Secular ramblings on Holidays, winter, and the War on Christmas

I know Kayla does most of the writing for this blog and I typically keep to painting, but here’s a little something from the painter’s perspective. 

A few notes about Christmas.

I get very annoyed at secular people who answer paranoid Fox News viewing Christians in a reassuring, reasonable tone that there is in fact no “war on Christmas.” “Holidays” is a blanket term for that rich period of celebration between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, no we are not at all offended if someone were to wish us a “Merry Christmas” we just say “Happy Holidays” as a vague and polite nod to those who may not celebrate Christmas, and no, “X-mas” is not an attempt to secularize Christmas as “X-mas” has been around for centuries and the “X” is really another designation of The Cross or simply Christ. These are of course all true, but what they don’t say, and this is what annoys me, is while there is no calculated, conspiratorial “war on Christmas” we, secular people, would really like to see “Christmas” used less often. While we do not work actively against it, we would like to see “Christ” taken out of “Christmas,” not because we are offended by it necessarily, but because it is simply inaccurate, divisive, and confusing.

Since leaving Florida I have become keenly aware of how much of a melting pot this country really is. I’ve spent winters in Northern Ohio, New York City, and Boston. While New York City is the ultimate melting pot, Boston is, in its own right, a very cosmopolitan city. So many people are non Christian it just seems stupid to wish them a “Merry Christmas” even if they do put up a Christmas tree, attend Christmas parties, and exchange gifts. What does Christmas even mean if you’re not a Christian? It also seems unnecessarily divisive to pay attention to everyone’s affiliation and wish them the appropriate sentiment for the season. “Happy Holidays,” likewise, is unnecessarily vague. We all know what we’re celebrating and we’re all celebrating the same thing: winter.

Everything that I’m about to say will probably seem agonizingly obvious to anyone who grew up in the northern half of the United States, Canada, Europe, et al. However, to a Florida native many of these concepts are only just now dawning on me even after being away from Florida for 8 years. By the end of November, all the leaves have fallen from the trees and the days get noticeably short. I wake up in the morning to darkness and I commute home from work in darkness. Even during the day if I were to take a walk in the brisk late autumn afternoon odds are the sun will be obscured by a white haze of stratus clouds. The sky will be an unbroken wash of white; the sun completely indiscernible. I often get annoyed when I talk about the winter in Boston (or New York, or Ohio) with Floridians. They don’t get it. It’s not about the cold. Of all the irritating and terrible things northerners have to tolerate during the winter, the cold is the least of them. We can fight the cold with sweaters, coats, scarves, blankets, space heaters, et cetera. The worst part of the winter is the darkness. In my naïve youth I thought that seasonal affective disorder related to Christmas; that adults became very depressed around Christmas time because the magic and glee of their youth surrounding Christmas had withered. How stupid was I? Nearly everyone I speak to claims to suffer from seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, starting in November. This is natural. Humans are diurnal creatures. This past November (or it may have even been late October), one Saturday morning after opening my blinds to see a third cloudy, sunless day in a row I violently ripped all the blinds from my windows in a desperate attempt to let in as much light as possible and then sat on my couch in my pajamas sobbing.

Everything is harder in the winter. You wake up in total darkness. You have to give yourself extra time in the morning to put on your sweater, light jacket, heavy coat, wool scarf, earmuffs, gloves, thick socks, tall boots. You can’t run for the train or bus because a snow bank blocks your way; you just watch the train or bus go by without you. If you drive to work, your car is covered in ice and fogged up, so you have to chisel the ice from your windshield and sit in your car for 15 minutes while it warms up and defrosts. Ice and snow cover the road. Snow covers the train tracks. Everything moves slower. The train is over heated and you’re wearing way too many layers. Your skin’s dry because of the cold winter air. Your wool sweater scratches at your dry skin. When you get to the office you begin your ritual undressing: gloves, earmuffs, heavy coat, light jacket, scarf, boots, socks. During the day the sun is nowhere to be seen; the sky is a uniform white sheet. The ground is brown and grey. The trees have no leaves. You leave the office in total darkness.

And then there’s the rain. In the Midwest, snow begins pretty early. While I was in Ohio the first real snow fell late in November. In the Northeast, most of the snow falls in January and February. Snow, when it first falls, is magical. The white snow reflects the meager sunlight and brightens the landscape. However, in the weeks approaching Christmas, snow is rare in Boston and instead Boston does what Boston does best: freezing rain. Rain in other parts of the country is different from rain in Florida. Outside of Florida, when it rains, it rains for days. The sky is not a magnificent symphony of cumulous and cumulonimbus clouds flashing with lightning and booming with thunder. No. Instead we get nimbostratus clouds stretching through a grey expanse of eternity. Sad, pathetic, drizzling rain sometimes no more than a heavy mist. In Boston, umbrellas are often useless. The streets of downtown Boston are a series of wind tunnels and I’ve seen umbrellas torn to shreds while people try in vain to shield themselves from the wind and rain. During these multi day periods of rain, the sidewalks are often littered with the dismembered corpses of umbrellas. In the late fall the rain is ice cold, and often falls as ice only to melt in the air shortly before hitting the ground. The rain soaks your clothes and the wind chills you to the core.

As a child growing up in Florida I had a academic understanding of the Christmas tree as a symbol of hope during a harsh winter that spring will come and the landscape will be flourishing with life again. In fact, I remember making jokes with my siblings about how silly it is to put up a Christmas tree when there’s so much light, color and life right outside. I now understand with emotional certainty the necessity of such a symbol. I do not put up a Christmas tree in my house as they have negative religious associations I’d rather not feel while I’m trying to stave off seasonal affective disorder. The most direct way to combat seasonal affective disorder is to buy a bunch of lamps. However in my coffin sized apartment surface area is at a premium and in my ancient apartment building a blown fuse is a near weekly occurrence. I therefore set up tea lights everywhere. I also got the notion to purchase red roses and red carnations and set them up in vases all over my house. I tied red ribbons on my curtains. I realize, of course, that I’d created my own kind of Christmas tree. Lights and splashes of color; plant life in my house to give me hope that winter will end and light and color will come back to the landscape. It’s appropriate that the colors for Christmas are red and green; the colors of berries and flowers on green plants, the colors of life. Likewise, our symbols for Christmas; evergreen trees, mistletoe, and holly; are all plants that remain flourishing during the winter.

