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July 9, 2007You are so full of shit!no one ever tells me.I WONDER WHY.Because I assure you I am. Full of it. I love revisiting a decades-old book that has remained untouched on my dusty shelves except during changes-of-life, when moving it from one abode to the next. Today’s featured volume is Abraham Maslow’s Toward a Psychology of Being, in which I find a bookmark illustrated with an old-fashioned key and the motto, READING IS THE KEY, promoting National Library Week, April 12-18, 1964. In ’64 I was only nine years old, so I must assume the bookmark was older than I when first I read the book, copyrighted 1962. Cracking (literally) the binding, I bury my face in the yellowed pages because it smells like the basement of my childhood house on Camac Street. But then so do all old books, because that basement is where I became acquainted with that particular smell, which comes from old books, not that basement. I’M SITTING HEREwishing powerfully that I could relive my life and get it right this time. First of all I would pay attention. I would not let my childhood fade into a mystery realm of questions with no answers. Pretzel-legged on the filthy but comfortable couch of choice at my hang-out of choice, Café International, which of all San Francisco coffee houses I spend the most time in because (apart from its being around the corner from my flat) they have three couches. I don’t like to write sitting upright in a chair, even a stuffed one. I want my laptop in my actual lap. “ARE YOU THE MONSTER?”I want to ask a guy in a t-shirt reading “The Monster is Loose,” but we do not meet eyes and I let him pass on by. For once! I AM THE MONSTER.I and my monster passion. BUT MY GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION ARE PERFECT!High marks, coming as they did from grammarian Jane Straus, author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, in a surprise email thanking me for mentioning the book in my column, “Are you feelin’ the Passion?” I have no problem with the passion part (actually I have had plenty of problems with passion), but Jane has generously taken a lot of her valuable time clueing me in as to why passion (alone) is not going to sell my book. I have to sell my book. HOW DREARY.Once again I find myself butting up against the real world that is so unreal to me. I saw someone on a bus reading Talent Is Not Enough: Business Secrets for Designers. After I have expended my passion on a piece, I want nothing more than to throw it out the window and let it fend for itself. I don’t want to be applying business secrets to it. And yet I have to carry the thing around nursing it like a baby until I convince someone to take it off my hands. I may be the thing’s mother but can’t it stand on its own? Apparently not, until it becomes one of the 5% of best-selling books that cover the publisher’s butt on the other 95%. Writing a Book Proposal, and researching how to write them, is just another job in the world I want nothing to do with. Unfortunately I am the only one who needs the work done, and has the information to do it. Challenging myself to succeed while in survival mode, while money leaks steadily out of my bank account, may be asking a lot, perhaps too much, of myself, Jane advises. SOUND ADVICE,without doubt, but if I don’t sell my book by fall, I would still rather sell my flat than my freedom for the price of my mortgage. I’m not going to do “whatever it takes” to keep my flat. I am the priority, not my flat. I do not serve the flat; the flat, in cashing out its value, will serve me. Maslow says, in Toward a Psychology of Being, “This is one aspect of the basic human predicament, that we are simultaneously worms and gods. Every one of our great creators, our god-like people, has testified to the element of courage that is needed in the lonely moment of creation, affirming something new (contradictory to the old). This is a kind of daring, a going out in front all alone, a defiance, a challenge. The moment of fright is quite understandable but must nevertheless be overcome if creation is to be possible.” THIS IS HARDLY TRUEof everyone, but as they say in “Fight Club,” “We realize that your only motivation for working is so you can afford to furnish your condo with sensible living solutions that double as your only measure of self-worth.” That is the only reason I was working, just to store and maintain what I already have. Yes, it would be disruptive to have to move this seven-room art installation I call my flat somewhere else, maybe heartbreaking, for all I know. But if my alternative is to grovel like a worm through the dirt of subsistence employment, only occasionally poking out to breathe the fresh air of freedom, I would rather aspire to the god-like. This is a kind of daring, a going out all alone in front of my own life to