Just Take Out the Fucking Trash!
Dec. 5th, 2019 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraDreamed I was living in this glorious compound in (of course) Berkeley. It was partially embedded in an old tree that had become a kind of portal to all those magical extra rooms you only see in dreams. The compound had its own wonderful, crazy culture.
Then, the City of Berkeley evicted us and forced us to live in some kind of awful, utilitarian Section 8 housing.
I went wandering around the new digs and realized: These are actually the same digs; the City of Berkeley merely paved over the old place and made it into something much uglier but probably much safer in some practical sense.
Still, my heart was aggrieved. How would the old magical culture survive under the normative burden of harm reduction, I wondered? The only thing I can remember about the culture is that it involved making these huge old wonderful puppets out of paper mache…
###
Well. You don’t have to be Dr. Fraud to figure that one out.
###
I slept 12 hours last night, and so I’m feeling much better than I did yesterday. I can even suppose in some bizarre Millennial fashion that Max thinks he was improving our relationship, bringing us closer together with his Stalinist struggle session. After all, it’s the very essence of “woke,” right? Suitably chastened, I can now resume the all-important work of being Max’s mother, a benign parental puppet, sincerely regretful of that time back in 2004 when I didn’t let him host that all-night beer party with his RLS friends and all my many other misdeeds.
I am ready for my stint in the reeducation camp, Mr. DeMille!
“You know who’s one of the happiest people I know?” Max asked. “Nathan!”
“And you think that comes from his relationship with Celeste?” I asked weakly. Celeste is Nathan’s mother.
“I know it does! Did you know that Celeste and Nathan shared a bed until he was nine years old? She was very big on the family bed.”
That’s sick, I thought. But merely smiled wanly.
“Celeste helped Nathan feel absolutely safe,” Max said.
The implication being that I had not helped Max feel safe.
I don’t care if Max thinks I’m fucking Medea: Celeste is deeply creepy, kind of like the Dennis Hopper character in River’s Edge. I will never forgive Celeste for setting up a kind of Pleasure Island in that house off Ocean View Boulevard where Max and Nathan and Aaron and Fletcher and whomever else drank beer and smoked dope and dropped acid.
I was struggling to enforce an anti-drug policy until Max was 18. I let his girlfriend sleep over but I was absolutely Draconian about the drug use.
Underage drug use had fucked me up waaaaay too much.
For Celeste to deliberately undermine me here was completely unacceptable, and I read her the riot act when I finally found out. Not only was she behaving with utter contempt for my parental role, she was also undermining John, Nathan’s father, a prominent attorney on the Monterey Peninsula. If the cops had busted one of Celeste’s little parties, I could see John losing his legal license.
That Max thinks Celeste is a better mother than I am is a bitter pill to swallow. Celeste has been trading her entire life on her pedigree as the daughter of a Frank Lloyd Wright acolyte; she hardly ever worked a day after latching on to John L_______, Nathan’s wealthy father, in her 30s. And though they are long divorced, she still lives in John’s palatial house on Fountain Boulevard in Monterey though I have no idea whether they’re a couple or not. She’s manipulative, she’s stupid, and in these halcyon days of recreational legalization, she never draws a sober breath—
I sat there listening to Max extol Celeste’s many virtues, feeling as though I might choke.
Could I travel back in time and just not have sex with Bill on that fateful night when Max was conceived? I closed my eyes and began mentally feeling around for an escape hatch.
“And that’s another thing,” Max railed. “I want you to tell me you’re sorry for withdrawing emotionally whenever you get angry! It makes me feel as though I don’t exist!”
Now, it is true that my way of dealing with anger is to withdraw.
If I didn’t withdraw, I’d feel compelled to say what’s on my mind, and as I am articulate and withering in my scorn, what’s on my mind would feel quite toxic to the person to whom I’m expressing my true thoughts.
Would Max really want to hear my honest opinion of Celeste?
Or the fact that I think his girlfriend fits the Jewish American Princess stereotype in every respect except for the fact that she’s half Chinese?
I don’t think so!
So, I just shut up about these things till I can run off and decathect! Often by writing in my diary! And then can go back to feeling amiably disposed toward the perps in question.
This is a quandary.
I’m not going to give up thinking what I think.
Max seems to think that I ought to.
