Saturday, January 11, 2014
Friday, January 10, 2014
The Mighty Hercules versus the Big Bug Thingie
This is my second try at posting these gifs of Hercules Versus the Big Bug Thingie. I don't know what the actual title is, but it's surely the silliest cartoon I ever saw. We all watched this show in the mid-'60s and made fun of it, especially that theme song: "Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs. . . "
My first set of gifs wouldn't post, maybe because they were too long. I love the long ones I can make with Gifsforum, but my blog doesn't seem to want to take them. Indigestion? Anyway, now I was down from a magnificent 15 seconds/gif, in which I can tell quite a bit of story, to only about 5. There's still a lot of action here as Hercules, anxiously watched by Newton ("That's me! That's me") and Helena the bountiful of chest, whops the daylights out of the bug creature. No doubt sicced on him by Daedelus. But first, he must endure the worst ECT since One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
If Alfred Hitchcock were making gifs in the '60s, which would be kind of weird because they didn't exist then, they might have looked something like this. Obviously these cartoons, cranked out in their hundreds by TransLux and only half the length of a decent cartoon, are divinely inspired, and on a budget of only $39.00 a pop.
The monster has these weird antennae with basketball-like thngs attached to it, which Hercules bravely tries to duck and evade. Go, Herc!
Herc somehow gets the Big Bug Thingie to electrocute itself. Neat! The testicle-like appearance of these antennae-blobs was completely lost on me then.
Another victory for Hercules. Until the next cartoon, when he will face another 4-minute challenge.
OLYM-PI-AAAAAAA!
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Rich Correll Days
Hello, and welcome to Rich Correll Day(s). I say "days" because I might be phoning him soon and don' t know what will happen.
I've written about this before, that it took me forever to contact him. I just tried everywhere, the most outlandish things, and more than a year went by - maybe two.
Having written The Glass Character, which revolves around the life and career of Harold Lloyd, I so so so so SO wanted to connect with him, as someone who might understand what the hell I was trying to do.
Never mind that I had been seeing Rich Correll (though unwittingly) probably since I was six years old. He had a guest shot on Dobie Gillis, for God's sake, and Maynard G. Krebbs was my first crush ever.
Richard Correll isn't just a child star and Hollywood polymath with Disney and IMBD and everything else. He spent time with Harold, a lot of time, and even touched his films, moved them around. and put them in place. It must have been like touching pure magic.
Some people have been kissed by God; most haven't. At some point, Rich Correll was. This was special, like a seal of destiny or something. I don't have one of those and never will, but I went ahead and wrote the novel anyway. I find it's what I have to do.
This Max Headroom one is my favorite, a clip-ette from a 1970s appearance on Hollywood Squares with many other cast members from Leave it to Beaver. The surrealism appeals to me: the bouncing frame, the horizontal lines, the royal blue/magenta/aquamarine stripes flashing neon like something from a psychedelic cartoon.
I can't find the one YouTube episode of LITB that he's in, where he wore some sort of sweatshirt with a monster on it. Must have been taken down. It would have made some cool gifs.
This must have been a beautiful time. I remember owning a horse as a girl for a couple of years, then - incredibly - losing interest. But the two years was a blessed time, and I didn't know it then. It would have to do for the rest of my life.
When I had given up on Rich Correll, I mean completely given up and forgotten all about it, and finally gotten a deal with a publisher and signed a contract, I came home from babysitting one night and there was a message on my answering machine; "Hi Margaret, this is Rich Correll calling from Los Angeles."
Was that my Kissed by God moment, over so fast I could barely tell what it was? It was a good conversation, just what I hoped it would be, and then I sent him way, way, way too much stuff.
It only occurred to me later that I should've really waited until the book was actually out.
Then it occurred to me that, if he has time to read any of it at all, which he probably doesn't, he may not even like it.
This is NOT the cover of The Glass Character. I have no idea what the cover will look like, though they asked me for a few suggestions (no clock-dangling, please!). I needed something to hold on to or keep my eye on while I wait.
