Category Archives: Advice Wednesdays

Advice Thursday: February 3, 2007

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DEAR ABBY: My son recently got in touch with me after almost four years of absolutely no contact. We had a falling-out years back, and neither of us could seem to put things behind us at the time and move on.

His mother (my wife) died 3 1/2 years ago, and he barely made it back for the funeral.

He called after all this time to ask me for money. It seems he has fallen on hard times and needs my support. I am not sure I am in a position financially to help him, as I am nearing retirement and concerned about my own expenses. I also feel a little resentful that after all this time, the only reason he called was for money.

I’m afraid if I don’t help him, I will lose him forever. But should I give him money as a way to keep him in my life? I am torn about the situation. I want to be a good father and help my son, but what does that mean? — UNSURE IN NEW YORK

DEAR UNSURE: If your son is without a job, help him find one if you can. But do not jeopardize your retirement. Much as one might wish it, money can’t buy love. Until you and your son iron out what went wrong in your relationship, such an investment would not bring you the return you are looking for.

Malcolm woke up, as he did most mornings, to the sound of braying. Drunken braying, if there was such a thing. An experienced person could always tell the difference between a respectable donkey and one that was in his cups. And at this hour! The birds were just warming up, broadcasting their calls out to indifferent or sleeping ears. Grey light was just beginning to ooze through the skylights. It must be–

“Four-thirty,” a voice chirped from the speaker hanging out of his kitchen wall, delicately tethered by only a few wires.

“Are you still here, asshole?” Malcolm asked, staring at the ceiling.

“I’m always here,” came the response, followed by a particularly juicy hiccup. He heard a bottle skitter across the floor, kicked by that klutz, no doubt.

Malcolm rose from the warm spot his body had made on the plastic floor, and held on to the edge of the Formica counter to steady himself. He was relieved to see there was no wet spot of any kind under or on his person this morning. He looked across the clutter on his counter–ignored paperwork, magazines, dirty mugs, food wrappers–into the living room at his visitor.

“Do you ever wonder what it’s like to sleep in your own bed, Herman?” he asked.

“I hear it’s overrated.” An annoyed ear flick, a shuffling of feet, a twiddling of the thumbs of his creepy hands. Malcolm knew what came next. “Are you giving out refills, or what?” Herman picked up last night’s mug and jiggled it at his host, who lurched forward automatically to take it.

Malcolm hunted through a few of his flimsy particle board cabinets. They were filled with mostly empty boxes of stale crackers that he didn’t remember acquiring and odds and ends like wrenches and a dented party hat from some mandatory fun.

And a stock boy vest. Malcolm could not bring himself to think of it as his stock boy vest anymore than he could think of himself as a stock boy.

The last cabinet door he opened came off in his hands. He stared at for a moment, noticing the still-attached hinges with their protruding, stripped screws, before sliding it carefully into the gap between the stove and the counter.

“Coffee,” he said. That’s what was needed here. He remembered that he’d last seen it under the sink.

“Vodka!” Herman countered from where he slumped on Malcolm’s inflatable sofa.

“Did I ever tell you that my father made coffins?” Malcolm asked. A distraction: Herman was always up for one of those. Malcolm fished the can of coffee out. The lid was gone. He wondered where the lid had gotten to. It was important for some reason…

“No, you never did,” Herman said, rolling his eyes. He grunted and rolled around on the sofa, making its rubbery surfaces squeak lewdly.

Malcolm took a deep breath. He felt the story, often told, spinning up from a deep, old place. Sometimes he wondered that he could remember events that happened more than 30 years ago better than what happened last week.

“My father learned how to make coffins from his father. He would retrieve the wood himself from the distrohub, choosing the highest grade of wood for each one. He made coffins for rich men with custom inlays and would do the carving himself. It took so long that they were often paid for years in advance.”

“And you almost took up the trade yourself….”

“I almost took up the trade myself, but Mother had other plans. ‘I see something in you, Malcolm. You’re special.” He aped a mother’s voice, but realized it wasn’t what his mother sounded like. It was more like a television mother. A nice one. Herman liked it when he did voices. It was, at one time, one of Malcolm’s talents. He’d had a few good years giving voices to animated bears and whatnot. It was easy work with a script in front of you and no need to comb your hair, if you didn’t feel like it that day.

“I hired a coffin from your father but I don’t know where it is anymore,” Herman said.

I do, Malcolm thought. He made a non-committal reply and put the coffee pot on.

“I think you should just skip to the part where you met me,” Herman said. Malcolm made for the living room to do his customary pacing while he was waiting for his coffee to finish, but was pushed back by an appalling smell Herman had made. He opened the front door instead.

