It’s been pointed out to me (most notably by my partner (indeed, most things are pointed out to me by her (though, ironically, I seem to take these observations (or are they criticisms? (to be sure, does any suggestion that there is an aspect of ourselves that we’re not aware of amount to, in some way, a critique (and to what extent does ‘critique’ (or, really, any outside force causing us slow down, take inventory of the self (and here, though I must insist I’m really only thinking about myself (as though this has ever, at any point in any of our lives (the act of performing for others, being just that— a performance (and not a sophisticated one, at that (although I guess it’s possible I’m assuming too much about people I’ll never really know (despite the fact that, like my partner seeing me (that is to say, seeing the me that I perform (and I do (even when I’m shut in the house for months on end) perform), which is essentially, me), I am likely very possibly seeing others more clearly than they see themselves) because it’s easier than taking a sober, clear-eyed look at my own self), though this fact renders it no less compelling to its intended audience) that we rehearse, rewrite and tweak over our lifetimes), been in question, or even been terribly hard to discern), I suppose potential parallels to larger, real life events are hard to not acknowledge) and consider the possibility that we have been misguided and/or straight-up wrong) = ‘attack’ ?); an accusation that we don’t know ourselves as well as we think we do?) or do I only understand them as criticisms because they are coming from her, and I’m uneasy at how clearly she sees me?) less seriously when they come from her), notably and forcefully) but by others, as well) that the use of parentheticals is central to my writing style.

i’m talking to a young woman. we’ve just met recently, and we’re working together over the summer. we’re discussion prejudice, sexism, racism; all the important stuff. i’m trying to explain my perspective on these things, and it’s not going well:

“ohhh, okay. i think i know what you mean. i’ve heard guys make this argument before. it’s ‘everyone is racist/racism is the natural state, and that can’t be changed, and the only rational response to that is to align with your own group’s interests.”

this is a recurring theme, and i don’t like it. in fact, it scares the hell out of me.

i have to back up and disassociate myself from these guys that she’s met, because that is absolutely not my argument. i’m familiar with it, and i’ve also seen people espousing it, but it’s never occurred to me that my own perspective could be confused with theirs. it’s not a good look, but it also makes me question myself. this woman i’m talking to is not stupid, so if she can misintrepret my ideas like this, then i’m either explaining them poorly or i need to do some thinking.

it reminds me of something that my partner once said to me, actually.

during a discussion of the Tea Party, the conservative movement that arose during and in reaction to the presidency of Barack Obama, she threw this in my face:

“You know you’re like those Tea Party people, right? I would think you would be more sympathetic to them, considering that you both distrust the government for, basically, the same reasons, and you both want to burn it down rather than work to make the system better. You both don’t trust the media, even if the reasons are different. You’re saying the same things, just your explanation is different. The end result is identical. So, when you critique them, it’s honestly a little weird.”

oof.

part one, probably. My therapist suggested that I try to write down all the things that are troubling me or that I can’t seem to get out of my mind. This was a while ago, but I’m feeling overwhelmed enough to give it a shot now.

