If you’re unacquainted with Judith Butler, you’re in for a real treat. Judith Butler “is an American philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory.” If you don’t agree with her ideas about gender, you are a fascist.

Her latest pronoun of choice is they, but I will refer to her as she because (1.) she is a single, and not plural, unit and (2.) I  just feel like it. She is a professor at Berkeley and has received 14 honorary degrees. In other words, she is a big deal. According to many, she is among the most influential intellectuals alive today.

Let’s start with this: In her book Gender Trouble, Butler claims that biological sex, like gender, is socially constructed, with its physical manifestations mattering only to the degree society assigns them meaning. Well, no. I would say nice try, but no.  Gender critical feminists (i.e. feminists who aren’t on board with her ideas) come in for some of her most scathing attacks. They are the victims of “phantasmatic” anxieties and also are big stupid liars whom she compares to Richard Nixon, of all people.

Personally, I don’t give a shit about gender, or not enough of a shit to ponder its meaning. I came across Butler in a critique of her assertion that the events of Oct. 7 constitute “resistance.”  Reading her put forth this idea, I thought, “Who is this pretentious idiot?”

I was delighted to find that she had won first prize in the annual Bad Writing Contest sponsored by the journal Philosophy and Literature – a prize given to “the ugliest, most stylistically awful” sentence submitted by its readers . Here is her winning sentence:

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

You have to love her, right? I mean, she gave us the concept of gender performativity!Wikipedia notes that

Butler also explores how gender can be understood not only as a performance, but also as a “constitutive constraint,” or constructed character. They ask how this conceptualization of an individual’s gender contributes to notions of bodily intelligibility, or comprehension, by other individuals. Butler continues to discuss bodily intelligibility by means of sex as a “materialized” entity, upon which cultural, collective ideals of gender can be built. From this angle, Butler interrogates value conscription upon various bodies as determined theories and practices of heterosexual predominance.

Whatever. I suggest that you don’t waste your brain cells trying to decipher this gibberish, just be aware that you’re not allowed to object to any of it. If you’re a woman (a human born with a reproductive system that produces eggs) or a non-man, as some gender identity theorists might say, you are a TERF  for taking issue with Judith Butler. If you’re a man, I don’t know what happens. Probably you’re just a homophobic colonialist defender of the patriarchy.

Please do your own research on Judith Butler, I promise you it is more fun and rewarding than anything you can do online besides getting into arguments on Instagram. Also, note that I didn’t title this “Judith Butler: What a fucking cunt!” She’s more of an irritant, albeit a uniquely flagrant one. And I realize she is low-hanging fruit, but try to resist taking a whack at her!

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.

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!

Years ago, when I was married to the wrong man, I fell madly in love with a guy who sold used books. He wasn’t my type, but he had a certain lanky, preppy appeal. We met when I wandered into his store in a run-down promenade. He was very attentive. He was especially pleased by my familiarity with John Barth. Later, he called me at home, although I hadn’t given him my phone number. It was on the check I wrote; it was a bold move on his part.

I liked bold moves. I agreed to meet him at the book store, and we sat down on a bench outside in the bright sunlight. He turned to me and moved some hair away from my eyes. “Tell me everything,”he said. It’s still the single most seductive line I’ve ever heard.

He really did want to know everything, so I told him. I was unhappily married, I was a weight-lifter, I liked to read. He asked me why my past relationships had failed, a surprise question. I had to think. Because I’m unlovable, I told him sadly.

His own life offered few clues about anything. He’d been in love once, with a girl he met in college. I guess she dumped him. He pronounced her name, Cecily, in a reverent tone. He was from a small town where people still talked about having “Jewish friends.”  His brother was some minor pro golfer. But he loved Elvis Costello, so that was something. And he had arctic blue eyes like a husky.

Somehow, I must have brought up the subject of herpes, which was considered a huge deal back then. He didn’t know anything about it, but now worried he might have it. He had a rash! Shit! I confided that I might be pregnant by an idiot from my gym. We felt as though the forces were against us, while at the same time, our meeting was Destiny.

I learned that if you want to fuck someone but can’t, things get highly charged in a hurry. We were miserable but we kissed like our lives depended on it. We waited for his test results. Meanwhile, I wasn’t pregnant.

He was witty and self-deprecating, with a deep sense of resentment about his shitty job and shitty prospects. Who knows what he really wanted. We were only 28 years old, but he acted like he’d already blown everything.

His herpes test came back negative. I was lying on the couch in his tiny apartment, with my feet in his lap. He had turned very serious. “Well, now we can deal with the literary aspects of this tragedy,” he said dramatically. Later on, I would give him a nickname: The Tragedy.