Next will be galleys, I hope. . . I don't know. I can't say any of this was easy.
I'm not sure when I'll call, except I will, I have to! I think I blew it with a couple of others just by showing too much enthusiasm. You're not allowed to want anything, I guess, even as others all around you seem to get everything they want.
I am beginning to believe in Fate. I am beginning to believe in Predestination. I am beginning to believe (once again) in Spiritualism, though it's not what people think, not as easily shaped to their expectations.
If all goes according to fate, nothing much will happen with this novel, and it will be agony. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm doing this for Harold. I want to help him come back (as he says in my messages from him) IN A BIG WAY.
As usual, it's all teetering on some sort of verge. It was ever thus, was it not? Say goodnight, Harold.
(CODA: I still have that message on my answering machine. It has been there for months. Bill said, "When are you going to erase that?" I said, "After I talk to him again." Will it be there forever?
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Harold Lloyd: The Hanged Man of Tarot
I keep thinking I've gotten to the bottom of the barrel of craziness that surrounds Harold Lloyd. Not a bit of it. Here is a piece almost as strange as the "psychic bridging" site I found years ago while still writing the novel, then couldn't find again, ever. It disappeared in the night. The psychic bridging was some sort of time travel or remote viewing, where supposedly you could see into any era or period of time while remaining in the present. Harold Lloyd's name was mentioned in the piece in a most alarming way. The writer said he "became self-detached during filming" in the 1940s (he did make his last film in that time) and had to be hospitalized. But why, how - wtf??
Anyway, it all disappeared, and I never did find out if Harold worked for the CIA during the Cold War or what. Being as he was Imperial Potentate of the Shrine, Shriners being Masons on steroids, there is much to indicate that he had more than a passing relationship with mysticism. That doesn't mean he appears in my living room at night (oh dang, I wasn't going to tell anybody).
I swear I didn't write the following piece, but it interests me, because with all his Masonic orientation (from his late 20s until the end of his life), there might be some sort of subconscious symbolism working its way out in this brilliant, but admittedly very strange movie with the oh-so-Lloydian title, Never Weaken.
Anyway, Just Wondering, whoever you are, I am lifting a piece of this article (which I have since realized has been reblogged all over the place, so who knows where it really came from) because I like it. I will offer my own interpretation shortly.
The Hanged Man Of Tarot In Popular Culture
They've all appeared in movies or videos as "a man hanging upside-down from a rope by one leg and crossing the other leg".
That would be quite a coincidence if they were not all mimicking the same thing, The Hanged Man, which is the twelfth card in the Tarot deck.
Harold Lloyd is hoodwinked but then "enlightened" in the short film "Never Weaken" (1921).
Harold Lloyd's "Never Weaken" (1921) is full of masonic imagery. He sits in a chair and blindfolds himself to commit suicide, but is lifted up through the air by a construction girder. He hears harp music and takes off his blindfold to see a beautiful angel. Only when he hears jazz does he realize that the angel is not real and he is not in heaven but high above the street and about to fall to his death. He makes it back to safety.
In masonic terms, he is initiated by sitting in a throne, being hoodwinked, facing death, and being deceived. He is a "hanged man", suspended on a steel beam between life and death. He is then enlightened to a higher plane of understanding when the veil is lifted from his eyes and he perceives reality.
Everyone remembers Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock in Safety Last (1923) but nobody seems to remember the next scene where he swings upside-down from a rope by one leg:
Not bad stunts for a man who lost his thumb and forefinger four years earlier.
Harold Lloyd swinging from a rope with one leg bent in "Safety Last".
There are bank and stock exchange signs in the background, six years prior to the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
Get it? It's predictive programming: Safety Last-taking huge risks-bank-stock exchange-patriotic flag-nobody gets hurt-happy ending.
