Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Trigger warning: This is a self-indulgent essay on social psychology, history, and the human condition. A reflection upon my own ambivalent concept of "identity." No-one must needs feel obliged to take this (or indeed anything, ever) seriously.

Observation I: Our species (humans) aka homo sapiens sapiens has evolved in unprecedented ways during a relatively short time, altering ourselves and our environment in multiplex dramatic ways in less than a million years.

Observation II: Modern humans share more than 99% DNA with our closest surviving genetic cousin apes, who nevertheless possess none of our teleological advantages.

Hypothesis: The most significant difference between humans and our closest genetic relatives is our meta-infinite capacity to lie.

As I type this, I'm listening to the classic Simon & Garfunkel song, "The Boxer." I love both Neil & Art even though I know they split because Art went Christian. Art looked exactly like Martin McGuinness, the IRA terrorist hero who was born on the same day as myself (the Law of FIVES is never wrong):

"Lie lie lie, lie lie lie. In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade, he is carrying the reminder of ev'ry glove that laid him down, or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame: "I am leaving, I am leaving." But the fighter still remains."

When will I not even ever want to shame or need other human creatures in order to love them?

Synchronicity and Serendipity in Summer: A Metamorphosis

For as long as I can remember, I've hated summer. I despise it: the sweaty, sticky heat, the glaring light, the mindless buzz of insects. I understood, growing up, that mine was a minority opinion. Children are expected to enjoy summer. It's taken for granted, especially back then; I can't count the number of nostalgic pieces by boomers & my fellow Gen Xers I've seen online, lamenting the cultural shift away from idyllic unstructured outdoor free play.

Even though I knew I was weird, it took me a long time to even begin to articulate why. In a severely dysfunctional, abusive family, double binds and cognitive dissonance are ambient. Elemental, like water or air. A child born into a toxic dynamic finds itself instinctively needing poison, like a drug. A doubly dangerous addiction, because its nature is that it can't be acknowledged, spoken of, or even seen. It is the absolute antithesis of the medium human children grow best in: trust.

Summer meant misery, growing up in my abusive family in Memphis. It always meant more time with my parents, one way or another.  When mom wasn't working, my brother & I actually got a bit of that ideal childhood freedom (it usually involved drama & fights with neighbor kids but hey, at least it was outside); on the other hand, she often sent us to our grandparents when she had time off. Which would have been wonderful (grandparents = best!)... except for dad's inevitably fury on finding out (she cheated on him). More often mom had to work, so we were sent either to (unspeakable) professional daycare or to amateur acquaintances (religious nutjobs whose kids always hated us). Sometimes we were just dragged along by our father as he went from one 7-11 to the next on his management inspections (ambivalent nostalgia: we liked the video games & the junk food, but dad's temper was always a threat).

On the surface, circumstances seemed to get better as we got older. Dad stopped drinking when I was 12; a year later, they decided it was safe enough to save money by letting us stay alone. They'd been reluctant to trust me to keep my brother in line. With good reason, since by then I had adapted to an existence of constant anxiety coupled with passive aggressive rage. He could've burned the house down, I wouldn't have minded one bit. I knew I was weird, and weird was wrong, and that wasn't okay; I hated it.

By the time things "got better," I'd already learned to hate the dog days of August as much as I hated myself. That perspective has remained part of me ever since, a recurring theme in my personal story. I was conceived in August. Throughout my life, bad things have come to me in August. At times I've even told myself it makes sense: I have a decidedly un-sunny disposition. Predestined depression. It's a convenient story I might have been trapped within forever, if I hadn't met my husband. This post isn't meant to become a public love letter (I admit I have a proclivity for such), but a collection of insights by Gregory Bateson that my husband shared with me is critical to my theme. Bateson linked the concept of double binds to two of my favorite things: schizophrenia and evolution.

Bateson was an amazingly creative scientist in a variety fields. In the context of anthropology & psychology, he hypothesized that schizophrenia was not necessarily an inborn mental disorder but a learned confusion in thinking, that people habitually caught up in double binds in childhood would have a greater chance of becoming schizophrenic. But Bateson was also a semiotician, a cyberneticist & an evolutionary biologist. He suggested that all evolution is driven by the double bind, whenever circumstances change: If any environment becomes toxic to any species, that species will die out unless it transforms into another species, in which case, the species becomes extinct anyway.

The key word -- the one that made this concept magic, at least for me -- is transform. To transform is to experience metamorphosis, to suffer a "sea change." Transformations are the alchemical matrix of stories, and stories are the means by which we relate to ourselves and the world. Being good at understanding and telling stories is one of very few talents in which I'm even remotely self-confident. And even with that glimmering confidence, I always felt reluctant to take my talent seriously. After all, another word for "story" is "lie." I'm an excellent liar because I am both creative and sensitive. Should I be taking pride in this? Capitalizing on it? Telling Giuliani to hold my beer? All my life I've resisted, whether from empathy or masochism or laziness. When you're really good at stories it can be hard to choose between them. What's more, it's ridiculously easy to shrug off the positive efforts of well-meaning people. Pleasant stories are just plain suspicious. So easy to see through.

But science is different. Methodical. Meticulous observation and testing, mindful skepticism allied with curiosity. Science gives real power by producing repeatable results. Chemical transformations are tangible, empirical. Metamorphosis isn't merely a metaphor; it's a physical fact.

Recognizing the reality of change as a pervasive quality of the universe was one thing; applying it to myself, way more difficult. It happens in little bursts of insights. I've learned I have to cultivate them with care, because depressed demoralization remains my default state. No breakthrough is likely to turn me into a shiny happy extrovert, it would be absurd to expect such a thing. And honestly, I'm not sure I'd even want it. Learning to notice what I actually like, as opposed to what other people expect/insist that I like, has been a critical challenge. Which is why Saturday, August 25 2018, was such a wonderful surprise.

I have been lurking in my basement for most of the month, hoping that by avoiding everything I might escape this summer with only minor wounds. Last Friday night, my husband informed me that his sister had offered to take us & our teen daughters to a local botanical garden. Normally I'd evade any kind of outing, especially with so little advance warning, especially in summer. But I've learned that I absolutely love botanical gardens. They weren't my own family's cup of tea, so I'd never even tried one until fairly recently. Since the weather forecast was surprisingly mild, and I felt tiny intimations of mood ascension... I said okay. Knowing in my heart that I flake out on my most-desired personal adventures more often than not.

"Serendipity" means good luck you encounter without expecting it. "Synchronicity" is the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. Because of my upbringing, I never ever expect good luck. And yet, I have a gift for perceiving significance.