I wondered nervously what would happen if we had sex and it wasn’t good or I couldn’t come. “That won’t be a problem,” he said without a hint of arrogance. And it wasn’t. I taught him that menstruation wasn’t a hindrance. He taught me that he would never stop, unless I asked him to. Late one night, we went to the book shop and in the dark, we had sex by the paperback fiction.

The excuses I gave to my husband were ridiculous but he was willing to believe them. I didn’t feel guilty. I deserved to be happy. But I wasn’t. Adulterous sex is wonderful but coming back to real life is a grim business. I felt trapped and addicted to my lover. I still swooned when he touched me.

One day, The Tragedy told me over the phone that he was ending our affair. He had recently become a Christian. Sex with me was a sin, he realized, and he couldn’t go on as we were. It felt dirty, he said.

I drove around in a daze, feeling sure I was dreaming. How could someone turn on a dime? Isn’t dirty sex a good thing? I thought I could change his mind but he was firm. I went to the book shop to confront him and he was polite but cold.

It took me forever to find my footing again but eventually I did. I hated myself and vowed this would be my last affair. Time passed and I managed to conduct a platonic friendship with The Tragedy. He needed an assistant at the store and I jumped at the chance to work there.

For months, we worked together behind the counter, sharing our contempt for our customers and laughing at our private jokes. The whole time, I had to stop myself from putting my hands on him. One day I saw him in a huddle with a skanky girl who was missing a tooth and bought Harlequin Romance novels. I was badly shaken but had to suck it up. I acquired a huge book collection. I took home fairy tales to read to my child, oblivious to how much I’d shortchanged him.

Eventually, I split up with my husband. One day, either before or after, I can’t remember, I went to visit The Tragedy at his new apartment. Through the screen-door, I asked him what had happened between us. I still didn’t understand. It still felt like unfinished business.

“{Sisterwolf},” he said, staring me straight in the eye, “I still find you fascinating. But I was never in love with you.” He was matter-of-fact, like he was giving a weather report. He didn’t blink. I turned and left, devastated. Sure enough, I was unlovable. And I was haunted by his words forever, it felt like, until I forgot all about him.

But what is the internet if not a place to look for trouble, and what are old flames if not embers to poke, out of curiosity, vengeance, or a desire to change history?

A long time ago, in a burst of cocky self-actualization, I started writing a novel. It was so long ago, I wrote in longhand on legal pads. I remember being excited by the opening sentence. I felt it summed up the whole book, in its forceful self-deluded tone. I shared it with a friend who has published several novels.

“Dr. Goldberg called it transference, but I knew in my heart that I really did hate her guts.”

My friend said it was a bad sentence.

I took some time off and then decided to ignore her. I was on my way to writing the best thing ever.

The story involved all the key elements of my life and then some. There was an ineffectual therapist, a bad marriage, sibling rivalry, adorable toddlers, an adulterous affair that knocked the wind out of me for several years. I didn’t have an outline or an ending but the writing came easily and I savored the build up to the passion of the affair. I couldn’t wait to get to that part but I paced myself. It would be like opening the flood gates of the Mississippi. I don’t know if the Mississippi has floodgates, because I just made that up, writerly writer that I am.

Anyway, I wrote around sixty-five pages and then things got hard. I started using a thesaurus, which I found horrifying. When things get hard, traditionally, I give up. This was no different from all the things I had stopped trying to do: sewing, ballet, rolling joints, riding a bike, learning German, organizing important papers, driving on the freeway, and too many other endeavors to list.

I put the legal pads on a shelf in my closet and I haven’t seen them since. When I moved four years ago, they were the last thing on my mind. Now that I’m mostly unpacked, I have no idea where they are. Did I throw them away along with my teenage diaries? I’d like to see what I wrote, just out of curiosity and maybe to find inspiration. I can find my kids’ preschool artwork but not those fucking legal pads.

At least I have that first sentence! And I have a clear memory of Dr. Goldberg, named after my real therapist, Dr. Goldberg, who would lean over and untie my shoe when she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

I could start writing about Dr. Goldberg. Or the sibling rivalry. The bad marriage…why bother? Contrary to Tolstoy’s opinion, unhappy families are all alike, it’s the happy ones that fascinate and deserve scrutiny.

I could write about the affair, which I find I recall in alarming detail, but Don Henley says Don’t look back, you can never look back.

Is he wrong, like Tolstoy? I mean I hate the Eagles, don’t you? Fuck Don Henley! While I decide what to do, you can enjoy another affair I had, with Mr. Michigan, which I called “fiction” to protect the innocent, whoever that was.