I’ve noticed personally that thinking of others and giving gifts is an effective way to stave off the everyday depression of my life. People have known this forever and it therefore follows that during the darkest time of year when we’re feeling our most depressed, we give gifts to other people.

This is why we decorate our homes with plants and candles. This is why we buy each other gifts. Darkness, sunless skies, cold, barren trees, dead grass, days of freezing rain, itchy skin: these all lead to crippling winter time depression. Tensions run high. You can see it in people’s faces as they walk through the city. You can see it in their eyes while they sit in trains and buses. We have a basic need to come together during this time; to commiserate over hot mulled wine, warm whiskey apple cider, and big pots of eggnog with extra brandy. We’re not celebrating the birth of a magical god child. That’s just silly. In fact, making a big deal about emphasizing Christ during this time of year is just the thing to divide us when all we want to do is come together.

I was in the grocery store a few days before Christmas and a cashier wished an old lady a “Merry Christmas.” The old lady made a big fuss about how happy she was someone finally wished her a “Merry Christmas” instead of the more PC “Happy Holidays.” Her reaction made me angry. I wanted to commit a heinous act of violence against this sweet, old lady (as I say, tensions run high). It’s because of her, and people like her, that my “Holiday” card list was broken into four baffling sections: 1) Christmas, 2) Hanukkah, 3) Non-Christian, non-Jewish, religious, and 4) Secular, when all I wanted to do was send out a nice message to everyone I care about wishing them a warm winter full of color and light. That’s what we’re celebrating: not “Holidays,” and certainly not “Christmas.”

Parikh wedding

I know I’ve let Kayla carry the blog for far too long. Painting is hard and I’ve been delayed due to some commissioned work I’ve been doing for the last several months. Here is an example!

The Voice of the Universe

New short story! I’ve actually been working on it for a while, but I couldn’t get the ending right. This is the fourth or fifth attempt, and the first one I don’t hate.

The Voice of the Universe

“Telepathy,” Beth, her face on the table, murmurs through her fallen hair.

“What?”

“Telepathy. Reading minds.” A twitch, and then her neck cranes up as if she were a puppet, as if the top of her skull were being tugged on a string. “It doesn’t work very well yet.”

“It works?” My voice chirps high, skeptical.

“Not well.” Beth’s head sinks back down, the string cut. “You can only hear surface thoughts. What people are immediately thinking, right? You can’t – dig. Or probe. Or lead. Just hear.”

“Have you tried it?” The drunk part of my brain asks aloud, while the part of me that still thinks it’s sober laughs: this is just some science fiction bullshit. She’s trying to be cute. She is very cute in a nerdy way.

“No, I haven’t tried it.” She glares, ash-blonde hair in her eyes again. A group of hipsters slosh by, knocking her red leather handbag to the floor. “Fucking jerks. And you, do you think we’re in a fucking comic book or something?” Beth gropes for her bag, settles it on her lap. “Of course I don’t get to try Telephrax. They have test subjects. Volunteers. From the military, all of them. And there are procedures. You give – you inject a subject with 20 cc’s, it takes an hour or so to kick in, and then you put him in a room with a few – it’s a whole thing. Anyway, it works. It just isn’t very good yet.” She worries at the clasp on her bag. “They’re pleased – the DoD – that we’ve been able to get this far, but it’s not what they want.”

“What do they want?”

Her eyes widen. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. I should go. I’m sorry, Tim. I need to go.” She staggers, the scarlet handbag swaying wildly from her wrist, all theatrical anxiety.

I grab her hand. “Stay. It’s all right. Who would I tell? I don’t believe you anyway.” We don’t believe? says drunk brain. She’s making it up so I’ll think she’s interesting, but it’s a good story, says sober brain. Cleavage! says penis, and he’s right – as Beth sits back down, her draped neckline is settling low over her breasts. Small breasts, but she’s thin, and very tall, awkward in her height and her entire self. I usually find myself with short, crass, stupid women, and they’ve all been such disasters that when this tall scientist – a scientist! not another marketing girl or wannabe photographer or a film studies student, but an actual educated person, a lady scientist – when she sent a tentative, awkward message to my profile, I responded immediately, asking her out for a drink.

One drink became many. “You won’t tell anybody,” Beth affirms, smiling. She has a lovely smile. Her mouth is long, not full, and the pleased lines of it sweep her bony, horsey jawbones into a pretty triangle. “No one would believe you if you told. It sounds so bullshit, doesn’t it? I’d explain how we developed it but you’re not a science person. You wouldn’t get it.”

“Is that a problem? That I’m a paralegal? That I’m more of a words guy?” I sip my forgotten beer, and she seems to remember the whiskey soda at her elbow. Her tongue curls around the straw, and all parts of me – drunk, sober, and permanently questionable – are transfixed by that red straw and red tongue. She sucks at the straw, then glances up through pale lashes coated with black mascara in quick and sloppy gobs. “It’s not a problem,” she says, and smiled again.

Maybe I’m in love. I shouldn’t say that. I shouldn’t think that – I hope she was telling the truth about never trying – “What was it called? Telephrax?”

She groans and flops onto the table again. “I should never have told you. It’s secret. There are security clearances – I haven’t told my parents, or Vanessa – ok, I told Thoth. That’s my cat. Now you know everything about me. I’m twenty-nine, I haven’t had a boyfriend in forever, and I tell state secrets to my cat. And nice men I meet on the Internet, apparently.”

Nice men. I am a nice man. Sober brain thinks this is either a potential liability or an asset, depending on Beth’s experience with nice men. “Am I still a nice man if I think you’re making up all this – Telephrax stuff?”

“That makes you nicer,” she says. Again, the transfiguring smile.

I drain my beer. “I don’t believe you,” I say, taking her hand, “not because I think you’re a liar -” she makes a twisted face that’s meant to look devious – “but because if someone had really invented a drug that made you telepathic, the government would be all over that. Wait – is that what you meant by ‘DoD’? Department of Defense?”

