rabbit blog Thursday, September 02, 2010 GOODBYE, POINTY LITTLE MAN Dear Rabbit, I stumbled across your blog while looking for rabbit-related websites. I have two rabbits myself- Pointy and Little Man. I came looking for cute bunny pictures, stayed for the well written and wise advice. Rabbit, how do I release myself from the grip of my anger? From my potent desire to mete out retribution? From my red-visioned rage and the panic attacks? How do I move on, happily? How do I get my groove back? I moved to Montreal in 2004 when my partner was offered a teaching job at a University here. We had been together for almost two years prior to this. There had already been some issues between us, but this move made everything worse, and now we’re practically estranged, and I’m scared and lost. The sex was never great, but decent enough. He was very quiet and had little sense of humor or imagination in bed. He didn’t like me astride him, resisted blowjobs, and when he seemed bored we had to switch to webcam sex. Whatever, but the friendship we had was excellent, and the life and social scenario we were in was rich and fulfilling and for once in a long, long time I was happy. The sex had pretty much dried up even when we were living together still in the US. He blamed his lack of interest on not liking my scrubs and sweatsocks, didn’t like that I didn’t have an advanced degree, my depression was too much for him (my depression is deep, chronic and lifelong. I’ve had a round of ECT once, been hospitalized, I have meds & therapists but it never goes away. I cope, though). We had had a non-monogamous relationship, originally at my behest, with a full disclosure and mutual veto power. Mainly he used this as an excuse to hunt down couples for playing with, and dating young girls. We used to go to sex parties where he’d spend his time with anyone but me. I was too busy trying to work and reconstruct a new professional and social life for myself to be bothered, beyond the parties. When we moved to Canada he had 110 new things he could blame for his lack of interest: stress, immigration, new job, house hunting, getting his book out, etc. Then it became tenure stress, my depression, my trouble finding work, my low income, my lack of self esteem, my life choices (having been in the arts I came with no savings or 401K, ya know?). Mind you, during this time I did all the housework, packing, cooking, laundry, entertaining, endless immigration paperwork, you name it, plus study and work. When the tenure was achieved, he decided that he was through with honesty & flat out started cheating on me and lying to my face. Of course it was with “Ashley," some student he met at a conference (he’s a 41 year old professor and loves those early 20’s students), and it was a doozy of a mess. Eight months of lies, disinvitations, secret trips, a pregnancy, more lies, her chasing him overseas, just ugly. I was packed & ready to move out, but because of immigration and financial reasons I had to remain living with him for a year. I drank heavily and gained a lot of weight, feeling like utter crap that I could never fix what made him reject me. He kept trying to repair the friendship, which eventually happened, but the continual sexual rejection really got me down. Eventually I moved out and have been in my own place for three years now. Despite being separate, we eventually reverted to dinner together every night, and essentially had a perfect, if non-sexual relationship. He began to talk of a country place, getting a house together. He took over my grad school loan (he’s also a fanatical cheapskate, so any fiscal moves he makes are earth-shaking). He even for one millisecond entertained the idea of going to couples therapy together. Then something shifted. I knew he was having random sex with some internet slut. He used to call her “Fuck Me Friday." He used to make fun of her. He used her as bait to find other couples who wanted to swap (hmm, sounds familiar?). Then soon he claims she’s unhappy because he won’t spend even more time with her, she wants a boyfriend, he doesn’t want that, he isn’t in love with her. Next thing you know she has moved into town, he has taken down his OK Cupid personal ad and she’s posting “in a relationship” on Facebook (He was chagrined by this & deleted his wall, but nonetheless) and he’s suddenly spouting her brainwash about how the “relationship” has so much potential, how she’s so understanding, how she’s so cool and low maintenance, how she understands his need to have me in his life. She likes to fuck all night and all morning and gives great blowjobs and is smart! Mind you, this girl is a 24 year old undergraduate at another college downtown. Her friends are still doing kegstands and finishing their BA’s. At her age I was writing grants, performing, touring, choreographing and managing a full time freelance dance career. It’s an insult, frankly. He began to lie to me about when he’d be with The Orifice, and because he’s a constant and inept liar I always catch him out. I’ve twice been at his place expecting him to be there, where he said he’d be, while in reality he was off stuffing The Orifice somewhere. I lost it. Suddenly all the old rage about “The Ashley Incident” and all the other transgressions came pouring forth, and I had blind rage freakouts over this, literally seeing red, screaming and throwing stuff and not exactly remembering what happened. My pulse races, my ears ring, I scream, I can’t sleep afterwards. What has made this so tough is that otherwise we get along enormously. We always crack each other up, have a secret language, inside jokes, share a sense of humor, have excellent conversations & debates, and essentially can spend all our time together. Even the most banal tasks are hilarious together. We fight well, we have good problem solving skills. He tells me he can’t imagine his life without me, I’m the most important person in his life, he feels better with me than with anyone else, I’m the smartest woman he’s ever met, we’ve had the best experiences of his life together, blah blah blah. But then he says (or doesn’t say) “but I can’t sleep with you”. The truth is that he’s delusionally naive about real relationships and deathly afraid of intimacy. He’s recently told me that “sex is only exciting with people you don’t know”. Fascinating. Essentially once the bloom is off the rose, and real life kicks in he gets scared & runs off to have Craigslist & online dating trysts or retreats to his hard drives full of porn. Plus he’s stocked with an arsenal of whacked out self importance, unexpressed expectations of others, and a healthy heap of Midwestern denial. Oh- and he’s a pathological liar. Since even at this point he wouldn’t even commit to the “it’s her or me” ultimatum, I made the choice for him. He doesn’t understand why I don’t want to be friends with him and The Orifice as a “couple”. Why can’t I be happy for them? I’ve cut off any communication except for essential things like banking, paperwork, emergencies. It hurts like hell. I was never attractive in a typical sense, though as a dancer I was in good shape and had buckets of confidence and a great mind. I worked “pretty on the inside” like no one’s business. I always had paramours, male, female. It was never a problem, and I enjoyed a frisky, freaky life. Now at 42 I’m still not typically attractive, serious injuries retired me from dance and much activity for quite a while so I’m about 50 lbs overweight (ugly “apple body” not curvy). Instead of a hot career I now have a semi interesting but way underpaid job I’m lucky as hell to have, given the language issues and the fact that my secondary training is in a field not active here. My self esteem is shot. So now I can’t even work the confidence angle. I can’t recall the last time I got laid. Has to have been six years now. My social circle is almost nonexistent now, as most of my friends are on sabbaticals, are married, have kids, have moved for other jobs. I have to continually try to make new friends. I do yoga, but it’s not exactly social. I’ve cut down my elaborate cooking (my “hobby” to replace dance) & eating & drinking. I’m slowly losing weight. I’m so angry and so hurt. I want to just be happy and do my own thing. It’s hard to keep starting over, especially as a woman at age 42. I love the city, the Canadian healthcare is great, I finally have a steady job, I'll be a dual citizen soon, but I feel like I’ve lost myself after eight years of being with this dude. How could I have been so dumb? Help me, Rabbit. Lagolamour Dear Lagolamour, Let's start by scraping your ex out of your story, once and for all. Let's just review the facts: This is someone who cheated on you, didn't like the way you dressed, didn't like the fact that you had no advanced degree… Is that even possible? What does that even fucking mean? And he couldn't handle your depression. Basically, he was game for the hot, swaggering, drinking dancer, but once you became a human being he was wringing his hands and looking for the door. Pointy Little Man, indeed. And that alone would be understandable, or at the very least typical. But instead of actually exiting, like someone with a conscience, he kept pulling you back in, his human security blanket, even as he was fucking undergrads. First of all, the sort of PhDs who fuck undergads? Christ almighty. I like an attractive whippersnapper as much as the next old perv, but actually having sex with someone who's still in college? Taking your clothes off in the presence of someone who still molds their little baseball cap in a perfect C-shape, and says shit like "See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya?" Unless you're Dane Cook, I don't get it. Fucking undergrads when you're a professor makes you a douche, period. And then he's running back to you, complaining about various women, telling you they're lame, explaining exactly what's lame about them so you'll dislike them, too. This guy is lonelier than you are. He's more of a mess than you are. And he's angrier than you are, too. Please leave The Orifice out of this. Fine, you were a mature professional at her age. She's obviously good at what she does, namely, staying up all night, drinking and giving fantastic blow jobs. Let's not begrudge her that. If she's sleeping with a forty something, who knows what's going on with her. She's got it bad enough, trying to play the low-maintenance cool chick to your douchey ex. That game can't last long. But even if she's the embodiment of all that is beautiful and right in the world, it doesn't matter. She has nothing to do with you. She's just some person in the world. Your feelings about her are inherently self-generated, because you're not in a relationship with her, she owes you nothing, and no matter what The Douche told you about her, you don't know her. The Douche can't be trusted. Do this much, at least: Think of her as The Girl (and not The Hole). She doesn't know you, either, and whatever perceived slights exist there, they're there because of one malevolent force in the world: The Douche. He's needy, manipulative, self-serving and bad. Private languages, shared senses of humor – in this particular case, the private universe you describe is one that's wrought from mutual dependence and fear. You obviously make The Douche feel powerful and worthwhile for some reason, at the price of your own power and self-esteem. It's time to cut off ties completely. What is this talk of banking and emergencies? Leave The Douche out of it. Take out a loan and pay off whatever you owe him or clean up whatever keeps you tied together. Just get him out, he's a leech on your energy and he keeps you in this state of rage over having wasted your time on an essentially screwy, selfish human being for too long. Cutting him out (which you've already started to do) means honoring yourself and setting the stage for the next part of your life. You could almost have sent me just the last paragraph of your letter, because the rest is just backstory about someone who doesn't matter anymore. Your anger at him now is partially anger at yourself for still considering him part of your story, still feeling like you ended up the way you are now because