BLOGGER'S NOTE. I think all that blindfold/shooting-yourself-in-the-heart-for-love stuff is darkly erotic, as is the long, funny but rather disturbing chain of suicide gags (in which he goes to the dictionary to check the spelling of a word - sepulchre - in his suicide note). The helplessness of the blindfold, his chair being suspended in mid-air, the stone angel and harp music, the ecstatic and almost orgasmic facial expression as he unmasks himself and reaches out for Eternity. . . well, it's all pretty sexy as far as I am concerned. Then that immortal scene of realization that he. Isn't. In. Heaven. At. All.
There is blood in this, yes, actual blood, when he pricks his finger trying to impale himself on one of those spikes they used to stick notes on. Is this an unconscious (pun intended) reference to Sleeping Beauty fatally pricking her finger on a spindle? He does swoon in another scene, losing consciousness, almost falling out of his chair. If you want to look for Freudian flying/falling/bleeding/dying/surrealistic/Masonic/angelic/phallic symbols in this thing, you'll find them. It's chock-a-block.
As for being blindfolded, Harold Lloyd was blind for a while, after the legendary accident which shaped the rest of his career/life. No one knew if he would ever see again, and one can imagine the terror, the helplessness of having to lie there, burned and maimed and blind. . . The joy and even ecstasy with which he reaches out for the Angel of Death in the movie might even reflect his profound desire to die and be done with this agony. Perhaps he even considered suicide himself: it's not a funny topic, but it somehow found its way into two of his movies.
Well, why not a hanged man? He was into all that Masonic stuff, wasn't he? Magic shows, Tarot cards, deals with the devil? Haitian voodoo (no, that's me). God knows what else I'll find, that he was a polygamist or something, or worse than that, a Rotarian.
(Weird, weird stuff. . . I've been trying to post a gif of Harold suspended on the chair, and it keeps. . . disappearing. First it half-disappeared. This has never happened to me before, ever, in my entire career of fooling around with/making gifs. Then it just vanished, though a ghostly outline allows me to make it small, medium or large. BUT IT ISN'T THERE! I tried to put it back, and I can't put it back because, in fact, it is already there. . . I just can't see it.)
Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!
I was too ashamed to put this on Facebook
It's a very bad Separated at Birth, which means I am overdue to see my psychiatrist and not yet recovered from Christmas. I kept finding that top picture on Harold Lloyd sites, and wondering what it reminded me of. Voila! It's Bullwinkle! Specifically, Bullwinkle doing that crazy high-stepping dance when he got his own show, with that idiot smile that came and went. Took me forever to find a picture of it. The Harold pictures are from his rather sad comeback attempt, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. There is an even more deranged smile shot in The Milky Way, in which he plays a milkman trapped in the back seat of a cab with a horse. But I can't find that either.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Nature's Mistakes: Truly Horrific Animals
Be aware that I don't choose these things. In my never-ending thirst for knowledge, they come to me, attracted, no doubt, by a mixture of curiosity and disbelief.
This thing, this, I don't know, this whatever-it-is, like a shrimp shell with fur, or a hamster trick-or-treating in a lobster suit, it scares me to think that these things are scampering around, apparently cute except for the four-inch talons that could probably rip your throat out if you looked at it wrong. It was hard for me to believe it was real, so I had to dig around for more images, sort of like turning over rocks in your back yard to see what slimy things you can find.
This looks like a sea monkey, only bigger. It looks like a sea monkey might look if it actually stayed alive and grew into something, rather than dying in the first week and turning to stinky brown scum on top of the water. Bleahhhhhh.
The larval form. Just not possible, whatever it is. Then I found one that moved. . .
These must actually exist, then, or else animatronics has been taken to a level far beyond what I imagined. This primitive, struggling, fur-clogged thing, this thing that looks like it should have died out millions of years ago with the trilobite (in fact it even looks like a trilobite) is an animal so primitive, so small-brained, so stupid, that when you lift it off the ground it keeps working its feet because it thinks it's still walking.