create yet another one. The defiance is of my own desire for relative security; the challenge to myself, to do whatever it takes to live as a writer, not a wage earner. Because even if I worked full-time and took a roommate, I still couldn’t swing it. I can’t afford this flat anymore, if not this whole city, on a regular working person’s salary. Moot point anyway as I’m not going back to work. EXCEPT THAT I’M GOING BACK TO WORK…for five hours a week. Light bookkeeping, one afternoon a week. I think I can devote that much of my time to paying my Blue Cross bill. Might buy me another month or two. MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDSSo for the time being, I’ve got food, shelter, health, wealth. I can’t obsess about decisions I may have to make in my future. That is why I have the time and inclination to suffer from love. “I AM SO FULL OF SHIT!”I get nothing but compliments from readers who take the time to email their comments, and I’ve wondered why I never get any negative clank, like “You are so full of shit!” Not controversial enough, I guess, because not enough readers—I’m not “all over the blogosphere.” Those dozens who read me like me, and those who don’t drop off. But finally one gal, my most far-flung reader in Australia, had the nerve to tell me (quite politely and kindly thought-out as friendly advice) — these are not at all her words and only my interpretation of my own self: I AM SO FULL OF SHIT!Let me count the ways. For instance, my last column “Why do people love to suffer from love?” 1) Musical snobbery. So if Rachmaninoff doesn’t make you cry, you can’t call yourself human? Maybe you don’t want to listen to Rachmaninoff like I wouldn’t consider reading the Clive Cussler novel the woman next to me passed the time reading on a recent flight from SFO to Atlanta, containing the line, “Moshohito, have there been any additional sound recordings?” And as the pages turned: “The ballast tanks were open and a rush of seawater began flooding in to weigh the submarine down.” “Two miles to the east, Sarah Mason cursed leaving her gloves back in the tent.” “Sandy’s got the stats. We checked a large colony of Stellers on the eastern beach and they all looked fat and healthy.” “Well,” said Dad, pulling a steaming leg off the big crustacean, “we could use some lemon and butter.” And Clive is one of the 5% of authors carrying the rest of us. I AM SO FULL OF SHIT!2) Literary snobbery. Maybe you just plain like Clive Cussler. Maybe you don’t look for the things I do in literature. A lot of somebodies make him a bestseller. He has three pages of titles on Amazon.com, plus a special edition watch, the DOXA SUB750T Sharkhunter limited edition; Buy new: I have none. (But that alone does not make him a better writer than I.) I AM SO FULL OF SHIT!3) My way is the highway. “I like to spend my time telling other people they’re wrong because they don’t see the world my way,” I read in a web commentary. I want you to do it my way. I want you to cry over Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, read Kundera and Saramago and Calvino, find the “real” world “unreal” and consider love and passion and their fulfillment the ultimate pursuit in life. Maybe those fully ensconced in the real world find it pretty damn real, with its poverty, disease, its social injustice, and are passionately fulfilled by seeking to eradicate them, having better things to do than cry over love gone wrong, even when they themselves don’t have food, or shelter, or health. But then, they’re not full of shit. I AM SO FULL OF SHIT!4) Love is a gift and a blessing, even if it’s unwanted and unwelcome. Now how can that be? How can a gift of an ugly Christmas sweater be a blessing when you don’t want it? It’s an insult that someone didn’t know you well enough to not give you the damn thing. Just like a relative made me a hand-crocheted “throw” that was in reality a baby blue baby blanket strewn with white crocheted flowers. Nothing could be more unlike me. It was a gift, but an unwanted and unwelcome one. I AM SO FULL OF SHIT!Men do not want to be hit over the head with the iron skillet of love, my brave reader informed me. Subtlety will win the day. It is not boring and dull to be circumspect; it is shrewd and wise and mysterious. 