She nods, her hair spilling into her face again. Terrific hair – her best feature, long and wavy and careless. “They want to be able to see inside brains. Reveal secrets. Break people. Surface thoughts don’t help unless someone’s thinking, ‘I hope they don’t realize I’m a terrorist. Also, these are the names of all my contacts and their home addresses.’ People don’t think like that. Someone being interrogated is just going, ‘Please don’t attach electrodes to my balls again.’ They do that kind of thing, you know. Electrocute -” She stops abruptly, eyes widening, as if thinking that a lady isn’t supposed to say ‘balls’ on a first date, twenty-first century or not. Or maybe she thinks she’s said too much. Or maybe, as she stirs her whiskey, she’s deciding that I’m a nice man and too safe, which is why she’s telling me state secrets as though I were her cat. I can be dangerous. I order a dirty vodka martini from a passing waitress.  I drink vodka martinis just like James Bond. I once helped pull a groper away from a woman on the subway. With the help of four other people, we bundled him off at the next stop. He stood there on the platform shouting at us, spit flying as he cursed us. I did it. I was part of heroic action.

“Maybe the DoD doesn’t want it,” I say. “But I would. I’d want to know what people think.” I massage her strong, longfingered hand. Her nails are unpainted and bitten down. She wears several silver rings, most set with big stones, one a complicated twist of interlocking links. “I’d love to know what you’re thinking, right now.”

“I think I’ve had too much to drink,” she mumbles. “This is my last one.”

The waitress hands over the martini. I ask her to close our tab. “Last one, too,” I say to Beth. “I’ll drink it fast.”

*                      *                      *

Drank it too fast and it kicks me all at once. I shouldn’t have eaten the olives – they were fat, full of salt, and likely soaked in vodka for days.  Beth’s head rests on my shoulder, rocking with the motion of the subway train. Taxis make her sick – me too, no one knows how to drive in this city, that’s another thing we have in common, along with being tall and thin and nerdy. Will sex be awkward, our long thin bodies bashed and entangled? Not tonight. She’s too drunk, and I am a nice man. I’ll see her home safe. I’m a knight who rescues women from gropers. I’m a James Bond who can’t handle his vodka.

She’s so drunk she can’t handle her keys. I open the door for her.  A streak of grey vanishes beneath the couch – Thoth, I presume. “Ok there,” I say, settling Beth down on the bed. What a tiny studio. What a sad place for a woman alone, a clever woman who probably makes good money on her Department of Defense project. The Village has gotten expensive these days – no more artists and hippies and heroin addicts, it’s all fussy boutiques and pretentious cafes. Not Beth’s style, either way. Why is she here? She’s a smart, classy lady. She should be on the Upper West Side, or the Upper East, or out of this garbage-strewn borough altogether. Maybe someday, we’ll buy a condo in Brooklyn and raise four tall, thin, nerdy, asthmatic kids.

“I’m so stupid,” she moans from the bed. “This is why I don’t date. I make a fool of myself, I…” Tears flow from her grey-green eyes, turning black as they pass through the mascara.

“You haven’t made a fool of yourself,” I croon, tucking the quilt around her. Grab her breast, says penis. Don’t do it, whispers the ghost of sober brain. I’m prolly gonna throw up! squeals drunk brain. “I’m going to go,” I say. “You’re fine. You’re great. I want to see you again. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow as in Saturday, or – oh God, it’s only Thursday. I’m so drunk. How will I go to work – oh God…”

“Call in sick,” I say, brushing her forehead with my hand, and then my lips. She stops crying. “Call in sick, and then call me. If you want,” I add, because I’m a nice man, and I’m not giving orders.

*                      *                      *

By the time the train arrives, I’ve sobered up a bit. A quick hearty vomit in the stairwell helped. There’s nothing to do but fiddle with my phone while I wait for the train, headphones on so I don’t hear the shouts of disgust as other late-nighters came down the stairs. The train comes at last, half-full of sleepy teenagers and sleeping homeless. But it’s fretting and lurching along the track, creaking and squealing before stopping above the river. It’s only because I’m here, stuck aboveground with good reception, the water glittering with the city’s reflected light, that I decide – on a whim, it’s only a whim – to look up Telephrax.

It’s real. It’s very real. A month ago, there was a big investigative journalism piece in Mother Jones about new and dangerous research sponsored by the DoD. A few other magazines and websites picked up the story. Telephrax is named, as is Oxtraco, Beth’s company. Most sources dismiss Telephrax and other related experiments into telekinesis as a legacy of failed Cold War research into mind-control, or a silly fantasy like the search for a chemical that would make enemy soldiers uncontrollably gay, or a simple example of the bloat and waste of the defense budget. But it’s named. Telephrax is named. And Oxtraco.

So much for science fiction, I think, stumbling off the subway and into the night. It’s all one dark weaving corridor: the station, the streets, the lobby, the hallway, the apartment, my bed. All a piece, all connected, one place leading into another. The entire world is one big house with billions of rooms. Somewhere in the house there’s a room where a soldier sits, sweating, nervous, while the telepathy drug knifes through his body, opening his bloodcells and his mind.

*                      *                      *

I wake at about 5:00 a.m., shaking and approaching sobriety, my glasses still on. Stumbling into the shower and out, putting on black jeans and a blue button-up, making coffee, all on complete autopilot. Has to be autopilot, because the human pilot is busy fucking his copilot who looks just like Beth. She arches her back in ecstasy and slams against a control panel. The plane nosedives.

I find her keys as I’m fumbling through yesterday’s jeans for my phone. After I opened her door last night, I must have blindly stuck them in my pocket. Her ID is attached to the keyring. Elizabeth Susan Branford. God, that’s an Anglo name. She sounds like a society lady, not an awkward sexy lady scientist. Oxtraco. Security Clearance Beta. Beta is good. Beta is probably everything but the top people, the Alphas, the ones with access to the really secret freaky stuff. Experiments on chimpanzees to make them brilliant. Experiments on humans to give them chimpanzee strength. Since Telephrax is real, anything’s on the table.

The thought flashes in my mind, but I dismiss it. It’s not until I’m on the train that it comes back in force.

No, I tell myself. I’m going back to Beth’s. I’m not going to try this, it’s stupid. I’m just going to bring her keys back. And her ID, so she can go to work.

It should be just the two of us now – brain, still struggling through the drunken thicket, and penis, sated by the pilot fantasy and the quick satisfying jerk I had over it. But there’s a third voice, a little insidious thing that whispers she isn’t going to work today. She’s going to call in sick. You could try. It’s worth a try. You’re always talking about how bored you are. For once in your life, you could do something interesting. Be someone interesting.

