18
I want to live with a giant telepathic spider. I’d sleep underneath the spider while it weaved its gleaming, metal web on the ceiling. I want the spider to be my therapist while I slept. It’d take me through the rooms of a spaceship and ask me what the famous french psychologist Jacques Lacan meant when he tried to describe “The Real.”
And while I’m on an alien autopsy table, I’d speak: ““The real is what resists symbolization absolutely.”
The spider would say, “You stole that quote directly from one of Lacan’s seminars.”
I’d say, “Lacan is outdated, psychoanalysis is dead, and he has no concept of basic biocentrism. The real isn’t something separate from our sensory perception.”
“Biocentrism isn’t an accepted scientific fact, it was a concept developed in 2007 by an American doctor named Robert Lanza. It it no way has been able to be held up to scientific rigor.”
I’d say, “Why are you arguing with me, giant telepathic therapist spider?”
The aliens start probing my chest with giant, electric needles. Because it’s a dream, nothing hurts and yet I’m screaming.
“I’m not arguing with you. You’re arguing with you. I enter your dreams so that you can have an exterior representation of one side of your brain’s argumentation and end up resolving your cognitive dissonance. Get it?”
I paused. The aliens stopped stabbing me. I can’t see what they look like - they’re more shadows than physical entities.
“I just realized, you’re a giant telepathic therapist spider and I should be horrified.”
19
“What’s the kinkiest things you’ve ever done?” One of my friends asked me.
I had to think about this for a few minutes. Perhaps the foursome I had with my fellows actors from the local haunted house? Or the time I lost my lesbian virginity while the girl’s boyfriend sat smoking in the nearby chair, and I played “The History of The Soviet Union Set to the Melody of Tetris” over the speakers?. Or maybe the time my friend watched me through the window as my boyfriend fucked me and recorded it on her camera? Or when I slept with two girls right after I revealed to them I was cheating on one of them with the other? Or when a friend tried to tie my labia together as an experiment? And let’s not forget all of the various BDSM encounters, one-night stands, mutual masturbation sessions, and oral sex behind the Dairy Queen.
But none of that seemed kinky to me. I suppose from an objective perspective it would seem out of the ordinary, But when you’re dead inside nothing ever seems transgressive, exciting, or out of the ordinary. I always thought it was because I was a writer, but maybe it’s because I’m intrinsically damaged and nothing will ever surprise me again. ’m usually standing to the left of myself observing everything that’s going on. This is most likely the result of early childhood trauma which included but is not limited to A.) A hippopotamus at the Oklahoma Zoo B.) My mother pinning me down on the floor until I couldn’t breathe I refused to say the Lord’s Prayer C.) The pain of bright lights in crowded restaurants.
The kinkiest thing I’ve ever done is probably not committing suicide and staying alive out of some kind of masochistic pleasure at punishing myself.
20
em·path
ˈempaTH/
noun
(chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual.
21
The writer turns her back on the universe so she can take it inside of herself. She lives on the periphery of complete sensory understanding. Touching but never quite able to be touched.
22
Things that my boyfriends and girlfriends have said about my writing:
“This last chapter is unrealistic. You need to write in more military tactics.”
“You’re a goddamn genius.”
“I’m never going to be a good of a writer as you.”
“Your poetry, honestly, isn’t your strong point.”
“I don’t even read.”
“One day you’re going to be famous. And I want to be like, your publicist.”
“If I ever get a job I’ll support your writing. But you have to write, like, 12 hours a day.”
“Have you ever thought about writing something more you know, commercial?”
“You should go back to college.”
“You need to see a therapist.”
“I never loved you anyway.”
“Your characters aren’t realistic.”
“You’re too scared. You need to push your writing past the boundary.”
“Why do you need me to say that I love you?”
“You’re pretty much perfect for me. Can I show your short story to my friend?”
It’s not like I remembered those from memory. It’s not like those comments were burned in my skull for the rest of eternity. You shouldn’t remember any of this when you wonder if anything you say will carry consequences for someone else for the rest of their life.
23
A NOTE TO THE READER
I think it’s invasive to write fiction and then explain it in nice, succinct, didactic sentences. AND BECAUSE OF THE SAND BALL IN HER PLAYGROUND, SHE LEARNED IT WAS BEST TO NOT TEACH BOYS HOW TO SMOKE CIGARETTES. AND THE WHORE WAS STABBED TWENTY TIMES IN THE CHEST AS A METAPHOR FOR CHASING AWAY SADNESS. As if somehow the sum total of what the reader has experienced can be summarized in a pithy sentence from the writer. It’s almost insulting, to think that I understand what my writing means to another person, or to try to explain it, rewiring the reader’s understanding at the last moment and shifting them away from their own sensory input. I’m not a god. I’m not a teacher. I’m a writer.
However, I’ve done this about four hundred times in the last few pages, because this is my memoir and a record of the things that I’ve learned. So I will continue to violate my fiction writing rules, in whatever way I deem necessary for the narrative.
MOVING ON.
The other day Robert and I played out in the rainstorm and I couldn’t remember the last time I let myself be a child. I can remember being a child and holding my hands out to the rain, and being screamed at, “Come inside! You’re getting wet!” Like getting wet is some kind of deadly consequence, some kind of horrible alternative, to opening up my chest and my arms and my tongue and feeling the sensation of water drip down on me like a hundred thousand little fingertips touching me, saying I remember you, I want you, the rain like the good friend I never had, come here and play.
Pressing my feet into stone and through the mud and tilting my head up so that the water from the roof runs through the drainpipe and over my throat is so much worse than maybe having to put my clothes in the dryer later.
And I didn’t even need to kiss him to feel the romance of water, draining down my eyes, forming intricate patterns. I sat on the asphalt, in the water pooling, pressed my fingers into the rain. I want you, come here and play. And I thought, one of the primary reasons for our unhappiness is this idea of propriety and responsibility that’s precedent to happiness. As if walking stiffly under an umbrella is somehow going to improve my life more than tossing the umbrella aside and pressing my palms flat against the water trickling down aluminum siding. More than breathing in the ozone and feeling the coolness on my face.
“Come inside! You’re getting wet!”
Unhappiness results when propriety and responsibility (However fake it is) takes precedent over desire. This is true in ALL INSTANCES. If you think I’m wrong, feel free to email me at [email protected] with your thesis statement.
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