Bush made us old
January 14, 2009 § 3 Comments
Feeling better tonight. I’ve taken it easy today–okay, flat on my back terrified suicidal depression leading to afternoon knockout nap, that counts as taking it easy doesn’t it?—so my arms don’t hurt. And I wrote 5 pages on my novel. Charles has helped immeasurably by researching current voice recognition software, and offering his software-ready computer, so if my worst-case scenarios (no, NOT that my arms will fall off, but that I won’t be able to work for several months, as happened in the 90’s with an eye problem), I can always tell stories to my laptop, practice my timing, as well as exercising new parts of my brain and staving off Alzheimers. Maybe someday be able to write while walking down the street.
They showed a pair of those before and after pix: how much Bush aged in the White House: not enough. Not as much as everyone else. Can you even remember the fall of 2000? I was feeling the strong scent of mortality, which kicked my romantic neurosis into high gear, but that was a scent, not, you know, the whole house falling down, the rats swarming in. My parents-in-law are both gone, a friend has lost 2 brothers; others have wounded knees, shoulders, necks, feet, lost teeth and inner organs. My mother nearly went blind a few times. Not to mention the broken hearts and busted wallets, and Philip’s shrink embarrassed by what Bernie Madoff has done to the reputation of the Jews.
The Times claims that a scientific Love Potion # 9 is on the way (danger: it may not induce subject to fall in love with desired object but rather with the next person walking by or, more Twilight Zone, the very kind of man/woman they have spent their whole life in repression to avoid being consumed by)—soon to be followed by a Love Vaccine, which the reporter thinks will be more useful. Interesting hypothesis: had this been available to me 5 years ago–not as vaccine, perhaps, but cure–would I have taken it? I think my boyfriend’s boffing someone else this week. A little something in his voice. Probably Nancy, his gal-pal, fuck-buddy, the ‘Not-You’. I’m no victim, being as unfaithful as the next person in our menage-a-whatever, or if not the next person than an average thereof (decode that if you can). It’s just that I imagine him doing it with all the exuberance and energy we had in the fall of 2000. These days our sex life’s being scripted by all the best cable TV whiz kids with their hyper-realism and psycho-smarts; let’s call it “Midlife: The Eternity.” Somewhere you can hear Richard Pryor laughing. And Charles is visiting Diane in Charlottesville in a couple of weeks: that doesn’t make me jealous, exactly, just wistful….
Mostly in the Afternoon 
re: “embarrassed by what Bernie Madoff has done to the reputation of the Jews.”
Sounds like Nathan Zuckerman. Bernie Maddof “The Enemy of the Jews”
I know. That’s what’s so great about her response. I love it when people are just the way novelists tell us they are.
[…] These days our sex life’s being scripted by all the best cable TV whiz kids with their hyper-real psycho-smarts, the show of the decade, “Midlife: The Eternity”; somewhere you can hear Richard Pryor laughing.[Continue Reading] […]