OK, so having proven it exists and isn't just some taxidermic nightmare, I had to Wiki it (my main source of knowledge because I am incredibly lazy), and found the following:
Pink fairy armadillo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pink fairy armadillo[1] | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Cingulata |
| Family: | Dasypodidae |
| Subfamily: | Euphractinae |
| Genus: | Chlamyphorus Harlan, 1825 |
| Species: | C. truncatus |
| Binomial name | |
| Chlamyphorus truncatus Harlan, 1825 | |
 | |
| Pink fairy armadillo range | |
The pink fairy armadillo spends much of its time under the ground, as it is a "sand swimmer" similar to the golden mole or the marsupial mole.[citation needed] It uses large front claws to agitate the sand, allowing it to almost swim through the ground in a manner reminiscent of swimming through water. It is torpedo-shaped, and has a shielded head and back.
It took me a long time to figure this one out. This isn't a pink fairy armadillo, or any sort of armadillo. AT ALL. This is some sort of Peruvian jello mold. Take a look at those feet - they're made out of cantaloupe spears. Carmen Miranda could wear this thing on her head! Such internet hoaxes should be outlawed, as they only choke my evenings with dross.
Worse horrors awaited me. Salamanders. Giant salamanders. Giant salamanders that thrashed violently in people's arms. Salamanders that attacked. This one looks like a mammoth Chee-toh or a pizza gone terribly wrong. Except it seems to be made out of some sort of vinyl.
When I was a kid, I always wanted a newt, a toad, whatever I could catch that crawled or slithered. I would have loved to collect a salamander, but I never saw one, just read about them. Now I realize I was saved by the grace of God, by a divine Providence that snatched me out of the path of the Behemoth. What would these things eat? Why do they exist at all? What is evolution all about, and why is ANY of it here, when we started off as nothing?
I don't know if this cheers me up, or not.
The most astounding video I've ever seen (no, really!)
I'd like to call this Mad Men on acid, or the '50s via Hieronymus Bosch, but mostly I call it incredible. I've never seen anything like it, and for once I'm too humble to exploit it for gifs (though I'm sure someone else will).
A simple snap of the wrist: short fiction
Marcy couldn't remember the first time she was
jerked off-balance by a simple snap of the wrist.
The technique might have been perfected at home, when she was growing up. As the TV ad for the free yoyo in the box of Malto-Meal said: "Yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-YO-yo-yo" (to the tune of the Irish Washerwoman). It wasn't so remarkable then, as her sister Molly was thirteen and Marcy had just been born. It isn't very difficult to jerk a six-pound newborn on a string so it will dance, dance, dance on your hand like a malformed little doll.
This was her not-chosen environment for years. Everything about her was criticized, then the criticism was turned back on her:
"Oh, you should stop being so self-critical."
"For God's sake, when are you going to develop some confidence?"
Her sister Molly, already an adult, played with her like a doll, exclaimed over her, then dumped her down in her crib and went out on a date.
"Oh, you should stop being so self-critical."
"For God's sake, when are you going to develop some confidence?"
Her sister Molly, already an adult, played with her like a doll, exclaimed over her, then dumped her down in her crib and went out on a date.
Not to blame her, she was only a teenager, but it got much worse as she grew. Marcy was left in the living room with Tom, her sister's 30-year-old married boy friend, and both of them were drunk (drunkenness being encouraged when she was 15). The inevitable groping would go on in the dark, then when Molly found out, she would stare acid daggers of fury at her and say,
"So, you want to go sit with my boy friend in there and romance him? Who do you think you are, anyway? What kind of slut would do that?"
Yank, yank, yank.
"So, you want to go sit with my boy friend in there and romance him? Who do you think you are, anyway? What kind of slut would do that?"
Yank, yank, yank.
Marcy made a life for herself, but it was hard, and her "craziness" was often remarked on, as if her sister had nothing to do with it. Her "wedding present" was a statement, accompanied by a hard-eyed stare: "Gee, it must be great to have your whole life all figured out at age 19." Called on it later, Molly looked incredulous, said she didn't remember saying it, and looked at Marcy accusingly: how could she even think she could say something that mean?