It's taken decades of hard work to get to where I am. And I remain acutely aware that my story -- the one that's currently working for me -- likely looks ridiculous to most other people. I am St. Jennifer-of-the-Knife, edgelord avatar of lunar seas. Awkwardly gifted survivor of child sex abuse, @BeltwayPsychic. I pretend I'm pretending pretend psychic powers. It's weird, but it's not wrong; it's okay, and I love it. So....

In the morning before our family expedition, I cracked open my Kindle & opened an app: "Galaxy Tarot."

Yes, I am a hardcore skeptic. I am also a natural storyteller. I view divination as an ambiguously powerful tool humans have created for communication between our conscious & subconscious mental processes. We're brilliant because we're adept in two separate ways of analyzing data. But we're limited by the divide between those paths: logic and intuition don't like to intersect, even when they come to similar conclusions. We require real (painful) xenophilia to evolve, to break the chains that doubly bind.

How lucky was I to learn this? Kinda, sorta, maybe. I disbelieve in luck. Fortune gets my middle finger every fucking day. My own parents called me "bad karma girl" because my skeptic vibes seemed to screw with their summer casino vacations And yet... my most powerful discovery has been that it's not actually necessary to be lucky or smart, privileged or intellectual... or anything. It's objectively obvious that we all innately possess potential for transcendence on at least two levels: material and magic. Humans are weird spooky mammals, evolved to love & tell stories. That's what got us here; what's worked for us, so far. Compassion and creativity are meta-virtues with the absolute incredible capacity to counter anything, even despair.

My sister-in-law is a Master Naturalist whose yard is a certified Wildlife Sanctuary, so outdoor adventures with her are an intellectual treat. However, because she's so much saner (so much more normal, more pragmatic) than myself, I instinctively try to keep my distance. It's the easiest choice, the path of least resistance. And yet it's a disservice to my SIL & myself, an artificial barrier between us. Sarah Mayhew is typically both kinder and more capable than me. Not because she's a saint, or that I'm just trash; we're simply separate people, with totally distinct biochemistry & personal narratives. The fact that I fell in love with her Aspie brother was amazing enough; the fact that his & my angsty teen daughters fell in love with her park...  counts as a stupid crazy bonus!

And I am finally mature enough to enjoy some of the advantages I happen to encounter.

MarsCon 2018: Rose-Colored Glasses

This is the story of how, and why, I spent the past weekend in a planned state of panic.

Spoiler alert for any uninitiated bots following my Twitter feed: I'm a nerd. A geek. A self-conscious fan of science and folklore, as manifest in both forensic and fictionalized forms. I have a double BA from Northwestern in Mathematics and History. I have read the entirety of Frazer's Golden Bough and often perform non-Euclidean geometry in my sleep.

I'm also a survivor of child sexual abuse. I wish I could say that's not relevant, but I suspect it may be coloring -- the panic, obviously, but also my take on that.

Despite my deeply dysfunctional, profoundly introverted personal inclinations... I am also a MOM. I chose to have children. Probably the most selfish choice I have ever made. And yet: You. Anyone. Everyone. Can tell I don't regret it.

Which brings us to MarsCon 2018. Annual gathering of geeks in Williamsburg, VA. A mini-vacation, fun family time for myself, my partner, and our nerdling teenage daughters. Second consecutive year we've attempted this, and I have to say I am owning it.

Cons ("conventions" -- I love the cognitive dissonance) like this are places where individuals are allowed/expected to "geek out" over their favorite cultural icons. Usually in the context of science fiction or fantasy, but almost anything goes; the people who stand out the most are actually the ones in mundane, ordinary outfits. As an anarchist, I'm not a super enthused fan of pop culture... but I do like some stuff, enough to want to share it. In the context of MarsCon, I wanted to share my affection for Rebecca Sugar and her cartoon "Steven Universe." I liked the character Rose Quartz to such an extent that I hand-crafted a costume for cosplay.

My first ever attempt. Spray-painted (pink) foam sword from 5 Below, wrapped the hilt in darker pink Duck Tape. Poofy tulle pink ombre skirt from a true artisan on Etsy, white t-shirt a Tar-zhay, dainty pink velvet ballerina slippers from J.C. Penny's, perfectly matching pink velvet backpack via Wal-Mart.

Immediately upon entrance: small children gaze @ me & whisper to one another: "Steven Universe!"

Before lunch, I have to stop counting the positive reactions I am receiving. Information overload, bias encountered, how to correct? System failure!

In the dealer room, I am waiting to buy something when a middle-aged man approaches me. "My daughter wants to know if you're Rose Quartz from Steven Universe, but she's too shy to ask." I reply, "Yes! I am! And I am super shy too!!!"

Couple hours later, I am huddled in a corner sipping chai; a tiny, super extroverted 4-year-old human appears next to me: "I like your pink hair. I want to touch it?" I tell her of course she can. She asks me if I have my own hair underneath? Yes, I do. "What are you?" she asks. "I'm Rose Quartz!" I can tell she has no idea who that is, and yet she is supremely satisfied.

My life partner needed me to take driving control on our way to MarsCon, when we were weary and I was (artificially) hyper-alert. Google had lied to us (no surprise) yet we managed to find our way despite disinformation. Normal people would have registered our experience as negative, or at least a minor setback... and yet what I took from it most was our delight in street-level fog over the Rappahannock River. Mystical environment encompassing us as we achieved objective goals!

I was 30 years old before I learned to drive. No excuse, no reason outside the admission that attacks on children can lead to craziness, and this trend is drastically under-reported by science. I wouldn't think of going here, except that I am outside my box and my closest genetic relative can't comment because he is pigeonholed as a crazy sub-human.

Anyone who has ever interacted with me knows that I'm not an optimist. It's not just that I don't automatically look on the bright side. I have empirical trouble seeing anything but darkness.... anywhere. So it meant something, at least to me, that I chose to role-play a positive person. Someone who can see beauty in anything. Someone who accepts everyone around her for who they are. Someone with the courage to practice real-life curiosity and compassion.

Street-level fog corresponds one-to-one with obfuscation re: facts with regard to the narrative of the last 30 yrs. I can't cleanly divest myself from this shit, ergo I cannot endorse anyone who claims to achieve that.

I am not Rose Quartz. But I'd like to be.

And for a little while, other humans saw me being her.

Beltway Psychic Broods Bitterly upon the Finale of a Frigid Year

I doubt any of my followers/fans/catfishing specops stalkers realize how intricate my antipathy to social media actually is. I am not, by nature, an anti-social person. I earned my aversion the hard way.