• Like a month ago, I saw some post where Trent Reznor was talking about current hard times, and one of the things he said was that everyone should listen to David Bowie and “don’t be too hard on yourself.” Which, for whatever reason, was somehow the most unexpected thing of this year, for me. Trent Reznor encouraging me to give myself a break.
• It’s been less than a year since G**** died, and L**** is so sick. I don’t know how long she has left, and we’re getting to the time when I’m going to start wondering if taking her to the vet constantly and trying to keep her going is really what’s best for her.
• in any practical sense, I think we’ve already forgotten that Joe Biden very well might have sexually assaulted someone, and at the very least he has some troubling attitudes (if not behaviors) about that stuff. It popped into my mind this afternoon, and I realized that I hadn’t thought about it in weeks. Not that there isn’t anything else important going on, but I don’t know what to do with that. It’s probably going to be enough, for most people (probably including me), that he’s better than Donald Trump. Which is bleak, bleak stuff.
• i am reaching the end of my graduate program, and I’m kind of wondering why I bothered with it. I’m more in debt, I passed up the chance for an ongoing lecturer position (though who knows if that would be stable now), and, for the most part, I gained very few new experiences from the program. I’m not going to be a writer, and I never thought I was, but it feels like even my modest expectations will be left unmet.
• I wouldn’t say that I romanticize upheaval and unrest, but I’ve long believed that change, through the system itself, is impossible. So it’s disheartening, maybe, to know that all the protests and uncertainty is, to a significant degree, making me really uncomfortable, and I have to admit that a not-insignificant part of me just wants things to go back to ‘normal.’ But, in this case, I will take Trent Reznor’s advice, and try to not be too hard on myself. I still, more than anything else, think that all this stuff is good, that it’s necessary. ‘Normal’ is deeply, thoroughly fucked up, and it’s depressing that we’re so desperate to back to it. People like me deserve to feel uncomfortable, and it’s an eminently worthy trade if it means that things can get better for more vulnerable people, because ‘normal’ for them doesn’t mean ‘safe,’ like it does for me. In this sense, 2020 could be a great year.
• But it won’t be. 2020 will just be another lost opportunity to take care of each other and make the world better.
• I hate this dog we live with so, so much. It challenges my whole idea of myself, and I feel terribly guilty about it, but it’s true. It’s not her fault, but she’s  despicable. I’m not cruel to her or anything, but I’m also afraid that she knows how much I can’t stand her, which she doesn’t deserve.
• Worse, though, is L****. She’s been staying at the vet for the last two nights (because she stopped eating and they’re trying to figure that out), and it’s been so quiet. I adore her, and I hate how relieved I am with her gone.
• I have a friend who is, by her own admission, a lot. She’s just constant drama and feelings, spraying all over the place like a firehose that someone lost their grip on. I’m not like that, to a fault. I hold all of my feelings in, to the extent that I don’t even recognize that I’m having them a lot of times. But, when they do come, it’s kind of a lot. I don’t know what to do, and it seems like no one else does, either. When I share with people, I get the impression that it’s like they don’t know what to say, like my stuff is radioactive. Maybe it’s because I can’t name or experience my feelings properly, because if I can’t feel my feelings in a healthy way, how can anyone else help me with them? It’s like I’m alone. I’m with my feelings, but I’m not really with them, because I can’t understand them. Like we’re living in different apartments, right next to each other, and the assholes are blasting music at all hours of the day. And the walls are thin. But I still can’t make out any of the words.
• When people read my writing about the alt-right, incels, white nationalists, etc., the question keeps coming up: why are you interested in these people? Sometimes the other question comes up: why do you choose not to condemn them? They’re fair questions, and I have some regular answers: I’m interested in subcultures and masculinity; I think it’s important to try to understand these groups and to interrogate ourselves in terms of how we might be like them, rather than condemning them and feeling secure in the knowledge that we’re not them, so we’re good; I think it’s uninteresting to condemn them, rather than trying to look at something new; and so on. These answers are true, but I’m wondering lately, if they are a deflection. Am I interested in these groups simply because they’re objectionable, broken people who are so misshapen that they are (rightly) cast out of and reviled by mainstream, properly functioning people? And is the root of my interest, the real thing that I have in common with them, that I am similarly not fit to be near real people? Do I refuse to condemn them because it would feel like condemning myself? Am I actually sympathetic to them? Am I trying to find their, like, humanity, because  if they’re not worthy of sympathy, them neither am I? Whatever is wrong with me, am I afraid that I’m as unlikable as some nazis? If so, then what the hell am I supposed to do with that?
• I found myself wishing that the world was less complicated this afternoon. Usually, I positively revel in the complexity and ambiguity, because I find it comforting and exciting. But I just wanted things to be easy. I don’t know what that’s about, either. I’m not sleeping well.
• I wish I knew what Trent Reznor would say about all this.
• To be continued, probably~

What about talking about some times when you weren’t able to control it. What are some examples of times when your feelings overwhelmed you?

like what happened; what made me feel so strongly?

Start with that, but I want you to focus on the feelings themselves.

well, when G**** died is an easy one.

Okay, let’s focus on that.

he was my best pal, so i knew it was going to be hard when he went. i would make jokes about it sometimes, to R******, saying how i would basically be incapacitated by it when i lost him. actually, as bad as it was, it wasn’t nearly as bad as when M****  passed away; probably because M**** was the first one that i lost, and he was so sick for so long, and i had to take care of him. with G****, it was so fast, just shock was the dominant reaction.

What about your feelings, though? Describe how you felt.

at first, it was just numbness, like i said, because of the shock.

Don’t analyze it and try to explain why you felt the way you felt— just describe the feeling.

this is the thing, though; the place where i always get confused. how do i talk about the feeling without analyzing it?

Stay on describing the feeling. Focus on having the feeling, allowing yourself to experience it, rather than immediate invalidating it by dissecting it and explaining it away.

i am having it, though. this is one of the things that i don’t get. i don’t doubt that what you’re saying makes sense— i know you know what you’re talking about, and i certainly know that i’m the one with the problem —but how can it be that i’m not ‘allowing myself to experience the feeling’? it’s not like like i’m pretending that there is no feeling. i’m identifying it, i’m acknowledging it. i’m taking it seriously, right, by trying to understand it. i’m not trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist, so how am i invalidating the feeling? i hope that this doesn’t come across as aggressive, but i’m honestly confused about this.

I understand what you’re saying. I think— 

i feel like i’ve tried to make you explain this before, actually. sorry about that.

It’s okay. It’s an important distinction. 

that’s cool, at least.

The difference is in how you are experiencing the feeling, how you’re handling it. Maybe ‘invalidating’ is a poor word choice, but what I mean is that, when you have these feelings, you don’t allow yourself to just feel them. Your instinct is to immediately move into analysis, to try to analyze them, understand them, critique them. And this invalidates them, in a way, as feelings. You don’t let yourself feel your feelings, because you’re too eager to move into intellectualizing them. It’s a safer relationship to your emotions than letting yourself feel them.

but i feel like i do feel them— what am i analyzing?

That’s the thing though— you’re treating your emotions, primarily, as artifacts to be analyzed. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.

fuck you, bitch. how can i move forward if i don’t understand my feelings? isn’t that the kind of thing most people go to therapy for; to get help understanding their emotions?

Of course it’s not bad to try to understand your feelings, but it’s also not good to use analysis to avoid really experiencing your feelings. 

i promise i’m not being difficult when i say this— i’m not trying to be difficult when i say this —but how do i ‘experience my feelings’? (again, i feel like i’ve asked this before.) do i just sit and think, like, ‘I’M SAD’ really intensely, or smash stuff, if i’m angry? because that’s just being stuck in place, right? fuck you, bitch.

