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Thoughts On Violence
May. 27th, 2014 08:50 amWhen I was taking my clothes out of the drier at the laundromat the other day, I noticed that someone had actually piled clothes in on top of mine. Skinny young woman with pop eyes and a nose ring. “Whatch you doin’ with my machine?” she hissed.
“Those are my clothes,” I said politely.
“Those are my clothes and you better keep away,” she said.
I ignored her and opened the drier door, and she proceeded to shove me. Hard.
Wow, you are certainly going to great trouble for half a dozen pairs of old lady panties, I thought.
And then I thought, I can take you, bitch.
Apparently, I didn’t look as though I could because the laundromat owner came running up to me, screaming, “Are you okay? Do you want me to call the police?”
The skinny girl looked nervous. Like she was gonna have to bolt without her still dripping wet Trovata knockoffs.
“Police?” I said. “Why? I just want to get my clothes out of the drier.”
Funny thing is that this was not one of the laundromats in the heart of the ghetto but the one on South Street near the library. While I was driving home, I tried to imagine why anyone would pile clothes into a drier that was already being used. Clearly it was not my wardrobe she was after! Maybe she just didn’t have the $$$ to spring for a drier, I thought. And for a moment, I felt very bad for her. Because if she’d stood outside the Laundromat with a tin cup and a little sign: Please Help! My designer knockoffs are filthy, I might have given her a few quarters. I give money to panhandlers all the time.
Equally interesting to me was how quickly I’d transitioned to, I am going to punch you in your fucking face, beyatch.
I mean, we have to imagine that I was being completely delusional there: I am, after all, 62 years of age. At one point, I was pretty proficient at Tai Kwon Do and many years ago, I broke the nose of an assailant who tried to steal my purse in a parking lot with a roundhouse kick.
But that was then.
Plus really – what’s the attraction of violence? Violence is bad. I mean, I really do deplore it on an intellectual level. Yet from time to time, I find myself thinking, Wouldn’t it be fun to take that [your annoying person goes here] and shove his fucking head into a concrete wall?
Maybe it's genetic. I am half Sicilian after all.
###
I think some more about my violent impulses in the frame of reference loaned by the saga of Elliot Rodgers, whom the media has now dubbed “The Virgin Killer.” (Why not “The Aspergers Killer?” Why not “The Hollywood Brat Killer?”)
Rodgers has gotten rather more sympathy than you’d think a spree killer should be able garner. The founder of some website called Rap Genius with a ridiculous business plan (angel investors are funding user-generated content? Really? Then how come Television Without Pity went broke?) published an annotated version of Rodgers’ 141-page manifesto, praising his prose style.
I can recall the first time I said the name on my lips… wrote the soon-to-be killer.
Beautifully written… writes the Rap Genius founder.
(Uh, no, asswipe. On my lips is like totally redundant.)
Various men of my acquaintance have also expressed guarded sympathy for the chap as though being rejected by a woman is actually grounds – maybe not for homicide, but for some justifiable retribution.
I used to have an LJ friend – a very handsome, intelligent musician of about my own age – whose wife stopped fucking him. Even if she hadn’t stopped fucking him, he didn’t actually like the type of sex they were having and would have stepped out on her sooner or later.
(Note please that monogamy isn’t something I feel deeply about. I was monogamous in each of my own two marriages, but that decision was mostly about time management. I do think that when you stop having sex with your spouse or romantic other, the relationship is essentially dead as a marriage although it can continue as a successful domestic partnership.)
Anyway, for whatever reason, he was entirely unsuccessful trolling for sex – I suspect because he was looking primarily for partners who were younger than he was. He became quite resentful about it, too. He seemed to think he was entitled to casual sex with whatever sexual partner took his fancy. His sexual preferences were pretty violent, too, so, of course, his retribution fantasies were violent as well. I didn’t fault him on that. What I faulted him on was his need to share those retribution fantasies with me. This, I had to assume, was his version of foreplay since I (he’d confided in me) was one of the few older women who’d “kept herself up.”
O-kay, asswipe.
It’s true I like to exercise. But I don’t do it for you.
Male entitlement. Fu-u-u-u-ck.
###
And, of course, the incident took place over the Memorial Day weekend, which is a holiday that extols and commemorates violence. Institutionalized violence. Violence at the hands of the state.
I have a hard time with patriotism. Which is not to say I don’t appreciate being an American or understand how privileged I am to have been born here. It’s just that I've always subscribed to that E.M. Forster quote: “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
The United States of America is not my friend.