It’s a generational thing, I suppose. Millennials are as big on policing thoughts as they are on policing behavior. Why wouldn’t they be? They grew up with social media and sophisticated surveillance techniques, after all; they’re very collectivity-minded. The simplest fucking transaction with Millennials is a complicated negotiation:
Mia (Max’s girlfriend): I think I’m going to take out the trash.
Max: Do you want to take out the trash?
Mia: Not really. But you can’t take out the trash because you hurt your foot.
Max: Does that make you feel like I’m taking advantage of you?
Mia: Kind of. Even though I know you’re not.
Max: If you take out the trash, I’ll clean the bathroom sink.
Mia: Okay, babe. I’m gonna write that on the whiteboard.
Max: Okay, babe.
Mia: Thanks, babe.
Just take out the fucking trash! I’m thinking.
It would have taken you exactly one minute to take out the trash, and it has taken you three minutes to have this inane, pointless, mutually masturbatory conversation that has added in no way to the quality of discourse upon this planet!
But what do I know?
I’m old. I’m gonna die soon.
Okay, Boomer.
Then, the City of Berkeley evicted us and forced us to live in some kind of awful, utilitarian Section 8 housing.
I went wandering around the new digs and realized: These are actually the same digs; the City of Berkeley merely paved over the old place and made it into something much uglier but probably much safer in some practical sense.
Still, my heart was aggrieved. How would the old magical culture survive under the normative burden of harm reduction, I wondered? The only thing I can remember about the culture is that it involved making these huge old wonderful puppets out of paper mache…
###
Well. You don’t have to be Dr. Fraud to figure that one out.
###
I slept 12 hours last night, and so I’m feeling much better than I did yesterday. I can even suppose in some bizarre Millennial fashion that Max thinks he was improving our relationship, bringing us closer together with his Stalinist struggle session. After all, it’s the very essence of “woke,” right? Suitably chastened, I can now resume the all-important work of being Max’s mother, a benign parental puppet, sincerely regretful of that time back in 2004 when I didn’t let him host that all-night beer party with his RLS friends and all my many other misdeeds.
I am ready for my stint in the reeducation camp, Mr. DeMille!
“You know who’s one of the happiest people I know?” Max asked. “Nathan!”
“And you think that comes from his relationship with Celeste?” I asked weakly. Celeste is Nathan’s mother.
“I know it does! Did you know that Celeste and Nathan shared a bed until he was nine years old? She was very big on the family bed.”
That’s sick, I thought. But merely smiled wanly.
“Celeste helped Nathan feel absolutely safe,” Max said.
The implication being that I had not helped Max feel safe.
I don’t care if Max thinks I’m fucking Medea: Celeste is deeply creepy, kind of like the Dennis Hopper character in River’s Edge. I will never forgive Celeste for setting up a kind of Pleasure Island in that house off Ocean View Boulevard where Max and Nathan and Aaron and Fletcher and whomever else drank beer and smoked dope and dropped acid.
I was struggling to enforce an anti-drug policy until Max was 18. I let his girlfriend sleep over but I was absolutely Draconian about the drug use.
Underage drug use had fucked me up waaaaay too much.
For Celeste to deliberately undermine me here was completely unacceptable, and I read her the riot act when I finally found out. Not only was she behaving with utter contempt for my parental role, she was also undermining John, Nathan’s father, a prominent attorney on the Monterey Peninsula. If the cops had busted one of Celeste’s little parties, I could see John losing his legal license.
That Max thinks Celeste is a better mother than I am is a bitter pill to swallow. Celeste has been trading her entire life on her pedigree as the daughter of a Frank Lloyd Wright acolyte; she hardly ever worked a day after latching on to John L_______, Nathan’s wealthy father, in her 30s. And though they are long divorced, she still lives in John’s palatial house on Fountain Boulevard in Monterey though I have no idea whether they’re a couple or not. She’s manipulative, she’s stupid, and in these halcyon days of recreational legalization, she never draws a sober breath—
I sat there listening to Max extol Celeste’s many virtues, feeling as though I might choke.
Could I travel back in time and just not have sex with Bill on that fateful night when Max was conceived? I closed my eyes and began mentally feeling around for an escape hatch.