of him. He is this powerful symbol of you selling yourself short. That's why he can't be in the mix at all – you don't need that kind of a symbol around you. So, now it's time for new symbols, and new paths. I suspect that getting in shape is a huge part of your recovery, since you're a former dancer and you obviously care about this aspect of your life. I totally understand about injuries. What is it with 40 anyway? Between vertigo and ankle-turning, I've had a bunch of problems this year, but finally I figured out that if I don't push myself, I'll just be lame for the rest of my life. Some injuries really keep you on your back, but others you just have to find some workaround. Right now I'm wrapping my ankle really well, doing Tae Bo, and then walking my dogs, then icing my ankle afterwards. Something about the Tae Bo has actually made my ankle stronger, and it hurts a lot less and feels less stiff than it did when I was doing next to nothing. My husband has a foot injury that hurts more after he does anything, but he also says that it hurts less overall if he's working out. I don't really understand this stuff, or why it's just part of the fucking conversation when you pass age 38, but I am starting to see how the stakes get really high as you get older and gain weight. If you have injuries and you're too heavy, it's that much harder not to reinjure yourself, it's that much harder to get motivated, etc. It just sounds like you're at a really important juncture with your physical and emotional health, and really, the quality of the rest of your life is going to rely on you making a serious commitment to getting into the best shape you possibly can. Eating less is obviously a big part of that and so is yoga, but it also sounds like you need a little aerobic exercise to push your whole routine to a level where you feel not just that you're making steady progress, but you're changing everything and turning your whole life around. Maybe you could swim or try some low impact Cardio Barre classes, which of course will strike you as annoying, as a dancer, but also might build on your strengths. You could get a DVD and just do a little bit at home every day. It's all pretty dorky and hard to get excited about, but my sense is that this is at the core of what you need in your life: to feel like you're willing to completely throw yourself into a new way of living. Besides, nothing tackles anger and builds confidence like working up a sweat. Again, I don't know the nature of your injuries, I just have a sense that you need to put even more energy into this part of your picture. You have to work really hard to find a good solution here, whether that means seeing a physical therapist or taking on a new kind of workout, I don't know. But you can't just slowly chip away at the pounds. My guess is that you, in particular, have to be more proactive than that if you want to get inspired by the whole process. Because you were once extremely fit, you have a long way to go until you feel really excited and sure that you'll get back to where you were. A lot of this rage you have isn't just about The Douche, of course, it's about you feeling furious at yourself for letting yourself land here. This isn't about being overweight, either, it's about feeling that you're strong and flexible and capable again. For a former dancer, nothing could be more important than that. It's essential. As far as the rest of your life that's died with the departure of The Douche? You probably would've had to face this even if you were still with him. People get old, move away, have kids, and the party isn't the same as it was in your early 30s. There's a point where we all have to ask ourselves, how do I really want to spend my time? So what do you love to do? What's your dream? Sometimes just acknowledging what you really love is a big step, even if you can't exactly redesign your life around it. How do you want to spend your time? My guess is that if you 1) cut off all contact with The Douche permanently, 2) face your injuries head-on, find some solutions or at least ways to work within the limitations they place on you, and get into much better shape, and 3) start looking very carefully at your dreams and ambitions and favorite ways to spend your time, and start to redesign your life in order to honor your passions, you're going to find yourself in a very different place in a few months. People will tell you that anger is something you have to express, or resolve, that you should write an imaginary letter to The Douche, or burn an effigy of him, or try to sort through your feelings for him in therapy. My opinion, based on what you've said, is that he's already dead to you, and the lingering emotions you have around him are feelings that are more closely tied to your confidence level. You're pissed off at yourself, you feel like a reject that got left behind. You're angry and not just sad because you know, deep down inside, that this isn't who you are. You're not just the depressed overweight exgirlfriend (and seeing yourself that way is what makes you hate The Girl). You are a powerful person, and everything that ever made other people love you and follow you around before is still there. You have charisma and ideas and colorful thoughts in your head, and people like you. If they're not acting like it at the moment, it's because you yourself are in conflict about your worth. You can turn your story around, though. You don't necessarily need to move or get another job or find a new guy – these things may happen. But those aren't issues that can be tackled directly, until you start really taking the actions that will give you more respect and affection for yourself right now. For the next year, you have to work really hard to pull yourself out of this rut. Every day is going to feel like a chore for a while, if you're doing this right. You have to push away your discouraged thoughts and just move forward. You have to dare to have big dreams again. You have to dare to believe that you might find someone new who will love you without being an enormous douchebag about it. Plant your head in a dreamy space, and make your injured body go through the motions. Research your dreams. Make some deadlines. Work really, really hard. Make a steady flow of plans with friends. Do some elaborate cooking once a month, throw a little dinner party. This is the year you turn it all around. But you have to commit to it. You have to say to yourself: I am changing everything. I am going to be strong and resilient again. You have to silence the whiny and discouraged and enraged voices. When they get too loud, leave the house for a walk. This is the year you're not going to settle or make excuses or fall into old patterns. You're going to be kind to yourself, but you're going to work hard, every day. It's time to push away the old stories – stop telling them, stop thinking about them – and focus. You don't have to explain anything to anyone. Just focus on what you want, and move forward. This is the year you pulled out of a tailspin. This is the year you started taking care of yourself. This is the year you stopped listening to other people more than you listen to yourself. This is the year you started to get everything you ever wanted. This is the year your dreams started to come true. I feel sure that a few small changes will turn into a whole new life for you. You have so much of what you need already, you're already on the right track. But for you to really feel happy again, for you to have the kinds of friends and life partner and job that you have always wanted, you have to redouble your efforts and be strong and focused. None of your challenges is going to evaporate into thin air, of course. But your whole way of viewing the world is about to brighten up dramatically. You can do it! You really can. You're already on your way. Best of luck, Rabbit 12:59 PM Friday, July 30, 2010 HUSBANDS = LOSERS? Dear Rabbit, You offer such wonderful advice to women who need to break up with the jackasses they’re dating. I am currently dating a man with whom I badly need to break up, but I just can’t seem to do it. He is, like the boyfriends of many past advice-seekers, handsome, delicious, great in bed, and fundamentally unavailable emotionally. He also doesn’t want children and will NEVER want children, and while I’m not quite ready to have them yet myself, it’s an option I may want to ponder in the next few years. I’m 33, happy with my job, and I hardly drink at all (and yes, I’m pretty hot, though I’m definitely not too beautiful to be your friend). I have great friends and hobbies, cute pets, my own place, and a good life generally. Except for the fact that I am in love with a difficult man-child who, although he loves me, doesn’t really want an “every day” kind of relationship. He’s more into a “two to three days a week” arrangement. Sometimes this feels romantic and fun, and sometimes I feel lonely despite my solid crew of ladyfriends and just want the comfort of a lover who is also a close friend, who wants to hear how my project is going and what I think about Jersey Shore or the new Haruki Murakami novel. Here’s where the psychological twistedness begins. When I (calmly, with I-statements) try to express the desire for more time with my guy, he basically says, “Guys who have time to be husbands [and by extension, fathers] have NOTHING else going on in their lives. They’re not creative and they’re dead inside. You’d be bored with a guy like that.” And to a small degree, he might be right, except I really really hope not. My dad was (like my boyfriend, cringe) one of the hip, gypsy ne’erdowell deadbeat dads that were endemic in the seventies (he was “too creative” to have time to be a dad…you see where this is going). I hardly saw him at all from the time I was four until he finally came back to the States when I was in my teens—and by then, it was far too late to have any semblance of a father-daughter relationship. So here I am, acting it all out again. Ugh. Over the past three years, I’ve tried to break up with this guy many times, even going so far as to move to another state with another man, which was as ill-fated as it sounds. I did well professionally, but emotionally I didn’t hold up too well, what with having no friends and having the guy I moved for break up with me about a week after I unpacked. Silly, I know, but I learned a lot and it ended up affording me better opportunities when I came back. Anyway, I also fell back into the arms of the beautiful, stubborn puer aeternus, and here I am. Still sniffling into my soup on a semi-regular basis because he just doesn’t have time for me. I have a kind of vague idea of what a better relationship would look like—I think it would involve sleeping in the same bed occasionally and having someone to play Boggle with. I also know there must be creatively fulfilled men out there who also happen to be husbands and fathers. But the concrete details of these things are foreign to me. I realize there is some kind of deep choice that I need to make—I loved what you wrote about “waking up feeling good” with your person. I need to be strong! I need to put my foot down! I need to put one foot in front of the other and walk away! And I just don’t really know how to do that. I think you are pretty good at some of those things, so I am hoping you might have some pointers. Thanks, Rabbit. Stuck at Square One Dear Stuck at Square One, What do you think of the new Haruki Murakami novel? See how good that feels? Your day could start like that every day, if you married the uncreative loser who has time to be a husband or a father. Back when I was glamoured by a wide range of very well-intentioned man-children, narcissists and oh-so-creative unemployed stoners, I always worried that a stable, interested, present, mature adult would bore the shit out of me. I loved overconfident, blustery, bold men with a swagger in their step – and when I cried over something small and these guys told me that this very nice thing about me, my ability to weep at, say, a dead bird or a really moving TV ad, made me a loser, I believed them. I believed that my emotions were a huge inconvenience, and that only a truly