Connecting almost always leaves me cold. And yet, this algid response has its genesis in a conscious choice. I am much too easily moved by the emotions of others. I feel their feels without even wanting to. It's strongest for people I am closest to -- my husband and my daughters -- but it can happen with almost anyone. It's not reliable, but it's real; by which I mean it gives me statistically unlikely results even though I don't believe in any explanation for it.

I'm an empath. Which is not to say I'm a nice person. One of the (obviously not clinical) tests I perform is to focus my attention on another human in a public place. Someone I can see, who cannot see me. I focus my rage and fear at them. More often than not, I make them uneasy.

Deeply unethical if you think about it, yes?

I'm a broken being. Sure, all of us are. Sanity -- peace -- is an illusion people share. The main difference between me and Them has always been that I never shared it.

Increasingly, as America collapses, humans are shifting towards my perspective.

I don't know how to deal with this.

Redux

I recently found myself making what was, for me, a rare decision: deleting an entire thread on my Facebook timeline, due to the toxicity spiraling among some of my relatives and friends.

I’m no stranger to toxicity. There is much that is toxic in me. My social ethics are unrefined, little more than a basic rubric: try to be more generous to others than I am to myself.

Yes, I’m aware that this ethos may be construed as masochistic. But the reasoning behind it makes as much sense as anything else. When I’m hurt, it is always because I am the only one who can. No one else on this planet is allowed to damage me. I’m nobody’s fucking victim.

I feel an ephemeral sense of guilt for abrogating my friends’ 1st Amendment rights. I’ve been working on guilt lately; I think it’s a trap, a social construct with good intentions that doesn’t actually produce good results. I am in no way a no-platforming advocate; and yet, this was all happening on my timeline, my very own garden patch in the moral wilderness. I was deep in my downstate, jaded not-quite-close-enough to numb.

For anyone who’s followed my posts or read my blog, the context should be obvious: #metoo.

Very likely, my willingness to be hurt derives from childhood sexual abuse. The traumatic experiences of my childhood automatically confer upon me unquestionable victim status. WHICH I EMPHATICALLY REJECT. I was damaged before I could formulate any rational response. My father honestly believed that being cruel to a child would make it stronger. He channeled Nietzsche without ever actually reading the bastard. (They shared syphilis though). And, to be fair -- I did emerge stronger than I might have otherwise. Just not in any way he envisioned, or was even capable of comprehending. Very early in my life, I cracked. I broke. There is great strength (power) along faultlines. But it’s an unpredictable strength, unwelcome, chaotic. I saw -- and eventually said -- so many things I wasn’t supposed to.

All this is why I’m so conflicted when I see women coming out everywhere with #metoo. I always knew you were there. But I have never expected sympathy or sisterhood from any of you. I don’t even know how to process those concepts. And the cynical, anarchist side of me sneers at your addiction to the trending norm. I have spent decades brazenly sharing the brutal truths of my life. Not to acquire sympathy (as I’ve said, I can barely stand it) -- but to prove to myself that I am not a coward. Not a victim.

I’m not posting this to attack anyone. As a natural empath, dissociated from society -- a survivor with hypervigilance and sensory processing disorder… I could be SO much more evil than I am. If I gave in to the temptation to channel the vengeance of the victim.

I refuse that path too. Yes, I listen to my intuition. I’ve spent decades training my conscious mind to communicate with my subconscious, struggling to understand an unruly talent for psychological insight. Skepticism and self-awareness have been true friends. Free will isn’t a blessing bestowed upon you at conception by a benevolent omniscience. It’s a skill that must be learned. An achievement that must be earned.

Which isn’t to say that those who have acquired it (to whatever degree) are superior, objectively, to those who haven’t. People who have mastered auto mechanics or Latin or football or astrophysics or waitressing are not morally superior to those who haven’t. We are all thrust into being without consideration of our will, into arbitrary circumstance. Radical contingency. I figure the best response to this (absurdly shitty) deal is universal compassion.

How I Failed To Be Carrie

Millington Central High School, 1989-1993. Home of the Trojans. Adolescent educational center of mid-Southern Americans: an unconventional admixture of Navy brats, the rural poor, and bused-in African-American youth.

I was an outlier, in so many ways. My parents were impoverished Navy brats whose idiotic conservative worldview ineluctably encouraged me to sympathize with "other" demographics. The story would have ended there, except for the fact that I was born too sensitive for my own good. So sharp I cut myself, time after time.

My firstborn daughter Eris will be starting her senior year at Robinson Secondary School next week. I gave birth to her when I was the same age my bipolar mother gave birth to me.

I was Eris's age when I first read Stephen King. You have to realize, I was a "gifted" student -- I took every AP class my high school offered. All 3 of them. I was an absurd intellectual snob who only indulged pop culture because of the soul-destroying pre-Internet information desert.

SO. Senior year, rural TN, 1993. Less than a month before Homecoming. Elite football quarterback found himself disgraced due to personal scandal: according to all & sundry, he had physically struck his girlfriend, precipitating a scandalous, dramatic breakup.

Quarterback boy happened to be in my Econ class. He actually talked to me. That year, 1992-93, was the frigging height of my social life ever -- everyone was aware that I'd ranked high on national math tests, aced the SAT, and was applying to Stanford, Harvard & Yale*.

I wasn't even surprised when the football star, who'd lost his status in a too-soon-maybe #MeToo moment, decided he had nothing to lose by asking the genius chubby chick to the dance.

Even now, 25 years later, my hypnagogic half-dreaming mind contrives occasional hallucinations of killing him -- and everyone else -- at Senior Prom. Fortunately for the world, I have excellent impulse control. I just said no to bloody vengeance.

That moment of generosity has colored all my life choices ever since.





*Thank DISCORDIA I wasn't accepted; high-status universities are fucking full of fratboy rapists, after all.

Cromwell: A Cautionary Tale of Love and Loss

Date: Autumn, 1995. Physical place(s): Northwestern University, Evanston IL; UVA, Charlottesville VA. Ethereal location: alt.angst, Usenet.

The year I ventured past my comfort zone into cyberspace.

Free internet access and an email address were complimentary perks associated with my acceptance into one of the nation's top colleges, the moment I registered as a freshman in 1993. This was back in the days when dialup AOL charged by the hour. Back then, I was a neo-Luddite -- opposed to technology on sheer principle, out of a visceral mistrust of power: a consequence of my parents' miscalculations raising me. It took me two full years of spiraling despair to achieve the desperate courage to apply for my email address. To seek out new life, new civilizations. To boldly go...