5) Though, in “Why do people love to suffer from love?” I was mostly making fun of myself and humanity for being so dramatic about love, it also read like a passive-aggressive indictment of whoever “makes” me suffer, all justified by my inherent right to express love love love because the monster of my passion is loose, never once stopping to realize I have no such right beyond the freedom of speech. It’s just what I choose to do. And not everyone appreciates it. THE BOLD STUPIDITY OF YOUTHA friend told me she once confessed—in a confessional—to her priest, that she was in love with him. And oh, how she wishes she hadn’t done it. “It was the bold stupidity of youth.” Because every time he looked at her, he knew. He might have been too busy diddling choir boys to fit her in, but at this point I agree with my friend. What is the point of tempting or disturbing someone whose life choice has rendered him celibate? MIXED FEELINGSAt the same time, what’s a confessional for? It’s the guy’s job to let people unburden themselves on him. Should the parishioner be denied the need to do so? A priest might be able to relate to intensely wanting someone you can’t have, and offer solace—even if that someone is himself. Maybe she wanted him to forgive her, for the feelings and for the need to express them, to feel that he understood and would show compassion. To not express them, she’d have to honor the priest’s comfort zone over her own needs and perhaps go on suffering without resolution. But love just plain wants to be expressed. LIFE IS SHORT, BITE HARDSlogan on a terrier’s dog jacket. Goethe said, “Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Following with: “Begin it now.” Or Virgil: “Audaci favet fortuna.” Fortune favors the bold. I’m a Taurus, stubborn, a bull. I tend to barrel my way through china shops. And in so doing, I shatter the peace—wreckage I end up paying for. MY INSTINCTS STILL TELL MElove is too important to go untold. This shit changes lives! I don’t fall in love so often I can afford to ignore it. But every situation and relationship is different. Think twice and thrice before you open your big mouth. But don’t listen to anything I say, whatever the scenario. I’m full of shit. “I JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU ONCE”said Jim on “The Office,” confessing his love to the engaged Pam. “What are you doing?” she asks in a tizzy. No less, he later comes up and kisses her. What to make of this? Maybe if she knew about his feelings for her, she would realize she had an option that might make a difference to both of them (and her fiancé). They were friends. Was he disrupting that forever, or allowing her to explore her feelings for him and deepen the relationship? WOWDespite Monica’s strong discouragement, on “Friends, Rachel confessed to Ross “I’m still in love with you” as he was about to be married. “Wow,” said he, “I don’t know what to do with that right now,” at which Rachel commences to crack up laughing at herself, seeing herself from above saying those foolhardy words. But she goes on to appear at the wedding in London intending to once again state her case—until she sees him with the bride and realizes, he has made his choice. DON’T CHASE WHAT CAN’T BE CAUGHTA line from “Lucky You,” a poker-themed love story. The fellow it was said to had some retort I can’t remember; my own self asks, how do you know it can’t be caught unless you do chase it? It’s my opinion that people should be aware of their options. So how long do you chase before you admit it can’t be caught? Does love have an expiration date? It’s been known to go on for lifetimes. Lifetimes full of shit. BFDAgain on “The Office” (so full of life wisdom), Michael advises Jim, in love with Pam, to go for it. “She’s engaged!” the fellow argues. “BFD,” says Michael. “Engaged ain’t married. Never, never, never give up.” “WHEN THIS ONE GOES IN THE POOPER,call me,” said Janet to Chandler, her former lover, now engaged, on “Friends.” Marriages are not written in stone, they are written on paper, and as we all know paper beats rock. But paper is beaten by scissors—by something cutting into and dividing the paper. Those scissors could be anything—incompatibility, money, boredom, sexual complaints, a new love interest, or hating each other’s guts. I’M GONNA BREAK THAT MARRIAGE UP!Peggy Stephenson: I’ve made up my mind. Al Stephenson: Good girl. Milly Stephenson: To do what? Peggy Stephenson: I’m going to break that marriage up! I can’t stand seeing Fred tied to a woman he doesn’t love and who doesn’t love him. Oh, it’s horrible for him. It’s humiliating and it’s killing his spirit. Somebody’s got to help him. My jaw dropped the first time I heard Theresa Wright utter that shocking ballsy line in “The Best Years of Our Lives,” scheming to separate Dana Andrews from his flashy trashy wife Virginia Mayo. People didn’t say stuff like that in 1946, when the film was made! Did they? I thought people stayed together then no matter how miserable they were. Certainly my parents did! Offhand I can’t think of a single divorce in my parents’ set when I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s. “WHO ARE YOU?God? How did you get this power to interfere in other people’s lives?” inquires Dad of Peggy. “So, you’re going to break this marriage up. Have you decided yet how you’re going to do it? You going to do it with an ax?” With an ax! That’s priceless. Dad confronts the “smooth operator” Fred about leaving his daughter the