Only connect! -- E.M. Forster
Apr. 17th, 2005 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraItchy mood. There's much to do and I don't want to do any of it. Instead, I'd like to go to a dinner party with Gore Vidal to the right of me and Winston Churchill to the left, sip absinthe, smoke opium, be entertained with a live lesbian sex show.
Had an interesting time with Max yesterday and of course, was touched touched touched that he wanted to hang out with his doddering old Mom in the first place. We talked a lot about his friends. "Do you think you'll keep in touch with any of them?" I asked, and he said, "Probably not."
This surprised me. Max is a very social kid, hangs with a posse though it's true the Friday night poker games haven't happened for quite some time.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Well, you know, I have this sense that you're born alone and you die alone." My mouth must have fallen open at that point because he continued, "You shouldn't be surprised. I got it from you. I mean, I wouldn't call you antisocial, but you're not really connected in the same sense that most people are. You're very much the Camus character, the existential adventurer."
"I know what you're talking about," I said slowly, "but that's not a particularly good thing, you know. I wish I was connected. I'd give anything to feel connected."
"It's neither a good thing nor a bad thing," said Max. "It just is. Value-neutral."
Well, no, in fact it's not value-neutral – I defy the primate behavioral circuits wired into my monkey brain and I pay the price. I yearn for my tribe but I don't have the foggiest notion where its tent camp is pitched or what faith it uses as currency.
The Friday night poker games were suspended because the kids finally clued in on what I'd known all along, namely that Celeste is Dennis Hopper straight out of River's Edge although as Max pointed out, "She's not going to shoot anyone at the end of the movie."
We talked a long time about Nathan, Celeste's son and my favorite among Max's friends because he's such a bright kid, observant, quick, personable and also because there's so damn much poignancy wafting around him. "He's really changed this year," said Max. "I have a hard time relating to him."
Nathan is the super-achiever in this year's RLS crop, the one who's going to Yale.
"Do you know what Celeste is saying?" Max continued. "She wants to leave Monterey, move somewhere where she can be closer to Nathan while he's at college."
"That's a recipe for disaster," I said.
"No kidding," said Max. "It was kind of like by acting so hip and everything, letting guys drink and smoke weed at her place, and letting Fletcher and Erin live there, she was pimping friends for Nathan. She desperately wants Nathan to be considered cool and hip. As long as he kept his grades up, she didn't care what happened. And then he got a B last semester and she lit into them like it was their fault."
"And what does Nathan's father think about all this?"
"Nathan doesn't see his dad all that much. John and Deborah are separated –"
"No!"
"Well They're living in the same house. But they have separate rooms, and they hardly ever communicate. I don't see why they don't just get divorced –"
John would have to sell that house, I think. And he'll never sell that house. It was his parents' house.
The news about John makes me very sad. I like John, the aging, overweight lawyer, the Viet Nam vet, the guy who dropped so much acid in his days with Celeste that he told me once that in the first few days after Nathan was born all he could do was count Nathan's fingers and toes over and over again to make sure they were all there and none had been lost to chromosomal damage. I know exactly why he married Deb – she was his office manager, she made a play for him and nobody had given him a blow job in a long, long time.
This would be a great novel, I think – and then immediately wonder: is my compulsion to turn everything into narrative the reason I live at such a remove from my own life or do I live at that distance so I can tell stories? Chicken or egg? Egg or chicken?
Had an interesting time with Max yesterday and of course, was touched touched touched that he wanted to hang out with his doddering old Mom in the first place. We talked a lot about his friends. "Do you think you'll keep in touch with any of them?" I asked, and he said, "Probably not."This surprised me. Max is a very social kid, hangs with a posse though it's true the Friday night poker games haven't happened for quite some time.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Well, you know, I have this sense that you're born alone and you die alone." My mouth must have fallen open at that point because he continued, "You shouldn't be surprised. I got it from you. I mean, I wouldn't call you antisocial, but you're not really connected in the same sense that most people are. You're very much the Camus character, the existential adventurer."
"I know what you're talking about," I said slowly, "but that's not a particularly good thing, you know. I wish I was connected. I'd give anything to feel connected."
"It's neither a good thing nor a bad thing," said Max. "It just is. Value-neutral."
Well, no, in fact it's not value-neutral – I defy the primate behavioral circuits wired into my monkey brain and I pay the price. I yearn for my tribe but I don't have the foggiest notion where its tent camp is pitched or what faith it uses as currency.
The Friday night poker games were suspended because the kids finally clued in on what I'd known all along, namely that Celeste is Dennis Hopper straight out of River's Edge although as Max pointed out, "She's not going to shoot anyone at the end of the movie."
We talked a long time about Nathan, Celeste's son and my favorite among Max's friends because he's such a bright kid, observant, quick, personable and also because there's so damn much poignancy wafting around him. "He's really changed this year," said Max. "I have a hard time relating to him."
Nathan is the super-achiever in this year's RLS crop, the one who's going to Yale.
"Do you know what Celeste is saying?" Max continued. "She wants to leave Monterey, move somewhere where she can be closer to Nathan while he's at college."
"That's a recipe for disaster," I said.
"No kidding," said Max. "It was kind of like by acting so hip and everything, letting guys drink and smoke weed at her place, and letting Fletcher and Erin live there, she was pimping friends for Nathan. She desperately wants Nathan to be considered cool and hip. As long as he kept his grades up, she didn't care what happened. And then he got a B last semester and she lit into them like it was their fault."
"And what does Nathan's father think about all this?"
"Nathan doesn't see his dad all that much. John and Deborah are separated –"
"No!"
"Well They're living in the same house. But they have separate rooms, and they hardly ever communicate. I don't see why they don't just get divorced –"
John would have to sell that house, I think. And he'll never sell that house. It was his parents' house.
The news about John makes me very sad. I like John, the aging, overweight lawyer, the Viet Nam vet, the guy who dropped so much acid in his days with Celeste that he told me once that in the first few days after Nathan was born all he could do was count Nathan's fingers and toes over and over again to make sure they were all there and none had been lost to chromosomal damage. I know exactly why he married Deb – she was his office manager, she made a play for him and nobody had given him a blow job in a long, long time.
This would be a great novel, I think – and then immediately wonder: is my compulsion to turn everything into narrative the reason I live at such a remove from my own life or do I live at that distance so I can tell stories? Chicken or egg? Egg or chicken?
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-18 10:42 pm (UTC)That is an amazing observation for a 17 year old--it seems as though half the kids I know aren't even making it through high school.
I also meant to ask if you have tried to publish any of your writing? You do have a "knack" :)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 12:28 am (UTC)Thank you for your kind words about my writing. I actually did write a novel a couple of years ago and sent it to a couple of agents who had nice things to say about it but who all agreed it was structurally weak. I've always wanted to rewrite the sucker but I just don't have the time.