When I first heard the premise of The Shape of Water, I immediately thought, “Mrs. Caliban!” Sharing this thought with others, I was forced into an explanation that got me nowhere.

When I read Mrs. Caliban in 1982, I had friends who were reading it as well, and I remember finishing it in one sitting, that’s how compelling it is. At 110 pages, it’s not like I’m bragging. I just don’t see how you could stop once you start.

The shared premise is a woman who falls in love with an amphibian.

I’m not saying that the movie drew from the novella, because there are so many other cinematic and literary instances of inter-species romance. But still. In both cases, the gigantic green creature is everything a woman could long for, especially a lonely woman in a dreary marriage or one who herself feels like a misfit.

I loved the creature in The Shape of Water, who also had an ET thing going for him. His weird gurgles were so poignant! Even though he’s so slimy and fishy, when he stands to his full height and wraps his whatever-they-are around his enthralled love object, he is Cary Grant, and then some.

Mrs. Caliban’s green lover, Larry, is also irresistible.

What is it we want, ladies, that resonates so effectively in the Green Stranger?

Is it the innocence, the purity of purpose, the gentleness? Is it the otherness itself? Or is it that he’s a good listener?

In the movie, he can’t speak. Think about it. No mansplaining. Ever. No criticism! No one to say, “Could you please remember to put the cheese back in the fridge and seal the bag properly?”

Is it the fact that he’s probably never had a woman before you, so you are the best fuck ever? I’m just throwing that out there as I explore this, okay? I already know I’m the best fuck ever, but some people might worry about that kind of thing.

Let’s get back to the listening. A Green Stranger who stares into your eyes and understands you, isn’t bored by you, isn’t checking a device or butting in with his devil’s advocate shit…how good is that?? He is a child, a lover, a protector, a best friend, and he’s able to love with his whole heart.

I am thrilled to report that Mrs. Caliban (by Rachel Ingalls) is now back in print, and a million online reviews are calling it a lost treasure. I didn’t know it was lost, but now it’s back and I think you should read it. After all these year, it remains in my memory like a haunting, glimmering dream. A bonus for completists is that her other books are good, too.

The other night, I was upset by something someone had dropped into a phone conversation, and for hours afterward I struggled with the impulse to demand an explanation or retraction.

By struggle, I mean I actually had to stop myself repeatedly from sending an email to outline my hurt feelings and question the person’s motives.  Why bring that thing up? Why are you being hostile? What was your goal in saying the mean thing?

I needed my husband to talk me down; I stopped feeling agitated and accepted that for the greater good I could just let it go.

For me, this is a real triumph. My whole life seems like a series of embattled relations with someone or other due to the fact that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I just remembered that my dad used to call me ‘bigmouth’ when he was mad.  He also called me ‘dummy’ but bigmouth felt like a worse insult.

When I was a kid, I loved my book of Aesop’s Fables. The illustrations were nice and the morals were easy to understand. But there was one story called ‘The Turtle Who Couldn’t stop Talking’ that I felt was directed at me personally:

There’s this really talkative turtle who wants to travel across the sea. He asks a pair of swans if they will carry him across by holding a stick in their beaks. He can just hang on by his teeth. The swans warn the turtle that if he opens his mouth, he will fall. Half way across the ocean, the turtle has a comment to make and can’t contain himself. He starts to speak and falls.

I guess the moral is Keep Your Mouth Shut. Who the fuck thought of that moral, Stalin?

In any case, my stubborn belief in freedom of expression has brought plenty of unhappiness but I persist in shooting my mouth off at the slightest impetus. I hate rules that threaten my so-called efforts at honesty and frankness.

Revealing myself is easy. It just comes naturally. Shutting up is hard.  But just shutting up on this one occasion has been so positive!

The power to shut up is worth developing. We’ll see if I can keep it up.

Late in 2012, I became Facebook friends with a famous writer. I considered him one of the most talented writers around, a truly unique and brilliant voice. His novels are dark and disturbing but also hilarious.

He not only accepted my friend request, but he sent me a message to say he liked my blog. It was like being blessed by the Pope, only better.

We started to write messages back and forth and exchanged email addresses, We shared a depressed but cynically amused world view and had many of the same literary heroes. We even shared a love/hate relationship with weightlifting.

We decided to talk on the phone. I loved his deep voice and I loved his ideas. Here he was, a living god, and he seemed to really enjoy talking to me.

Our conversations weren’t sexual or even suggestive, but it was like a love affair based on a mutual sensibility. That’s how I saw it.

