Thursday, July 28, 2005
HOLY HONKY MADNESS!
Dear Rabbit,
I can be funny but I'm too depressed, so this one isn't going to be very amusing. It's also going to be a long one, so go grab a beer. My wife is a teacher in an urban high school. There are lots of hard-luck cases begging for rescue. Over the years she has quasi-adopted more than a few of these parent-less, young men and usually they are never the ugly ones, nor are they ever female.
I have endured her absence time and again while she rescued them from jail, carted them about the city in search of employment, and performed countless acts of selfless social service.
She's been at it about 12 years now. Unfortunately we now have a six year old daughter, a home, two car payments, a continuing string of home-improvement projects, and I am trying to get an MBA at night.
Recently a friend of ours suggested that we participate in some swinging with her and her husband. My wife was all for it, but I am in no way attracted to these people (they're gross) and the whole thing felt a little predatory.
We discussed it afterward and my wife is unsatisfied with our relationship. We've known each other for almost 20 years, so we are very used to one another. Our sex life isn't very bad. I express my reservations about the proposal, including loss of friendship with the couple should anything go wrong, exposure to the general germ pool which might leave our kid an orphan if all went wrong, and last but not least, how will we feel about each other afterward. There's a lot at stake and while I'm open to new ideas, I know the fantasy is always greener on this side of the fence.
I know it ain't perfect and I'm a horny guy, but I have a small girl to watch out for and I will live an imperfect, albeit acceptable life until she goes off to college, to make sure she avoids the crushing sorrow of a divorce in childhood. It's the least I can do for her.
Now for the sweeps episode. Yesterday my wife was to take three students, who have just graduated (two boys and a girl), out for dinner, before all go off to college. One of them is her latest charge, a muscular, African American football player with a truly sad background. He's a stud, and a good looker to boot. He has girlfriend though and she was there as well, so there isn't any sexual contact that I know of between him and my wife. But boy do I know when we're heading over the edge and this kid's name has been on her lips for the last twelve months.
So, she says she will try and be home early because she has to get up at 6:30 and yadda, yadda. I get up at 4:45. I'm a sport and say "great, have fun."
I wake up at 2:45. The lights are still on in the living room. I go out to check and she isn't there. Her car isn't in the driveway. For someone you expect to be home at 10:30 or 11:00PM, this isn't looking good. I call her cell and there's no answer, so I leave a message, "Where the fuck are you?" I have no numbers to call, no one to consult. I wonder if I should call the police, hospital or highway patrol, like they do on TV. I may have lost my wife. What will I do? My daughter is on my mind. I'm getting extremely worried. My stomach starts to hurt and I have no options but to wait.
At 3:15 the asshole pulls up. Because these kids mean so much to her, she has been to dinner, on a hike in the hills, and skinny dipped with them, yes naked, after hopping the fence at a local public pool. My wife is 47. I freak, and freak some more. Her response is not so much "I'm sorry," but a series of rationalizations that aren't helping me in the least. She thinks she is having a mid-life crisis. She gets needs fulfilled by hanging with the 18 year-olds. I ask her if she would be happy if I was naked in a pool with two 18 year old girls and she says probably not. She sees nothing wrong with her being in a pool with two naked 18 year old boys however.
I hate her in a way. My day is nothing but heartache. I have insisted on therapy and we will go, if only for me to witness the telling of this story to a professional who may be able to see through it. You are a voice of reason Rabbit, and so very amusing. Can you turn this into a funny story?
Signed,
Sad Man
Dear Sad Man,
Your wife sucks. What a fucked up, crazy-ass cracker those kids must think she is. Not only doesn't she give a fuck about your feelings, she doesn't give a fuck about those kids. It's incredible that she could spend 12 years tricking herself into thinking that she's some kind of a savior, and then, at the same time, behave in such a reckless and idiotic manner. Jesus. More than anything, she sounds like someone who's incredibly good at rationalizing everything she does without taking responsibility for it. What a role model! Every young black man should be so lucky, to have an unstable honky freakmagnet to guide him into maturity.
Unfortunately, you take responsibility for everything, including your child's happiness, even if it depends on your continued misery. I'm guessing that your parents stayed together when you were younger. I've met a lot of parents lately who feel that divorce is some kind of guarantee of unspeakable trauma for a child.
I don't think that's true. My parents were unhappily married for fifteen years. They got divorced when I was nine, and it was difficult for me for a while, but soon I saw that they were both happier apart. I had stronger relationships with each of them after that. It was very sad when it happened, and I didn't get it at all, but eventually I understood and actually matured a lot as a result of having to deal with such a big change in my life.
