Thursday, May 1, 2008

May Day

I've been swirling various ugly issues around lately; the shit in the toilet that is my mind. All of them seeming to converge around the topic of "normalcy": what is it? What are we to expect from one another as "normal" behavior? Does someone giving their word mean anything? Do any of us, really, have a responsibility to each other - and where, exactly, are the boundaries?

Today's my ex-wife's birthday. As most of my readers know, I had a "bad divorce", and though it's been almost three years, I still can't shake the implications of it. Part of it is I still have nightmares, which (thankfully) my mind, for the most part, protects me from; I just wake up and know, from the state of the bed clothes, that something wild happened during the night. Like wolverines attacked me.

But occasionally, like last night, I do get a glimpse of it and it's not pretty. There's my ex, all smug and superior, because she's violated every social convention and/or personal assurance she had ever given me about what I may expect of her. Sure, she promised to do this, and she always swore she would never do that, but being a "spiritual" person meant none of those things mattered because (as Oprah, and Eckhart Tolle, are selling today) she was a NewAge "God" - now hooked up in a pornographic "spiritual connection" with a lying killer of a Homeopath. And, together, they were easily capable of re-writing the rules that governed both of our lives because 1) neither of them gives a damn, and 2) nobody else does either.

It seems to be a given nowadays, amongst the general public, that what people do in their private lives is no reflection on their public standing, no matter how dastardly. A kind of "rules are made to be broken" ethic that's taken to extremes - with disastrous consequences for anyone not in the loop. You know, the folks that didn't know childhood was going to segue into a "spiritual" orgy.

Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, slept with his best friend's wife and, after an initial bout of shame (about a week) proudly declared he wasn't going away. Sure, he made a Lindsey Lohan-type token show of rehab to, supposedly, getting his "act" together - with promises to come back rejuvenated and better than ever - but he's now in City Hall, unchanged in any discernible way; still an asshole with The City going to the shits faster than ever. There's even talk of him running for governor of California. Meanwhile, I was depressed for, at least, a month when the whole sleazy story broke.

San Francisco's got a huge budget deficit. Crime is souring. Someone was killed at the zoo. Downtown is a Hell hole. Parking fees are skyrocketing. There's even been a new $100.00 fee for leaving recycling bins out where they can be seen. (A group of Buddhist nuns were the most recent recipients of that bit of karma.) But Gavey-baby goes on, with hardly a peep from the press or the public, like no one noticed that a man who proved his word wasn't any good, to even his best friend, can't be expected to do right by his constituency. That's now the standard. Just ask my ex. It's the same standard as in France.

When Bill Clinton was busted with Monica Lowensky, Hillary Clinton famously said "there are worse things than adultery", as though Bill would have to be that guy in Vienna who locked his daughter up in the basement for 24 years, and got her pregnant seven times, for his transgressions to be salient. The fact Bill's recently morphed into into a congenital liar and racist, right before the Democrat's recently-opened eyes, seems to have left few willing, or able, to make a connection to the fact he proved, with his serial adultery, that no one (especially the woman who wants to be president so as to allow him to be our "roving ambassador") could trust him to tell the truth. That's just the way it is and, damn it, because of what he did she deserves to be the president.

There just doesn't seem to be an end to what people will allow, overlook, or be apologists for, as long as it doesn't involve serious mayhem or death. Deviancy appears to be the norm - or, at least, all that's thought worth celebrating. The congregants of Barack Obama's church cheer Jeremiah Wright's nonsense - including the Harvard professor, Cornel West, who punctuated Wright's recent Press Club lunacy with wolf whistles. Harvard. I heard it was a "good school". West must be a "good teacher" as well. Or am I missing something?

"Expelled" is a hit movie, when any idiot should be able to discern that it must be wrong because, if it wasn't, all the science and medicine we're aware of wouldn't be able to work. That's how strong the case for evolution is. And don't get me started on the popularity of Homeopathy (for obvious reasons that haven't been diluted enough.). I swear, to me, none of this makes sense. But don't get me wrong: I'm sure, there has to be some one else who it probably doesn't add up for, either.