debilitated zero would ever give a shit about them. Sigh. And you know, these guys felt like home. I write about this in my book. Longing for more love felt utterly comfortable to me, in many ways, while having someone pay real attention to me and only me just made me nervous. What kind of a worthless toad would spend a few seconds focusing on me and me alone? But a survival instinct did kick in eventually, about 2 years in. When I'd finally grown a little less blown away by the charms (created partially by pedestal-building by me) of this or that guy, I'd picture myself raising kids with a man-child, cleaning up after a man-child, or just letting myself get older and older and more and more invisible as some man-child lingered ambivalently at the edge of the frame. And finally I'd say FUCK THIS SHIT and cry too much and act like your classic psycho chick. ("Why won't you wake up and see how WONDERFUL I AM?" I'd lament, looking like Captain Caveman in my grungy soft pants.) The thing you need to know is this: The stakes are fucking high. Because having a nice boring, lame loserman who's willing to listen, support me, drive the kids to daycare, walk the dogs, hang out, be a good friend, etc. is the single best thing about my life. I'm not saying I was nothing before, or that marriage is everything. I'm just telling you that if you do feel, at some level, that what you really want is a real partner and not a distracted cat in your life, then it's crucial that you drop this guy immediately. Just start researching now. Line up an apartment if you live together. Line up a week's worth of activities to keep you busy. Pack up your shit. Dump him. Be polite about it – you'll know you're ready if you can manage that. Sure, you'll also cry and lament, but you're really just torturing yourself, both in staying with him and in weeping about it. You already know he's not good for you. You already know you're about to be happier. There's nothing romantic about being ignored, so work really hard on removing the tragic romantic drama from your image of him. TRUST ME, in a year, you will see him very, very clearly and you will think: Christ almighty, that guy. Why? While you loom around, waiting for Handsome to get home, you're letting lots of really great possibilities pass you by. Why would you fucking do that to yourself? Again: It's already over. Now you're just torturing yourself. Just take action. Pack some stuff. Make a few phone calls to friends. Just act, don't lament, don't get dramatic. And sure, you won't like anyone for a while. That's fine. Make friends, focus on living very large for a while. But while you're single, and you're sometimes lonely, just remember: You will find someone who's just as pretty to look at and smart and creative as your boyfriend, only he'll also love talking about shit, and he'll love you. Have faith in yourself, and keep telling yourself that you're not settling for less than someone who's head over heels about you. Be clear on that, and the rest of your life is already guaranteed to be better than it is right now. Some other ideas: Buy a nice outfit. Commit to a vigorous exercise routine. Get your hair cut and colored. All of these things seem to help. Splurge a little for a few weeks. And finally? Everyone is really boring after a while, at some level. The thing that saves so called "boring" men and husbands from being as unbearable as man-children is their genuine engagement with the world. There is really nothing in the world nicer than having a real conversation, a real back and forth, with your husband. There's nothing nicer than seeing him really talk to your kids, and listen to what they say. You look at someone like that and you say to yourself, "Christ, I must be doing something right, to be a part of this picture." I'm not just bragging emptily about my fantastic life here; this is the way that women who have thoughtful, smart, present men in their lives feel. It's good to be an adult. You will love it, believe me. Fuck it, why not start today? Best of luck, Rabbit 9:05 AM Tuesday, July 27, 2010 BITE Mom. Dad. We need to talk. When your toddler bites another toddler, don't rush over and say "Oh! Oh! Oh!" to the bitten child, whose parents are right there saying "Oh! Oh! Oh!" already. Look at YOUR kid. She's smiling. You need to talk to her. Don't pick up your smiling daughter and then walk over to where the bitten kid is crying and say, "Do you see what you did? Do you see?" in a soft voice you might also use when you say "Aren't you big!" or "You ate all your peas!" Don't say, "Do you see? Do you see?" over and over like you're looking at a humming bird or the north star. After that, don't blush and freak out and feel embarrassed and explain yourself as if this is All About You, because no one actually wants to hear it. Don't juice a bunch of reassurances and friendly feelings out of the bitten kid's parents -- even though they know that all toddlers are crazy, enraged monkeys because they have one living in their home with them, too, they won't mean a word they say. In fact, they won't like you no matter what you say next. But this isn't about your experiences, or your new friends, or how cool or not cool you appear to the other hipster parents assembled. This is about telling your kid that she shouldn't bite. You have to do this right after it happens, so she gets it. That's what you do when your kid bites. You get down at eye level and you say, in a harsh tone (sorry, but this is the rare occasion when it's not only warranted but recommended), "That is bad. We never, ever bite. That is very, very bad." But you never stopped and looked your kid in the eye, mom. You never used a harsh tone or even a firm tone. So your kid smiled and babbled to herself as you were freaking out and apologizing to everyone else. Let's review what your kid just learned: Bite a random kid at the hipster coffee playpen and mommy rushes over, picks you up, and coos at your accomplishment along with all of the other parents. I have not read multiple parenting books. I do not pretend to know anything about raising children. I am a far cry from an ideal parent -- that's why my kids are somewhere else while I sit here in a cafe, trying to write some ultimately pointless critique of a pop cultural artifact no one will remember 3 weeks from now, let alone 3 years. I do my best, almost, not quite. But look: Your kid bites? Don't think about your stupid ego. Get down on your goddamn hands and knees and look your kid right in the eye and tell your kid that we do not fucking bite each other, period. I'm not saying it'll ACTUALLY WORK. Christ almighty, of course not! I would never imply such a thing. And I'm DEFINITELY not saying that the parents of biters are bad, or that they cause their kids' biting. No way. They really don't. Kids are lunatics, we all know that. All I'm saying is that if you see your kid bite another kid, and instead of addressing your kid directly, you pick her up and then make a big show of explaining yourself to everyone else like you're running for city council? You're fucking lame. That is all. 3:55 PM Friday, July 23, 2010 BEEP. 9:50 AM OLD, BROKEN THINGS I'm hand-coding my archives, finally, because the automated blogger script isn't working and has been misplacing my ancient history since before man discovered fire. Yes, this blog is that old! In other news, my neighbor seems to have dealt with his faulty, beeping fire alarm by ripping it out of the ceiling and leaving it in his backyard about 20 feet from where I now sit. BEEP. Here's how it all unfolded! BEEP. First, the dog looked very frightened out of the blue, perhaps fearing that carbon monoxide poisoning might kill us all at any minute. BEEP. That's when I noticed the weird, shrill beep. BEEP. I wandered around the house trying to figure out which of our alarms was beeping. BEEP. Luckily, that's when Bill returned home, and, in a ritual as old as time itself, I instructed him to dismantle the suspected alarm. BEEP. I said, "It's that one! Take it down! It's making me fucking crazy!" BEEP. In a dance as old as the very stones on which our humble bungalow was crafted 100 years ago, Bill took the alarm down and removed its batteries to replace them -- but the beeping continued! BEEP. Like so many proud men had done before him, he stomped around the house, swearing and yanking down the other two alarms. BEEP. By now, Bean, the frightened dog, was sitting in my lap, hoping against hope that we weren't about to pass out and die in our compound like cornered fundamentalist separatist types, the really extremist kinds who watch "Top Chef." BEEP. Finally, Bill looked out the window and saw that the offending alarm was our neighbor's. BEEP. Well, now. BEEP. But enough of that. BEEP. I'm on deadline. BEEP. I have to concentrate! BEEP. 9:15 AM Wednesday, July 21, 2010 WISENHEIMER TIME Awwwww Rabbit I'm sorry, I sure didn't mean to hurt your feelers. As a matter of fact, I do have friends of all sizes, not to mention many ages, levels of attractiveness and in various stages of mental health - God knows that last one changes for me monthly. I do take responsibility for what I say or write however, so my sincere apology to you for any insult caused by my first email. But I really think my bigger mistake was assuming you were thicker skinned. And no, I'm not copping out with one of those lousy,"it's-really-your-fault-for-being-insulted" back-handed apologies. My friends and I just happen to enjoy a lot of insult-type banter. We call each other out, give each other loads of shit and laugh it off. It's not our exclusive style of rapport by any means, we also love and support each other and we respect and defend one another. We just don't get too worked up about the "F" word (as in "fat'). Why give society the power to tell us how to feel about our bodies? And yes, we get bitter too and yes, it can, at times, be fun and funny! Your column(s) just make you seem like one of the wisenheimers in our group. My bad for getting too familiar. With most deepest reverence and profound respect, Lisa B. p.s. Did my 2nd email make the boo-boo even a wittle bit better? Dear Lisa B, You're very funny. Do you do stand-up? Are you coming to LA on your next tour? I hope when you get famous you don't forget the little people who put you there. Or the fat, angry people. And I hope you remember every last one of your loving, supportive, respectful, teasing, bantering, thick-skinned, secure, occasionally bitter, fun, funny friends. If you would just write to me every day, I'd never have to generate any ideas for this blog. Please write to me every day. Pleeeease. Rabbit 9:58 AM Monday, July 19, 2010 FAT CHANCE Rabbit, are you getting fat? Because you're sounding more bitter than usual. So, pip-pip, cheerio and all that - in other words, chin up!! (Seriously, you have gobs to be thankful for.) Stay classy, Lisa B. Oops, my stupid internet connection stopped before loading the rest of your latest post so all I read was your whining about the people you think are perfect. Sorry, I just saw the rest of your post and you don't sound bitter at all, also who cares if we get a little fatter? Christ, this country is so hung up on being thin. I'm naturally thin, but I think a little meat on the bones just looks so much better so I'm always trying to pack on a few lb's. Why is it that what feels so soft and supple to touch and caress is not what our eyes are supposed to find attractive? It just makes no fucking sense. I like what you wrote about the bouncy lady with the sign, I hope I see her some day. Stay classy, Lisa B. Dear Lisa B., This country is so hung up on being thin and happy that most people assume that anyone who's pissed off at something is downright bitter. And fat. Because I'm irritable and I'm a woman, people have often asked me if I'm fat. I assume this doesn't happen to men, since presumably a guy can be angry about something without overeating, or he can be unattractive without being furious about it, or maybe we don't give a shit how much a guy eats or how big he is. A woman, though, had better have a nice ass under all that anger. And then there are the single women who write to me like to clarify that they're