing way. I just read some advice to writers from Ray Bradbury, and most of it involves activating your language skills on a daily basis. I’m not going to argue with Ray Bradbury; he taught me (and most of us) to love reading.

My brain is barely firing, due to boredom, advanced age, or all my meds. I now take a pinch of Adderall with my two antidepressants, not to mention the Ativan for sleep. And the weed of course. I believe this pharmaceutical medley has impaired my thinking but a dull brain is better than one that is squirming like a toad.

I can spend days without one real conversation, because talking to one’s spouse doesn’t count as conversation. It’s more like a series of utilitarian questions and requests, interspersed with sighs and eyerolling.

So let’s talk about TV, because that is my life, second in importance only to my hair.

We started to watch that new Nicole Kidman thing, even though I knew I’d have trouble with her face. The face did not disappoint, and she added a dopey Russian accent. All the elements looked stupid, but I was game to watch until the Dead Son theme reared it’s triggering head. If you watch a lot of cable TV, you will have noticed how often a Dead Son elemement pops up, presumably to supply a dose of grief-porn to the numb viewer.

I am tapped out on this, and can’t take any more unless there’s a compelling reason, which won’t be found in TV dramas. So I refused to watch it. After The White Lotus, it seemed especially pointless, right? I know you loved The White Lotus as much as I did. I hope the hotel manager wins an Emmy! Mike White is such a nut case, in the best possible way. If you haven’t seen “Chuck and Buck,” go find it. You’ll be traumatized, but that’s Art.

Chuck and Buck brings me to a movie called “Humpday” that I watched despite all odds because the NYT suggested it. It’s about a pair of old college friends who decide to have sex for an amateur porn film. Since they are both straight men, hilarity ensues, ahem. More like extreme discomfort, but again, it is Art. I loved it.

I’ve also watched a bunch of violent foreign crime dramas, and there is no body part I have not seen chopped off. There are always hookers and glowering, swarthy bad guys who are hard to tell apart. I have to keep asking my husband, “Which one is this guy?” A perfect example of marital conversation!

Oh wait, I almost forget to recommend “Dave” and “Flatbush Misdemeanors!” They are so delightful, both of them, sharing the virtues of fresh characters, dialogue, and the sense that anything might happen. Go find them and you will thank me.

Finally, I just started watching The Sweet Life Los Angeles. This is going to be my go-to TV when the chopped up body parts and cries of “Putain!” wear me out. It’s a wonderful reality show where everyone is feeling some kinda way, and they refer to each other’s attire as “fits.” It is fucking heaven.

Okay, this is 574 words and I’m hoping Ray Bradbury is satisfied. I really desperately want to communicate, but my tools are either rusty or long gone. Try to bear with me. And let’s hear what TV you’re watching, and what meds you’re on.

Amid all the rage and dread, my friend Dr. LaRue relayed the news that Pantone has come out with a new color called Period! Not as in punctuation but as in menstrual period…”an original shade of red that represents a steady flow during menstruation.”

How empowering, right ladies?

I’m going to say that this red, described by Pantone as “an active and adventurous red hue,” is not the color I associate with menstruation. Maybe the first day? You tell me.

Pantone goes on to say that

‘period’ emboldens people who menstruate* to feel proud of who they are. To own their period with self-assurance; to stand up and passionately celebrate the exciting and powerful life force they are born with; to urge everyone regardless of gender to feel comfortable to talk spontaneously and openly about this pure and natural bodily function.”

Well, good! I know that I personally was proud to menstruate, and enjoyed clearing a room of men simply by bringing up the subject. I liked brandishing a tampon instead of hiding it discreetly. I almost threw one at a bad opening act at the Palladium or somewhere, hoping to hit the lead singer in the face, to register my displeasure. Doubting my aim, I changed my mind at the last moment.

Years ago I wrote about menstruation here, and I recall the incredible sense of female community that arose from the discussion! It was really wonderful. (Go read the comments if you’re a *Person Who Menstruates, or was one formerly.)

As an old bag, I miss my periods. I loved everything about them. Now, it seems crazy that in 2020, women and girls sill need prodding to feel okay with menstruation. If men had periods…well, you know what Gloria Steinem said! Periods are great but not as art, imo. I’m thinking of icky feminist “art” centered on used Tampax or whatever. They are great, but you don’t deserve a medal for having them. Let’s stop at the new Pantone color.

Will Pantone develop a color for menopause?? I want them to. What would that look like, do you think? The color of autumn leaves mixed with the steel grey of Accidental Icon’s hair? What color is estrogen, anyway?

As we ponder Period red, lets list all the reds we can think of, quick!

Scarlet, ruby, rose, brick, cardinal, blood (not menstrual), vermilion, garnet, and cherry! Somehow I doubt that Crayola will give us a period red. As we lean into our female power, I think we’ll be okay without it.