No, it’s more about sitting with the feeling, experiencing it; not feeling like you need to move into understanding it, but letting yourself have the feeling. 

well, it’s not like, when i start analyzing feelings, they just go away. i still have the feeling.

Right, but you’ve stopped interacting with it as a feeling, because you’ve switched into intellectualizing it. It exists in the abstract now, more than the concrete.

but it’s a feeling— it was never concrete.

You’re right. What I mean is, the feeling is no longer allowed to just be, because it’s become an object of inquiry. Its existence is only important inasmuch as it helps you identify causes and understand other things. It’s more forensic evidence than emotion.

well, that’s kind of cool, tbh ngl. but i kind of see what you mean.

And it’s important that you feel your feelings. You become stuck on them if you don’t allow yourself to fully experience them. 

ugh. but how do you do that? i feel like we just keep coming back to this part, over and over and over, and you keep trying to explain it, but i don’t get it. how do you just feel a feeling? how do you, like, turn your brain off and not think about it at all?

It’s not about ‘turning your brain off.’ You focus on simply experiencing the emotion, noticing how it’s making you feel physically. What kinds of sensations are you having in what parts of your body?

but you don’t try to understand that.

You just allow it to be, and you pay attention to it.

all due respect, this is so fucking dumb. what do you do with that information?

Let’s just focus on trying to experience the emotions first. 

the only times i can remember feeling my emotions, physically, are the few times that i had a panic attack, but i don’t think that’s what you’re thinking of.

It can be, if that’s easier for you. 

but i feel like you’re thinking about smaller things, like the things that i fail to sufficiently ‘feel’ that build up and eventually lead to something like a panic attack, right?

How about this: when is the last time you were really upset? 

like, I cried?

It doesn’t have to be a time you cried.

i’m honestly not sure if i can think of anything besides that. which i suppose isn’t surprising, if what you’re saying is correct.

What do you mean?

well, if you’re saying that i refuse to engage with and actually feel my feelings, it makes sense that i can’t remember them, because i just intellectualize them and push them aside. so they don’t seem relevant, unless, you know, there’s some kind of freak-out or meltdown.

The fact that you characterize emotional displays as ‘freak-outs’ or ‘meltdowns’ is what I’m talking about: you devalue emotion, instinctively.

man fuck you, bitch.

See, you’re deflecting.

what about this, though: you keep wanting me to talk about stuff from when i was little, like “oh i lost the spelling bee and i was humiliated” or “a girl said something mean to me one time and now i’m 43 and i still can’t get over it,” like we’re going to find some magic explanation for why i’m such a loser by analyzing stuff that happened in the past. huh? what now?

It’s all a rich tapestry.

*leans back*

when the stay-at-home thing started, I felt uniquely equipped to handle it. My anxiety keeps me somewhat self-isolated at all times, and when my partner is out of town, my existence pretty much turns into a self-quarantine situation. I even try to make a game out of how many days I can go without having to leave the house for any reason. It’s just me and the animals. And, while, I’m always happy when my partner returns, I also always feel like I could keep going like this for as long as I needed to. I have sincerely thought that, if I were in Oldboy, I would handle the confinement way better than Dae-su. When the quarantine started, I made lame jokes about preparing for this moment my whole life.

So it’s difficult to admit that I’m not having a good time. To admit that, in fact, I’m having a bad time. It’s definitely other stuff, but it’s also the fact of being stuck inside the house all day, almost every day. School has ended for the semester, and my essay coaching job is gone, so it’s empty time. Even the protests, which are definitely worth leaving the house for, are not an option, because my partner isn’t healthy enough to take that risk. (And, to be fair, it’s not at all clear that I would have the nerve to be out there with all those people, regardless of the righteousness of the cause.) We have a big house, which surely helps, but still. I’m not sleeping hardly at all. And, somehow, it feels like everyone else is having a more fun, fulfilling  quarantine than me. I’m not sure how that works, but it feels true.

There are things to do. There’s dozens of books I own, that I’ve never read, that I can read. There’s a fall semester to plan for, which is actually something that should be prioritized, since I need to plan a curriculum that can move online more smoothly than the one I usually use. I should be writing stuff for my thesis project, since I’m entering the final year of my program. Or writing anything, really (this doesn’t count). I could be watching way more professional wrestling than I am. (I did find a great Japanese adult video message board that I’m enjoying lurking on, but stuff like that always feels more like a giant (and, in this case, more embarrassing than usual) waste of time until I figure out an angle to write about it.)

But there’s always things to do, and always excuses to put them off. If I think about it, honestly, this is what happens every time I am left alone or with no urgent obligations: when there’s nothing to do, I do nothing. I hate myself for it, but I don’t change. It’s always a long, continuous, low buzzing of a headache, and I keep feeding it nothing. Nothing is here to distract me from, like, me. 😳

Am I depressed? Possibly, but that’s not very interesting.