Then, it’s really a serendipitous message from the universe, isn’t it? That the right connecting train just so happens to be across the platform? Before dawn, too – the odds are astronomical, really. When the universe tries to send you a message, Mom used to say, you should pay attention. The voice of the universe is around us all the time. Mom’s an old hippie, now reformed in a gleaming suburban house and manicured herb garden. We just don’t listen.

*                      *                      *

Afterward, I vomit in a different subway stairwell, not just from residual drunkenness but also from pure strained nerves. No one will ever make a movie about my life, but if they do, they’ll have to completely rewrite the last hour. They’ll add explosions. A sexy double-agent. A tech guy who just needs a minute, dammit. These are the elements required in a break-in at a top-secret lab, right?

The enemy in an action movie is never a tired old security guard buried in a copy of The New York Post. He had a face like Victor Hugo, all heavy brows and full beard and lines of world-sadness. A face of thick inexpressible grief buried in headlines that scream THUG WALKS FREE AFTER ACQUITTAL and KARA TO WED JEFF. I don’t know the court case or the celebrities, but I think I’ll remember those headlines until I die. And Victor Hugo’s face, and the way he didn’t look up as I scanned Beth’s ID.

At Beth’s door, my hands shaking as badly as hers had last night. There isn’t enough space to slide the keys under the door as I’d hoped, so there’s no choice but to enter and hope she’s still asleep. I know I can try to make it charming – that’s right, I’m a bit absent-minded, isn’t it cute? Just dropping your keys off on my way to work, making sure you’re ok. I’m a nice man. But the truth is that I’m not a nice man at all, not even remotely. I need Beth to be asleep. Victor Hugo might not have noticed me, but the scanner and computer that recorded Beth’s ID certainly did. She told me, early in the date, when we were still exchanging shallow personal details, that the culture in her lab (“I mean, not like a culture, you know, not like bacteria, it’s not – anyway”) is one where a few diehards come in early, or sleep there overnight, but most people prefer to come in late and work late. Beth is one of the late ones. Even if she makes it into work today, the computer already recorded that she clocked in inexplicably early, opened several rooms and a refrigerator, and then clocked out ten minutes later. Someone will probably notice. The only thing that matters now is dropping off her keys before she realizes I had them. Goodbye, Elizabeth Susan Branford. Goodbye, brownstone condo. Goodbye, four asthmatic children. If I were a nice man, you might have existed.

Beth is snoring, lying on her face with her hair exploding over the pillow. At some point, she woke up and put on a nightgown. A surprising little number: black silk and white lace, riding high up her smooth thighs. I’m going to cover her with the quilt again – after all, I might not be a nice man, but I can make the pretense, I ought to make the pretense – but Thoth’s stationed himself on the bunched fabric. He stares at me with calm unblinking amber eyes, and growls.

A low, deep mrrrrowl – but he’s not moving. He’s just staring. My parents have cats and I know how they are. When Misty – an ancient grey lady and Mom’s favorite – growls at one of the younger cats, her dry old lips peel back. Her hackles rise, her ears flatten. Her sides vibrate. Maybe this noise is an odd sort of purr? Thoth blinks twice. Mrrrrowl again, motionless.

I turn away and Thoth leaps off the bed. Rubbing against my legs, he mrrrowls and meows simultaneously. Then he dashes over to the kitchenette and rubs against a cupboard. MRRROWL, much louder this time. Get out you idiot, before she wakes up. Thoth meows again, then shrieks.

It’s a horrible sound, a scream of annoyance and want. I pivot, an excuse for Beth on my lips – dropping off your keys, used them to do the worst and bravest thing I’ve ever done, by the way, your cat is a demon – but she’s still asleep. He hasn’t woken her.

Thoth scratches at the cabinet door. He meows with his mouth. He shrieks with his mind.

I understand at that moment that I really hadn’t believed. Despite Beth, despite the article, despite what I’d done – I didn’t really think that Telephrax was real. Even as I crept through the lab (surprisingly small, maybe thirty rooms, a lot like an office building crossed with a college chem building, nothing like the florescent labyrinth that I’d imagined) I just – it was just an experiment, look, here’s Tim trying to be interesting for the first time in his timid life, trading a beautiful woman for the chance to live out a heist fantasy. But now here’s Thoth, worming his way against my legs, trotting back to the cupboard and shrieking again, furious that I don’t understand.

It’s been an hour since I found the Telephrax and injected it.

A small key next to Beth’s ID badge opened the refrigerator labeled Telephrax. Inside it were eight syringes, also labeled with Telephrax and the dosage – 20cc’s. I expected nameless steel and chrome and a retinal scan or something, not a plain little refrigerator with clear direct labels. They’ll notice, wouldn’t they, that a syringe is missing? I should’ve put it back – one of the scientists might think they just forgot to fill it. Instead I pocketed the thing and threw it into the trash blocks later. It was stupid but I was still somewhat drunk, God, I’m still drunk, if I hadn’t been drunk I never would have gone to the lab in the first place. Beth won’t just be in trouble – she could lose her job. Maybe tried for treason. I don’t know the rules.

Beth snores on, her hip lifting with every breath, lifting the nightgown with it, exposing more of her thigh. She has beautiful legs, trim and faultless except for a varicose vein puffing up the inside of her right knee. The nicest pair of legs I’ve ever dated. The smartest woman I’ve ever dated, except that she drinks too much and has bad taste in unkind men. Thoth meows again and weaves around my legs. Shriek! SHRIEK! I can’t hear Beth’s thoughts. She’s probably in a dreamless sleep.

As I tuck the quilt around her, her eyelids flicker. She murmurs into her pillow. I can’t make out those words but I can hear the others. Help will go get no stop can’t save Then silence. A nightmare, a vision of helplessness. “I’m sorry,” I think at her. She doesn’t seem to hear me.

Thoth scratches at the edge of the bed, claws grating as he howls, this time vocalizing. Beth stirs and groans but doesn’t open her eyes. I place her keys on the floor and run.

*                      *                      *

Sober at last and regretting it. I regret taking the subway to work – as much as I hate cabs, I should have taken a cab. Then it would just be the cabbie’s thoughts. I should have stayed home – a man doesn’t gain telepathy powers every day – but I should try to look innocent in case they come after me. I need to go about my day as though nothing has changed.