very attractive, that many, many men agree on this front, so before I go thinking that they're lonely because they're ugly, rest assured they are not. What I've noticed, though, is that women look really good when they aren't distracted by their own reflection. When someone's worth doesn't ride on a reaction, you can see it, and it looks hot. Fat or not, angry or not, beautiful or not, if you're a walking apology, or a question mark, or a splashy billboard, you're not looking good. Several years ago, I knew a group of women who spent a lot of time telling each other how extraordinarily beautiful they were. This went beyond the usual "Hey, you look really nice" or "No, you really don't look old," which is just how women talk to each other. This was "Holy Christ, you are so gorgeous I just can't STAND IT." Somehow, the guys they knew were a part of this, too, throwing in that this or that woman is hot or is or isn't gaining weight. Then one night, one of the women was telling another woman that she was so gorgeous, just soooo gorgeous it was just unreal, it was unbearable, and I threw in, "Yes, I think you might be too beautiful to be my friend." A week later, my boyfriend received a call about how devastating it was for this woman to hear those words, because all her life, people have judged her based on her looks, and gone on and on about her looks, and this comment was just exactly like what she's always heard, and it cut her to the core. But when she tried to discuss it with me that night, I waved her off, laughing! How could I be so callous? I felt a little bad for her, really, because I had no idea her beauty was such an albatross. I didn't realize that she was any different from the other women around her. To me, she looked like the rest of them. Sometimes she looked pretty good. Sometimes she looked ordinary. Sometimes she looked stunning. She had been a model, but half of these women could've modeled, maybe if they were a little taller, maybe if they had more conventional noses or perfectly symmetrical features. They all looked great, but ultimately no greater or less great than most of the women I've known. The model, though, was hung up on the notion that she really was a creature whose beauty was so transcendent and distracting that it kept anyone from taking her seriously, and that hurt her deeply. In other words, she really was too beautiful to be my friend. But then, I'm probably way too fat and bitter to be your friend. Stay classy, Rabbit 12:46 PM Saturday, July 17, 2010 FOR THE PRODUCTIVE MOTHERFUCKERS IN PARADISE Isn't it time we stood up to the plague of productive motherfuckers out there, living happy and successful lives in beautiful places, writing timely thank you notes to their aunts and uncles and mothers and second cousins twice removed for the delightful gift that was sent in the mail and arrived right on time for Florenza's third birthday (which was truly wonderful, thanks for asking, the goldfish pond and pottery wheel and fondue-making class were all a smashing success)? Is it fair for these people to run all over town, their fashionable outfits draped over their abs of steel, chirping happily at each other about the upcoming publication of their second poetry chapbook, which is really going to make the move to the remodeled loft a little hectic, but hey, that's life when you're beautifulish and smartish and hopelessly productive? Is it right that we should sit a stone's throw from these people, who are centered and relaxed, and tolerate the fact that they're smiling sweetly while knitting whimsical scarves and tea cozies for their goddamn friends in their goddamn book clubs? Now, thanks to the internets, which lumpy, unproductive humans like you and me are drawn to like flies to enormous piles of grassy cow manure, we know all about these people and their many, many, many fun hobbies and activities and pet projects, and we are treated to professional-looking shots of their photogenic families, their fit husbands and their delicious children who are always hugging kitty cats or laughing joyfully, children who are always filled with wonder (which we know from the cheerful and awestruck blog posts written about them). Their children never pee in their Tinkerbell undies by accident and then whine about going commando, just for example. But that's because their children don't carry around the enormous burden of having conflicted, ambivalent, distracted, drag-ass self-hating ovens for parents. Their children have parents who make elaborate veggie casseroles for dinner and finish it all with Bananas Foster, and then the sword-swallowers arrive for a pre-bedtime surprise. Or they sleep under the stars at Joshua Tree and no one soils their sleeping bag or has a bad trip from too many high-fructose-corn-syrup-infused juice boxes. But forget the kids, they're a footnote to the real crime: Those seriously productive donkey-fucking assholes, frolicking in paradise, publishing stuff, starting online magazines of their own for fun, leading support groups, going to classes at the new cardio ballet place that gives you an ass like a basketball. Fuck them! Fuck those people! Fuck the serene, positive-thinking professional hipster, with her fucking handmade crafts and her mid-century modern furniture and her good skin! This morning I was feeling like a loser, and I saw a very big woman waving around a Yard Sale sign. She was wearing an outfit that didn't compliment her body, and her boobs were jiggling and bouncing in a wild way, and she was smiling and waving around this piece of cardboard with something scrawled on it, and you could barely read the words. You really had to squint - the writing was in some shitty ballpoint pen and maybe she ran out of room for the address because the last part was really squeezed on there, and then there was this huge space under the words, she didn't even make use of the whole piece of cardboard. The whole thing was very unprofessional, the kind of thing that, if I had done it myself, I would've ripped it up, declaring it unacceptable, and then I would've bitched about how I didn't have anymore goddamn cardboard to start another sign, and then I probably would've blamed my husband for not buying more cardboard at the drugstore. "When I say get some cardboard, that word 'some' means more than one fucking piece." That's really what I would've said, too. But I also wouldn't have put on that outfit, if I were as big as she was. I'm not all that slender at the moment, but if I were her, I would've stared in the mirror and sobbed and then gone back to bed. Maybe I'd put on some kind of a housedress or some elastic pants eventually, but I certainly wouldn't go stand on the stupid curb with a sign, drawing attention to myself. No way. If I were big like her, I'd be at home, sulking. I'd make my husband stand around with the sign, but then I'd blame him when the yard sale got too crowded and hectic. "Where have you been? I can't handle this whole thing on my own! This was YOUR IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE!" That's really how I would've been about it. But this morning I sat at the intersection at watched the woman bouncing around, and even though I was in a bad mood, she made me smile. She was just a really great person, you could see that. She had swagger. She didn't give a shit that she looked a little bouncy and unwieldy out there, jumping around, she didn't care that her sign sucked, she was jumping around and waving at drivers. And all of the drivers in the cars next to me were smiling and waving at her, and some of them were men, too. They weren't giving her a cheap, "Hey there, little hottie!" wave, they were giving her an appreciative, you-made-my-morning wave. They liked the cut of her jib. And so did I. I need to be more like that woman, I thought. I'm 40 years old now, and I need to stop comparing myself to productive motherfuckers with 3 really good novels and half a dozen knitted tea cozies under their belts. Fixating on other people and their accomplishments and their energy and their ability to get shit done is just like wanting someone else's shiny car. It's like being 40 and paying a surgeon to make your tits look like a 20-year-old's tits. Once you start down that road, nothing will ever be good enough. You can't be a combination of Mary Gaitskill and PJ Harvey and Georgia O'Keefe and Joan Didion and Giselle Bundchen and Meryl Streep. You can't even be one of those people. . Right now, with my writing, I'm ripping up the goddamn sign and starting over. I'm saying "This is all wrong." I'm saying, "You fucked up, this would be fine if you hadn't fucked up." To myself, mostly. Serene, productive professionals are getting on my nerves – maybe because they really are annoying, self-satisfied motherfuckers, or maybe because I just happen to prefer people whose sweaters are unraveling, who are second-guessing themselves, who just spilled coffee all over their pants. But that woman on the curb doesn't give a fuck about what serene, productive professional hipsters do or don't do. She doesn't send thank you notes and she doesn't consider that a personal failing of hers. She has other shit to do. I am going to try to be more like her. 9:17 AM HOW YOU GET UNSTUCK Go read this right now. Better than the finest rabbit stew! It made me cry my eyes out. 7:52 AM Thursday, June 24, 2010 COOKIE I DIG YOUR FRAME Dear Rabbit, I’m 21 years old, a college graduate, a soon to be law school student, and I’ve never been in love. It isn’t extraordinary to be in such a situation and not even that tragic in comparison to losing your mother, as I did last August, but it is an annoyance, a question, a point of confusion. You hear about this type of thing all the time, I’m sure, and I read your previous response letter and it really got me to thinking, but I’m still a tad bit confused. It’s not that I’ve even had the opportunity for such a relationship where I could fall in love. The longest relationship I’ve been in is 3 dates long and that’s worthy of celebration. I’ve matured into the girl my mom hoped I would never become- her. I apologize for not being modest but there is no other way for you to fully understand my situation without it being said- I’m pretty and on most days I feel beautiful and confident in myself. I’m intelligent and passionate. I’m worldly and an enthusiast of many things. Guys make passes at me wherever I go, be it in the coffee shops and bookstores or at the bars and clubs, so I can’t even blame it on limiting my options. It isn’t even that I’ve closed myself off or am too timid. My guy friends think I give too many guys too many chances. And they think I’m at fault for teasing so many guys, but I don’t intend to be a tease. My only intentions are to meet new people, make new friends, and see if anything ever comes of it. For so many years I went to therapy to avoid becoming the narcissist’s child because my mother and therapist worried that as the narcissist’s child, I would end up with a man like my father- an arrogant man who can talk pretty and win everyone over but the people he should love. Basically they were afraid I’d end up with a man that would only hurt me and not provide me with a healthy type of loving. Maybe that’s why I haven’t found anyone? Because in my subconscious I’m avoiding all men? I long to be in a relationship with someone. I long for someone to feel that way about me and need me just as badly. I long to feel that love and in a sick way I long to feel a pain that will be different than losing my mother. I don’t ever want to be the desperate girl. I want to stop being the girl that has a whole lot of one night stand opportunities chasing after her and not one boyfriend potential running after her. What am I to do? A bit of advice would be nice- something to give me a bit of clarity, something to give me a bit of motivation in this quarterly life dilemma I’ve been dealing with. Thanks, With The Accent Dear With The Accent, Jeez. All of my readers are so gorgeous! I wish I had pictures of all of you beautiful young people, to hang on my sad old lady walls. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. No, I'm not that fucking old yet, although technically I am old enough to be your mother, which fucking sucks and is the kind of thing that never occurred to me until I turned 40. Lame. But back to your quarter-life crisis: I understand why you would clarify this. You're an attractive woman. You can fool around with anyone but no one wants a girlfriend. You know that song "Fuck and Run" by Liz Phair? "I want a boyfriend," she sings, while screwing around with this or that guy. Consider yourself lucky, that you're not lonely and slutty. That's far worse. I congratulate you for not being a total slut like the rest of us, men and women alike, were at your age. Look, you're 21 years old. Of course you haven't been in love yet. The only women who've been in love by your age are women who can suspend their disbelief really well. Most guys your age are, maturity-wise, about 11 years old. Most of them still play with action figures when nobody's looking. They spend most of their time jacking off to pictures of Heidi Montag. Falling in love with the average 21-year-old guy is like falling in love with a really sophisticated monkey -- except less exciting. And more demeaning. And less fun. And more insulting. And less educational. And more obnoxious. Well, OK, I did have lots of thoughtful, smart boyfriends when I was your age and younger. I could sniff out the romantics in a crowd. I could locate the one sensitive, slightly neurotic sweetheart in a room crowded with self-serving mutants. Can't you do that, too? Can't you just avoid the guys who remind you of your father, and go for the ones who are exactly the opposite? Or are you allergic to people who really, sincerely like you? Because many of us are, when we're young. I mean, if you really want a boyfriend, you do have to tolerate the feeling that someone is paying attention to you, not ignoring you -- you know, ignoring you the way a narcissist might? I don't know, it's tough to say what's going on with you, based on your letter. My best guess is that you're doing fine, on the whole. You're salling forth with your self-respect in place, and sure, maybe you're keeping yourself safe from getting hurt, but that's how you are. You're a little cautious. My only advice is that you open up your heart to some guys who might not catch your interest at first. Slow down and see who's actually listening closely, paying attention to you. Try to branch out a little bit, get to be friends with a few new guys if you can, expand your horizons, keep an open mind. Watch, listen, and don't panic or tell yourself that you're LATE somehow. You're not late. Forget love for the moment. Just see if you can fall in like. That means spending some time with a few guys, making it clear that you want to be friends. And if people call you a tease, tell them to kiss your fucking ass. Not wanting to fuck someone for no reason doesn't make you a tease. Not being attracted to someone doesn't make you a tease. The word "tease" is someone else's problem -- that's their boner, not yours. You're not fucking with anyone, here. You're just living your life. I think that's one thing that it's really important to be assertive about. Don't let people cast aspersions on your friendliness just because you also happen to be pretty and 21 years old. If they can't handle the fact that you make their pants itch, then they can back the fuck off. You know, I will add that this hints at something. Are you hesitant to tell people what you think, because you think they won't like you if you do? If so, I'm going to strongly encourage you to experiment with this, and risk not being liked. You're not really free until you accept the fact that some people won't like you. You're not free until you stop trying to please everyone. This is a common trap for the pretty daughter of a narcissist, I might add. Please yourself. You don't have to be perfect. I'm sorry about your mother. She would want you to know that you aren't running late. Everything is going to turn out just fine for you. You have a good head on your shoulders. Take a little more pride in who you are, underneath the prettiness, underneath the label of narcissist's daughter or shy girl or tease. Fuck the critics. Assert yourself. Be the person you want to be eventually, down the road, but do it today, right now. Clear out every person who doesn't support you fully. Only keep friends around who are totally loving and trustworthy, and be loving and trustworthy to them. Above all, DO NOT WORRY. Do not fret. Open your heart, move forward, and have faith that the world is your oyster. Just make sure to open your eyes, see what is around you, and let it all in. Good things are headed your way, I feel certain of that -- probably sooner than you imagine. Very best wishes to you, Rabbit 8:12 PM Thursday, June 10, 2010 SOME TRIVIAL MUSINGS ON LOS ANGELES I do like a few things about Los Angeles. I like the weather. I like the fact that there aren't as many bugs here. When I fly to other states, sometimes I'm so preoccupied by the bugs that I can't think straight. You have to swim through clouds of bugs in Durham, North Carolina, my hometown, just to get in the front door of my mom's house at night. A few bugs always sneak in the door with you, and then wake you up at midnight with their high-pitched buzzing in your ears. Crickets hop around erratically in the bathroom, crawling up from basement through the vents in the wall. Sometimes a gigantic roach appears and you have to hit it really hard with your shoe before it carries off the baby. Then you roll it up in a rug and drag its corpse outside. I like the fact that you can see the sky here. In North Carolina, you're always boxed in by tall, tall trees. The trees are amazing, don't get me wrong, but you don't get to see much sky unless you're on a hill (rare) or visiting someone's grassy farm where the trees have been cleared away (even more rare), or maybe you're at one of those man-made lakes that have squishy red clay on their shores where the sand should go. Here in LA, the sky is pretty spectacular. When people in other places say, "Oh, look at the pretty sky!" it's hard not to scoff at the smear of pink that passes for a sunset. Smog makes for some glorious sunsets. I like the fact that people who live here (at least on the East side) generally aren't pretentious and don't take themselves too seriously. The hipsters aren't that hip, and they know it. Most people can barely afford to live here, and that keeps them humble. And the weather is nice, so people aren't pissed off all the time. People in LA are very friendly, and they don't strain to seem cool. They are enthusiastic. They listen. They talk very directly about their feelings. There's not a lot of self-consciousness here, in my experience. Maybe I was just younger when I lived in San Francisco, but people practically talked in riddles when I lived there, all sarcasm and jokes. People were always trying to hide their feelings, trying to seem easier going than they were, and everyone got embarrassed easily. Now I'm just describing a person in their 20s, right? But the social mood in San Francisco is different - it's far less forgiving than the mood in LA. Or maybe we're just more comfortable with our jackassy-ness down here. There are a lot of jackasses here, I'll give you that. And a lot of the public schools are seriously shitty. Traffic sucks. Driving on the freeway for 45 minutes to see a friend across town sucks. Smog sucks. And it's too expensive here. Still, I really don't miss the bugs in NC. Or the constant chill in SF. I do miss the falafels and the crepes in SF. I miss Stinson Beach. I miss walking everywhere. But why didn't I bring a jacket? I never brought a jacket. I miss the BBQ and the ChicFilA, chicken of the gods, in NC. I miss the ocean. I miss the thunderstorms. Goddamn it I miss the thunderstorms! 10:31 AM Thursday, June 03, 2010 SEA SICK Dear Rabbit, So! Like a lot of people who write you, I'm 1) female 2) in my late 20s (I'll be 30 in October, in fact, a thought that chills me more than I think it ought to) 3) on the one hand smart and funny and cute and overall pretty aware of what it is I have to offer and 4) on the other hand, completely and utterly lost. I hadn't checked Rabbitblog for a few months, and I got caught up the other day, and here's the passage that jumped out and hit me in the eye: "It's funny how these letters always have bad jobs and big career impasses attached to them. Have any of you rabbit readers noticed that before? The real reason for the stress and worry and longing is attached to bigger existential questions that are being squelched or pushed to the side in pursuit of some kind of ego salve. " And oh, man. Oh MAN. I can tell you that the last couple of years have been an absolute nightmare for me, in terms of Big Life Stuff. While it is actually a long story, I'll do my best to condense it. Let's start with this scene: I'm lying on my bed in the middle of my bedroom in a house I just moved into a week ago (across town from the old one, where I'd been for three years). A bed that's still smack in the middle of the bedroom, amid other randomly assorted furniture and half-unpacked boxes because I had, no shit, mono. Now, I have no idea how I got mono at 27; my doctor actually giggled when she called to deliver the test results. All I had the energy to do was ride the bus to the video store every day, rent three movies, doze off watching them, lather rinse repeat daily for about a week. I mean, I bought pudding or yogurt or something from the drugstore and ate a little bit of it every day, but yeah, those were my days. I also managed, during my waking hours, to do some crying. Because it's not just that I was sick. My mother was sick. Not mono sick, real sick. In the hospital, in an induced coma. Her third visit that year for a chronic condition that had lain dormant for years. I'd been sick before, and I'd moved before, and I'd had a sick mother before, and any one of the three is liable to leave one feeling just a tad overwhelmed and isolated, right? And there was the rub: I wasn't, ostensibly, alone. Rumor had it, I had a boyfriend. We'd been together for two and a half years, long distance (living three hours apart); moving had always been on the table and we'd actually begun to talk about it seriously a few months previous. Because I brought it up. I mean, we'd talked about it before, we'd set a timeline, but when the target date finally arrived, guess who actually fucking initiated the conversation? I really really loved the thing you said about dudes spending their 20s scratching their balls and deciding whether they like cashews or pistachios better; I've been chuckling about it for weeks. But I have to admit that I have this terror that any actual communication that happens between myself and a dude is going to be something I bring up, always, for the rest of my life. That the best I can hope for is not to be so petulant when I do it, not to explode all over the poor fucker like a shaken-up bottle of beer. If you have any reassurance to the contrary, that would be great. Because that's what I did. Two years and change of playing it cool and suave and independent. I mean, I really LIKED that we only saw each other every other weekend. It gave me a lot of time to do what I wanted to do, with my friends, and it gave him some time to make his own friends, and that was important to me (he was new to this part of the country). Then, VERY suddenly, it was wait a minute: don't boyfriends come over and help you move your furniture and unpack boxes and then watch those stacks of shitty DVDs WITH you because you're so exhausted you don't even want to go downstairs to pour another glass of water, and it's hotter than hell and you don't have air conditioning? Don't boyfriends come over with popsicles when your throat is sore as shit? Don't boyfriends come over and let you howl like a puppy and get eyeliner all over their T-shirts because damn the prognosis, you know in your heart it's really bad this time and you're never going to see your Mommy again? Turns out, yeah, I guess that's what they do. And I could say that I never really wanted that before, because it's nearly true. I've always liked being alone. But you know, I