092918 fatigue bites my wrists and makes me forget what i was just going to say because instead of typing it i had to dismiss two dialogs from this stupid computer. after i’m done here, i’m going to turn off all notififuckingcations for anything, and i’m going to delete everything except IA writer and BBEdit and what3ever fatigue slathers down over me like a hundred tongues of bacon god DAMN is it hard to get up in the morning during the school year i have to pee i always have to pee i’m not even that old it seems like a bad joke. not even necessarily a cruel joke; just a bad joke, that i’m a mere 48--i mean hell, rogber moore was still sexy at 48! (Wasn’t he? I actually have no idea how old he ever was or was not) do you think i could make it to the bathroom and back without totally waking up and letting in the poisons of eidetiticism and mimetics? I’m going to try cuz i hate being distracted by that tiny selfish voice in my bladder. hang on ok. better millie is heartbroken because megan doesnt love her megan seems mostly concerned with (about) not having a boyfriend. Maybe junior year *isn’t* the year I get a boyfriend, she says; What am i doing wrong? Meanwhile, Millie sobs disconsolately on the couch because of how Megan treats her or doesn’t treat her; says shit about her at band practice; just truly stupid shit like “her jacket looks like shit” or “I don’t like her” or “I don’t even remember what we’re fighting about.” Millie says Sheila came over and said, “Megan says your jacket looks like shit, but i wanted you to know I think it looks nice.” OK. Pause. Stop. Back up. Rewind. Hold the fuck on for just one moment. I think what we have here is pretty clear evidence that teenage girls aren’t any goddamn better than teenage boys. It’s just that boys have stuff that sticks out more, so you can SEE exactly, externally, without guile, what’s wrong with them. Yes, boys are puerile, entitled, sneering, arrogant, narcissistic, weak-minded, imitative, pompous, aggressive, gluttonous, and fragile. But girls? Girls are just plain mean. What the fuck, Sheila. Your mom just died and you don’t have any more compassion than to go up to someone and act like you’re being all nice and sweet but actually be delivering a message of petty spite and caustic undermining? *Why did you have to say it like that?* *Why did you have to say anything at all?* If you were really concerned about Millie, you could just, you know, be nice to her, be normal to her, like a normal human woman, and just be a decent person to her, not out of pity, but just out the capacity of a full-grown female heart. But instead you had to preface every sentence with “Megan says...” and then conclude each one with a fakely fawning platitude of artificial sympathy. At least I think it was artificial, just based on Millie’s retelling of it. Who knows. Maybe she really didn’t mean to be mean. But that’s just my point. I don’t think Alex (for example) *meant* to be a self-important manipulative twat, either. It’s just that you don’t *have* a full grown heart, do you? Losing your mom, and dear god I’m so sorry that I’m even typing this in this judgmental tone, as if I could have any idea what that’s been like for you, apparently wasn’t enough *in itself* to make your insides grow up. Yet. Maybe there’s no shortcuts through adolescence. Maybe everybody has to be young and cruelly stupid for a certain period of time, and then you just have to grow through that and live with the consequences of that. Honestly, it seems rather pointless. For some people, the consequences are a mild bit of regret, swirled together with a brooding cocktail of nostalgia that follows them around and jingles its ice cubes in their ear ever time they get close to having a conversation or a moment of something true and deep and real. For some people, the consequences may be a little more, shall we say, material—I’m thinking of you (again), Jennifer, with your baby, your mysterious baby under wraps that no-one was allowed to see—where’d they shuffle you off to when you got too pregnant to hide it? Where’d they hide you? How come we didn’t see you til that night under the lights at graduation? Where’d that baby go? Who is that baby now? Another goddamn human being, that’s who, struggling to eat and talk and survive and coexist with the rest of us screeching bastards—probably a perfectly fine human being by now, like you apparently turned out to be, based on the one conversation i had with you on Facebook before I stopped using Facebook because Facebook turned into an instrument of prolonged adolescence, and as I believe is pretty plain to see by now, adolescence does not make you feel more connected and at peace and serene and balanced—no, it makes you feel like shit. Like a burned up piece of shit, bobbing in the frothy wave that keeps bumping up right next to the lake shore but never quite arriving on the sand. In adolescence you get burned beyond recognition. That’s why kids and adults are alien to each other. There’s that veil, that veil where you’re in between the two forms of what it is to be really human. A little kid is human, and fully capable of eyes-wide-open love. A full grown adult, assuming they survive the gnashing gates at the end of being a little kid, is capable of love—probably, usually, at least a little bit, because regret and pain have taught them where to look for solace—and where they look is back towards the unassailable honesty of being a little kid. But the adolescent? That’s the scariest crepuscular zone of non-existence possible. All your raw meanness is on display, for you and everyone else to see. You try to hide it, self-consciously, like you’d try to hide a pimple, but that just inflames it more, it’s angry and red and beams out like a spotlight from your face. You are not to be trusted. Your vision is distorted. Your palette of expressions is centered on chagrin. If you’re a boy, you denature that into a bitter solvent of derision and denigration; a self-preserving paint thinner of bilious mockery. If you’re a girl, apparently, it turns into this thing that Sheila did, or what Sasha did, or what Megan does—I don’t even know how to describe it. But it makes my heart contract in fear. Why does this happen? Why did we invent adolescence? I get the feeling its our own fault somehow. I get the feeling a lot of it has to do with high school. I can’t quite fully bring myself to believe that it’s all just “natural.” But--who knows? Maybe? Maybe there’s just this bitter phase. Maybe if you harvest human flowers during this stage of development, you get an acidic broth, suitable for use in making batteries, or industrial cleaners, or weapons of mass ridicule. If you pluck em too young, they’re sweet but too green, too fibrous, they won’t cook up right or break down correctly. If you get them just at the right time, let’s say in their second or third decade, you can use them in your stew. They’re full-bodied, complex, still tender but not squishy or mushy; they exude a rich bouquet of empathy around the eyes; there’s a golden light; an overtone of mirth and an undertone of sorrow; yes sir, mister death, if you snatch them right at this peak moment, pluck them off the bush both purple and round, you got yourself a prize, you’re in for a treat, treasure them, don’t overwork them, stir them gently, don’t overcook, call all your friends, cuz something this exquisite is only at its best when you share. That’s the whole point. Is to savor and share with friends. OK, adolescents? OK, Megan? Do you hear me? Don’t panic. Don’t clamp down and fire your barbs in all directions. You don’t have to. You can make it through this without that, unlike your mother. Please don’t put on the armor of permanent, hunted, cunning adolescence, like your mother did. Please, someone, anyone, tell me what I can do to make her not do that. To make her not have done that. I told Millie she should watch a movie with Lib & Cel to make her feel better. They’re good to spend time with. They make you feel good. So she did, and I think, at least for a little while, it helped a little. No wonder people hang on to the youngness of their youngest for as long as they can. Hey (youngest child here, speaking in retrospect), it’s OK. I understand. I don’t mind. I don’t mind having been (being) the baby. It’s a smudgy job, but someone’s gotta do it.