The voices…they’re like a radio I can’t turn off. Like the official radios in North Korean houses that have no power button and can’t be muted. I try to block the voices out with music for a few stops. With the Strokes as loud as I can stand them, the voices become an annoying buzz, the words indistinguishable. I’m dizzy, feverish. My head’s an iron collar choking a restive straining animal. I should have asked about the side effects. “Beth, I’m a terrible person and I’m going to steal your secret government project. I’m not a spy, just an asshole. Can I have a list of the potential side effects? Listen, at what point should I call my doctor?”

The seat next to me opens up. A dumpy middle-aged woman is about to take it, but a young woman in headphones and a pretty dress slides in, oblivious. FUCKING STUPID BITCH the older woman screams silently above my music kids paying no attention to anyone how would you like it if I wrapped those headphones around your neck you SKANK I should choke your life out you WHORE

I get up and stumble into the next car. There’s one empty seat, but it’s next to a ragged homeless man crouched over himself, holding out his hands as if for balance or prayer.

Jesus JESUS I won’t let them near me again CIA wants to stick me with a needle again NSA FBI KGB NHS FDA Bilderberg they all want me for my powers I’m the strongest no one knows I’m the strongest there ever was I won’t let them mindcontrol me again no stopit STOPIT

So loud. He’s so loud. Everyone’s so loud. I take off my headphones and it’s like Niagara Falls, a thousand voices roaring, clamoring, begging, moaning.

My head blazes with pain. Go home no they’ll catch me I can’t Was that my own voice or someone else’s? I should have asked Beth more about it. How long does it last, Beth? Is it a few hours, a day or two?

The woman clutching the pole is thinking about her shopping list. Cherry tomatoes. The organic zucchini. Fresh buffalo mozzarella. And oh, that Roquefort, the expensive one, everyone was so impressed last week. But if I get the same one again! they might think I’m a  GREY a GREY Not words – she’s thinking of a grey vocal blur, an expanse of nothing, a blurt of meaningless noise. Whatever she’s afraid of being, she can’t even describe it to herself.

There are thirty or fourty people in the subway car. Some are asleep. Some are listening to music and thinking only of it. Some people don’t seem to be thinking of anything at all. I prefer that to the obese man a few feet away and his disgusting erotic fantasy Ooh you’re bad you’re such a fat fucking slug we’re gonna forcefeed you raw beef until you

I move through the car, ducking around people what’s wrong with this guy    why can’t he stand still    it’s too early in the morning for this shit

The telepathy seems to have a range of maybe five feet. I escape the fucked-up fat man and find a clear space – three napping women and a suited man intent on his Kindle. He’s a well-built guy, his suit pinstriped and elegantly tailored, his blond hair threaded with silver. There’s a Cartier on his wrist. Probably a corporate lawyer, or an advertising guy, or some other highpowered important thing. I listen to him read. His mental voice is crisp and clear:

“To this celestial tenderness, he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil in man. He felt dimly that the pardon of the priest was the hardest assault, and the most formidable attack which he had yet sustained; that the hardness of heart would be complete, if it resisted this kindness; that if he yielded, he must renounce that hatred with which he found satisfaction; that this time, he must conquer or be conquered, and that the struggle, a gigantic and decisive struggle, had begun between his own wickedness, and the goodness of man.”

 The man smiles as he finishes the paragraph. Isn’t that Les Miserables? I haven’t read the book since college but I’m pretty sure that’s it. What are the odds that on the same day, this big day, maybe the most important day of my life, I see a man who’s a dead ringer for Victor Hugo and another man reading Les Miserables? The universe is  trying to tell me something,

The man looks up. Now what is this freak staring at? His mental voice descends into an unintelligible growl, then back to This is why I don’t take the subway.

Beth, I’m done. I want it to go away now. When does it stop?

Now the fucking psycho is talking to himself, thinks Mr. Cartier Watch. I’m trying to read my book in peace. Half the population should be locked up. Again his voice descends into a growl like a torrent of brackish water. It eddies off into nothingness as the doors open.

It’s a major transfer stop and a lot of people crowd on, bringing their breath and their smells and their body heat and their voices, which crash and roll and crescendo over each other. I’m beginning to feel sick again, my forehead tight and feverish, contracting around my skull.

Everyone’s pressed in tight and I can’t reach my headphones.

The woman closest to me, her voice is whitewater rapids fierce and pressurized everyone else is talking it’s too much it was all a mistake why can’t I take it back.

Got to get    why is it so hard to    forgot my fucking scarf    I hate him   oh I can’t fucking believe I forgot    he didn’t mean it no    what if she notices    ungh and then he moves his hand up ungh yes    so tired    bitch get the FUCK OUT OF MY FACE   

Crowd of anonymous squalling strangers. A river of selves interweaving. I can’t see I can’t hear myself in the cacophony it no longer matters. I hear everything. I hear nothing.

*                                  *                                  *

The universe had been in tune with Trudy that day. When she walked into the lobby sandwich shop, there had just been one vegan avocado wrap left: three hundred calories, low fat, very low carb. Trudy wasn’t a vegan but she was dieting, or trying as best she could. It wasn’t easy when people brought in cookies and donuts all the time. But Trudy had avoided the sugary minefield all morning and there it was, a beautiful lunchtime reward, the very last healthy sandwich.

She ate it in the park because it was lovely out and she was tired of eating at her desk. Since it was the first warm spring day, everyone one else had the same idea and the park was packed. Trudy was only able to find an empty bench because there was a homeless man lolling in the one next to it, and no one else had been willing to get close. But Trudy wasn’t the sort who was afraid of the homeless – she’d volunteered in shelters when she was younger, and always gave a dollar to beggars when she had cash. It drove her husband crazy – you’re enabling them, they’re just going to spend it on booze or crack – so Trudy had compromised, and stopped being charitable in his presence.

The homeless man sprawled on the next bench was tall, gaunt, and younger than most. His clothes looked like they had been nice once, but now they were filthy – truly filthy, the blue cambric shirt crusted and stained, and he stank. Gaping holes in his black jeans revealed pale legs fuzzed with grimy hair.

He was so young. Trudy thought he wasn’t much older than her son Nick, who was doing much better, thank God, it turns out that a year off from grad school was good for him. It wasn’t what her friends had thought – Nick didn’t have a drug problem, he was just stressed out and doubtful about his future, can you blame him? None of her friends had suggested anything, of course, but they’d all had that same expression your child is a mess how rough that must be you poor dear. Trudy was very good and reading faces – she prided herself on it. She’d read her friends’ gleeful concern and watched it flicker into disappointment and smug doubt as she explained.

