Tuesday, April 12, 2005
CHILDLESS WHORES OF THE WORLD UNITE!
Welcome, childless whores. Help yourselves to a frosty-cold beer, and put your feet up. Here, among friends, whores, whorelettes, whore-dogs, whore-donkeys, and whore-honkies can relax and let their hair down. We alone understand the countless joys of whoring, we alone know that sluts' dreams really do come true. Mmm, life is good, isn't it, childless whores? We're free to munch on custard-filled doughnuts and other things that are filled with custard, free to read good books and go see good films and consume huge tubs of buttered popcorn without having to share with grubby-pawed little demons. Oh, ha ha! No - but really, we think children are swell! Just swell! Or at least we tolerate them. Hell, some of us might even have children someday. But we don't happen to have any children right now, and as long as we don't have children, and as long as we're proud, card-carrying godless sluts, we're going to goddamn well enjoy ourselves. We are dirty, filthy, wayward women, goddamn it, and we like doughnuts a lot. Particularly ones filled with custard. Mmm, custard.
We know what you're thinking now. You're thinking that we're a bunch of fat, unlovable, filthy slut-type women whose hands are constantly digging into bags of potato chippies. Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, you make us laugh. Keep imagining whatever you like, wankers. All we can say is it feels goddamn good to look so goddamn good. We childless whores are smug, you'll find. It's good to be here, this way, right now. No more explanation is needed. We, the few, the proud, the filthy, need not explain it all to the likes of you. All we'll say is that you won't find us sitting around, having 3-hour-long discussions about epidurals.
I love us, don't you, whores? Don't you fucking love us, you whoring honky sluts? I do. We fucking rule.
8:04 AM
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
DOWN THE HIDEY HOLE
Dear Rabbit,
It's been some time since you've posted to the blog. (Who's a busy bunny??) While I do subscribe to Salon, this apparently is not enough rabbit for me. So I thought I'd try to lure you out with a question I've been pondering for some time to no avail. I suffer from the Lackadasia you described so well in an old post. You really hit the nail right on its lethargic head. To quote:
"We, the socially lazy, worry a lot....We worry even more once we pair up with a socially energetic, relentlessly optimistic puppy dog of a partner, as we so often do. We're not stupid. We know that we need a shiny, happy person to light up our lives, to bring a bright spark to our dark little hidey holes. To dust off our musty corners."
I, too, seem to seek out shiny, happy boyfriends to shine a little light. My question is, what do you think the shiny and the happy have to gain by exploration of the dark hidey hole? While they lift us up, are we just dragging them down? If they wanted a hidey hole, wouldn't they have burrowed one of their own? Complementary characteristics would appear to be a bonus in a relationship, at least in theory. But in reality, can two such opposite temperments really work long term?
Navel Gazer
Dear NG,
No, not really. I wrote that when I was seeing a relentlessly optimistic puppy dog, let's just call him Puppy. Puppy was cute and fun and endlessly lovable. Sadly, Puppy eventually found me dark and pointy and pointlessly verbose. Puppy thought things were far simpler than I made them out to be.
Now, normally, I would've shown someone like that the door within a matter of seconds. I'd been told "You think too much" and "You're too negative" and "You make things more complicated than they have to be" and "Please shut the fuck up" far too many times not to know that such a pairing would only end in gritted teeth and heartbreak. But Puppy was different. Puppy was extremely funny, and caustic, and freakishly child-like. Think: "Big," with a burlier, more appealing, more Jewish Tom Hanks. I had nothing but fun when Puppy was around.
But when I wasn't smiling and riding happily in the Puppy wagon, I was second-guessing myself. Puppy made my family and friends smile, and I receded into the background and felt like a dark, unlovable curmudgeon. See, I had traditionally played Puppy's role in my family: the youngest. Cute, funny, stupid. The adorable moron. Then, after a few years of therapy and several years of writing a cartoon that gave the adorable moron a larger stage, I was sick of playing that part. But let me tell you something, all you fucking wide-eyed honkies out there: the family don't take too kindly to replacing the adorable moron you usually serve with a restless, moody, temperamental, fault-finding, sulky know-it-all.
You know how people call their partners "my better half"? Puppy was my better whole - or rather, my better two-thirds. And the other third - the complicated, dark, sometimes insightful, sometimes haunted self that Puppy lacked? That third was becoming increasingly angry and bratty, vocalizing its discontent as Puppy stood by with a blank look on his face, then suggested we hop in the car and get a 99-cent Frosty at Wendy's.
I'm overdramatizing and oversimplifying the problems here, as is my habit. I wasn't a completely joyless fuck around my friends and family, nor was Puppy endlessly entertaining to everyone he encountered. But that was how it started to look to me. Puppy's simplicity and relentless optimism made me feel, in contrast, like a complicated drag.
So Puppy and I went to couple's therapy, and the counselor agreed: Puppy was a pure joy, while I was dark and dreary and difficult. When Puppy talked, the counselor laughed heartily, then smiled to herself, then repeated Puppy's complaints about me to me, in harsher terms. When I spoke, the counselor scowled at her shoes, then suggested that I try to be a little bit less like me and a little bit more like Puppy.
Still, Puppy was good for me in many ways. Puppy taught me how to tune out the cobwebs and the dirty laundry and focus on the banana split and the surround sound. I know that sounds like a typical bit of hunky-dory pap, but it's true. I'm really a lot happier and more optimistic than I was before I met Puppy.
Still, I thought that Puppy should try to understand me, and that if he would just make the effort, just show a small bit of interest in knowing who I am and what makes me tick, then I could feel satisfied with us, since we had so much fun together and loved each other very much and really made a pretty good team.
But that was impossible. Puppy didn't care about how things worked - Puppy was no scientist. Puppy was smart, but lacked curiosity about what went on in other people's minds. Puppy couldn't care less. Puppy wanted to run and dig and bury his head in a big plate of nachos.
So Puppy and I parted ways, and it was very sad for about a month, and then I started feeling a lot less depressing and lame and a lot more like my old adorable-moron self. Puppy and I are still good friends, and it's exactly as satisfying to hang out with him now as it was before, only now he doesn't make me wish my head weren't quite so full of thoughts. These days, Puppy is single, unemployed, financially strapped, out of shape, and happier and more confident than ever. Instead of seeing Puppy as tragically deluded (as I sometimes used to), I assume he'll get everything he wants, and even if he doesn't, who cares? He'll still be happy.
So, you're right, NG. The shiny, happy types don't need dark little hidey holes, and they don't fucking want a tour of our dark little hidey holes, either. And look, I don't want to live in my goddamn hidey hole, but I don't want my main squeeze to rope it off and condemn it, either. Ultimately, I guess I don't have much advice on opposites attracting or repelling. It should go without saying that it's important to feel that the person you spend your time with is interested in you in a meaningful way, but most of us settle for far less. Basically, all you can do is just try some stuff out, and if that doesn't work, try again. And eventually, especially if you're a perfectionist or slightly neurotic or just generally vaguely dissatisfied, you have to say, "OK, this works. This is great. I'm sticking with this, damn it!" and then bury your head in a big plate of nachos.
But no matter who you find or where you land, most of the work is internal. Every few minutes, when your heart asks if you're happy, when your mind asks if your life is a victory or a tragic tale of loss and woe, you're the only one who can answer.
Rabbit
3:11 PM