Split infinitives aside, eventually I decided that being aggressively alone did not necessarily constitute a virtue. I tuned in, turned on... but felt no obligation to drop out. I did, however, find myself connecting with a VERY weird group of people.

I'd known, from early childhood, that I was irrevocably weird. My mother was bipolar, my father was an abusive drunk. My brother has heard the voice of GOD telling him to kill his son. Schizophrenia is poorly understood by humanity generally, but I suspect (as a skeptic) that it is an extreme version of our innate ability to recognize patterns, coupled with a yearning for meaning which is rooted in the fact that our consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. We all want to believe we are real, that we have meaning independent of anything we ourselves create. 

So. In 1995 I signed up. I sought out the other weirdos. I found alt.angst.

I shared my story, for the first time ever. I crafted poetry that still blinds me with its truth. I told the truth, despite every instinct telling me I shouldn't. Couldn't. I was so deep in despair, I didn't see anything else. Lies were so utterly worthless; I knew that, whether or not I knew anything. 

Cromwell came to me as a savior. He came to me in pain and sorrow, a victim of the American South and its Puritanical worldview. He came to me as a soulmate, as a light in August, as William Faulkner and Walker Percy. I shared hours and hours of expensive phone-time with this young man, David Bjorlin, who convinced himself I was the semi-schizo heroine of The Second Coming.

What a letdown. What a disappointment! For him. When I spent my father's borrowed money to meet him in 1996. I was 5 foot 9, and a size 14.

It took me more than a decade to realize that being too short is the equivalent, in males, of being too fat in a woman. All I saw was his all-too-explicable rejection. It never registered for me when David Perry told me that Cromwell told him, "She was bigger than me, what can I say?" All I could register was that I was wrong. Unfit.

I'm posting this, ostensibly, as a cautionary tale. Against seeking soulmates in cyberspace. People are weak. They are shallow, not by inclination, but by design. The design of the ruling class. 

None of us deserve to be pawns in class warfare! 

It IS possible to elude. To avoid. To circumvent! The paradigm. It is possible to reject those who seek to program you. But you'll never achieve that following the path of Cromwell. Truth is messy. It's complex. It's not an ideology. It's the fucking reality behind your perception, and there are (potentially) as many perceptions as there are perceivers. JUDGE YOUR FELLOW HUMANS AT YOUR PERIL.

How Does Your Light Shine, In the Halls of Shambala?

Spring Equinox, 1975. Doctors told my mother I was a dead thing in my mother's womb.

Susan Phyllis Keir Faucher was a reluctant flower-child hippie in mid-70's Memphis, TN. Her father, Stephen Duncan Keir, was a WWII veteran officer who had volunteered to venture into Vietnam. Susan's classmates at Millington Central High School had denigrated her as the daughter of a collaborator. A daughter of The Man. Peer pressure led her to personal drug experimentation, which led her to a "rehab facility," where she met William Franklin Faucher. Like her, Bill was the son of a Naval Air Force veteran. His family were lower-class; his father never achieved officer status. Both families were children of the Great Depression, and in terms of 70's socioeconomics -- the rehab-clinic military connection was more than enough to constitute a fresh start. A new beginning.

"Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain

With the rain in Shambala
Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame
With the rain in Shambala

Ah, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind
On the road to Shambala
Everyone is lucky, everyone is so kind
On the road to Shambala

Ah, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

How does your light shine, in the halls of Shambala?"

I was born in the spring of 1975. Family lore tells me my father cried that day, because my mom had had 4 previous miscarriages. I've no evidence of this, but it makes sense, given her history & lifestyle. Susan was the child of a Yankee military father and a Southern belle mother. She was born in 1951 on a military base at Chincoteague, VA (famously home of feral horses). A crucial part of her adolescence was spent at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


My father (who may or may not have raped me) was born in San Diego, CA in 1953. His father's (unknown) people came from Orange County, Massachusetts. His mother's came from rural TN. Somehow, Bill & Susan ended up in the same rehab clinic in Memphis in 1974. Just in time to fall in love... and merge to make ME.


I was a dead thing in Susan's womb, corrupt and weak. I should never have been born. Against all odds, I stole my first breath on 23 May, 1975. Bill and Susan wept.


I am sharing this to explain what an improbably angry hippie I am. Poverty tends to nix IQ scores. Performance is strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. But there are exceptions.

I myself am "exceptional."

I consciously chose (free will? maybe?) to mate with an exception. Therefore, my offspring are even more consciously exceptional, even more self-aware, than I am. I'd caution you, except I'm hoping they'll take you all UNAWARE.

Why I Married Sheldon Cooper

Well, okay. Not literally. Sheldon Cooper is a fictional character, and while I myself am likely an illusion, my empirical husband almost certainly exists. The parallels between my darling homunculus (a pet name for him, which I posted online years before Penny used it for Leonard) and the character of Sheldon will be obvious to anyone who has watched the show and encountered Jonah Thomas online. Obvious at a glance -- to me suspiciously obvious, even eerie -- including details like Jonah's published plan to solve the conflict in the Middle East, which Sheldon also offers in "The Jerusalem Duality."

(As a person whose family history includes bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, I must take care when confronting coincidences. I don't have the luxury of the layman, whose magical thinking passes unnoticed, deemed harmless. My creativity is real and it has claws.)

Nevertheless. It doesn't take much of a mental leap to see similarities between "high-functioning" people on the Spectrum.

People like my husband -- people like Sheldon and Sherlock -- are almost always portrayed in fiction as outside the realm of normal human intercourse. Their relationships with others are characteristically few and atypical. There is a recurring motif of insensitivity, as if rationality is somehow incompatible with empathy. One cannot avoid the implication that such a person could never connect with someone who is emotionally vulnerable.

In my experience, the truth is utterly the opposite.

I was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused as a child. As a toddler I learned -- instinctively -- to trust no one. No one at all. As a naturally emotional individual, I secretly yearned to be appreciated and understood, but the extreme wariness I acquired from my dysfunctional parents prevented me from connecting with anyone -- until I encountered the internet.

For all its flaws, the internet is a place where strangers can meet safely. Strange people who would never have connected with one another in the course of ordinary "real" life. I was a mathematics student at Northwestern University when I first encountered the man I would marry: he was trolling the Usenet group alt.angst, a place I posted prose poetry.

(My children still can't overcome their incredulity that I married an internet troll.)

Why did I marry him? Why have I remained his partner for almost 18 years?

