once upon i time i ate nothing but adderall for three days and on the third day i went to the hospital.
once upon a time i crowned my depression by learning to play poker from a boy i was in love with and that night decided to send myself to the hospital.
once upon a time i had a baby, and then i was at the thrift store, and then i didn’t have a baby any more, and then i went to the hospital.
that is a summary of all the times i have been to the hospital.
Apparently my problems are as follows:
1. I take people at their word, which means I trust them to mean what they say, understand the weight and implications of what they are saying, and to have thought about what they said, before they say it
2. I expect people to care about shit.
Oh well.
Do you know what I did this summer?
I worked, from May to November. I forfeited two pre-planned vacations as a result (and by vacations, let me remind you that I’m a hobo. Vacation for me means driving in the car away from the town I am in.)
During that time, I dated a meth addict that I did not know was a meth addict, who broke up with me after three months because he was cheating on me. Then, I dated a conservative Christian, who I broke up with after three months because there is no point leading someone to hell along with you. (Oh yes, and the wringer is this: the second guy had been asked, by the girl my ex cheated on me with, if he wanted to have a threesome, with a friend of his who had a crush on me.)
(You cannot write this shit. Well, maybe you can. On Melrose Place.)
Now it is January. I have been here for nearly a year. I haven’t been anywhere for a year in ages. The last time was…
Phoenix… 2006?
(I only remember because I only moved twice, both within the metro area, thus qualifying me to be considered as having been in one city for an entire year.)
I have no car, no job, and my sister is pregnant. She has made it gently but urgently clear that she is starting a family and needs me to remember I am an adult.
I love everything, but I damn, I damn to hell this paralysis, this paralysis which leaves my mind wrung out and body exhausted–punctuated by periods when it flees entirely, leaving me breathless with calm. Milan Kundera called it the unbearable lightness of being.
(It may amuse most of you to know that I originally wrote the author as Mila Kunis. This is because I have been watching That 70s Show and have not read the aforementioned book in two years.)
(Also I am stoned.)
Anyhow–all funny aside.
“anything to keep from going on like this”
There’s no singular reason why I am depressed, but I have come to the realization that there is a singular summation of my depression: it is the result of watching my species sail toward extinction, as it tries to drag everything else with it. Since I have been given a temporal lobe, I imagine that depression is just second nature in these circumstances.
Don’t let the population swell fool you. That is, after all, how we are driving ourselves extinct.
Draw it in. Observe. Consider it objectively.
See the porch, soaked with rain. The peeling dark blue paint of the eaves and the finches underneath with their red throats puffed. It is cold. The rain is making it colder.
The plastic porch chairs that I imagine molded and shipped by the hundreds of thousands, one long line of chairs come overseas on a sooty boat. Our two are facing each other. A friendly conversation, or interrogation? The other day it was decided that the dog kennel makes a fine makeshift gate for one section of the porch, and now the dogs no longer come plowing in circles through our conversations. In the rain the grate of it is strung with watery pearls.
The sky one color, woolen, and the blooming tree buds insulted. When it rains on cold days every plant and person looks petulant. When it rains on warm ones, they look sassy.
The seed in the mauve plastic cup, a color so distinct it belongs to the makeup tables of the eighties. The bird feeder too tall for me and the seeds spill onto the grass and the boards of the porch. The juncos take advantage of this. The birds will have one good fill before the squirrels show and polish off whatever’s left.
Last week I managed to convince the kids that looking out the window was like watching the best TV show, and we watched the show about the squirrel who glutted himself on cracked corn.
i run away because i don’t want to be anywhere near you when i die
All right, all right, I’ll admit it. I’ve used online dating sites since I was a kid- and I mean literally a kid- the first person I met was a 19-year-old boy on Yahoo Personals, the summer I turned sixteen. He was callous and uncouth and had piercings all over his face. I had just gotten my license and needed somewhere to drive my 1987 Buick Century other than the mall or the grocery store. It was pretty boring, but hey, I was still wearing waist-high panties back then. Not that that’s relevant, except that it’s the perfect example of my oddly innocent personality in a technological world that was moving forward at a very rapid pace.
The thing is, I have always been a loner. I don’t go to bars, and most of my hobbies keep me at home in my room. I figured the internet was just another resource for meeting people. I didn’t have bad luck; in fact, several very intense and interesting relationships came from that pool. Of course, for every 1 guy I met and got along well with, there were 10 others who looked nothing like their pictures and just wanted to get laid. But that’s the world, right? For me, the internet just helped narrow down the choices–and luckily, my denseness didn’t hinder my ability to weed out the perverts in the mix. Suffice to say, I have never found online dating a strange thing, and used to make fun of people who did.