When Marcy moved from a small town to Vancouver, she expressed anxiety to her sister that she might not be able to adjust to such a leap. Her response, accompanied by a shrug and a cool, matter-of-fact expression, was, "Then I guess you'll self-destruct."
When Marcy moved from a small town to Vancouver, she expressed anxiety to her sister that she might not be able to adjust to such a leap. Her response, accompanied by a shrug and a cool, matter-of-fact expression, was, "Then I guess you'll self-destruct."
At some point Marcy came to wonder: what is it about all this family poison that reproduces itself in your friends, the people who are supposed to be on your side? At first Roseanne seemed fine, better than fine, and Marcy began to believe she had found her missing piece, the good sister she never had while growing up. But over time, the subtle jerking began.
Roseanne, who very quickly became her best friend, soon moved away to a small town, and immediately began to believe she was terminally ill. She had no symptoms and refused to see a doctor. Marcy became frantic with worry and flew out to stay with her. Finally coerced into seeking medical help, she found out there was nothing wrong with her at all. But no one addressed the empty abyss inside her, and Marcy stifled the grumble of resentment that she had been sent out on a desperate rescue call for nothing.
Over time, more and more things happened, gradually insinuating themselves, sneaking in while no one noticed, things that were distressingly tangled, snarled up like a ball of useless marionette strings. The writing ambition she shared with Marcy when they met was soon abandoned, or at least denied. When she asked her friend if she had considered writing a column for the local paper (and later, keeping a blog), she made a sour, incredulous face and asked "What would I write about?", as if she had suggested climbing Mount Everest or calculating the value of pi (or, more likely, doing something incredibly stupid and even offensive). Her disdain covered a failed ambition, and Marcy thought she had seen that somewhere before.
Over time, more and more things happened, gradually insinuating themselves, sneaking in while no one noticed, things that were distressingly tangled, snarled up like a ball of useless marionette strings. The writing ambition she shared with Marcy when they met was soon abandoned, or at least denied. When she asked her friend if she had considered writing a column for the local paper (and later, keeping a blog), she made a sour, incredulous face and asked "What would I write about?", as if she had suggested climbing Mount Everest or calculating the value of pi (or, more likely, doing something incredibly stupid and even offensive). Her disdain covered a failed ambition, and Marcy thought she had seen that somewhere before.
Over the years, things escalated. Most of them weren't so much attacks as examples of "here, take this and fix it" or, at least, "listen to all of this unproductive ranting until you feel weary and sick of it and get nothing in return". And there was definitely a sense of entitlement. "Just give it to good old Marcy, I can always count on her." And then, that inevitable statement: "Oh, I feel a lot better now!"
After many years of attempts, Marcy wrote a novel about a silent film star, was excited about it - never thought she'd write a novel again - and showed Roseanne one of his short movies, wondering what her opinion would be. She looked at her with her head tilted at a strange angle and said, "Was he gay?" - then changed the subject.
The gay thing came up more than once, until Marcy realized she had never knowingly had any significant contact with a gay person, not because they didn't exist in her town but because she didn't want to. When Marcy read a book about pianist Oscar Levant and was all bubbly and enthusiastic about it, Roseanne said in a disdainful, somewhat offended tone, "I thought he was gay." End of conversation, which was then steered to her own agenda. Apparently, anyone named Oscar was automatically gay, like Oscar Wilde. The disdain was automatic: let's write him off, shall we? The narrowness of her perception was shocking.
But the worst, and this went on for years and years (and years) was Roseanne's insistence that she should write a sort of hatchet job, a fictionalized expose of Canadian literature: all the petty, arrogant, narcissistic figures, editors, publishers, writers, hangers-on and wanna-be's.
"Oh, I still think you should write it, Marcy. It would be so great. You could really stick it to those people and expose all their vanities and power-tripping to the public." Over and over again Marcy said, "But that would surely be the end of my career." A few months later she would say it again. She'd say, "But that would surely be the end of my career." A few months later she would say it again. She began to feel like a yo-yo yanked, a mouthpiece for her friend's frustrations as she rubbed her hands together and cheered on the sidelines, not so much for Marcy as for the expression of all her own frustrations coming out of someone else's mouth, risk-free.