The answer lies embedded within the theme of this blog: "Reflections on the Myth of Sanity." Assertion: no modern human can claim sanity. On one level or another, we are all insane. Human intellectual achievement has eclipsed our biological evolution. Our brains can't cope with what we do to ourselves on a daily basis. Our brains lie to us all the time. My hypothesis is that people with "Asperger's syndrome" exhibit superior objective clarity to those who prefer self-delusion (which includes almost everyone, even myself).

Therefore I submit, as a pragmatic suggestion -- that persons who have been abused should seek out persons who fall within the Spectrum. These people can be trusted where others cannot. They will not soften their words to comfort you, which means you will have to be strong; nevertheless, they will not casually lie to you. They will not manipulate you. My Asperger's husband actually enjoys sex more than I do. Yet he is okay with my boundaries; he knows that my aversion to physical intimacy has nothing to do with him personally.

Sex & Self: Identity and the Illusion of Agency

For a long time now, I have puzzled over the question of why humans are so messed up about sex. Why is human sexuality everywhere so fraught with shame, denial, even loathing? Why do human societies impose so many rules on acts of procreation and/or pleasure? No other species on this planet behaves as  self-conflictedly, as weirdly, as we do when it comes to sex.

Our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, exist in two forms; two distinct subspecies of the genus Pan: "regular" chimpanzees and the bonobos. Separated by the formation of the Congo River around 2 million years ago, these subspecies are similar physically (99.6% identical DNA) but differ drastically in their social behavior. Especially when it comes to sex. Chimpanzees are led by an "alpha male" and maintain social order through aggression; bonobos are matriarchal, far less aggressive, and actively keep peace via sex.

Both chimpanzees and bonobos are highly intelligent social species. Both have evolved a functioning social structure. In terms of the physical manifestations of sexuality, humans are more similar to bonobos in that human female fertility is "hidden" -- there is no obvious physical change that signals a human female's fertility. Yet our behavior more closely resembles that of chimpanzees.

The discipline of evolutionary psychology is relatively new. And (for obvious reasons) subject to controversy. I am a mere amateur, a layperson curious about the human condition. Therefore my musings are offered freely, bearing no real weight.

Ancestral humans diverged from chimpanzees somewhere between 13 and 4 million years ago. Specifics are difficult to measure given that the fossil record is so scant. Nevertheless, it is manifest that modern human brains are ~3x larger than those of our earliest human-like ancestors. Our cognitive abilities, our capacity for reason, have eclipsed every other trait we possess.

(I have a personal theory that intelligence has evolved in almost every phyla -- from slime molds to plants to octopus to birds to elephants and dolphins. Which is neither here nor there, with respect to my point in this post.. yet I find it telling that our "efforts" to engage intellectually with other species mostly have involved great apes).

MY THEORY: our brilliant brains have, inadvertently, proved to be our downfall. Excessive self-awareness is too painful to contemplate for the vast majority of human beings. We fear our lack of free will, our helplessness in the face of who we are. We invent stories that grant us agency where none honestly exists.

I was sexually and emotionally abused as a child. Those experiences stripped from me a basic trust that most people take for granted. Like Cassandra, I see -- so clearly -- disturbing truths. Where others cannot. I see what we don't want to see.

For example: sexual attraction is not something we necessarily choose. I see it as being like breathing. A semi-autonomous reflex. You can control your breathing to an extent; you can even consciously stop breathing for a time. Yet ultimately, breathing will happen (if physically possible) regardless of your will.

My primary evidence for this is anecdotal. I think it bothers us. Seriously. That we do not actually choose our attractions. I have never been able to enjoy sexual intimacy. Even kissing leaves me cold. I have a libido but it is only useful in terms of fantasy; I simply can't enjoy normal sex, despite being partnered with someone I completely trust. I was imprinted wrong.

Despite my active dedication to self-awareness and logic, it's been difficult for me to accept the fact. That I am sexually broken, through no fault of my own. My schizophrenic brother believes a literal demon inhabited the house we grew up in. It's hard for me to deny his claims when I know his "madness" comes from the same place as my creativity. It's a matter of sensing patterns -- Starbuck's pebbles. I see my conscious, at-cause self as a person in the ocean: I have the power to swim, but the ocean is inevitably bigger than me. Its currents will pull against me. Things living in it will try to consume me. I am at an automatic disadvantage; claiming I'm not can only harm me.

St. Jennifer-of-the-Knife Groks the Zeitgeist

I think the thing that bothers me most about the farcical travesty of this Inauguration Day is how personal it feels. I am a reluctant citizen, inclined by nature and nurture to regard with skepticism the social contracts* so cherished by those who portray themselves responsible adults. My parents, though they possessed strong political views, never voted, and did little to inculcate within me anything resembling a sense of civic duty. My father, especially, held to the opinion that voting was pointless, because everything was rigged.
If you want to know what my father was like, think Archie Bunker, just a little more drunk and abusive. Maybe a little smarter, probably a little less ethical. It's the intelligence and lack of ethics that concern me here and now. Passed down as they were, from him to myself.

If I was the person I was supposed to be. If I was the person my father tried to teach me to be. I would be delirious with delight right now. Ecstatic at the overturning of an age of corruption. Giddy with seraphic glee, I would welcome this turning of tables, which I had predicted from the moment Donald Trump announced his candidacy.

Alas. While the prediction was precise, my sentiments are.. dubious? Unconscionable would be a better word, and yet... I will not deplore that I feel the way I feel.

It's taken me a long time to acknowledge. To accept. That feelings are valid, in and of themselves. Right or wrong, they are real and have to be faced. It's been difficult for me to come to terms with the truth that emotion and logic are both so strong inside me, and that they in no way negate one another. I've found no convenient cancellation,  so perforce I face the paradoxical predicament that is self-awareness.

As I look at our nation, at the choices we've faced during this past year, I see.... myself, flinching from a mirror. In one hand, a shard of glass. Poised to slice the other hand's palm.

As a veteran of self-loathing, I assure you: the reason matters not. Excuses are empty. What matters is that something's wrong, Anything's wrong, everything's wrong. I am wrong, and my penance will purge. Will make this right.

Whether we admit it or not, we are one people. One people, forged from conflicting fires. Fires coruscating with strange colors which all eyes may not see. Pristine purity and unscrupulous avarice are no more incommensurate than fierce compassion and relentless reason, after all.

We are one people and we hate what we are.

So much of history remains untaught. So many voices remain unheard. We see the same world, from more perspectives than there are stars in the sky. It's no wonder (to me) that we destroy ourselves, again and again. I wish I could have warned you in time. I wish you would have listened. But I was brought up to believe that I'll never be believed.