Trudy finished one half of the wrap and started on the other. If the homeless man had stirred, she would have offered him the other half, but he hadn’t and she was glad of it, she was hungry, this sticky mess of avocado and hummus was barely enough to tamp down the floating burn of hunger.

The poor man was probably hungry, and he was also probably a drug addict. The torn and filthy clothes meant he wasn’t sleeping in a shelter. Trudy knew about the horrible conditions in men’s shelters but at least they were places to sleep, places to get into the system and maybe get some help. This man was probably too sick and paranoid for even that.

Trudy wasn’t the only one watching the homeless man – across the path, a black-jacketed man sat typing on a black laptop, glancing up every few seconds to stare. “A writer exploiting someone else’s misery for his own ends,” thought Trudy, hating him.

But maybe he wasn’t a writer at all, because he had a companion, probably a girlfriend though she was a bit young for him. She was a tall stringy blonde, her face a tense mask except for her rapidly blinking clumped lashes. She stared at the homeless man too, then down at the red coffee cup she gripped in clawlike hands.

“Well, if that is her boyfriend,” thought Trudy, “He ought to pay more attention to her, she seems like a nice girl.”

The homeless man stirred, and looked at Trudy. He had hollow, pained green eyes, deep-set and made deeper by fear and exhaustion. Trudy finished the last few bites of her wrap, feeling guilty that she hadn’t tried to offer him the other half. “Because then you could have justified buying another sandwich,” said the snippy voice of her selfishness, what little she had of it. “Something with meat and bread, since you’re going to be hungry in an hour. Don’t pretend this is about altruism.”

“Maybe not,” Trudy replied to herself, then took out her phone, intending to read the news for fifteen more minutes before heading back to the office.

She glanced at the homeless man – he was still staring at her, his mouth open slightly. There was a look on his face of absolute want – the way her son had looked at her when he was an infant, when he needed to nurse but couldn’t express his hunger.

“Poor guy,” she thought as she hurried away.

Hurricanes, Hipsters, and the Anxiety of Influence

This post is so hipster, I could weep:

gawkercom:

Last night at Williamsburg’s most popular gay bar, the Metropolitan, it barely felt like Halloween. It was packed with guys who weren’t in costume. Those who were dressed up mostly came as women — some woman, any woman — which they probably don’t need Halloween as an excuse to do. The music was normal, barely spooky. Siouxsie & the Banshees’ “Peek a Boo” bled into a key-clashing mash-up of Madonna’s “Holiday” and Kelis’ “Milkshake.” I did hear “Thriller,” the sound of the season, as I headed outside into weather that was a little too warm, but perfectly crisp for Oct. 31.

Things are a little askew – not enough to be wildly fucked up, but it’s that small degree that makes for intense surreality. It changes the tint so that the weirdness is vivid, despite being scant. A giant storm crippled my great city. It’ll be months before everything is normal, and yet from my window, it rained a little before settling into a week-long overcast funk. I can go anywhere and get anything I need on foot. New York is hurting and Williamsburg is, “Meh,” as ever.

…

I’m writing this in the middle of a disaster that has altered my day-to-day but has barely inconvenienced my life so far. I’m a bridge-walk away from the frustration I’m watching continuously on TV. I’m a little more cooped up, a little more frozen, a little more eager for every day to be over so I can sit some more waiting for the next. And then things are cleaned up and all of this is behind us, will this specific Sandy experience even be worth remembering?

Ah, who cares anyway? This week is barely real, despite-slash-because our being handed more reality than ever before. This week doesn’t count.

- Rich

Everyone disagrees on the definition of a hipster. Is a hipster just somebody who lives in Williamsburg? Is it someone who wears vintage oddly-matched clothes, someone who drinks artisanal beers, someone who only listens to unknown unpleasant Brooklyn music?

I define hipster as an attitude, but one that’s hard to describe. The post above, however, is a perfect example of this attitude.

Like Rich, I live in a Brooklyn neighborhood that was barely affected by Sandy. My friends in other parts of the city lost power, water, and heat, and many of them don’t have any utilities back yet. An acquaintance’s grandmother lost her home in the Breezy Point conflagration. Like Rich, I’ve been struck by a sense of unreality: a few miles away, people suffered and died during the storm, but in my apartment, we watched movies and ate too much.

“And then [sic] things are cleaned up and all of this is behind us, will this specific Sandy experience even be worth remembering?”

The hipsterness of this piece rests on phrases like “worth remembering” and in the general air of disconnected displeasure. Why is it so crucial to Rich that his private experience of a huge natural disaster is tragic and exciting? Why is it necessary to judge the ‘worthiness’ of one’s memories immediately after they’re formed?

A hipster is the living embodiment of the Anxiety of Influence. Every thought, every interaction, every relationship is self-consciously dissected in the sense of cosmic importance – what does my experience mean within the context of everyone else’s experiences? How do I fit within the cultural confines of my generation? Is my life interesting? Am I unique in this world? Are my relationships tumultuous enough to be special? If anyone were watching a movie of my life, would they turn it off? If I create art, will it outlast me? Will my art speak to any kind of generational experience? Can I create art that has any kind of uniqueness?

Over 2300 years ago, the author of Ecclesiastes wrote: “there is nothing new under the sun.” If nothing was new under the sun 2300 years ago, it certainly isn’t now. So no, you’re not unique. Your independent existence is not as independent or unusual as you hope it is. Even if you create art – even if you create great art – you may not ever be acknowledged and even if you are, you may be forgotten in 15 minutes, or 15 years, or 150 years. That’s been the fate of every human being since at least the writing of Ecclesiastes.

I certainly appreciate the power of this anxiety and its grip on the psyche. But in the end, you only have four ways to address the Anxiety of Influence:

1) Try to get over it

2) Kill yourself

3) Find religion

4) Obsess about your private experience and whether or not any else has blogged about that microbrew or worn a leather belt with a skater dress or played that genre of music or if your lucky survival in the face of intense human suffering is meaningful and all the other tiny unimportant details that will not immortalize your identity.

Why Atlas Can’t Shrug

I still haven’t read Atlas Shrugged. I keep meaning to, if only because the book and Rand’s ideas in general have seriously altered American political culture. However, every time I go to pick up the book, I can’t get over the fact that her central image is just plain wrong. Atlas can’t shrug; the fact that Rand thinks he could points to a fundamental and probably intentional misunderstanding of Greek mythology.