God, I want to buy clothes online so bad. 😂

(Curtain opens; a white guy is standing at center stage, because, you know, where else would he be?)

a classmate in the creative nonfiction seminar this spring used the phrase ‘unabashed neuroses’ to describe my writing, and I still don’t know if it was supposed to be a shot. It’s probably fair though. so I guess I’m back on my bullshit~

i made one of those black box posts on instagram a couple days ago, and man was it an ordeal. I thought about it literally for hours before I finally did it, and I regret doing it roughly as much as I probably would if I hadn’t done it.

my thought process (heavily abridged):

• this is a meaningless gesture, it accomplishes nothing. it’s the very definition of virtue signaling.
• virtue signaling gets a bad rap. everyone virtue signals all the time, we just signal different virtues.
• still, this feels like close to a textbook example of the ‘bad’ virtue signaling that conservatives make their bad-faith claims about. it’s a fucking social media post and nothing more. it’s solely performance.
• but I don’t know, maybe it’s not. If nothing else, it does, at the very least, signal sympathy and empathy. It’s another voice.
• but that’s all it is: a signal. It achieves nothing material beyond identifying myself as someone who thought it would be cool to make the same social media post that everyone else was making.
• but it’s not like I’m on some big show-off shit. I have, maybe, ten real followers, and i rarely post. whatever I’m doing, it’s hard to imagine that I’m doing it for the clout.
• but if I have that few followers, what’s the point? What’s accomplished besides signaling to them?
• i can include the hashtag, so my voice is part of the larger chorus. Then it’s like, who would even notice me? I’d be one voices among a sea of them.
• but then, again, what am I doing? I’m just jumping on the Bandwagon of Whatever’s Most Convenient, and I’m making sure to mark The Least I Can Do so that there’s easily identifiable proof that I did it.
• also, I have no history of posting about this kind of thing, so it feels even less genuine. I made a post in my story taking a really brave stand in opposition to racism against Asians, but that’s it. All of my public posts are mostly pictures of animals with song lyrics or snippets of poetry that are varying degrees of ironic/cryptic. I’m literally just one day deciding to go in on this subject.
• but so what? It’s important, and if my motivation is sincere then who cares?
• well, because the post makes it about me in a real way. shouldn’t I just shut up and try to offer more material support?
• but I don’t have hardly any material support to offer. I’ve had to discontinue, for the moment, the support I offer to animal rights and welfare groups, and if I don’t have resources for that then I definitely don’t have resources for other struggles that, while I certainly believe in their importance, are simply not as important to me as animal rights.
• regardless, it makes me uncomfortable to think I’m participating in something that, regardless of its intentions, is probably going to mainly end up serving to soothe the egos of people like me rather than helping the people who need help.
• so what then— do nothing? regardless of my intentions, am I just engaging in nihilistic thinking that invalidates all pragmatic action and just ends with me convincing myself to do nothing.
• it’s also true that there’s no way to avoid being performative, especially on social media. everything we do is, at least partly, intended to act out a persona that we want to convince others— and ourselves —is the person we are.
• this leads to the uncomfortable fact that, at least in part, I don’t want to make the post because everyone else is doing it. I generally don’t make a big show of it (LOL!), but I don’t, as a general rule, take part in trends, fads, etc.; it’s just not the kind of thing I do (i.e., my regular ‘show’ is to not do these kinds of things).
• but this is a terrible reason to not show up, even in this tiny way, for such an important moment. It might be even more self-absorbed than the people making multiple cringeworthy posts going on and on about their frustration with other white people who just don’t get it, smugly luxuriating their own righteousness. Am I not just performing a different brand of smug righteousness?
• and so on and so forth from there.
• there’s a whole extended section about how my social phobia plays into all this, but it’s not worth recreating here.

i ended up making the post, but I didn’t include any text/hashtags. so I could feel good that I didn’t try to put on any ostentatious performance. but also so my less than a dozen followers were the only ones who saw it and it had no impact beyond, basically, taking a stand that told people who I already know agree with me that I agree with them. I think the post got five likes.

i don’t feel great about it. 😕

(Curtain closes)

Despite the fact that I am (or at least I consider myself to be) Extremely Online, sometimes stuff slips past me, and I just learned that Christopher Meloni is, apparently, returning to play his Law & Order SVU character, Elliot Stabler, in a new show. I was surprised, when I saw this news, how much I actually care. I’m a Law & Order fan, but SVU was never my preferred iteration of the franchise, and I always considered the Stabler character to be pretty corny, honestly. He was angry, Benson was thoughtful. (The dynamic itself was corny.) He flew into a rage and did something crazy, Benson brought him back to earth. Dude was a habitual line-stepper— his rage was his defining characteristic —and yet, somehow, he always got what amounted to a slap on the wrist when he’d flip out and choke another suspect. (My best friend loved to call him ‘Unstabler.’)

But I guess his rage was supposed to be cathartic for the viewer, so they couldn’t have him, like, evolve in any truly meaningful way. In some ways, SVU has always been really progressive, but it still, also, always wants to give us the easy way out. Things really turn out truly bad only because the show wants to make the profound point that Things are Difficult and Complicated, not because, you know, things actually are difficult and complicated. The whole point of the show is that, in the end, it actually is easy, that there’s an answer. We want Stabler to choke the pedophile. We don’t want to think about the pedophile’s rights or how he might be a victim, too. We don’t want to think about larger, systemic and ideological issues that mix violence and masculinity up to the point where they’re indistinguishable. We just want the rush of having that violence turned on the Bad People.