"Oh, I still think you should write it, Marcy. It would be so great. You could really stick it to those people and expose all their vanities and power-tripping to the public." Over and over again Marcy said, "But that would surely be the end of my career." A few months later she would say it again. She'd say, "But that would surely be the end of my career." A few months later she would say it again. She began to feel like a yo-yo yanked, a mouthpiece for her friend's frustrations as she rubbed her hands together and cheered on the sidelines, not so much for Marcy as for the expression of all her own frustrations coming out of someone else's mouth, risk-free.
Yank, yank, yank.
By this time, everything was externalized; the whole world was her yo-yo, convenient for never taking responsibility. Her public persona was of a warm, earth-motherish figure who took casseroles over to people she could not stand, a "see how nice I am" gesture while seething inwardly and constantly feeling "betrayed". Finally it became a volcano of bile, with Roseanne's "best friend" the only recipient (deemed "safe" because she didn't live there). Marcy saw her friend yanking the string on her disabled husband, cutting him off from his friends because for some reason she didn't approve of them. Yanking her 20-year-old daughter around, saying it would be "better for me if she didn't date" and going crazy with anxiety because she stayed out till midnight with her girl friends. (She said she would be home at 11:00!)
After a while it was just an accumulation, and Marcy realized her friend was basically lost. Episodes came back to her that were wildly frightful and so dysfunctional that she couldn't get her head around it. She used to call her friend her "sister", and now she realized that she WAS her sister in all but blood, a frightening and even horrifying replication.
She came to see that she had taken on the role of "safe" confessor: safe because she didn't live there and would be sure to keep her mouth shut. But the more distorted and fucked-up Roseanne's observations became, the more she realized that, far from being safe, she was a repository for a twisted reality that bore very little relation to the truth. Thus her friend could say anything she wanted to, knowing Marcy couldn't call her on it; after all, she didn't live there and didn't know what was really going on.
She came to see that she had taken on the role of "safe" confessor: safe because she didn't live there and would be sure to keep her mouth shut. But the more distorted and fucked-up Roseanne's observations became, the more she realized that, far from being safe, she was a repository for a twisted reality that bore very little relation to the truth. Thus her friend could say anything she wanted to, knowing Marcy couldn't call her on it; after all, she didn't live there and didn't know what was really going on.
But of course, when she finally stepped back, it was HER fault for ending a perfectly wonderful relationship for no reason and no warning, out of the clear blue sky. Roseanne honestly didn't seem to know what had happened between them, an infuriating situation, acres of blank empty oblivion surrounding what used to be - what should have been - a fine and focused mind.
Marcy writes in her journal, trying to get her mind around it all:
I wonder sometimes how and why it gets so fucked up. It's horrible to see the worst patterns repeat and repeat, to be jerked around by someone who genuinely believes she is kind and giving. Someone with virtually no self-knowledge, but with a rich library of acid criticism of others, a library she does not use so much as push her friends into and lock the door.
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I wonder sometimes how and why it gets so fucked up. It's horrible to see the worst patterns repeat and repeat, to be jerked around by someone who genuinely believes she is kind and giving. Someone with virtually no self-knowledge, but with a rich library of acid criticism of others, a library she does not use so much as push her friends into and lock the door.
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Once when she asked Roseanne what happened to her writing ambition, she said, "It went away." This was a bizarre statement, to be sure; not "I gave it up", not "it was too hard", not "I couldn't stand to risk rejection", but "it" "went away", a separate little entity which got up on its little legs and crept out of her life all by itself.
There has been a theme all through their friendship: Roseanne constantly worries, obsesses that people think she's "crazy". Her behaviour in her town is so circumspect as to be stifling, but she won't let herself out of the box. The craziness swirls around and around in a corked bottle like a tiny, concentrated little genie. But if the genie ever emerges, her three wishes ("escape, escape, escape") won't come true.