I feel strongly that a lot of parents are so afraid of seeing their kids feeling a negative emotion that they avoid situations and experiences that the kid could actually grow and learn from. Negative emotions are a part of life, and kids need to learn that feeling sad or angry is a part of being human. There's nothing to fear there. You seem like a very conservative person (not because you won't fuck the gross couple, of course - that sounds like a wise move), and maybe you're a little fearful of change. You may also be afraid of confrontation - given your wife's behavior, I'm guessing you generally don't make a stink when she behaves in extremely selfish ways. Do you avoid confronting her when she's an asshole? I mean, I know you freaked out the other night - rightfully so. Do you feel like you can tell her what's going on with you when it comes up?
Fuck, I'm sure you can't. I'm sure she has ways of winning arguments about her honorable fucking intentions. God, she's lame.
But here's the thing: You need to be really brave, and really good to yourself. Putting your little girl's needs in front of your own isn't the way to go - I'm guessing that kind of selflessness is what got you saddled with a sociopathically foolish wife who doesn't look out for your needs at all. You need to go see a therapist on your own, in addition to the couples therapist. You have to weigh your options, and think about what's best for you. You deserve to be happy, you know, and you shouldn't have to wait another 12 years for that. It's crazy that you think you don't deserve anything, that you're not a good person unless you stay with this ridiculous, self-serving, reckless person just because it might fuck up your kid not to do so.
I'm not telling you to leave your wife. I'm just taking your side, because I think you need someone to take your side right now. And I'm telling you that you need to think about what a nice person you are, and how lovable and good you are - you need to think about the fact that you deserve to be loved by a really good, caring person who's responsible and smart and considerate, like you are. It's not impossible at all. Look, it's not even completely out of the question that your wife might be that person again. But first, you need to see the things that you really, truly deserve.
This is why I'm defending who you are: You're not giving me reason to believe that you're causing a lot of trouble with your wife. You're not being unfair about her. You don't seem to have boundary issues. Look, it's a snap judgment. But my impression is that the only things you're confused about are what you deserve and what your responsibilities are. I don't think you've done anything for yourself in a long, long time.
You're a very ethical person, and that's great. You're not going to lose that by considering your needs, and considering how you might get your needs filled, with your wife or without her. When you say, "I hate her in a way," it sounds like you think that's a terrible thing to express. Anyone who's married for as long as you've been kinda sorta hates their mate. That's part of the ugly underbelly of being with the same person for over a decade. But look, you have every right to hate your wife right now. She's acting like a fucking idiot, and she can't even own up to it.
It's time for you to make some demands, and to explore, on your own and with your own therapist, what you want from your life. You really need that, in order to understand where to go from here. Don't just go to couples therapy and listen to your wife's rationalizations all over again, and then list your issues, and then wait until next week to finish the fucking conversation. God, I hate couples therapy. But you should still go, you just need to make sure that you also have time to bitch, very openly, about what you're going through and what you want to a therapist who's focused on serving your needs and your needs alone. You need someone who'll support you and help you sort through your needs without your dumb wife sitting there. Without that, the couples therapy will drag on, and you'll concede too much and get too little back in return, just like you do in your marriage now.
Let me just put something in perspective: My dad died when he was 56 years old. If he were roughly your age when I was six, and he had planned to wait until I was 18 to break up with my mom, he would've died when I was 14 and I never would've known him all that well, because he and my mom would've continued to waste so-called family time arguing or avoiding each other. I would've remembered him as an angry, sad person. Is that how you want your daughter to think of you?
Let's not end on a sad note, though. Let's make fun of your fucking idiot wife some more. Is she the fittest woman on the planet, or is she the most deluded, thinking that those teenagers want to see her naked? I look reasonably good for my age, but the thought of showing my bare ass to some 18-year-olds makes my skin crawl.
Anyway, take it easy, ok? Take care of yourself, get yourself a therapist, go out to a great restaurant with some friends and leave your wife at home, and most of all, just recognize that, objectively speaking, she's a loon. She can either get her shit together or go fuck herself. You don't have to suffer with this bullshit for the next 12 years, though. That's way too much sacrifice for anyone, and your daughter will pay for that more than you will.
Best of luck. Let me know how it goes.