Life has gotten so complicated, and we have to think all the time. That’s the real magic of the Good Old Days, right? That you didn’t have to think. That you knew what was right and who was bad, and if you think there’s a pedophile in your neighborhood then you just get a couple of guys together and you go knock on his door with a shovel in your hand. You get it wrong sometimes, and lots of innocent people would definitely get hurt, but you shrug it off, like Sean Penn at the end of Mystic River, and you don’t think about it. Honestly, it’s a small price to pay for certainty, if you’re not the one paying it.

I suppose that’s the fantasy of Elliot Stabler, actually. That you can have those lizard-brain rage dumps and still be a good, thoughtful guy. Because Stabler is. He was always really, truly trying to protect the helpless and do the right thing. But he saw evil and he couldn’t not act. (And, for him, ‘acting,’ as often as not, meant choking a bitch.) But his impulses were always good, even when his actions weren’t, so we wanted him to get away with only nominal punishment. He had lapses, but he was thoughtful, and the show told us that he could learn and grow.

But this is a fantasy. Elliot Stabler doesn’t exist, in real life, but Donald Trump does. As a general rule, people who don’t want to think neverwant to think, and they only become more unstable when they feel like someone is trying to make them think. They put effort into defending their lack of thoughtfulness and imagination as a virtue, but this is not thinking. It’s yelling and screaming and insisting that instability and stupidity is Very Stable Genius— it’s not thoughtful.

I don’t want Elliot Stabler back. I do think a show that places his crazy ass in this historical moment could have some interesting things to say about masculinity and tolerance and a lot of important things, and I even imagine that a Law & Order show, underneath all the hackiness, would try to tackle some of those things. But I also think that those things would sail right over everyone’s heads, because it would require too much thinking. Even if they wanted to learn, it’s too much trouble to try to explain everything to them, so fuck em. 

whoo boy, I am anxious. I write and share pieces with my classmates, it’s what you do in a creative writing program. So that’s not weird, and I don’t even feel like I’m necessarily high- maintenance about it, especially considering that I write about really charged race and gender stuff all the time. But I’m worried this time.

I’m explicitly talking about myself and my experiences in this draft, which is something that I usually only do fleetingly in other pieces. Also, i tried to be really, brutally honest in this one, with the goal of making myself look bad and draw parallels between myself and some bad hombres. So I was already worried about what my classmates would think, and then, when I received my instructors feedback, I got really worried. First, he noted that the length of the draft made it a ‘big ask’ of my classmates, especially considering the current context. Which is something I knew, so that didn’t bother me. But when I saw his feedback on the essay itself, ngl, I panicked a bit.

In the main, it’s sort of telling me that the way I’m addressing the subject matter (racism, both casual and aggressive) is problematic, and particularly that I’m expressing too much sympathy for people expressing racist sentiments. This is not to mention the section that he recommended I cut, because he believes it will offend and alienate readers. I’m not sure about this, and I admit it was a snap reaction, but on first reading his comments, I felt like I was low key called a racist, which isn’t a great feeling when you’re waiting on a dozen more responses from people who don’t know you well enough to give you any benefit of the doubt.

As I was panicking, I immediately wanted to send the piece to some people who know me, who I felt will give me the benefit of the doubt and tell me that I’m great, that this dude isn’t reading closely enough to understand the nuance of what I’m going for. And, from those responses I’ve gotten so far, they’ve accommodated me, told me that it’s fine. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. 😦

these are people who are on my side. They start reading with the assumption that my intentions are positive, and while I’m grateful for that, I also feel like it sort of invalidates their judgment on this. I can’t expect to throw bombs out there and just be like, ‘well if you misunderstand then that’s on you.’ Which is hard, because my goal is to be ambiguous, to make the reader uncomfortable and to be unflinchingly honest in holding myself to account.  But how do you do that without making the reader simply write you off? I don’t know if it’s possible, but i really want to believe that it is. maybe it’s not, and I either have to abandon this idea or resign myself to alienating some readers who simply don’t see things like I do and don’t see the value in trying to understand my perspective.

Still, I want to make myself clear, to show people what I see. just the slightest bit of finesse, might  have made a little less mess. have I been laughable, wrong?

Vince Gill’s voice sounds like the truth. like, The Truth. it’s soaring, clear, and it sounds like angels singing to you from on high. in this sense, i don’t trust it one bit. it may be beautiful, it may be enjoyable, and i may admire it, but its polished perfection reads as more than a little suspicious to me.

which makes “When I Call Your Name,” for me, the perfect Vince Gill song. because it is just unbelievably full of shit.

“When I Call Your Name” is another in the long country tradition of songs where the singer’s mate has left them. it’s extremely straightforward: he/she left, and he’s sad, because he/she is no longer there to answer when he calls their name. it kind of depends on the listener’s familiarity with these types of songs, skipping over most of the particulars and just wallowing in the pain. this is the source of both the song’s strength and its ridiculous, laughable weakness.

at the song’s start, the narrator sets the scene:

I rushed home from work like I always do
I spent my whole day just thinking of you

maybe it says more about me than the song, but i already don’t like this guy. just do your job, bro. i would hate to work with this guy if he’s just mooning over his partner all day, rather than paying attention to his work responsibilities. the fact that he characterizes this as his default (“like I always do”) seems to suggest that either 1.) he has a potentially unhealthy obsession with his partner, or 2.) he’s talking shit.unfortunately, things are about to go bad for our devoted narrator:

When I walked through the front door my whole life was changed
Cause nobody answered when I called your name

with this development lurking, the opening lines make a little more sense. we needed to understand the narrator’s devotion for the devastation of the loss to register. with that in mind, it’s a pretty economical (if melodramatic) way to accomplish that goal. but that doesn’t make it any less cringeworthy. from here, though, it really starts to get sketchy:

A note on the table that told me goodbye
It said you’d grown weary of living a lie

this is where the song really starts to lose me, lyrically. the narrator seems to want the listener to believe that this development came out of nowhere, that it was a complete shock when he arrived home and no one answered when he called their name. but the note that’s left for him (the only instance of the object of the song being allowed to speak in any way) disputes that. if his partner really felt that they were ‘living a lie,’ it’s hard to believe that the narrator had no idea. people in a relationship voice dissatisfaction in myriad ways, they don’t just decide one day that they’re living a lie and then leave. that this narrator had no idea strongly suggests that one of two things is going on here: 1.) he’s oblivious and uninterested in his partner’s thoughts and feelings in the extreme, or 2.) he’s full of shit and trying to garner sympathy from the listener by painting himself as a victim. neither of these is a good look.

Your love has ended but mine still remains
But nobody answers when I call your name

though i have serious questions about the quality of this guy’s ‘love,’ i guess i believe this, but i also wonder why he’s still calling his partner’s name, since he knows they’re gone. but poetry is poetry, and melodrama is melodrama, so it’s whatever.

Oh the lonely sound of my voice calling
Is driving me insane
And just like rain, the tears keep falling
Nobody answers when I call your name

actually, these last six lines are really fine. if it wasn’t for the super creepy stuff that comes before them, these lyrics would work. but the narrator just can’t help himself, and he compulsively disclosed his creepiness. it’s like he wants to be caught.

those last lines, though, are really powerful. their sentiment- one that has been repeated for decades in country music (and popular music overall) -combined with the power of Vince Gill’s soaring, beatific voice are truly awe-inspring, and the song’s strategy of depending on the listener to fill in the narrative and character blanks by cutting out almost everything but that sentiment almost works.

the problem with that strategy, though, is if someone decides to pay attention. Vince Gill’s voice is as shiny of an object as you’re likely to find, but when you pay attention to what that voice is saying, in this song, it’s some real bullshit. this narrator is either an obsessive weirdo or a manipulative creep, and you don’t have to look too closely at his account of things before it starts to look funny.

on the other hand, it’s pop music. Vince Gill’s voice + an easily recognizable and relatable feeling + ??? = profit. none of this matters. but still: when something is presented to you like it’s the one and only truth, it’s some bullshit. so this song, like most things, proved what i already knew.

it’s just not great, i’m not enjoying it. but it’s easy, so there’s that.

last night, reading this deeply underwhelming book, i came to a passage where she describes the horror of having to put down her deceased mother’s beloved horse. like every other event in the book, it was deeply melodramatic and overwrought. unlike every other event in the book, however, it had me in tears. fucking bitch.

the horse is old, neglected, and dying slowly, and the narrator finally makes the agonizing decision to put her down. she, her husband, and her brother lead the gaunt, freezing horse out to a tree, tie it to the tree, and shoot the horse square between the eyes, just as they’ve been instructed to do. they could wait until a vet is able to come out, but she decides that she doesn’t want to make the horse suffer any longer, that they’ll do it themselves, no matter how hard it is. they’re told, by people who know, that shooting it right between the eyes is the most humane way to do it, that the horse will die instantly.

but it doesn’t. it starts freaking out, while her brother empties the rest of his guns bullets into his head. the narrator, her husband, and her brother are panicking and screaming, as the horse screams and fights, confused at why they’ve hurt it like this. finally, the horse collapses, struggling for a moment before finally dying. it’s a truly awful scene.

of course, it forced me to remember all the animals whose deaths i’ve experienced, and i hated it.