Until now. I’m half a year away from thirty, and I figured what the hell–OkCupid can’t have changed that much since I was young, right? Here’s a hint for you. If you have to add “can’t have changed since I was young” to anything, chances are that something has in fact changed drastically. I’ve been on the internet long enough to remember the glory days of Toothpaste for Dinner, Ze Frank, SuicideGirls, Zero Punctuation… Ashes to ashes, though. So, in this new and tangled world of online courtship, where the men have gone from irresponsible and flighty young hornballs to irresponsible and flighty divorcés, and the women have aged from clingy young badonkadonks to clingy older nurses and teachers, I offer this simple guide to men looking to score with the remaining few of us who haven’t gained weight and aren’t working twelve hours a day and never were keen on the bars.
Pictures
A picture is worth more than a thousand words on a dating site, because nobody reads the words anyway. Most men don’t want to write anything, which we’ll get to in a moment, so it doesn’t really matter. What matters is representing yourself in the appropriate way to the woman you want to marry. Because if you were just in it to get laid, you’d be at the bar, right?
Let me just tuck my chin in.
Tip #1: Quit taking pictures from below. The angle is not flattering on anyone, not even sexy celebrities. It makes everyone look huge. Try not to be dripping. I don’t know why anyone posts pictures like this, except that maybe they can’t see themselves, or they think women are eventually going to be looking at them from this angle, or they just don’t want to be a part of the Myspace crowd. It’s okay to take a picture looking up. That’s the angle chicks are going to see you at in bed, anyway.
not impressed, bro.
Tip #2: Quit posing with your damn car. Unless you have a super groovy old or weird car, posing with your Honda or F150 or Mustang isn’t going to be impressive. In case you haven’t heard, tons of people have those cars. In fact, they make millions every year. Posing with your new car that looks just like everyone else’s doesn’t prove anything except that you’ve got a hefty payment due every month. And where does that leave the ladies that need to be taken to dinner?
Other things to quit posing with: your mom’s furniture, dead animals, most penis-shaped things, and cheap beers.
“Honey, what are you doing?”
Tip #3: Remember, this is public. It’s one thing to post a silly picture of yourself with your friends. But maybe you should take a moment to imagine what it would be like if the girl of your dreams peeked through your car window or glanced in your bathroom and saw you making that face. This goes for chicks, too–in fact I should chastise them more heavily. They call it duck lips for a reason. And ducks aren’t sexy!
Words
Okay, so nobody expects you to write a novel on your dating profile. In fact, you tend to look a little desperate if you do. Chicks will wonder why you’re so wordy. You really can’t win. So you should just half-ass it, right? WRONG. A couple things to remember:
Tip #1: As a rule, every swingin’ dick in town is “laid-back” and “likes to have fun”. Of course you do. Who doesn’t like to have fun? Priests? Mountain hermits? It’s like saying, “I have two ears.” Congratufuckinlations. I’m so pleased that you like to have fun. The truth is, if you have any brand of political or moral ideology, if you curse other people in traffic, or if you’ve ever wigged out in a grocery store checkout line, you’re not as laid back as you think. As well, being incapable of taking out the trash or showering more than once a week doesn’t make you laid back–it makes you lazy. Laid back is a junk term used to fill the white space. So what should you say you are instead?
My mom says I’m recumbent.
Tip #2: Never, ever, ever begin a sentence with “My ____ says I am…” Unless you fill in that blank with ex-girlfriend, your ____ doesn’t know shit about how you are in relationships. As well, when a dude says his mom thinks he is something, it’s a major scare factor for girls. We appreciate that you value your mom’s opinion, but she’s biased. Your friends are a better bet, but chances are that if they repeatedly reassure you about something, they’re stretching the truth. So make some of your own observations about yourself. That is, after all, what you’re supposed to be doing before you find a relationship anyway.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, whose moose knuckle is that?
Tip #3: Quit saying you don’t know what to say. We know that. It’s just some words, for God’s sake. However bad you are at describing yourself does not compare to how bad you look saying that to another human being. If you can’t describe yourself, then what the hell do you see in the mirror? If you can’t see in the mirror, just scroll back through the pictures on your cell phone.
For things to say, try the following fill-in-the-blank.
“Hi, my name is ___. I’ve lived in ____ for ____ years and I’m looking to find ____ with the girl of my dreams. I like ___, ___ and ___, and I go nuts for ____. I spend about ____ hours a week working, and outside of that can be found ____ and ____. I prefer if a girl is ____, ____, and ____. I especially like girls that ____. My favorite food is ____ and the bands I listen to most are ____ and ____. Like what you see? Send me a message.”
See, that wasn’t so hard.
come and get him.
Gentlemen, you’re on your own from here. Just remember: online dating isn’t the be-all and end-all. Love yourself and do your own thing and love will come to you. Exercising and bathing frequently doesn’t hurt either.