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?” ” To Shrug.”(1)

To start, Atlas isn’t carrying the world on his shoulders. He’s carrying the sky, and he’s not doing it because he’s a great man, a sacrificing man, a misunderstood genius forced by flawed compassion to help the weak parasites of society. That great man does partially exist in Greek mythology, but he’s Atlas’ clever brother, Prometheus.

There was a war between the Titans and the Olympians, the old race of gods and the new one. Atlas – the strongest Titan, but a complete meathead – sided with his own kind. Clever Prometheus saw which way the weather was turning and chose the Olympians(2). After the Titans were defeated, Atlas was punished for picking the wrong side by being forced to hold the sky on his shoulders, forever separating Uranus (the sky) from Gaia (the earth) so that they couldn’t mate and produce more Titans. He stands there, holding the sky, only briefly relieved by Heracles for a few minutes until Heracles tricked him into taking the sky back. Heracles isn’t exactly the brightest bulb himself, so the fact that he was able to trick Atlas is a testament to Atlas’ lack of brains. The Greek Atlas certainly isn’t industry captain John Galt.

Atlas can’t shrug, because if he somehow managed it, Zeus would come by and stick the heavens right back on his shoulders. Atlas’ position isn’t remotely voluntary, or remotely fair. His only real fault was in picking the losing side, but his punishment for it is eternal.

It’s characteristic of Greek mythology that the war between the Titans and the Olympians is presented in an amoral light. Cronus did commit the unpardonable sins of castrating his father and swallowing his sons alive, but human life under his reign is represented as a golden age of peace and harmony. The Olympians whom we know and love are quarrelsome, jealous, frequently cruel, and under them, humans live in a precarious existential universe. In fact, just after the Olympians won the war, human life was especially cruel and cold. Humans had no fire and therefore no civilization; fire, as one of the first human inventions, necessarily symbolizes culture and technology. From being cold and at the mercy of the elements, we became warm and comfortable and able to invent more things to keep us warm and comfortable. Fire, of course, is also dangerous, as culture and technology are always potentially dangerous.

In Greek mythology, humans didn’t create fire. Prometheus, looking down from the heavens, fresh in his victory over his own kind, pleased that he picked the  winning team, felt sorry for the shivering humans. He stole the holy fire from the gods and gave it to the grateful masses. There are other a few other, less familiar Prometheus stories. In some, he actually made humans from clay(3), and so it was his own creation that he pitied. In others, he defined the nature of sacrifice. Greek animal sacrifices involved the burnt offering of the bones and fat – the inedible parts – to the gods. The edible parts were then cooked and eaten by people as part of a religious feast. The origin story for this practice involves Prometheus tricking the other gods into accepting the lesser sacrifice(4). In all the different Prometheus stories, he defies the other gods to give humans the most essential gifts – fire, life, and food.

Prometheus is punished for his various crimes – usually the theft of fire is considered the most serious one – by being chained to a rock and having his liver ripped out daily by an eagle. He remains in agony until Heracles, yet again, comes along and sets him free, not temporarily like Atlas but permanently.(5)

So, why isn’t the title of the Rand’s book Prometheus Unchained, or something like it? Isn’t Prometheus a better example of the captain of industry, the smart man chained by his compassion?

Prometheus felt sorry for humans, who were suffering. Zeus punished him for the theft, but we don’t emotionally side with Zeus. We identify as the humans who were once cold and suffering, and so Zeus’ punishment seems cruel and arbitrary. Zeus, nominally a god of justice, frequently acts in cruel, arbitrary ways. He’s a rapist and a murderer; the punishments he decrees often outweigh the crimes.

There’s a thread of subversion – of defiance of authority – underlying almost every Greek myth and I think it’s no accident that the Greeks were the first people to systematize democracy. Compare the Prometheus myth to the biblical myth of the Fall. Eve ate an apple from the Tree of Knowledge – stealing knowledge from God in a very similar way to Prometheus’ theft of fire and all it symbolizes – and is punished with banishment, the pains of childbirth, and the implied righteous subjugation of women to men. I know some people including my father like to re-imagine Eve as a heroine, as a brave woman who defied authority to gain knowledge, and that knowledge is itself considered an inherent good. But this is a post-Enlightenment idea. Reading the biblical text, it’s clear that Eve is in the wrong. After all, it wasn’t even her idea – the snake led her to it. Innocence is a virtue, knowledge is a painful, God is right, woman (and man, to a lesser degree) is wrong.

However, in the Prometheus story, we’re left with the undeniable impression that the gods are wrong. Prometheus looks down from a height of privilege and feels pity. His punishment is incredibly harsh, but it isn’t even permanent. Heracles, Zeus’ half-human hero son, representing both the splendor of the gods and the mortal frailties of humanity, sets him free. The Greek gods are both unjust and quite fallible.

In Euripides’ The Bacchae, Dionysus enacts a somewhat justified but extremely cruel revenge against his human relatives.(6) His aunt Agave, who suffered the most from his vengeance, asks “Should a god be like a proud man in his rage?” Dionysus merely responds “‘Tis as my sire, Zeus, willed it long ago.”(7) There’s no sense of righteousness or justice – the gods act as they please. The implicit idea is that power isn’t representative of virtue – power is power. The “right to rule” is an arbitrary thing. Uranus reigns, then Cronus castrates him and takes his place, then Zeus rises to defeat Cronus. In The Iliad, it’s emphasized over and over that Zeus’ reign is based upon the fact that he’s merely stronger than the other gods. To give one example, Hera and Zeus are arguing, and Zeus says, “Obey my orders, /for fear the gods, however many Olympus holds, / are powerless to protect you when I come / to throttle you with my irresistible hands.”(8) Zeus is a peevish jerk who’s just bigger than everyone else. Greek democracy was born partially from the idea that those who inherit power are less likely to be righteous and more likely to be proud men in their rage.

Zeus punishes Prometheus for the same reason that an Objectivist scorns charity – giving away the precious resources of the gods dilutes and democratizes power. It’s no accident that Prometheus is also associated with the origin of sacrificial customs, since he sacrificed first the resources of the gods and then his own body. Prometheus’ sacrifice gave humans fire, and with it civilization, because sacrifice is civilization and civilization is sacrifice. Without some sacrifice of our freedoms, we are Lockeian/Hobbesian primitive men caught in the State of Nature. To be social entities – that is, to be human, to be civilized – we are required to make certain sacrifices in order to appease our fellow humans.