*But really, who wouldn't be skeptical of the very concept of social contracts, after learning how one of the most ardent and enlightened proponents of such spent a large part of his career attacking colleagues in an attempt to square the circle? What a tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night!

A Brief Message to the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy

I am a dandelion, the most awesome plant ever.

Dandelions are despised for their ability to cheerfully survive all attempts to eradicate them. They thrive in chaotic conditions. They are smart: their stalks will grow short or tall depending on whether they are being mowed. They are beautiful at all stages of life: golden aggregate flower heads bright as the sun, wispy puffballs pale as the moon, drifting seeds like stars that can float five miles to begin a new life. They don't need to be pollinated to reproduce, but they welcome bees and butterflies anyway.

Every part of the dandelion is edible and nutritious. The fact that it tastes bitter reflects the lesson of the dandelion's life: unpleasant experiences can be good for us. Determination to live, and live well, in the face of the contempt of the world.

I am a dandelion. I ruin rich people's lawns. I give without expectation of being understood. Blow me.

In Defense of Compassion

The word "compassion" entered the English language in the mid-14th century as a loanword from French, derived from the ecclesiastical Latin term compassionem: com "together" + pati "to suffer."

That sense of "together" makes compassion more powerful than pity, and while "sympathy" is the precise Greek cognate of "compassion," its value has declined somewhat after centuries of neglect. Given the state of the world at this moment, as we stand on the edge of chaos with our collective illusions unraveling like the saddest security blanket, we require the strongest word possible for a much-maligned virtue. We believed (or pretended to believe) that our beloved blanket, called by so many names (society, culture, civilization, status quo) was a shining shield. Armor against any enemy, within or without. Such whimsical wards work surprisingly well — until they don't. Illusions are literally lies and their power works like a placebo, proportional to belief. Uncertainty is the natural enemy of authority yet it lacks vigor, always shadowed by fear, anger and confusion — peak 2020 zeitgeist aesthetic. Our frayed, shabby blanket has started to burn. 

To survive this crisis, we need something stronger than lies. Real problems require real power. There are three things that are never wrong: Compassion, Curiosity, and Courage Compassion is an emotional engagement with the perception of the sufferings or misfortunes of others. 

COMPASSION IS NEVER WRONG.

I spend (maybe too much) time perusing comments on trending news topics from a wide range of internet communities. I explore, investigate, seek to find out what people are thinking and feeling. Curiosity is a virtue that complements compassion, and by "virtue" I mean "strength." ("Virile" and "virtuous" come from the same Latin word; Roman culture did not distinguish between manliness and moral worth). Knowledge is power, and I'll take any potential I can use.

Perception of the pain of others comes before compassion. And yes, I think I am good at recognizing what other people feel. I suspect that being raised in an abusive family heightened my sensitivity. My mother believed she was psychic, and while I was always dismissive of her faith in the paranormal, she did have a knack for intuiting things, particularly about my brother. Sadly, it took me years of adult experience, along with finding out about the existence of mirror neurons and oxytocin, for me to start thinking seriously about the pragmatic importance of empathy.

There is a kind of spectrum among humans with respect to the skill of recognizing distress in others; nevertheless, the vast majority of people are capable of it. My husband has Asperger's, and he is unquestionably able to empathize. His disconnect is mostly about ambiguous, arbitrary or illogical social expectations. I think it's telling that autistic people often connect strongly with animals; the essential empathy is there, it's just not complicated by arcane social assumptions and the deceptions, to oneself and to others, that are inevitably entailed. In fact, scientists have shown that animals are capable of recognizing emotions and responding with compassion.

Of course, compassion is not the only possible emotional response to the suffering of another person. Alternatives include indifference, delight, satisfaction, even envy. And although I emphatically advocate cultivating compassion, I'm not interested in condemning those who cultivate these alternatives. Because I have done the same. I understand the many reasons people have for being averse to compassion. Central to them all is fear -- fear of the altruistic behavior that compassion can provoke.

I was sexually abused as a child. I have PTSD. I have a PhD in fear. It's been a struggle, but I've taken to heart the Bene Gesserit litany:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

When I say, "Compassion is never wrong," I am saying, "It is never wrong to reject fear." And I am saying this as someone who knows that people are dangerous. To themselves, to others, and to me. There are no safe places in this world.

I cannot count the times over the past year that I've seen people castigate others for expressing compassion. On all sides of almost every issue. Sometimes the assumption is that by perceiving someone's situation and feeling compassion for them, you are making an excuse for their behavior. People also attack others for showing compassion for one group of people and not another. All of that is rooted in fear -- fear that sympathy will lead to altruism which will benefit someone dangerous.

My intent here is not to endorse or prescribe any specific act of altruism. I'm a mom with two daughters. I know how complicated it can be, trying to balance competing interests while maximizing the family's well-being. Altruism doesn't mean giving people whatever they want. Biologists describing altruism in animals define it as "an act benefiting another at cost to oneself." The concept of "cost" in human terms is extremely complicated, which is why I'm keeping things simple. Compassionate behavior can make you vulnerable. Being vulnerable is not the same as being weak. In fact, the stronger you are, the more compassionate you can be.

Right now, the antithesis of altruism is trending all over the world. I call it spite -- "an act intended to harm another at cost to oneself." Spite is terrorism and military aggression. It is vicious speech of every kind. Spite is when anger blinds you to the costs of your behavior. Anger masks fear; it doesn't banish it. Anger often feels good, justified, even noble. Anger and fear are primal emotions with an ancient evolutionary history -- fight or flight. Compassion is more complicated; it involves acknowledging that the fear and anger of others is the same as your own.

It is all too easy to force people into states of fear and/or anger. Compassion, by its very nature, can never be enforced. It can only be tended, defended, encouraged, coaxed. Punishing people for not showing compassion is not compassion; it is spite.

It isn't instinctive for me to think positively with so much terror and rage breaking free around me. It has always been difficult for me to avoid being pulled along by emotional trends (a minor drawback of strong empathy). And I admit that I'm a naturally pessimistic person. I don't believe in the inevitability of progress. I do believe in the possibility. Our understanding of the human condition continues to grow, building on the shared experience of our species.

The word "monster" (from the Latin root monere "to warn") once literally meant "animal or baby with a birth defect." Because abnormal creatures were regarded as signs or omens of impending evil. We only use the word's figurative meaning now.

Our worldview has changed that much.

The more science discovers about what we are and how we came to be this way, the more opportunities for compassion we will attain.