###
In other news, guy was shot couple of blocks from where I live. Apparently, he went after a female officer with a box cutter – tore her up good – and another cop car drove by and shot him. Seventeen times. Bystanders described the guy as “dusted.”
Life in fucking Poughkeepsie!
“Those are my clothes,” I said politely.
“Those are my clothes and you better keep away,” she said.
I ignored her and opened the drier door, and she proceeded to shove me. Hard.
Wow, you are certainly going to great trouble for half a dozen pairs of old lady panties, I thought.
And then I thought, I can take you, bitch.
Apparently, I didn’t look as though I could because the laundromat owner came running up to me, screaming, “Are you okay? Do you want me to call the police?”
The skinny girl looked nervous. Like she was gonna have to bolt without her still dripping wet Trovata knockoffs.
“Police?” I said. “Why? I just want to get my clothes out of the drier.”
Funny thing is that this was not one of the laundromats in the heart of the ghetto but the one on South Street near the library. While I was driving home, I tried to imagine why anyone would pile clothes into a drier that was already being used. Clearly it was not my wardrobe she was after! Maybe she just didn’t have the $$$ to spring for a drier, I thought. And for a moment, I felt very bad for her. Because if she’d stood outside the Laundromat with a tin cup and a little sign: Please Help! My designer knockoffs are filthy, I might have given her a few quarters. I give money to panhandlers all the time.
Equally interesting to me was how quickly I’d transitioned to, I am going to punch you in your fucking face, beyatch.
I mean, we have to imagine that I was being completely delusional there: I am, after all, 62 years of age. At one point, I was pretty proficient at Tai Kwon Do and many years ago, I broke the nose of an assailant who tried to steal my purse in a parking lot with a roundhouse kick.
But that was then.
Plus really – what’s the attraction of violence? Violence is bad. I mean, I really do deplore it on an intellectual level. Yet from time to time, I find myself thinking, Wouldn’t it be fun to take that [your annoying person goes here] and shove his fucking head into a concrete wall?
Maybe it's genetic. I am half Sicilian after all.
I think some more about my violent impulses in the frame of reference loaned by the saga of Elliot Rodgers, whom the media has now dubbed “The Virgin Killer.” (Why not “The Aspergers Killer?” Why not “The Hollywood Brat Killer?”)
Rodgers has gotten rather more sympathy than you’d think a spree killer should be able garner. The founder of some website called Rap Genius with a ridiculous business plan (angel investors are funding user-generated content? Really? Then how come Television Without Pity went broke?) published an annotated version of Rodgers’ 141-page manifesto, praising his prose style.
I can recall the first time I said the name on my lips… wrote the soon-to-be killer.
Beautifully written… writes the Rap Genius founder.
(Uh, no, asswipe. On my lips is like totally redundant.)
Various men of my acquaintance have also expressed guarded sympathy for the chap as though being rejected by a woman is actually grounds – maybe not for homicide, but for some justifiable retribution.
I used to have an LJ friend – a very handsome, intelligent musician of about my own age – whose wife stopped fucking him. Even if she hadn’t stopped fucking him, he didn’t actually like the type of sex they were having and would have stepped out on her sooner or later.
(Note please that monogamy isn’t something I feel deeply about. I was monogamous in each of my own two marriages, but that decision was mostly about time management. I do think that when you stop having sex with your spouse or romantic other, the relationship is essentially dead as a marriage although it can continue as a successful domestic partnership.)
Anyway, for whatever reason, he was entirely unsuccessful trolling for sex – I suspect because he was looking primarily for partners who were younger than he was. He became quite resentful about it, too. He seemed to think he was entitled to casual sex with whatever sexual partner took his fancy. His sexual preferences were pretty violent, too, so, of course, his retribution fantasies were violent as well. I didn’t fault him on that. What I faulted him on was his need to share those retribution fantasies with me. This, I had to assume, was his version of foreplay since I (he’d confided in me) was one of the few older women who’d “kept herself up.”
O-kay, asswipe.
It’s true I like to exercise. But I don’t do it for you.
Male entitlement. Fu-u-u-u-ck.
And, of course, the incident took place over the Memorial Day weekend, which is a holiday that extols and commemorates violence. Institutionalized violence. Violence at the hands of the state.
I have a hard time with patriotism. Which is not to say I don’t appreciate being an American or understand how privileged I am to have been born here. It’s just that I've always subscribed to that E.M. Forster quote: “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
The United States of America is not my friend.
In other news, guy was shot couple of blocks from where I live. Apparently, he went after a female officer with a box cutter – tore her up good – and another cop car drove by and shot him. Seventeen times. Bystanders described the guy as “dusted.”
Life in fucking Poughkeepsie!