Rand chose Atlas for her Titan because the image of Prometheus would destroy her entire argument. Cherry-picking the evidence, she took traits from both brothers, combining the (incorrect) image of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders with Prometheus’ compassion. Disregarding the myths, she created a new one, where Atlas’ punishment is self-inflicted, the result of a societally-created belief in the virtues of compassion. This new image has the advantage of supporting her argument but the disadvantage of being wrong.

Does this wrongness make a difference? Rand hated religion, so does it matter that she misused an image from a dead mythology? I think it matters because by borrowing a bit of Prometheus, Rand necessarily invites us to think about Prometheus, and to examine the Prometheus myth is to call Rand’s ideas about compassion and sacrifice into question. It’s possible that her conflation of Atlas and Prometheus was purely accidental. If so, I doubt she would ever have acknowledged her error – this is the same woman who went on Medicare late in her life, but did it under a false name; to admit she needed help from the government would have been to admit the flaws in her ideas.

(1) From Atlas Shrugged, via Wikiquote. I don’t have a copy of Atlas Shrugged. When the time comes, I think I’ll steal one from a rich guy.

(2) In some versions of the myths, Prometheus remained neutral in the Olympian-Titan war, or remained neutral but gave Zeus advice in secret. (Vernant, Jean Pierre, trans. Linda Asher. The Universe, the Gods, and Mortals. New York: Harper Collins, 2002, p. 49-53)

(3) Ovid, trans. Charles Martin. Metamorphoses. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004, p. 18.

(4) Some versions claim that Zeus withheld fire from humans to punish them for Prometheus’ trick with the sacrifices. (Vernant, p.  53)

(5) According to Vernant, some versions of the myth have Zeus permitting Heracles to free Prometheus. (Vernant, p. 64)

(6) Dionysus is fully divine but has human relatives. It’s complicated.

(7) Oates, Whitney J. and Eugene O’Neill Jr., eds. The Complete Greek Drama. “The Bacchae” translated by Gilbert Murray. New York: Random House, 1938, p. 280.

(8) Homer, trans. Robert Fagles. The Iliad.  New York: Viking Penguin, 1990. p. 96-97

How to be the New York Times Book Review’s Ideal Reader

Molly Templeton pointed out that the New York Times Book Review‘s recent “How-To” issue was painfully sexist. Only two female writers, and they wrote about cooking and raising children. I mean, the year is 1952, so we shouldn’t be too surprised, right? Molly Templeton was annoyed enough to start a How-To blog with submissions from female writers. Since I’ve had problems with the New York Times Book Review for a while now, I decided to write a little how-to guide to being their ideal reader.

How to be the New York Times Book Review’s Ideal Reader

First, it helps to be white and at least middle-class. If you’re not, well, you can still read the New York Times Book Review, but you’ll do it with the nagging suspicion that it isn’t directed at people like you. This isn’t anything new, as you feel like that about most aspects of American society.

Now, you don’t have to agree with every review. In fact, it’s good to cultivate some disagreement so you can go to dinner parties and say, “I disagree with their opinion of David Foster Wallace!” This demonstrates critical thinking. It doesn’t matter what their opinion is or what your opinion is, as long as you aggressively attack or defend your point. Now, it would help to have actually read David Foster Wallace’s books, but that’s really not essential.

When a lovely young woman writes a breathtakingly original first novel, agree with the New York Times Book Review that she’s a genius. When she writes a riskier second novel, join with the New York Times Book Review in condemning her as a one-hit wonder. As you do this, you may notice the acid taste of unexamined misogyny in the back of your throat. A pretty girl can write one decent book, but raising her to the pantheon of Serious Writers? Please.

The New York Times Book Review will be pleased with you if you’re quick to defend them on charges of racism and sexism. Hey, they always review Jhumpa Lahiri, right? She’s both ethnic and a woman at the same time. The fact that the rest of the pages are dominated by white men isn’t really worth noting. Just settle back and read more reviews of books about rootless unhappy upper middle class white people. For example, in this one, a Young Woman Uncovers a Dark Family Secret. Don’t tell me there’s no variety – why, every issue is bound to review a vaguely exploitive story about white trash. There’s also the occasional non-Westerner who’s written a sad and lyrical novel about how much stuff sucks for the people of his country. Read it and pity them.

Fall in love with magical realism. Scorn sci-fi/fantasy as pulpy escapism. Get flustered when someone asks you to explain the difference.

It’s also good to cultivate a fondness for long lists of words, especially if the words are plant names that most people wouldn’t recognize. “He pissed into the river, looking at the cat-tails, star-grass, watermeal, bladderwort, pondweed, and floating arrowhead.” Whether or not you can viscerally imagine these plants doesn’t matter – lists of names are very popular lately.  Also, get excited about absurd word choices, such as “The twilight was speckled with soup-can stars.” What does that even mean? Does it matter? It’s serious writing, so if you don’t get it, the onus is on you.

Of course, when we’re talking about popular tropes, we’re only talking about popular tropes in literature. Wildly popular fiction is for the masses. Make sure you constantly draw a distinction between the two in general, between high art for people like you and low popular art for everyone else. Young adult dystopias and paranormal romances are for crass idiots. Be careful – it’s possible that one of your beloved literary works could become too popular. If Oprah recommends a book you enjoyed, be quick to disavow it as trash.

You’re also going to need a certain snobbery about your method of book consumption. Your options are, 1) proud book-buying technophobe who comments online about how technology is the death of civilization or 2) complete technophile who gets unnaturally excited about the latest iPad app. If you’re a technophobe, glare at people reading Kindles. If you’re a technophile, smirk at people reading paperbacks.

The most important thing to remember is that it isn’t about the books. It’s about wrapping yourself in a warm blanket of cultural dominance.

Mrs. Lipshitz and the Unnamable Horror, edited

This short story – about the meeting of an old gossip and an ancient demon – is probably my best one so far. I thought it could use a serious edit, considering how much I’ve figured out about writing in the year or so since it was written. Every year, I think “Wow, I was such an idiot last year. I understand everything so much better now.” I have a feeling I’m going to be doing this until I’m Sarah Lipshitz’s age.

Enjoy the cleaned-up version of the story. I made some important changes, including SPELLING ‘UNNAMABLE’ CORRECTLY. It looks like it should have an ‘e’, right? Well, it doesn’t.