wanted those things then. And I thought I would have had them. WE HAD A TIMELINE. (It's not that I'd never entertained the idea of moving to be closer to him, by the way. I'd been out of work for a while, interviewed for jobs, and then happened to land a lucrative and not-especially-interesting, but also not-torturous job in my city. Which he'd always liked better. Until he didn't.) Cutting past the part in which we declare a Break and I fly home and see my mother for what turns out, in fact, to be the last time, and he flies out for a couple of days and deals pretty valiantly with me and the family he's only met a couple of times, but flies back before the funeral, because of work, but also because um, well, dude, Burning Man wasn't that far away and he had to get ready. No, I am not kidding and the thing is, I don't resent him as much for that as much as you might imagine. All that did was make it clear to me that We Were Not in it Together, and that there was Absolutely Nothing I Could Do About That. That was all. I had a boyfriend but not a partner. And OK, it was a really, really horrible time to figure out that my relationship was actually not a relationship, and that my poor little glorified fuck buddy had not quite the balls to tell me that he'd realized he sort of liked the pistachios in his newly adopted city way better than the humble cashews I had to offer. But hey, it could have been worse, right? Look at Mary-Louise Parker! But uh, what about that paragraph I cut and pasted up there? So here's the thing. That wonderful lucrative job I'd decided was going to keep me rooted in my city? I fucked it up. As was probably, I don't know, my right? But my brain just didn't function. I made a few mistakes that got written up, but more than that, I stopped engaging with the work on any level whatever. It's true that some days I'd sit in front of the monitor and try not to cry, or have to take off for the nap room (it was that kind of company! the kind of company that has a nap room! AND STILL I FUCKED IT UP) and sit on the couch and sob for 20 minutes. But more often I'd come in and not be able to remember one single task I was supposed to accomplish that day, not even to make a to-do list. And if I made that list, I wouldn't look at it. I was still coming home and sleeping through most of my evenings as well as my nights, but of course, there were also nights that I couldn't sleep at all. I slept in a couple of times when I was scheduled for meetings. My employer knew what had gone on with me outside work, of course, but I became a charity case. I wasn't the least surprised when the axe came down. Luckily, I was not replaced and was thus eligible for the dole. That was a little over a year ago. And of course I spent that year talking to a good therapist, reassessing my goals, working on improving my time management, re-entered the dating scene slowly and with cautious optimism, cultivating healthy friendships and generally being really gentle with myself. HA HA HA HA HA. That or haphazardly entertaining plans I don't execute on, continuing to fucking forget those tasks I do sign on for, drinking heavily, sleeping with one cringeworthy jerkass after another, developing tight mercurial attachments with people who were just as head-fucked as I was, trying the patience of lonstanding, close friends, and generally sabotaging the shit out of myself. Then I started to scrape together plans to go back to school and find a vocation I can actually do every day. I met a dude I actually thought was pretty cool -- like, more than any dude I'd met in the previous year, I knew that I wanted to be friends with him, but also thought he was cute and knew he was unattached, so I propositioned him. Now, we actually did end up becoming friends! But the deal is that, and this had not happened in a goddamn eternity, HE rejected ME. And I actually LIKED him. I actually wanted to be with him. So much so that I went into full-fledged, non-hyperbolic panic just thinking about him sometimes. And then after he dumped me, I kind of looked around at my very messy room and my very messy life and I thought, you know, I'm not sure I would date me either. So I began to at least try to get it together. I swore off sex for a few months. Then I went away for a weekend with a decent solid male friend and we had sex, and nothing materialized after that but a decent solid friendship, but I can't tell you how long it had been since I'd had a real conversation and made dinner and such with a dude. (Oh man, I just realized that as you're reading this you're totally thinking of that scene in Jerry Maguire, at his bachelor party, where they show the videotaped interviews of all his exes talking and they all say, "Great at friendship. Bad at intimacy." Most of my exes aren't the type to notice that sort of thing, but a few of them would for sure.) The funny thing is that a year ago I was getting all kinds of attention from dudes. And now, well, look, I've gained a few pounds in the last couple of years (something to do with all that shitty beer I was drinking, perhaps), but I will tell you, I am still pretty good to look at, and the men in bars and at parties, they do not approach me like they used to! (This might be because I do not spend as much time in bars as I used to, but nonetheless.) I am no less clever in my profile-devising and email-writing abilities, and yet, the men on the Internet dating sites, they do not write me (or write me back) like they used to! I'm not so surprised by the former - I carry myself differently, I'm sure, than I used to, I'm the glib little lush that I was a year ago. But the latter is somewhat surprising, and hurts a little bit. (I guess it should. But remember that it wasn't so long ago that all I felt in response to men was either horny or annoyed! Usually both at the same time!) But it also feels like sort of a blessing in disguise. Like the universe is all, BACK OFF. LADY'S GOT SHIT TO DO. I can't go waltzing around with boors and bores like I used to, and I also know that if anyone who really was Relationship Material happened onto my scene right now I'd...well, just not be ready. But this business of getting my shit together. I don't know. The two shrinks I have seen since my mother passed away were big on talking about things that seemed way too abstract to me, stuff about my childhood, when what I wanted at that time was to figure out how to freaking FUNCTION day-to-day. I mean, in high school that line about how the mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation - it seemed so SAD! But when you're the one who can't see your computer screen because you keep tearing the hell up, and sleeping through meetings because sleep is the only place your safe, it feels like it would be nice to turn down the volume on your damn desperation, you know? And now...now things are a LITTLE better. But I still just feel tired and hopeless. And I have some ideas for ways to feed myself when unemployment runs out (and it's not that I haven't been applying for jobs, but employers are no more amused by my clever introductions than men on dating sites; I've also botched -- as in, accepted assignments and never did -- a couple of freelance opportunities that could have been really good for me). But executing is nearly impossible. I have this friend who's training to be a shrink, and I've known her since we were freshmen in college, and she said in a lot of ways I have a pretty big handle on the Big Picture, that what I need help with is connecting that to my day-to-day life. Maybe I actually need to hire a personal organizer or assistant or something instead, anyway. And since I probably can't afford even a sliding-scale shrink anyway, and since you give really terrifically concrete advice, what's the best way you know to unfreeze my motivation, get my damn room organized and start fucking executing, lest I fall into some kind of fucking sinkhole? (I suspect the dude strategy I've undertaken is more or less what you'd recommend, but if you have any further insights in that department, please, let me know.) Yrs, At Sea Dear At Sea, It's funny that you should use that moniker since, right now, the room is rocking gently, as if I'm in a little dinghy out on the open water. Two days ago, I was diagnosed with vertigo, either from a migraine or some bump on the head that I might've suffered back a few months back when I had the stomach flu and passed out in the bathroom, cracking my rib. I've been this way for over a week, and it's been a big fucking nightmare. Oh and yesterday, I turned 40. Hoohah! The thing that makes vertigo particularly challenging (once you stop throwing up) is that it comes with a feeling of dread, a suspicion that you'll never be free of dizziness, that you'll never walk on dry land again. Your mind is so bewildered by the screwiness in your inner ear, those crystals or rocks or whatever the fuck they are swirling around in the liquid, the cilia or hairs or whatever the fuck they are twisting in the wind, that your neurons are firing away in panic, telling you: System Failure! Cannot trust stimulus input circuits! Cannot trust data being gathered! You're at war with yourself – at least until you go to the ENT (get an otologist, by the way, not just a regular ENT, because an ear specialist will be better versed in vestibular maladies) and she talks you through the whole thing, makes some guesses, and gives you weird exercises that involve throwing yourself sideways and refocusing, exercises that actually work. You, At Sea, are also off-balance because you're at war with yourself. And since I am truly a specialist when it comes to self-warfare-related maladies, I'm going to tell you some stuff that you will think is just dorky middle-aged woman bullshit (see how I can refer to myself that way now? Sweet Christ it's no-fair!), but that's the warring side of you talking. You're extremely smart, neurotic, a storyteller, complicated, emotional, and deeply shaky about what ground is under you at any given time. A nation of similarly mixed-up, seasick women is with you on this, we get it, we really do. You may not know anyone quite as off-balance, you may not know anyone who pulls out their computer and then weeps piteously instead of getting right to work, you may not know anyone who's simultaneously as direct and as avoidant as you are emotionally, but we're out here, probably sighing deeply into the coffee we really shouldn't be drinking. First, some physiological basics: Stop drinking heavily. I love to drink heavily, don't get me wrong, but you're way too seasick to do this right now. Second, get some regular exercise. I don't care if you just walk for an hour, you've got to get out of the house and sweat. Doing something outside is probably best. Just do it, don't complain, don't question it, and don't pretend you can't make the time, because you can, somehow some way. This is just the bare minimum of what's required right now, and all other discussions of your salvation are pointless unless you commit to these two changes. You can drink a little once you shake off your sea legs, but cutting it out completely will offer you a crucial perspective on where you've been and what you've been doing and how you've been spackling over the cracks in your psyche with fake swagger. You are not alone in this, take heart in that. Onward, to your current issue: You're tired of pretending, tired of bluster, tired of fake swagger, tired of your pride, tired of seeming cool, tired of blowing things off, tired of shrugging, tired of going with the flow, tired of acting unattached, easygoing, tough, cool, incredible. You are tired of trying to be the very best, most beautiful, smartest, coolest, funniest, most ravishingly perfect woman in the room. I have no fucking clue why so many women in their 20s are cursed with this imperative to be the best – I had the curse, and so did most of my friends. You don't have to be gorgeous or a genius or be insanely entitled to be struck by this curse, either. You just have to be a woman who watched Cinderella, loved it, then declared it utter bullshit and yet became EVEN BETTER THAN CINDERELLA in her mind when she did it. It's a superiority