hell alone. Fred reluctantly agrees to phone her and call if off. It wouldn’t be fair to his wife, he said, to keep seeing Peggy because she’s “obviously the kind of girl who takes things [like a kiss] too seriously.” He starts to leave town but lands a job and sees her at a wedding. Of course they kiss and yada yada happily ever after. Or until scissors beats paper. I SAY FUCK IT.This is a snippet I found in a file called I Say Fuck It.doc. “This has been pushed on us as the normal progression of life forever. School, college, job, marriage, children. And I think it’s all a breeding and training ground for keeping people in line and delivering new consumers to the economy. I say fuck it, fuck the whole set-up, upset the fruit cart, kick over the Thanksgiving dinner table like Meg Ryan did in “The Doors.” SOCK IT TO ME, A LITTLE RESPECTI’m not talking about tearing marriage down, or breaking marriages up. Marriage is still the standard by which society gauges people’s commitment to each other and as long as that holds sway, any breaking up thereof should be instigated by one of the principals if not both, not you. If you fall in love with a married person, just wait it out. 50/50 chance it won’t last. But what do I know? I’m full of shit! OI\\\\\I AM THAT I AMII CANNPT BW APHER THAN WHAT I AMI loe you now, and I wantt to love you fr as long a now lasts, whicfh is forever. because It’s never not now.Which, meta[phoriclal I sfoever but if the tijme comes qhen mataphor does not stetch far enough… Another snippet, which I think was a drunken shot at what was supposed to be a wedding vow I could live with. One may feel inspired to claim, I will love you forever; it sounds good, but no one can know that. I feel like I’ll love you forever, would be more accurate. At this moment, I can’t imagine not loving you forever. The time may come along when I no longer love you—I will love you until then, OK? Or something along the lines of “It’s my hope and intention to love you forever…unless the scissors us do part. Right now, I’m convinced I can do it! Marry me!” I MET A MANonce, actually, already married, who surprised me by being the first man who ever made me recognize why one might want to go to the length of marrying someone. “When you find the right person,” said a gay male friend with partner, “you want to be around that person as much as you can.” It was one of the occasional times I’ve had to admit that marriage could be something other than a disaster like my parents’. I just never wanted to go there. Maybe someone will come along to change my mind, in my 5th decade. Magic 8 Ball, will someone come along in my 5th decade to change my mind about marriage? I may rely on it. IT’S NOT THE SCISSORS, IT’S LITTLE TOMMY BREYERThe October 14, 2003 Issue 32-11 of The Onion reported that The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services had released a 275-page report “blaming the increasing failure rate of American marriages on Clearwater, FL, 11-year-old Tommy Breyer… According to the study, in addition to being the cause of his own parents’ 1995 divorce, Breyer is also to blame for the breakup of more than 1.2 million couples each year. Because Tommy was not loving enough, or perhaps because he was not good enough,” the report stated, “American marriages are now failing at an unprecedented rate.”… “More than money, sex or religion, Tommy Breyer has been the primary sticking point in American marriages.” That’s makes as much sense as anything I have to say. It’s taken me so long to complete this column because I don’t know what I’m talking about. And I’ve written so many columns by now I can’t tell if something comes to mind because it just popped into my head, or if I’m remembering already having written it. But I’ve discussed all this and more in “Nobody would ever do anything if they knew what they were in for” (last half), a criminally lengthy Valentine’s Day meditation, which also, no doubt, was full of shit. WELL I LOOK GOOD; I LOOK RADIANT, AS A MATTER OF FACTsaid my Best New Yoga Teacher (July SF Mag) neighbor, after telling him about my lack of flexibility despite regular stretching. Maybe you should just be comfortable where you are, tight hamstrings and all, he said. Thanks for reminding me, friend. I’ve been on a weeks-long writing funk. But right now, in the dark hours, last night blending into this morning, on the couch in my writing studio, I am comfortable where I am. Even if I am full of it. MY PRAYER FOR TONIGHTLord, keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth. Thank you, dear Linda. Point taken.
An email pic the author received, captioned, I thought you loved me! ------------------------------------------------------------ So full of it
I am so full of shit, don't it make my blue eyes brown copyright Alexandra Jones 2007 |
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