• Phineas was a budgie who died when i accidentally left the door of his cage open. we actually never got confirmation of this, but the cats must have gotten him. all we found was a pile of feathers. i killed him, because i was careless.
• Rusty, was a profoundly broken dog we thought we might be able to take in when his owners couldn’t handle him anymore. he would attack unexpectedly, even when he was being pet, a consequence of abuse he’d suffered. we lived in a two-story house, and because of pain in his legs he was unable to climb the stairs and follow us when we went up. he was beside himself when left alone downstairs, but he would also attack if we tried to pick him up. no one else would take him, including shelters, because of his issues, so we felt that we had to put him down. the couple we took him from were still, technically, his owners, so the vet had to get permission from them when we took him to be put down. one of them had second thoughts, and the vet wasn’t entirely uncomfortable with the situation, but eventually it was done. the vet assured us that this was the right decision. it didn’t make me feel any better about it.
• Norman was a cat we adopted from the same couple. he was so, so fucked up. someone had removed all of his claws, front and back, so he hated to go into the litter box. in addition to this, whoever had neutered him had similarly botched that. in spite of that, he loved people more than anything, and he fucking hated other cats, except for Maxxx, who he’d lived with in cages at the couple’s house. (because Norman pissed all over the place, they just kept them both in cages 24/7.) he was sickly from the minute he came to live with us, but he lived for a couple of years in which he was pretty happy, pissing all over the house and jumping up into every lap he encountered. finally, one day, he went behind the television and wouldn’t come out, moaning sadly. we took him to the vet and were told what we already knew, and then we let him go.
• Chief was my partner’s childhood cockatiel. she was fussy and stand-offish. one morning, i found her on the bottom of her cage. i knew i needed to tell my partner before i left for school, so i went upstairs and shook her awake. as she came to, she saw my hand held out to her, her dead childhood pet in my palm. i didn’t say a word. there was, probably, a better way to let her know.
• Chester was yet another one we adopted from the couple that Norman and Rusty came from. he was a sad, naked Quaker parrot who was missing all of his feathers except for his wings, head and tail. he had trouble maintaining balance and was extremely timid. he hated being touched so much that his head was often covered in pinfeathers. we always left his cage door open during the day, because we could be confident he’d never leave it. though he was able to fly, he would just sleep inside or on top of the cage, and he liked being allowed to come in and out as he pleased. occasionally, he would get spooked and fly to another cage, but he never caused trouble with the other birds. he just wanted to be left alone. while i was out of town, at school, my partner let me know that she had found him, dead, underneath the cage of one of the other parrots. she sent me a picture of his body.
• we knew better, but we stupidly, impulsively bought a pair of lovebirds from Petco, Dynamite and PJ. Dynamite was bonded to PJ, but PJ rejected her, actively trying to hurt her, and we had to separate them. PJ had rejected Dynamite because she was sick, and she quickly died. she cried for him constantly after they were separated. we adopted another mate for him, Darcy, who he bonded to quickly. when we had to move to Oklahoma for graduate school, we gave PJ and Darcy to a neighbor of my partner’s parents, who left their cage door open and they both flew away. it was summer, but they probably didn’t last long in northern Indiana.
• Zeppo was a huge orange cat. another impulsive addition, but he was an adoption. the woman said he was scheduled to be put down the next day, which may or may not have been true, but it didn’t matter. he was so big and so terrified of us, we had to take him home. he was so scare of us, he hid in a box in the extra bedroom for days. when he came out, he wouldn’t get off the bed, and he even shit and pissed on the bed, even though there was a litter box in the room and the door was shut. after the rough start, he was the sweetest, most gentle cat we ever had. we let my partner’s parents take him, though, because another one of our cats (who was less than half his size) bullied him mercilessly. he was very happy there, quickly becoming my partner’s mom’s favorite. they told us when he got sick, and also that they didn’t want to put him down yet. one day, they said, he let out a sharp cry, and then found him dead. i don’t trust them at all about this kind of thing, so i’m convinced he suffered unnecessarily because they didn’t want to go through the pain of euthanizing him.
• Whitey was another budgie. she was not a nice bird. she picked constant fights with all of the other birds, and she bullied them away from the food, even when she didn’t want it. however, when Phineas came, they bonded instantly, and were never apart. she never flew, like the rest of the budgies, and eventually we realized that she was hurt, not necessarily mean, though there was nothing we could do about it. she started to have even more trouble moving, so we moved her and Phineas into a smaller cage. after i accidentally caused Phineas’ death, she was alone, but we left her in the smaller cage by herself, since she never liked the other budgies, anyway. she had a stroke, and became unable to move hardly at all, so we moved her to a tiny cage, where she could just be on a flat surface and lay down when she needed to and her food was at chest-level. after another stroke made even that too much, we used instructions online to construct a ‘birdy gas chamber’ (a cut up plastic gallon milk container, vinegar and baking soda (to produce Co2), and a tube to connect the two). she went quickly, fortunately.
• Grady was a cat, and he was my greatest  pal. he died suddenly last year. i don’t know a better way to say it: my heart was broken. i won’t try write about it, but i took him to the vet and had him put down. his death was excruciatingly painful, but very quick, something that i’m both devastated by and grateful for. he was the best one.
• Fedor, another budgie, was our first, awful attempt at using the ‘birdy gas chamber.’ we found him, alive, on the bottom of the cage one morning, and it was clear he was almost gone. we searched for a way to euthanize him quickly and humanely and quickly constructed the crude device. we were both crying, but we knew we were doing the right thing. we laid a hand towel down on the bottom of the milk container, so that he would have a soft bed to drift way on. as we held the tube in place on both ends, waiting until we felt like it must be enough time, we noticed that Fedor was moving, which was profoundly distressing, as it suggested that he was suffering. we forced ourselves to hold firm, sure that this wast the best thing to do. however, Fedor’s body suddenly heaved against the side of the container, and through the translucent plastic we could clearly see him gasping for breath, his beak opening repeatedly opening as wide as it could looking for air. we panicked, not knowing what to do. eventually, he collapsed, and we held the apparatus in place for another couple minutes, because we knew we couldn’t start again if we opened it and found him still breathing.