complex, but it's also a compulsion to willfully ignore your own flaws, or to refuse to accept that anyone could love flaws. It's a belief that you will only be loved if you're funny, larger than life, on fucking fire, skinny, charming, fantastical, and flawless. Now, we all believe that there's no way that we expect that, at face value. We all say: Oh, well, I don't care what anyone thinks of me. Oh, well, I've never been that consumed by appearances. I've always been above that. Do you see how these are just ways of being even more superior, even more perfect, even more en fuego? And yes, you may say, as I once did: Well, SOME people don't think I'm that great. But then it MUST be true that those people are confused. Those people matter, at least a little, because it's important that they're all wrong. (Now, yes, of course, no one gives a shit about you or me that much. I'm just saying, this is what we imagine, in our big stupid heads.) And let's not use words like narcissistic, because I don't think that's fair. I think our culture makes us all into narcissists, if we're smart, if we're not actively oppressed, if we're lonely, if we have trouble connecting, if we're a little too wound up for most people's tastes. We turn inward, we get weird, we care too much about how we seem. This is a natural process that happens in your 20s, there's no real way for many of us to escape it. This isn't really about men or what they think, because as we've already established, most men in their 20s are a decade behind. Remember when someone liked you in high school, and you thought: "Weird, I don't like him now. I like that other guy who acts like I'm made of moldy cheese whenever I talk to him." That's how they are, a lot of them. No reason to parse it, or mull it, or dissect it. Nonetheless, it's on the table, so here goes: Men don't like you right now (and this isn't the problem we're solving, how to get men to like you, but we're going somewhere bigger with this) because they can tell that you're at war with yourself, you sound confused, you seem scary. Most men your age vastly prefer the reassurance of women who are dismissive, condescending, or simply percolating with happiness about merely existing (i.e. a little dumb, because your 20s are just too uncertain to be so joyful, let's face it). (Don't hate them for this, you were just as shallow and attracted to disinterest and stupidity, way back when.) The point here is that you're in conflict. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're in conflict because you're stuck between wanting a real partner (ew that word!) and wanting to disavow your desires and continue to refer to guys as "dudes." You want to be a dude, dude. And once again, I get it. I've always aspired to be a dude myself, with varying degrees of success. I love basketball, and I miss drinking games where you point at someone's face really aggressively and shout YOU YOU YOU YOU! DRINK DRINK DRINK YOU FUCKING PUSSY DRINK RIGHT NOW DRINK IT DRINK IT DRINK UP COCKSUCKER DRINK! Aw, it almost makes me a little weepy just thinking about it. Good fucking times, my friend. And I like how men do nothing together but joke around and give each other shit. I like that. Nothing earnest, nothing sincere, nothing thoughtful, just sneering and cackling and aggression. Mmm, raw aggression and mean words. Those feel a little cathartic to me, maybe because my dad was the only person in my family who could be in a great mood and say exactly what he thought or felt. (Everyone else had to be angry to speak their minds.) My dad was not the nicest person, mind you, but I often viewed his sociopathic streak as something bold and admirable and lovably emotional. OK, I'm deeply sick, that's obvious. But the point is, dudes are great. I love them. HOWEVER, I am not a dude. And back when I tried very very hard to be cool and fun and "who the fuck cares?" like a dude, back when I encountered every emotion I experienced as merely another obstacle to being the best dude I could be? Occasionally I freaked out and wept and hated myself and screamed and the dude I was with would say, "Dude, I thought you could hang." And then he'd disappear, and I would have clear proof that no one would ever love me, warts and all. But you can't get someone to love your warts if you walk around pretending to be wartless. One day, there will be an unveiling, and it will be harsh. Not only that, but walking around, aware of your warts but pretending to be wartless? Not only is it unattractive, but it's uncomfortable, and it makes you cry into your soup every night. Poor little warty weeper! Don't you see how much more huggable and lovable and squeezable the little warty one is, compared to the high-fiving, "who, me, worry?" swagger, I'm the hottest and the coolest in the room girl? I fucking hate that chick! I thought that, because I made a few self-deprecating jokes, because I could rationalize and explain anything under the sun, because I could do all of that heavy lifting, that PR about myself, to spin myself in a positive way, that I wasn't that show-off, frat-boy ass kisser, fun-time, look-at-me girl, But I was. I was lame. We all have our weak decades. We all find success with this or that formula, and then we let our egos lead us around the room, soaking in shallow praise and hot guy attention like cheap wine. These days, I don't seek out the hot guys or the high-fivers most of the time. Instead, I want to find the warty little toad girl in the corner, who is sincere about what she's going through. I want to know about how her mother died, and what she did to stay alive in the wake of this huge loss. I want her to admit that, although she is sharp and nice to look at, that she suspects that she is just a big nothing, a big pile of blah. I want to sit and spoon up our lukewarm soup together and cry big salty tears about how frustrating and horrible it is to want companionship from these guys who just… God, they're nice people, they really are, they mean well, even, but they barely even have souls yet. Is that unfair? This isn't really about them, is it? It's just so heartbreaking to be young and to want a real match, a real friend, and to be alone in your house, among your unpacked boxes, wishing someone were really, truly on your side. That's just so sad. And why shouldn't it be? Your mother is dead and your boyfriend is getting ready for Burning Man. Fuck! I mean FUUUUUCK. it's just heartwrenching. It's just the absolute worst. It doesn't mean he's evil, it's just so hard to be there, wanting to be met, alone. It shouldn't come down to a man, not until you find one who's capable of showing up. And look, that's what you want. Admit it. Maybe you're not ready, maybe you are, who knows? I don't buy this not ready bullshit anymore, unless you're in rehab and prone to falling for drunks. I think one of the biggest parts of being ready is admitting what you really want, even though it might sound uncool to someone. And yes, when you start demonstrating your vulnerability, your weakness, which I feel strongly that you should do, when you stop trying to hide your flaws, when you start making it clear that you are just another person in the room, not the best or the worst, when you fail to spin your story in any way, when you strive to appear brave but still admit to feeling crumpled and silly, when you show people who you are and even how you feel without apology (this doesn't mean being bold and showing off, necessarily, it can mean anything), when you try to bring your whole person into the room, the warty loser and the dude lover and every last one of you, then you will repel many, many men, and you will also attract a few who are exactly the sorts of men you want to know. Or not, but they'll be better for you than the ones who liked the fun-time chick, the one who wouldn't mind painting her naked body blue for Burning Man. God bless the fun-time girls, really. God bless them, if they're happy. And it was fun, being one of them, for a while. It really was a blast. But that was then. You're moving on. It's really very very hard, being where you are. It's hard to start a career, particularly when your standards are high, and you don't want to waste your life on something lame. It's obnoxious. You asked about how to get organized, snap to it, get your act together, etc. You can't do it because the warty, bashful part of you is staging a revolt. She doesn't want to be in the closet anymore, so she refuses to help you get your shit together and organize your closets. Before you get yourself together, you have to sit down and admit how fragile you are. You can't go full speed ahead until you do this. You have to acknowledge your vulnerability. You have to tell the truth, to yourself, about what you really want in your life, whether it's love or something else. You have to start to ACCEPT your weak side. Don't work so hard all the time. Learn to sit with yourself, to take a little time – not angry, fuck-me-I'm-lame time, but patient, I'm ok time. You also have to call your close friends, and cry on the phone to them. Explain that this is something you need to know how to do, if you're going to be friends. I hope these friends are women. Even if they're not that into it, it'll be good for your friendship. Tell them you're trying to be more honest about how fucked you feel, and not just by describing it in entertaining ways. Are you only lovable if you make your misery entertaining? Fuck no. It shouldn't ALL be up to some guy, keeping you company through the shit, holding your hand. I'm married to someone who can do these things, and I still want my girlfriends to do it sometimes, just because I do, because I know that they understand in ways that my husband never will, because they're women. It feels good to have really close friends that can stand to hear snuffling on the phone. I don't do it very often, maybe once or twice a year, but Christ almighty, it's so nice to know that, even when I'm a wreck and maybe I'm being a little bit self-pitying, I can do it if I really need to. And the close friends who don't cry to me? I tell them sometimes: "You know, you can always call me and just cry into the phone. Sometimes that really helps, so do it if you feel like it. I won't think it's weird at all. As you know. Because. I do it to you. (Sorry.)" You are pretty great, you know that. Now it's time to try to be not that great at all. Just be average. And after that? Once you feel relieved by how regular and mediocre and flawed you are, relieved for some weird reason? You'll suddenly find that you want to go on a long walk, just to think. When your mind starts saying "you fucking suck," tell your mind to fuck itself. And then, after the walk, you'll have a cup of tea, and then you'll start cleaning your apartment. You'll reorganize your bookshelves, while you talk on the phone to a friend. You'll buy yourself some flowers. This is the start of a new era for you. You might be a little less fun to talk to at a bar or at a party, you might have less men around you, but you will be much happier. You now have permission to be exactly the way you are. No matter how ugly you think that is, you are not alone, and plenty of people will find your ugly very beautiful. This is the breakdown you've been waiting for, for a long, long time. I like you much better already. Rabbit 8:59 AM Saturday, May 22, 2010 FAVORITE HATE MAIL EVER "First of all, aged gouda doesn't smear. It's a hard cheese." 9:18 AM Wednesday, May 19, 2010 THAT STUPID BITCH Dear Rabbit, You put sense into so many people, why don't you help me? I was happily married to my childhood sweetheart for 10 years before I met this guy, a colleague, lets call him X. My husband is a great guy, was my best friend, but somewhere we drifted apart.  