On Creativity, Madness and Religion

The first time I can clearly remember it happening was at recess when I was eight. I gazed up at the impossible winter sky, a vast cerulean space castled with clouds. I looked at the people around me, fellow students at the Baptist private school known as Sky View Academy in Memphis, TN. I saw with painful clarity something I could not immediately put into words -- an affinity between the children, the sky, and the muddy ground beneath our feet. A physical throb of overwhelming love accompanied the insight, and I knew that God had shown me this, had given me a momentary glimpse of the way He saw His world.

Several days later, I did attempt to articulate the experience, in a poem I called 'The Cove of Eternity.' I can't recall anything more than the title; my memories of that period are capricious, and I have never been one to cherish physical reminders of the past. (For so many reasons.) Nevertheless, that day occupies a central place in the story of who I am.

I did not, in general, love or even like my fellow students. I did not get along with them. I did not know how. I was always insecure, always mistrustful, always, ultimately, alone. Looking back, the reason is pathetically obvious -- if I couldn't feel safe with my own parents, how could I ever feel safe among strangers? But at the time, as a child, in my innocence, I had a permanent sense of being wrong. I was an interloper. An outsider. I did not belong. The only trust I had, the only hope, the only chance for redemption came from God.

That day on the playground marked the first instance of something that has been repeated many times -- a visceral comprehension of transcendental truth. I use the word "repeated" cautiously, because each insight is unique, and the accumulation of knowledge has transformed the context of "truth." But the feeling, the recognition, the experience is the same.

All my life, I have struggled to understand myself. Even at eight, I knew that other people did not think of themselves in the third person. I felt a muddled (but deep) sense of guilt for the running narratives I made up about myself in my head: Unlike the other students, she is gazing at her teacher with a look of avid interest, and indeed she makes note of everything said; however, her thoughts are more occupied with a fantasy of running away to live with elves.

Mental illness was almost never discussed in our family. By the time I was in high school, I was vaguely aware that my mother got medication (which she rarely took) from a person she called her "squirrelly doctor." I only knew about that at all because my father would yell at her for not taking it. He had a principled contempt for most claims of mental illness, particularly depression and anxiety, but my mother's bipolar disorder was different. She had acute manic phases which affected her behavior in ways that caused trouble, e.g. spending too much money and having sex with too many people. Both my parents were substance abusers, but I think it really annoyed him that she preferred to take drugs that enhanced her manic times.

Religion was discussed in our family. Or at least, it had a pervasive presence. Looking back, I can see that my parents were both acutely aware of their problems -- the drugs, the fights, the general semi-shadiness of their lifestyle. But however wrong they were, they still knew what was right. And they made sure their children knew, too. They loved me and my brother. They wanted us to end up better. They sent us to church even when they didn't go themselves.

I was the "good" child. Quiet, studious, mostly obedient. I was good at hiding the depths of myself. I was good at learning things, seeing patterns, accumulating knowledge. People tend to fall into roles within groups, especially families. I was smart but impractical. (While I suspect my parents emphasized my "lack of common sense" because it helped their egos, I have to admit that I fell willingly into the role. Even now it's hard for me to believe I'm capable of certain ordinary things.) It was harder for my brother. He believed he wasn't as smart as me, but he wasn't exactly practical either. His gift manifested itself as... religion.

There is substantial evidence linking schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and creativity. Because of my brother, I know how lucky I am to:

1) be only on the edge of these things
2) have the ability to express them

My brother is schizophrenic. The world speaks to him far more urgently than it does to me. It communicates piercing spiritual truths at every turn. It is no wonder that he resorts to any drug he can find to drown that voice out.

Can you imagine hearing the voice of God, telling you to kill your own child, exactly as He told Abraham?

I can imagine it all too clearly.

Religion serves a variety of social purposes, and people have many reasons for participating in it. But the central lure is the offer of something that afflicts my brother all the time, whether he wants it to or not. At its core, religion is nothing more than sane people seeking to emulate madmen.

Which is why the best thing that ever happened to me was going to college -- and learning to think critically. And guess what? Although I no longer believe in God (in fact I find Abraham's deity reprehensible), I am still, at times, struck by wonder and delirious love for all humanity. The questions I learned to ask simply freed my imagination.

On Racism

I grew up in Memphis, TN, which is perhaps the most archetypal city of racism. It is the city where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Its history includes the irony of a district called Whitehaven. 

(Whitehaven was blatantly organized as a suburb for upper class white people in the late 19th century. It stayed that way until the Civil Rights Movement. Now it is predominantly black.)

My parents were openly, unabashedly racist. My education and upbringing were colored by the casual use of words like 'niglet' and 'porch monkey.' I was taught a strict dichotomy, an unsparing worldview in which white was good and black was bad. If my room was a mess (and it usually was), my father said it looked like a 'nigger' lived here. He said that because in his culture, according to his values, the gravest insult to a white girl is to be associated with anything black.

When I grew up, I left Memphis, my father, and that culture without a backward glance.

Since then I have lived in many different places. A dorm room in Evanston, IL where I smuggled a mad prophet in defiance of I do not know how many rules. A residential hotel on Polk Street in San Francisco. A gated community in Texas, briefly. Now I live in Fairfax County, Northern Virginia. One of the most cosmopolitan places in the USA, on account of being near the capital of the nation that strives to rule the world.

At first glance, you might think that this affluent, multicultural place is a post-racial paradise. The schools, especially, actively encourage an exploration of ethnic diversity. I have two daughters, and I am delighted that they are not being exposed to continual overt racism.

However, not all racism is overt.

In fact, most of it is insidious.

When my husband and I moved from Texas to Northern Virginia, I was three months pregnant. We moved without having any idea of where we might find a place to live. My husband's sister knew a real estate person who found us our first apartment on Mosby Woods Drive. The condo area was charmingly named after Confederate commander John S. Mosby. It is right off a street called Plantation Parkway. Fairfax High School (one of the best public schools in the nation) which my daughter would have attended had we stayed living there, used to have a 'Rebel' as their mascot. It is now a lion, but they still call themselves 'Rebels.'

The place I live now is called 'Colony Park.'

I want to believe that racism can die in America within my daughters' lifetime. But I know it won't, unless white people take an aggressive anti-racist stance. It is uncomfortable for white people to talk about racism. Indeed, some people go to extreme lengths to avoid it. But the entrenched, invisible-to-white-people racism in our culture needs to be seen, acknowledged, excised.

My 94-year-old father-in-law lives in a retirement community in Culpeper, VA. One Easter, after we had dinner with them in the elegant dining room with its silver buffet and crystal chandeliers, I asked my girls if they'd noticed something about the experience. "Did you notice how all the people eating there were rich old white people? And all the people waiting on them were black." They blinked at me in bemusement, rethinking what they'd seen.