“And that’s another thing,” Max railed. “I want you to tell me you’re sorry for withdrawing emotionally whenever you get angry! It makes me feel as though I don’t exist!”
Now, it is true that my way of dealing with anger is to withdraw.
If I didn’t withdraw, I’d feel compelled to say what’s on my mind, and as I am articulate and withering in my scorn, what’s on my mind would feel quite toxic to the person to whom I’m expressing my true thoughts.
Would Max really want to hear my honest opinion of Celeste?
Or the fact that I think his girlfriend fits the Jewish American Princess stereotype in every respect except for the fact that she’s half Chinese?
I don’t think so!
So, I just shut up about these things till I can run off and decathect! Often by writing in my diary! And then can go back to feeling amiably disposed toward the perps in question.
This is a quandary.
I’m not going to give up thinking what I think.
Max seems to think that I ought to.
It’s a generational thing, I suppose. Millennials are as big on policing thoughts as they are on policing behavior. Why wouldn’t they be? They grew up with social media and sophisticated surveillance techniques, after all; they’re very collectivity-minded. The simplest fucking transaction with Millennials is a complicated negotiation:
Mia (Max’s girlfriend): I think I’m going to take out the trash.
Max: Do you want to take out the trash?
Mia: Not really. But you can’t take out the trash because you hurt your foot.
Max: Does that make you feel like I’m taking advantage of you?
Mia: Kind of. Even though I know you’re not.
Max: If you take out the trash, I’ll clean the bathroom sink.
Mia: Okay, babe. I’m gonna write that on the whiteboard.
Max: Okay, babe.
Mia: Thanks, babe.
Just take out the fucking trash! I’m thinking.
It would have taken you exactly one minute to take out the trash, and it has taken you three minutes to have this inane, pointless, mutually masturbatory conversation that has added in no way to the quality of discourse upon this planet!
But what do I know?
I’m old. I’m gonna die soon.
Okay, Boomer.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-05 05:52 pm (UTC)By way of disclosure, I had a similar conversation--albeit the Beverly Hillbillies version--with my son. That was over three years ago and, in the interest of self-preservation, had not spoken with him since.
Until this Thanksgiving. And although that was cordial enough, apparently a consummation devoutly wished by both sides, it brought with it the realization that with renewed contact comes the potential for renewed friction if not outright conflict. So, deck the fucking halls, I guess.
Anyway, glad you’re back…
no subject
Date: 2019-12-06 02:29 pm (UTC)My mother was a complete psychopath in every way, but she did have one good idea that I've adopted as a standard, and that was "kitten and puppy postcards." Kitten and puppy postcards basically means you communicate with problematic people in the most bland and innocuous manner possible at all times, never giving in to the temptation to seek more intimate discourse. 'Cause you know that way lies Danger, Will Robinson! 😀
no subject
Date: 2019-12-05 08:42 pm (UTC)We don't slay them, the children of our blood, because we would anger the Kindly Ones. Instead we tolerate them. I intend to die before my children complete adolescence; just to guilt trip them into behaving themselves enough to get into Cambridge. Henry will not go to Eton. His mum put her foot down and he didn't insist enough for me to take his side and really use my moral advantage. Mind you if I did kick the bucket I bet she'd opt for a boarding school at the drop of a hat. :)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-06 02:32 pm (UTC)I'm sorry Eton fell through for Henry! I knew you were hoping for it.
Also—much better to stick around till your kids are in their 20s and 30s so that you can continue to embarrass them. Just saying! 😀
no subject
Date: 2019-12-06 08:44 pm (UTC)I doubt my lungs will hold on for another two decades. I can hope. :)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-06 04:53 am (UTC)Did I tell you the story of the parent trying to wheedle her toddler off some other kid's tricycle? This was a thing I saw at a park back when I was a mother of young, park-going kids. This one kid was on this other kid's tricycle, and the other kid's family was ready to leave, but they had to stand around waiting while the mom of the kid on the tricycle tried to persuade her toddler that he really wanted to do the right thing and get off the trike. I was busy thinking JUST LIFT YOUR KID OFF THE TRIKE ALREADY; YOU CAN DO IT.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-06 02:24 pm (UTC)I think maybe we somehow magically ended up at the same toddler park. 'Cause I can remember scenes like that, too.