I was depressed, just had a miscarriage and your sharp brain knows what's coming next. We (me and X) had an intense, fiery affair, in which bathroom sinks were broken and at least 5 morning-after-pills were taken. If I was watching a woman like me in a movie, I am (was?) the type who usually screams 'whats wrong with the bitch?' Long story short, he was looking for a wife for the last one year, even while we were doing it all the time. He never asked me to leave my husband. Now the reason why I am writing to you. This guy X got married today and I keep feeling this intense physical pain imagining him with another woman. How pathetic I am that I gave into him even a week before his marriage? He keeps saying he does not love her, and that I am his best love of life! How corny shit is that, and I am scared I will fall for it again. How do I deal with this situation? I will see him in a month with his new wife and I am freaking out big time. My husband knows part of the story and still stands by me. Why do shitty women like me get great guys and why do we think being great like that is unsexy and do it with douchebags? I am sad, hurt, crushed, but still attracted to X. Be your brutal self, Rabbit and enlighten me. I trust you. Sad to see loss of archives. They always helped me before. Can't Believe I Am That Stupid Bitch Dear CBIATSB, You really are That Stupid Bitch. Admitting that you are doesn't mean that you aren't. You're not better than That Stupid Bitch, or That One, or That One just because you see yourself clearly. You might as well be pulling someone's hair on Maury Povitch right now. Now that we have that out of the way, this guy you're having an affair with is a serious tool. Although you might have some sensation of longing and titillation when you think of him, what you're feeling is loneliness and desperation, filtered through a sleazy, disconnected, fuckwad lens. You are making stanky Hard Lemon Flavored Malt Beverage out of the lemons of a faltering marriage. You bump into this needy, ego-driven liar, this slippery narcissist, and you two immediately see in each other the unhealthy ego boundaries that are the fertile ground on which the seeds of whore donkey bathroom sink sex might bloom and grow. I know I'm being an asshole about this, but this is what you asked for, right? Here's how you deal with the situation: You stop romanticizing the dickcheese with the new wife. There's nothing interesting about that guy. Are you drinking too much these days, too? Stop drinking so goddamn much. Stop wondering about that guy. You are making him magical, using your powers of imagination. Stop using your goddamn imagination. You two had skanky, disgusting bathroom sink sex. It was not hot, because you were fucking a loser, and so was he. That's not romantic. The fact that he's randomly marrying someone else doesn't make him The One That Got Away, it makes him a tragedy in motion. His future, and his wife's future, is one big disappointment after another, it's a fucking emotional apocalypse. But most importantly, it's utterly irrelevant. It has nothing at all to do with you, because you choose not to spend your time fixated on slippery whore men. So maybe you got married too young - plenty do. The question is, do you want to lose your best friend? If you think you feel desperate now, just imagine how you'll feel when this man who's supported you and stood by you bails. I wouldn't advocate coming completely clean - although it's clear you haven't or he'd be more pissed off. There's no pressing need to hurt your husband even more. But if you want to have a good life, you have to stop infusing crappy situations with swooning music and romance, while turning your back on what's right in front of your nose. Because you think that you're a loser, deep down, you believe that you can only be honest with another loser, aka the creep you've been screwing. Confessing to your husband that you think you're a big loser (which you've obviously been doing) and confessing to me that you think you're a big loser isn't enough. You have to go see a therapist and talk about what a fucking loser you are. You obviously blame yourself for everything under the sun, so much so that it was natural that eventually, you would start acting like the worm that you've always thought that you were, underneath the surface. But deep down inside, you're just a hurt person. You hate yourself so much that you assume you're not good enough for your husband, so you pretend, in your little storytelling mind, that he's somehow not good enough for you, that he's too "boring" because he's not a douchebag, because he actually likes you. What kind of a wimp would like a whore like you, right? You're just lost. You feel terrible about the miscarriage. Talk to your husband about how you still feel bad about it, you can't help it. Talk to him about how you hate yourself. Talk to your therapist about the stupid affair, and about how you hate yourself. Don't talk to the dumbass or his new wife, who is just another woman on the street, really, and has nothing to do with you. Where do you have to see them? At a conference? Tell your boss you can't go. You don't have to see them, trust me. Stop using those two random stupid strangers as an escape from the difficult work of facing your own very normal life. You feel terrible about yourself. Address that. You are rejecting your husband for staying with a wretch like you. Don't punish him for the emotions you can't acknowledge, that are about you, not him. My suspicion is that you can have a perfectly good, nice, wonderful, fulfilling life, actually. I suspect that you're an extremely nice person who was taught to feel that your sexiness was your only redeeming quality, because you were rotten inside. You are just a child, really. Start having a little compassion for a child. Stop making her put on the high heels and the ass pants. Let her stay at home in her sweats. Make her a salad. Take her for a brisk walk. Be nice to her, for god's sake. She is in serious pain. Give her a little time to feel shitty. Stop running, just let her catch her fucking breath. She's lonely. She's really scared. She feels sick inside. Everyone else is just in their own skin, apart from you, wandering through the dark, doing what they do. Fucking a narcissist doesn't change anything, it just rips your life to pieces. Getting a close-up look at a narcissist's wife doesn't change anything, it just gives you an excuse to feel even worse about yourself. Forget all of that. This is about you, a child, on your own for the first time, facing yourself down. Do you want to kick that little girl to the curb, again, or take her in, wash off her face, and tuck her into bed for a nap? Treat yourself with a little kindness and respect, in spite of your mistakes, and your whole world will change before your eyes. Slow down and stop making decisions, stop reacting, stop panicking. Push that guy from your mind. He is in the past. Just take care of yourself. Ask around about a therapist. Look online. Make an appointment. Let your husband in a little. Slow down. Stop looking for another fix. This is going to be really hard, harder than seeing the guy and his wife, because THIS is about YOU, and no one else. But this is going to change everything. Best of luck. Rabbit 12:02 PM Friday, May 07, 2010 THE FAMILY MEETING! Creating a time and place for the entire family to meet each week can give your various dependents and trapped creature-friends the illusion that someone "thoughtful" and "organized" – organized enough to set up a family meeting, at any rate – is in charge. This weekly meeting can also foster a sense of community among smallish people and sulking animals who might otherwise stay hidden in the dark corners of your domicile for days on end, ripping tiny holes in stolen toys with their teeth or yelling at tiny video games or speaking in tiny princess voices about going to the fancy ball, (one of the prerequisites for living happily ever after). Since you're far too busy to actually "schedule" a time and place for such a gathering, it's best to simply stand in the largest room in the house and yell FAMILY MEETING FAMILY MEETING! whenever it's convenient for you. Upon hearing these words, everyone in the house should scamper obediently into the room and sit or lie down expectantly at your feet. See how you're modeling democracy for your offspring to appreciate and savor? Those who fail to drop everything and come running quickly should be publicly shamed in front of the rest of the meetings' participants, as public shaming is the cornerstone to any vibrant democracy. Think: whipping post, stocks, guillotine, TMZ.com. Now that the entire household is in attendance, announce any items on the agenda for the day's meeting. Since you're much too important to have actually "written down" or "briefly considered" the agenda, start things off by telling each member of the house the ways in which they've personally disappointed you during the past week. Remember, the more specific you can get, the better. Some disappointing behaviors might include: failure to demonstrate wisdom beyond one's years, failure to wipe after using potty, failure to pick up toys and other bullshit off rug in living room, failure to entertain adult members of family with adequate volume of clever remarks, song, dance, failure to catch, kill and ingest any and all invading insects upon demand, failure to refrain from throwing entire body against front windows to demonstrate intention to rip UPS man's jugular in half. Once you're finished sharing just how let down and disappointed you are in your various and sundry resident miscreants, the lowest ranking member of the family should be singled out for a demonstration. Typically, this is either the more subordinate dog of the house, some form of beleaguered amphibian, or your husband. Explain to all family members that those who fail to improve upon the figures charted on their quarterly behavioral performance reports (which don't exist) will be subjected to the following punishment. Now, spank lowest ranking member of family showily, but only hard enough to make him/her/it roll over and/or lick your hands and/or give you amorous looks that say, "You're the boss of me, I was born to serve/obey/fear you." Once your husband gets off the floor and dusts himself off, it's time for everyone to share the highlight of their week. This gives family members a chance to see that their experiences and concerns are important to their parents and their siblings and pet brothers and sisters (taping a lollipop or dog treat to the speaker's forehead sometimes helps to reinforce this illusion). Be sure to interrupt frequently with your own thoughts or concerns, redirecting the conversation to suit your whims. ("That sounds pretty fun, but you shouldn't be playing outside without shoes." "Green Day is a stupid band that only a stupid person could ever like, is all." "Speaking of fingerpainting, should we order Thai for dinner tonight? I really don't feel like cooking again.") Once everyone feels adequately shot down and disparaged (preparing them each for a lifetime of thankless toiling in the corporate workplace), the meeting is adjourned. Before anyone tries to pull you aside to discuss their feelings directly, announce that you'll be taking a nap, and anyone who bothers you will be in big, big, big, big, big trouble. This bestows upon all household members two of the most fundamental traits necessary for survival in a modern, free market society: Alienation and learned helplessness. After a few months of semi-regular Family Meetings, you'll see the seeds of change begin to take root! Instead of whining about wanting a second juice box or another walk, dependents will scramble to "look busy" when you enter the room. Crying jags will be replaced by quiet, expressionless rocking back and forth in a corner. Incessant "why" questions will be replaced by concisely-worded inquiries via text message. If home life begins to feel ever so slightly impersonal, just remember: patient nurturing and a kind, listening ear will only foster the illusion of agency in your dependents, rendering them utterly defenseless to ever-changing market pressures. By instead releasing your reckless, self-serving impulses and impromptu hazing via the family meeting format, you can ensure that your small offspring and spousal associates have at least a slim shot at living happily ever in today's increasingly soulless and masochistic socioeconomic landscape! 9:52 AM all contents © the rabbit blog 2001-2009

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