But, like I said, we're out-numbered by people who, ultimately, don't give a damn. So my divorce-mares are something I'm learning to live with (I've rarely needed a full night's sleep as it is, cold sweats and screaming, or no). My only problem, now, is what to do about the nightmare of the waking hours. Because I don't think those may ever go away.

Happy Birthday, Baby.

7 comments:

  1. CMC -

    I appreciate your posts. It all really just boils down to common sense. I don't know when, or how, common sense was thrown out the window. But I guess you surround yourself with enough people who have lost touch with reality, and you lose touch as well. Keep it up, I am suprised your blog isn't blowing up with comments already.

    Best,

    JPH

    ReplyDelete
  2. Briefly, CMC (will try more later, time permitting): So you married an idiot. It happens to the best of us, especially when young (though age may not matter here, frankly). OK, maybe she was not an idiot at first, but surely turned into one with time. It happens. While there are lessons to be learned there, for sure, that choice and its consequences are not a wholesale reflection on you -- or your "normalcy" (you know that the latter is a topic close to my heart and mind, so I could go on -- but I won't now, no time).

    In this week's New Yorker there is a book review by John Updike of a novel by Andrew Greer, "The Story of a Marriage." This fragment caught my eye (and I dedicate it to you on your ex's b-day -- read and do *not* weep -- she is not worth it -- save the b-day wishes for those who deserve and can appreciate them).

    Here is Greer (via Updike in TNY):

    "We think we know the ones we love.
    Our husbands, our wives. . . . We think we love them. But what we love turns out to be a poor translation, a translation we ourselves have made, from a language we barely know. . . . One morning we awaken. Beside us, that familiar sleeping body in the bed: a new kind of stranger."

    Full text here:
    http://tinyurl.com/6ekssg

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am not sure how relevant this is, but I'll post about this experience anyway. When I first landed in LA from China, after 12 hour flight, I was taken aback at how relieved I felt to be home. This despite being extremely fatigued and missing my wife and daughter horribly back in China. Why did I feel like I was 'home'? Because I know that if I had a problem, I could find a way to solve it myself or by communicating. I did not feel this way in China. So here I was heartbroken missing my wife and daughter and my eyes were bleeding from jet lag, yet i felt 'normal'/'home'.



    SO this is my definition of normal: the state of mind where you can effectively solve your problems without unnecessarily creating unsolvable problems for others while you do it.

    Cultish thinking therefore is not normal because it neglects most relevant problems and creates many more.

    Insert other names for behaviors where I wrote 'cultish thinking' and see if they fit the statement.

    'Adultery' yes- that fits
    'farting' no, that does not fit, therefore it is normal

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you, both, for your comments - and WC, especially, for the laugh.

    ReplyDelete
  5. CMC: "It seems to be a given nowadays, amongst the general public, that what people do in their private lives is no reflection on their public standing, no matter how dastardly."
    -Richter disagrees.

    WC: "SO this is my definition of normal: the state of mind where you can effectively solve your problems without unnecessarily creating unsolvable problems for others while you do it."
    -Richter agrees.

    whooops, more shit in your comments section. GO TELL YOUR BUUY PANDABEAR TO LET ME SHIT IN HIS COMMENTS SECTION. PUH-LEASE.
    Make something up about how I'm harmless, and a nice girl, or something like that.
    Anyways, just whatever comes to mind.
    At this point the whole goal of my blog is to get back into his comments section, but I'm hoping to accomplish that before I get bored and move on to something else.
    ya never know, right?
    good morning, BTW.
    if your nightmares are keeping you awake, shit on my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Richter,

    Leave Panda alone - he's a busy man with neither the time, nor inclination, for what you do (whatever that is). You make me laugh, yes, but it should be clear, by now, that everybody doesn't get the joke.

    Panda's got his own blog freaks that he enjoys:

    Leave him be.

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a beautiful blog, specially the style posted above. It looks so nice and relaxing, that's the main characteristic to enjoy the reading process. I'd love to be like you dear blogger and spend at least one week writing for my followers.
    23jj

    ReplyDelete

COMMENTS ARE BACK ON