• Pope was Fedor’s mate. (Fedor was gay.) Pope wasn’t really into Fedor that way, it seemed, but he was happy to just hang out and be pals. Pope was a wild man, though; always darting around the cage and running up to everybody and checking everything out. it’s probably what made him so attractive to Fedor. one afternoon, i found him on the bottom of the cage, struggling to move. i carefully took him from the cage and called my partner for help. the cats, particularly Maxxx, were very interested, and i had to repeatedly shoo them away. we debated what to do (taking him to the vet seemed pointless, but we needed to do something), and, as she frantically searched online and we tried to figure out the best course of action, he died in my hand, leaving Fedor alone.
• Odin, the rabbit, only had one eye (hence the name, which i always hated- i preferred to call him O). we never knew why, as the people we adopted him from found him like that, running around outside their church. the vet said he was probably born without it, and the breeder just set him loose, since he was no good without the eye. he had chronic pain from fused vertebrae, but he did fine with the pain medication he received, until he suffered a stroke. the stroke slowed him down, but he adjusted, but then another stroke left him unable to even control his movement, so we rushed him to an 24-hour emergency clinic on a Saturday night. the rabbit vet, located almost three hours away, in north Atlanta, wouldn’t even be in the office until monday, so we had to make a decision, and we decided to let him go. it took more than an hour, as the vet had to give him multiple shots (‘enough to put down a twenty-five pound dog’). after the first one, he stopped twitching in fear, his body going slack in my hands, but he just kept breathing. the vet kept giving him shots, and he just kept breathing, slowly and deliberately. the vet, who i couldn’t stop thinking was doing something wrong (a real vet- one who was able to euthanize animals quickly and humanely, like they deserved -wouldn’t be working at this busted-ass all night clinic, i reasoned), just kept repeating, “This is unbelievable,” and shaking his head. O’s tongue hung limp out of his open mouth. it was really big, i remember thinking. the vet took him out of the room for something; i can’t remember what he said, but most likely something upsetting. as he walked out, he repeated how unbelievable this whole thing was. there was a dog that just kept barking, yelping mournfully. i kept having to leave the room, ostensibly to get tissues for my partner and i, but mostly so i could let my feelings explode for a minute, before pushing them down and returning. he brought O back, still breathing, and we just stood there, waiting for this little bunny to succumb to the massive amounts of drugs in his body. i couldn’t stop thinking about Fedor, and what he might have been thinking as he gasped for breath in that milk container; trying to understand why we were doing this. i wondered if O had that same thought. finally, mercifully, he stopped breathing. as the dog in the back continued crying, my partner and i numbly paid the bill and drove home to Sasha, his mate. “This is unbelievable.”
• Winnie was yet another budgie, and she became egg bound. i found her, on the bottom of the cage, with the egg half out of her. i did what you’re supposed to do, which is take them to the sink and try to use warm water to massage the egg free, but it was no use. as i gently tried to work the thing loose, she passed.
• Norman’s friend, Maxxx, went before he did. he was also very sick, suffering from a rare virus that only dogs usually get that atrophied his muscles. the vet told us that he would need to take steroids every day, and that, though it would shorten his life, made it possible for him to have a real life. every morning and every night, while i fed the other cats (including Norman, who could only eat wet food), Maxxx waited patiently for me to prepare his special food, with his meds mixed in. his breath always smelled like death, and every night he would catch mice (small cat toys) and bring them to me, while i slept. i woke up each morning to an small pile of mice that i would then scatter back around the house. he liked to come up and lay on the pillow, right next to my head. the same cat that bullied Zeppo also picked on Maxxx, so that was another thing to worry about, but he was always happy. the only time he was truly upset was if he got locked inside a room. being inside a cage for years caused him to freak out any time he was shut up in an enclosed space. but then his health began to deteriorate rapidly, and anything he ate made him sick. once something made him sick, he wouldn’t even touch it anymore, so we bought all kinds of food, including human baby food. when he would eat half or even all of a new food, we would be so happy, but then he would throw it up and refuse to eat that food again. he got weaker and weaker, and on a sunday night, we knew he had to go to the vet the next morning, probably to be put down. i went to bed that night, and i shut Maxxx in the room with me. he didn’t cry at all, he just got up on the bed and stared out the window. at one point, he came up and laid on the pillow, like he had always done, pressing his head softly into mine, while i asked him to forgive me for not being able to take care of him anymore. the next morning, i was woken by his sad, strangled yelp. i shot up and to my feet, as though there was something i could do. we went downstairs, and i went through the motions, preparing food for him that i knew he wouldn’t eat (and he didn’t). as we waited for my partner to wake up, and the vet to open, we sat in the darkness together and he let me pet him. i didn’t use a carrier to take him to the vet, i just carried him in my arms. the vet took one look at him and said, “it’s time,” which we were immensely grateful for. after the shot, he went so quickly. my partner left the room with the vet, so that i could be alone with him, and i just told him, over and over, how sorry i was. i was terrified to leave, because i couldn’t stop thinking that, somehow, he might still be alive, and that, if i left, i’d be abandoning him there, paralyzed and terrified. i carefully watched his stomach, and i kept thinking that it might be moving, that he might still be breathing, ever so slightly. when i finally left, i was able to bypass everyone and go straight to the car, because my partner had long since paid the bill and was waiting for me. Maxxx was the first animal whose death i’d experienced since childhood, and that fact, combined with what a big part of my life he had been (taking care of him actually had become a significant part of my identity, by that point), made his passing particularly difficult. my dad actually died less than two months after Maxxx, and i felt real guilt over the fact that i only cried once for my dad (as he was dying, right in front of us, i had an explosion of feeling that i quickly pushed down), but i cried many times for Maxxx, and they were all intense, exhausting episodes. in the end, i failed him. in the end, i fail them all.

so a shitty book, with a surprisingly effective passage. 😑