This isn't about 'race baiting.' This isn't about 'white guilt.' This is about looking with clear eyes at things that are wrong. Inequity is the enemy of us all.

My Father, Bill Cosby, and the Kafkaesque Comedy of My Life: Part I

In 1997, I graduated from Northwestern University with a double major, math and history. My paternal grandparents, my parents and my brother had traveled to Evanston, Illinois full of pride in my accomplishment. I was the first in my family to graduate from college, and not just any college - Northwestern is a very prestigious university. The celebrity invited to administer the commencement speech was Bill Cosby.

Like many people of my generation, I grew up watching The Cosby Show. The show resonated with my life: a father played by an actor named Bill (same as my dad), a father of amiable comic charm (same as my dad). But my particular fascination came from the portrayal of a healthy, happy family. The relationships between Clair and Cliff Huxtable and their children seemed pure, untainted, free of spite or corruption. Conflicts got resolved, bonds were reaffirmed in every episode. I knew it was fiction, fantasy. I knew real life was never like that.

What I didn't know was that while perfect families may not exist, my own family was far from normal. Far from what most people think of as real.

Sexual abuse is an ugly topic. And I have never been able to discuss it cogently. My memories are ephemeral. It's the effects of what happened that eventually led me to realize what had gone wrong. The behaviors, the survival mechanisms. The scars.

I wet the bed until I was almost 11 years old. For punishment, I was made to sleep in blankets reeking of piss. I think I was afraid to leave my room at night. My father once urinated on me while I was in bed. He was drunk.

Alcohol, sex and drugs defined my parents' lives. They met in rehab. She was bipolar, and she used uppers when up and downers when down. He was a drunk. A drunk driver, in fact.

One memory I do have is of my mother lying naked on the floor, with my father pointing a gun at her.

Because it wasn't just drugs and sex, it was violence. It is almost impossible for me to type this. Because for so many years I believed it was my fault. Something wrong with me. An innate predilection for evil. Even now, as I near my fourth decade of life, I cringe in shame at the memory of being a 6-year-old girl fantasizing about being raped and murdered.

I think I must have seen pornography of that type. I know my father's tastes ran that way.

(To this day I cannot really enjoy healthy sex. I take pleasure alone in dark reveries. At least it hurts no one but myself.)

Relationships rotten at the core, that was my childhood. I never learned a basic trust that so many people take for granted. Some people take it so much for granted that they can't even see it. They think they are skeptics. They think they are like me. The words I use aren't so different. It's what's beneath the words that bites.

So much misery lurked beneath the surface of my family. But the surface was bright! That's the worst part, for me. Like Cosby, my father was a charismatic man. He was good at pretense. Not once in my childhood did any teacher or official suspect there was anything wrong with my parents. Things were wrong with me, oh yes, but nobody ever considered that it was anything but my own fault. I remember being paddled by the principal in first grade for crying every day - separation anxiety, because while I couldn't trust my parents, I trusted outsiders even less. In sixth grade my application for advanced curriculum was denied because of my "poor social skills." I developed a deep contempt for authority. I delved into my imagination; very early on, my inner life became more real to me than anything else.

I survived. I adapted. I found ways of getting by involving minimal contact with other human beings. I went to college 500 miles away from home, and when I graduated I ran away to California with a mad prophet I met on the moral wilderness that is the Internet.

In Capitalist America, the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy come bearing Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas cheer

A few days ago, I learned that a social worker is planning to meet with my 13-year-old daughter at school. The ostensible reason for this meeting is legitimate -- my daughter's been cutting class, for reasons she's unwilling to explain clearly. She needs counseling, yes. But added on to the message from the school counselor about this public social worker's plans was a mention of concern about my daughter's typical attire. Not that it is inappropriate, exactly, but that it is, in some unexplained way, inadequate.

It's not slut-shaming I have to deal with, it's personal-choice-shaming. Poverty-shaming, too.

Over the years I've lived at poverty-level among some of the most privileged upper-middle-class people in the nation, as a poor relation sponging off my in-laws' savings, I have had to confront a seemingly endless stream of unspoken assumptions, prohibitions, and bigotries. With a smile on my face. Because in Capitalist America, the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy come bearing Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas cheer.

God bless us, every one.

Bitterness is ugly, and I don't especially like myself for feeling this way. But I am so very sick of people giving my children Barbie dolls and insipid, saccharine books. 'Beggars can't be choosers' is the line that sinks like lead in my stomach. They never come out and say it directly, of course. They know better than to give anyone a chance to point out the morally reprehensible implication that the poor have no right to live life as they like. That freedom isn't free -- it's exclusively for the rich.

Still, hey, Barbie dolls can go to Goodwill, books to the library donations bin. I don't mind passing stuff around. It is when government officials interfere in my family's life that I get seriously pissed.

My daughter is a brilliant person with a profound disinterest in the trivialities of teen fashion and drama. I've taught her to think critically, to view the mass media with skepticism, to resist the temptations of the Market Demon. She wears bland clothes that she finds comfortable. Idiots might call her a 'hipster' but she doesn't make her choices based on trying to fit in with any kind of counterculture. She is eccentric, creative, and compassionate. Yes, she's going through a rocky time in her life -- most 13-year-olds are. In her case it's exacerbated by having moved into a more affluent neighborhood just a year ago. None of us are entirely comfortable here yet.

Ugh. One day I'll figure out what to do.

Kitten Dreams

My husband is a wonder when it comes to dream interpretation. I have had a series of recurring dreams involving kittens. So many kittens. Kittens that spring up from the dew-drop-sprinkled grass of a marvelous morning world. Sometimes there are so many kittens that my neighbors become angry and want to kill them. And sometimes the older kittens eat the younger ones. In my dream, I rush about the house, the landscape, trying to save my kittens.

I had no clue as to what this could mean. But when I described it to Jonah, he looked at me and said, "What if the kittens were ideas?"

Skeptical as I am, I can't deny the visceral sense I felt when he said that. Maybe skepticism is something I have been hiding behind. Maybe it's been thwarting me. I don't know.

I am afraid of my own power. Sundering dogs, the lilting synthesis of echolocation. Something within me urges to communicate but it will not persevere. Fear is the center of me. Why am I so afraid?

Neuromagic

I'm fascinated by what scientists are learning about the mechanics of the brain. Sleights of Mind by Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde is the latest of a series of books I've read on this topic. It describes magic tricks in terms of neuroscience. I highly recommend it.

So much of what we perceive, so much of what we think we know, is illusion.