I started seeing a new therapist this year, and it has been life-changing. He is smart, funny, sensitive, and has done his own time with depression. I feel such a strong connection that I’m hoping he’ll want to be my friend once ethics allow.

Last week over Zoom, I told him about an essay I read, primarily a take-down of Viktor Frankl. We discussed the sacrosanct regard for Frankl, as a Holocaust survivor, and the viability of Primo Levi’s work, since he ended up jumping out a window.

The essay takes Frankl to task for a bunch of things, but most pertinently for his insistence on finding the positive in even the most horrible experience. It’s not exactly like finding the silver lining of concentration camps…but it comes close.

Frankl maintains that we always have a chance to exert our will, to make choices even when all seems lost. If you’re in a camp and you have a piece of bread crust, you can choose to share it, for example.

Anyway, it was a really good, thought provoking essay. The part I wanted to talk about with the therapist was the false notion that suffering brings you closer to god, or that suffering has any point at all. The bible teaches (apparently) that god imposes suffering on you for a reason. Suffering in this life is a preparation for heaven. Maybe you’re supposed to be grateful, for all I know.

Here’s the paragraph that struck a chord for me:

Because infant and childhood deaths were so common it is not surprising that the rabbis of the Talmud tried to inject a glimmer of metaphysical hope into this most tragic of tragedies. Rabbi Yochanan had lost no fewer than ten children, and his colleagues attempted to console him with the promise of a reward to come: “If one engages in Torah and acts of charity and buries his sons, all his transgressions are forgiven.” That might have consoled Yochanan the Rabbi, but it did not console Yochanan the grieving father. Rabbi Yochanan rejected the very notion that suffering -of any sort-was worth a reward. “I want neither this suffering nor its reward.”

What a powerful statement for those of us who are beyond consolation.

Suffering leads to nowhere good, and teaches you nothing. You might be more  compassionate to your fellow man, but surely at a preposterous price. Trying to find value in suffering seems so American to me, but I guess it’s actually religious dogma. I used to listen to Joel Osteen in the car, and we would snicker at his promises to his deluded followers: “Your wife has incurable cancer and your dog died? Cheer up! God is just biding his time, preparing to send you a spiritual check in the mail!”

Haha, there is no check! Not to mention god. Here’s what came up when I googled “suffering is”:

Never for nothing, eh?

I love Rabbi Yochanan’s quote so much that it might be my next tattoo. It looks good in Hebrew:

So then, I don’t remember how we got there, but my therapist and I talked about guilt and how it was okay to just go to bed in the middle of the day if that’s what you need. He said ice cream would be okay too, a form of self-care. Somehow, maybe we were talking about our mutual dispositions, and he said, “Being sensitive and intense isn’t a bad thing, right?”

I disagreed, and said that the pain of being that way is only valuable if you channel it into art. If it’s just suffering that doesn’t produce anything, it’s like an oyster without a pearl. Then, it’s just suffering; there is no pearl.

“Like the Holocaust,” he observed brightly, like the smartest kid in the class. We both started laughing hysterically.

A good therapist always wraps up the session by returning to the beginning, so it comes full circle. UCLA will only cover a certain number of sessions with its doctors, and I’m near the limit with mine. I will miss him terribly!

And this post is the pearl.

A few years ago, I watched the first episode of the British TV series Black Mirror, expecting a clever Sci Fi drama, since it was being compared to the Twilight Zone.

In the episode, a member of the British royal family is kidnapped and will only be released if the British prime minister fucks a pig on live television. A wild, perverse premise with an obvious critique of contemporary culture. One of the actors described the topic as “humiliation, and the public’s appetite for humiliation”. Fair enough, in part.

I still feel shaken as I remember watching it. I think I went from amusement to disbelief to anxiety to abject horror and grief. Notice how this trajectory follows the one we’ve endured with the presidency of Donald Trump!

In the show, we see the varying reactions of TV viewers as they watch the spectacle play out. Many are crying. I cried with them, because I’m sensitive, alright?

I remember complaining for days and weeks that I was permanently traumatized, even though it was only TV.

Now, watching Trump on TV, I feel the same horror welling up, but I’m too scared to cry. Maybe later. Every utterance and gesture is revolting, shameless, viscerally repugnant, like the Prime Minister fucking a pig. When he holds forth at his rallies, his tone strikes me as a mixture of Mussolini and Rodney Dangerfield. I’m actually embarrassed for him, because I’m a human being.

How one stupid fat bully could succeed in corrupting the entire government and breaking the whole country, I will never understand. But here we are.

I keep reflecting on Black Mirror, against my will, because my brain is looking for a reference point, I guess. What I want to know is this: ARE WE THE PIG?

Or is Trump both the pig and the pig fucker?

That’s all I’ve got today, sorry. I just wanted to check in.