I Wake Up Screaming

"I wanted to be like the Europeans."--Orhan Pamuk, location 1856

Seasonal allergies and my father's sinuses is also a contingency not planned for, the grease ball's throbbing head with my mother's nerves, her father's intestinal issues rolled into a palsied post 50 flesh, waking itself at 4 in the morning to watch Grable and Mature conduct their insider studio celebrity jokes with perv kisses and stocking feet, titillating beef shots, watching Laird Cregar (who I never heard of) do a formulaic twist as a stalker, obsessive worshiper.

Hovering between my tormented genius, over-educated competency and decomposition, even online, the mental health consumer, for those of you with a Linked In account, laser in on me. They know it would not take much to leave me adrift and stranded as they are themselves, or have an intuitive antenna attuned to vulnerability, as Sheldon Novick knows, and Sarah too, the graduate intern of years past, I harbor a degree of guilt over certain cases of undeserved outbursts, not meant in all cases to intimidate. (I never truly had an axe to grind with Henry James aficionados, which isn't to allege that I am not in *Hallmark Mandy's* sandpit, that of recrimination in being argumentative.)

He is literally incomprehensible, however, worth dropping or making fun of, another argument against radical equality, even as I adopt a new online mentee whose skills are sharp, who probably doesn't realize he should tell me to go fuck myself and report me to the NAACP. My smile is bemused, my psyche not necessarily seeking reconciliation with the hatreds  of learned experience and an affection for the energy, empathy, of the young and up and coming. Even though he wasn't the primary actor in the illegality of Liberty Resources against me, I truly hate Jimmi Shrode, his sissy and shrill voice of disdain, his ugly and gluttonous homosexuality, the black lacquer on his hand bitten fingernails, his occasional use of green eye shadow even more repugnant, the depth of a hatred that is such that it goes too far and would abate if I could leave Riverside. Other than closing my disability center down because of its corruption and institutional bias, the very last thing I want in my life is to vacate these premises without making my predicament more the worse, and I'm at a loss even though I have threatened the parent company.

Legal action against Presby is no guarantee that I can preserve my last years with dignity.

Hantavirus

For hypothetical PETA Partisans, The Black Marble engages the emotional interest. It takes a conceit I was trained to attend, the destruction of animal human bonding, cf, a more crew cut Martin Sheen killing Foster child star's hamster, Mel Gibson's dog killed by an archer in Road Warrior, the cat mutilation in Never Talk to Strangers, and turns it into the central conflict. Wambaugh had the nerve to focus a real slice of life vice on cruelty to animals, and I had a difficult time not uttering death threats at Harry Dean Stanton in a thirty year old film where James Woods looks fresh out of the performing arts-- but this film represents mature original comedies of which place viewers like myself on starvation diets, because they simply aren't made any more. Independent films, with few exceptions, spin their story arcs under the same burden of fragmented expectation. Harold Becker had the courage to allow his actors to be flawed human beings. Even Stanton's Skinner is traumatized by taking out his hatred on hyper terriers.

Most pet owners don't look too closely at the guilt of having faux children. I do; it is at once the ultimate form of narcissism we hold up for ironic exaggeration, and painfully appreciated at the same time. Eschew human children and become an immersible zealot. Favorite swine, favorite whale (orca is scary!), favorite carnivore.

If we really wanted to do a favor to other species, we'd engage in wiser palliative treatments, breed less, and restore habitat.

I have mentioned my senile uncle repeatedly. In the last two years he has has heart surgeries, hernia corrections, bladder surgery, and this week it is a new adventure under the knife; the sole reason I do not spar with my father's sister over this insane Nascar race she runs with bad health and medical model brutality is because I never had a vested interest in Joe and don't have the right. Try having your entire life circumscribed by orthopedic medicine as a curiosity, and maybe my argument for human dignity might not seem so misanthropic.