It has occurred to me more than once that the reason more people don’t kill themselves is because we are sentient beings, we are mammals, and as a result have a gung-ho desire to survive, no matter how arduous the circumstances. Your brain has built-in mechanisms that prevent you from actually going through with suicide. Right? (I could argue that one of the issues with this is that the brain has no mechanism to prevent suicidal thoughts, which I am sure many people have, whether they consider them for five seconds or fifty years.) Biology teaches us that we are built to multiply, and so are inherently selfish, and will only put ourselves in harm’s way for “biological altruism” (a term I adore that means you’ll die if it means your offspring can live.) Example: a fox comes near a bird’s nest. The bird flies away and pretends to be hurt, so the fox will chase it and not its babies. I wonder if anyone ever thought to point out that the fox probably attacks the dumb ass bird and then eats the fledglings. You’ll excuse me if I’m feeling a little bitter on the subject today.
Truth is, it irks me when I hear anti-suicide crusaders claim there’s so much to live for. Sure there is. There are chocolate popsicles, beach sunsets, puppy kisses. There are cardinals in the trees and new menus at the local Mexican place and sex from somebody, eventually, maybe. But what no one ever admits is that there are plenty of reasons to kill yourself- plenty. And I, for one, am tired of having such a rosy picture painted of this life. If it was so goddamn great, people wouldn’t be so grouchy. If we were all bombarded with the happiness that so many claim is the norm, we wouldn’t be such dicks to each other.
(I know I’m being unfair, okay? But I can only give you one perspective. I am, after all, only one girl writing. And I am one girl who, by the degrees of separation, has the capability of influencing tens, if not hundreds, of people with my incredibly depressed behavior.)
This is going to be a morbid post, dear readers. If it makes you feel better, I was going to call it “100 Reasons Why I Could Kill Myself Right Now”. Then I realized that it would probably inspire more people to kill themselves, and I don’t need that on my already burdened conscience. But I’d like to include that in the discussion. For you functional brains out there, folks that “just don’t get” why anyone could take such a drastic step, here are some of the things that I see wrong with the world that push me to the brink. Enjoy!
I’m tired. I need to finish this bottle of red wine. Glad I changed the title, too, because if I had to think up enough reasons to get to 100 chances are I’d probably kill myself in the process.
i would just like to point that out.
my hackles go up when i hear someone talking about it, because of all his stories, i didn’t really feel that was one of the ones people should pay attention to. my favorite of all of them, i think, is “raise high the roofbeam, carpenters”. it was published in the new yorker, and then combined with “seymour, an introduction” in a short volume. you can read the full PDF of both here. (i make no claims as to the integrity of that link, only that it does not lead to a torrent or some nefarious site.)
for anyone who gets it, this is kind of like people going on about how anais nin wrote such great erotica. she did write excellent erotica. but just because that’s what she is known for does not mean that it is even marginally representative of her as a writer. if her erotica was removed from her repertoire, she would still stand brilliantly- solidly- on her own. i feel the same way about salinger and catcher in the [fucking] rye.
i suppose all of this is relevant now because of the awful “documentary” that just came out about him, and i was thinking a lot about it while listening to the slate culture gabfest last week.
writing it down here, i have the feeling that i am going to, in fact, end up one of those women on a street corner, screaming my brains out and wondering why no one is listening. let me note that now, while i still understand why no one will listen.
The boy sits in the living room and talks about coyotes.
“They have a running bounty on them,” he said. “A hundred for females, and fifty for males. We used to trap a rabbit and kill it, gut it and hang it from a tree. Then we’d hide and make rabbit distress calls at twilight. You could hear them coming, yipping at each other. They’d get to the rabbit and we’d pick them off. Then we’d clear them out and another group would come. They just keep multiplying. We used to kill four or five a night.”
I am mixing sugar into my coffee. They are eating Hardees, tater tots for my roommate, biscuits and gravy for the boy. Yesterday I only ate beans and rice with vegetables, a large bowl of it at lunch. If the world pains me and life is difficult and my roommate is not eating, then goddamn it I don’t have to either. She is not eating because it is the way she has received attention since she was fourteen. She is not eating because she has stomach problems, heart problems, cramp problems. She visits the doctors and they give her medications, monitors, controls. None of them think to question why she is so thin. Maybe they think that she is naturally thin. We of EDNOS are excellent at somatization. We of EDNOS don’t even have to somatize, after a while, because we do have legitimate heart problems, stomach problems, allergies, cramps, aches, pains.
I am not eating because after quitting smoking I spent three weeks smoking marijuana and consuming every ounce of candy in the house. Eight or nine pounds later I am embarrassed. I walk with the dog in the early mornings, before work, before church, and pull my shorts down over my thighs. They are short shorts, but I do not have any others.
I am not eating because I am alone, because there are people everywhere killing coyotes, arming rebels, spilling oil, prying into emails, gossiping, buying useless products, throwing their trash out their windows and leaving it on the beach. I am not eating because when I am not smoking I legitimately feel ill at everything I see.
“I don’t want to starve myself,” says my roommate. “I just can’t eat without feeling sick.”
I share her allergy. It is an allergy to life, that we then convert into an allergy to bullshit. That is why we stay sick, because we are forever bullshitting ourselves.
one girl writing 