Rabbit
9:18 PM
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
RUBBED RAW
Dear Rab(bit):
I just can't help it. Ever since I gave up the bottle, the pipe and the syringe... and then over-work, over-spending and over-exercise, I've been plagued with ever-worse femme-addiction. It was easier when I was abusing myself with ethanol, THC and those mind-numbing neurochemical agonists. If they had legs and butts and boobs, they were fine (for however -long- they were fine). Abstinence, however, makes my hair grow and my mind ever more sharply attuned to the truly mean-spirited. Here's the deal: Ma #1 abandoned me to this -bitch- who'd put her up after the drunk park ranger got her in family way when she was a bit young to be starting a family. Ma #2 might have been a fair landlord, but she'd had six miscarriages by the time she was 30, so God (in His or Her or -Its- infinite wisdom) may have been trying to tell her, "You? Kids? No." By the time I was -four-, I could surely see why. Let's just say she was a "creative punisher." Ooooooo, I really wanted Ma #2 to luvvvvvv little me, even despite her raging temperament, so I tried, and tried, and tried, and (fucking) TRIED (goddammit) to be a really peachy son, but it kept going south. Fortunately, I did -not- turn out to be a murderer or terrorist or television evangelist (yet), but I did make it to better living through modern chemistry. Two of which, natch, are dopamine and endorphins. Wheeeeeeeeee! Let's git those molecules -movin'-. Back in the days when really good drugs cost something less than the price of new Harley-Davidson, I discovered this MDA stuff. MDA is sorta like time-release X, less an atom here and there, and produces the net effect of being able to copulate with a cholla plant for about 12 hours. The little ladies I knew were similarly fond of this stuff, so I pretty much rubbed them and myself -raw- for a few years. Further discoveries ensued, among them the empirically verifiable notion that while I dearly adore the opposite sex, any notions I have about being able to get along with any one of them for more than a few months are just so much dog doo. This was fine when my consciousness was generally altered in some fashion, but has really become a jagged little pill since I gave in to The Ugly Truth about relentless pharmacological obliteration. I do so dearly miss the days when I didn't give a rodent's butt about what she was gonna have to say when we -weren't- obsessed with each other's anatomy. That in itself would be enough, but here's the Big Wrinkle: My life of plentiful other-entertaining and self-indulgence has left me scarred in infinitesmal locales like my right amygdala and nucleus accumbens, not to mention right hippocampus. (Good thing it's the -right- ones; politics is generally a feature of the -left- side of the brain.) The inflamations there may be teensy, but they're sufficient to keep me in perpetual state of lust-preparedness for Bad Wimmin. I've seen you write about that Paris Hilton. I rarely admit this to anyone who's approval or check signatures are vital to me, but -there's- a young woman who can twist my pretzle. And not merely because she's "fetching." Paris is Just Plain Baaaaaaad. Oooooooo. That Angelina Jolie! There's another one. Ya gotta just -know- that sex-mad, home-wrecking, bitch is plain Narcissistic and evil. And that Karla Homolka up there in Montreal? Whewwwwwwww. Gimme a taste of that fine, fine, sibling-murdering, lust-obsessed, Anti-Social Personality Disorder in -spades-. Whoa! Fresh outta jail? I'm -there-. The closer they are to Borderline Personality Disorder Ground Zero, the better I like it, at least until they start showing up with new names and firearms, warning me of the consequences of ever leaving them until they're completely through with -me- as a temporary bondage-and-dominance obession. So, errrrr. What do I do about this?
Fritzed in Fargo
Dear FIF,
Um.
Well... So.
Uh. I think you need a blog. Yeah, that's what you need. You're the perfect blogger: smart, damaged, honest, dirty, and verbose. Obviously an anonymous blog would be best. Use a simple name, though, and nothing too dark or provocative. I know that'll be your temptation, but fight it. My preference, if you're going to focus on the dark, is to come up with a name that's deceptively light, like "Twist My Pretzel."
(Starting a blog is easy and free. Go to blogger.com. It'll take 5 minutes.)
As far as your addiction to Bad News Janes goes, I can't really help you there. You do know that Billy Bob Thornton made comments to the press that seem to hint that fucking Angelina was a lot like fucking a couch, right? Women who act like whores or sexual predators might be titillating in theory, but plenty of them are overcompensating for a distinct lack of bravado in bed. Others, I'm sure, are just as theatrically dirty as they advertise themselves to be, which sounds downright creepy to me. Dirty is good, dramatically dirty is even better, but theatrically, melodramatically dirty? I'm not a man, but if I were, I can assure you that, in the presence of such a performance, my performance would surely suffer.
But, again, I'm not a man, so what do I know? Plus, reality clearly isn't your favorite thing. Obviously you already know you have an addiction problem (drugs, slutty slutburgers) and you're obsessive. And while other questions arise (Do you have a therapist or care? Are you employed? Do you have friends?) I don't think you're all that interested in my opinion or advice on those fronts.
You say you want me to tell you what to do about your hankering for skeazy sea donkeys, but really, you know there's no advice I can give you about that. Stop chasing skeazes? Focus on something more worthwhile? Whatever. All you really wanted was to express yourself and tell your crazy story. So start a blog and send me the url so I can post it here.
Best,
Rabbit
11:41 AM