We talked about suicide and his experience helping a deeply depressed friend. I told him that I was struggling, and his insights were comforting and useful.

He told me about a crazy girlfriend who had shattered his belief in his own judgement. She had bailed on him without warning and married some other guy. I agreed with his diagnosis of her and we spent many hours going over the awfulness of dealing with Borderline Personality Disorders.

We talked about the reasons I haven’t tried to tackle a serious writing project. He encouraged me to take the plunge despite my fear of failure and all the usual bullshit that people who can’t write a novel like to use as excuses for their lack of effort or talent.

Then, he offered to be my writing mentor.

It was like a beautiful dream where everything you ever wanted plots right into your lap! I was beside myself with excitement. And even hope. Now I would write something long, something that needed to be expressed in words, in order to both ensure my sanity and justify my worthless existence.

I started to write the story of Max.

I started with the end and worked backwards. I recounted every detail, trying to capture everything. the terror and shock and grief and remorse and most of all the love.

I sent him the six pages and he was supportive, although not exactly bowled over. He reminded me that you can’t just report things, even in a memoir. You have to create a whole world.

And then he disappeared.

He didn’t respond to my phone messages or emails. There was only silence.

I began to worry that he thought I was a stalker, that’s how many messages I left. I became paranoid, wondering if someone had turned him against me. I regretted writing the six pages of complete shit. How dare I have such an inflated opinion of myself to try to write something that mattered!

Then he reappeared. He was sorry about the long silence but things had been rough. However, now he had exciting news. He was deliriously in love with a much younger women but everything was perfect. She was incredibly talented and beautiful and was about to move in with him. They had only just become lovers but they were picking out name for their children. He would support her while she wrote her masterpiece. I think he even gave her a diamond ring.

I was stunned by his story, especially after the long silence. I tried to be happy for him even though I was pretty sure the romance would end badly for him. After another long silence, he called me to let me know that she’d disappeared. She left the ring but took the high-end clothes he bought for her.

We laughed about the clothes. I felt terrible for him. Two crazy girlfriends in a row, and I mean crazy.

Then he disappeared again. And I decided to forget about him. Maybe he was like my own crazy girlfriend, the one whose red flags I refused to notice.

I didn’t try to finish the Max story. I guess it’s a story to carry in my heart until I see him again.

In my continuing effort to make life livable, I’ve sunk to self-help books. It’s a poignant conundrum. The more you succumb to self-help books, the more of a loser you are, by definition.

Still. I have high hopes for The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. a worldwide best seller that makes a bold promise:

In this book, I have summed up how to put your space in order in a way that will change your life forever.

The book is slim, like The Prophet, and similarly filled with wisdom, only more useful wisdom. I vaguely recall stuff from The Prophet, like your children are arrows and sadness is a well or something. Great.

But compare that to the revelation that everything you own should spark joy. If you pick something up and you don’t feel any joy, YOU DON’T KEEP IT!

It’s such a huge but simple concept. All the shit you’ve acquired is shit that you have to put somewhere and there’s just too much of it. Duh, you know that. But you don’t know how to cull your stuff, and you’ve tried so many times. You can’t get rid of stuff because you paid good money for it, you might need it, you might lose weight. it’s a memento, it was a gift, it isn’t broken, one day you’ll give it to someone.

Anyway, the first brilliant edict from the author, Marie Kondo, that shook me to the core was this:

Don’t demote clothing to ‘lounge-wear.’

Right?!? Even my husband admitted to this practice. If something is too ugly or worn out to wear in public, you put it with your PJ’s.  Ms. Kondo insists that even when you’re at home, you should be wearing something that sparks your joy. Right now I’m wearing a green tank top that I’m going to throw away later tonight, because the color and cut bring me NO FUCKING JOY, none.

It’s that simple.

So, I’m not following Kondo’s instructions to the letter but I’m making a start. I emptied each drawer of my dresser and picked up each item. If there was a distinct No Joy feeling, I made a contemptuous face and threw it on the floor. If there was a ‘meh’ feeling, I hesitated.

But I did collect two bags of shit to throw away. I have to go around the house and do this with everything. It will be exhausting but I think I can eliminate tons of stuff from my amassed belongings, which have become burdensome.

I also got a book for parents whose adult children hate them. It is somewhat comforting.

Throwing shit out is the way to go, the road to harmony and contentment. Maybe the less I need, the less needy I will seem. I will be spartan, disciplined, and self-contained. I will accept no nonsense from green tank tops.

And throwing shit out puts you in a position of power, which is good. Like George Bush said about Donald Rumsfeld, I am The Decider.