Or maybe they will! For a long time now Roseanne has been looking up apartments on the internet - for herself, not including her chronically ill husband - secretly, while insisting she will stay in her town "another 10 to 20 years" (meaning, until he dies). Out of a heavy sense of "duty", she is waiting it out, as if drawing chalk-lines on the wall. Marcy sees that the person she had befriended all those years ago has been replaced by a stand-in of near-Stepford proportions, obsessed with what other people want her to be.
She also sees that, aware of it or not, she has been insidiously trying to torpedo her career for a very long time. There is a slightly nasty, vicarious feeling about it, a knee-slapping sense of "wouldn't it be a hoot" (if she alienated every single person who ever helped her publish her three novels). She was an intelligent woman. Didn't she think this through, or was it a deliberate cobra-strike?
She also sees that, aware of it or not, she has been insidiously trying to torpedo her career for a very long time. There is a slightly nasty, vicarious feeling about it, a knee-slapping sense of "wouldn't it be a hoot" (if she alienated every single person who ever helped her publish her three novels). She was an intelligent woman. Didn't she think this through, or was it a deliberate cobra-strike?
Sometimes people outgrow each other, yes, but does it have to be so painful? Does the manipulation have no end? Invisible strings still yank and twist. Roseanne will have to turn back on herself now, but the choice of looking in the mirror is unlikely, as is the chance she will make a real friend in the community that she can actually talk to.
Marcy writes:
Marcy writes:
I hate it when I end up carrying someone, and it has happened more often than I care to admit. There must be some need in me, some desperation or fear that if I don't pander to that person's sick need, I won't have any friends at all. Probably that's true. It is tremendously hard to deal with and I have been struggling for some time, mostly with anger as more and more memories emerge, along with more and more anger. My sister too sees herself as a benevolent Mother Superior figure, religious, Christian, unconditionally loving and accepting, praying about everything (especially me!) because it makes her look better to herself. The truth is, she doesn't exist. I have wiped her out. Every few years, too cowardly to do this herself, she yo-yos my brother into checking up on me, making a report. I suddenly remember the Bob Dylan line from Desolation Row:
"When you asked me how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?"
Some kind of joke. I know that she hopes for one of two responses:
a) That I'll be a total mess, or dead, in which case she will pretend to grieve and tell herself, well, after all, it was inevitable, wasn't it? In spite of all her fervent prayers and sincere attempts to help, she knew it was going to happen all along.
b) That I'll be doing well, and she will fly into a fury and say, how can she be so horribly selfish when she tried to destroy the family?
Is there winning here? Does it exist?
Still struggling, but no longer in quicksand - more like an insect emerging from a chrysalis - she writes:
Every once in a while I get piss-angry about all this, and my only solace - hell, it's more of a universe than a solace - is the family I have co-created with my husband of over 40 years, the one Molly said I didn't deserve and attained only through a sort of random lottery win. (Weirdly, she even killed Rob off once, saying "if anything happens to him I'll help you raise the children" - co-opting them at the same time.) I even married into a relatively sane and basically benevolent, loving family who does not drink or use or molest little girls. I am their kin now in every way but blood.
Every once in a while I get piss-angry about all this, and my only solace - hell, it's more of a universe than a solace - is the family I have co-created with my husband of over 40 years, the one Molly said I didn't deserve and attained only through a sort of random lottery win. (Weirdly, she even killed Rob off once, saying "if anything happens to him I'll help you raise the children" - co-opting them at the same time.) I even married into a relatively sane and basically benevolent, loving family who does not drink or use or molest little girls. I am their kin now in every way but blood.
It's not supposed to happen that way, it's the exception, causing my sister to say, no doubt, "Well, you see, nothing happened! Your childhood was fine. Everybody loved you. In fact, they loved you more than you deserved."
Get a big pair of scissors, please. Pinocchio's strings are cut.
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