Malcolm looked out his door at the courtyard before him, morning sunlight streaming through the ficuses, and saw that the streetlights beginning to snap off. The small birds that always managed to get in sang feebly in the bushes, their chirps bouncing off pillars and walls. He heard the sounds of his part of the Village waking up: bottles clanging in collection bins, whoop-whoops rolling around keeping an eye on things. Mrs. Thomson across the way yelling at her poor deaf boyfriend.

The hologram in the center of the courtyard flicked off news and onto a pop singer, shirt hanging open, wailing into a microphone. They kept fixing the imaging base and Mrs. Thomson’s boyfriend kept smashing it again. Malcolm sighed and retreated from his doorway.

Coffee. Yes, that was the thing. Malcolm poured himself a cup and waited for it to cool. It seemed like all his life was now was waiting, just like when he was a kid, before he’d had his big break.

“Something almost happened,” he said.

“Eh?” Herman said, his eyes still closed. Malcolm watched as Herman’s hands ran over his pelt and crawled over his legs, hooves kicking. He hoped that Herman had not brought fleas in again, but it was pointless to say anything. Better just to roll him out of here and have the property management fumigate.

“So Mother took me to the big city for an audition. Bright-eyed children wanted, background in tumbling ideal. That was a big week for me. Father had just decided he could trust me with the planer.” He looked at his trembling hands, untouched by manual labor. He remembered his father’s–the scarred, enlarged knuckles, palms that felt like the sandpaper he worked with.

“Then you met me,” Herman said.

“Not for a couple of years. There were the commercials, and then the Children’s Mystery Hour–”

“Friday nights, seven o’clock.”

“–And then you came as a guest star, a crossover from your medical drama–”

“Donkey Surgeon,” Herman finished. “The start of our friendship.”

“I wanted to talk about Father,” Malcolm said, picking up his coffee.

“He was a good man, which is why I had him make my coffin when I had money. The only man in the whole Southeast who made specialty coffins.”

“Final repose for unique personages.”

Malcolm sensed movement outside. A skinny fellow, barely more than a boy, framed himself in the open door.

“Mr. McKee?” He edged into Malcolm’s doorway, a darker shadow with the glow of sunrise outlining him. He hadn’t seen this boy before. He had bad teeth and those fat modern sneakers that look more like medical devices than footwear, probably provided by management if he was to run errands and messages like this.

“What is it?”

“They want you at 3 p.m. today.”

“Just me?”

The boy hesitated, raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Okay.” Malcolm nodded. The boy wasn’t moving and Malcolm stared at him, waiting.

“Mr. McKee? I saw you on Sky History. Your old show?”

“Oh yes?” Malcolm stood up a bit straighter and tugged his shirt down. He wished then he wasn’t wearing yesterday’s clothes, though the boy had no way of knowing he was.
“It was good, sir. You murdered every line.” Before Malcolm could reply, the boy retreated, leaving a streak of shadow, footfalls muffled from the lurid plastic booties he wore, and then nothing.

“Do you want to run lines?” Herman asked him, snapping him back to the room.

“For what?”

“Your appearance today.”

Malcolm shrugged. “It’s just remarks. Not lines. ‘Savings that aren’t a mystery.’ Some claptrap like that and then cut a ribbon, or pretend to cut a virtual one. What time is it?”

“The time is four fifty-three,” the dangling wall speaker said.

“I’m going to be late,” Malcolm said.

He took a large swig of his hot coffee. He felt it all the way to his stomach and he imagined it traveling in one burning bubble like some elevator down to hell. His jaw clicked as he recoiled from the pain of it. He’d be feeling that later. He pulled the stock boy vest out of the open cabinet and remembered then it had something sticky on the front, just below where his nametag was meant to go–cough syrup? No matter, on it went.

“Do you remember–”

“I don’t have time, Herman.”

“The last day of the shoot. You kids were supposed to ride me down by the river.” Malcolm stopped just outside of his doorway, impatient, not wanting to cut him off, but not wanting to swipe in late and lose some of his privileges for the week.

“Which was outside of your contract,” Malcolm said.

“It was outside of my contract, but I needed the go away money for my first wife. Ugh.”

“Do we have to do this now?” Malcolm felt himself shifting from foot to foot, antsy.

“And you slipped! You slipped off the back. Do you remember, Malcolm? And then I slipped, I guess. I panicked. I had a little bit of what they called a–”

“Drinking problem,” Malcolm said. He sat down on the small plastic square that signified what would be a foyer in a more reasonably-sized residence and stared at the cracks and ground-in dirt. He looked out to see Mrs. Thomson watering her plants as she did every morning, humming loudly and tunelessly. He often thought it was a blessing her boyfriend couldn’t hear her, ever. “I landed on my feet,” he prompted.

“And I kicked. Very humiliating. They thought they had zapped that kind of behavior right out of me. But that day I was tight as a tick. I went back to the time before–”

“When you had just one name.”

“The time is now four fifty-seven in the a.m.,” the wall speaker interrupted. Malcolm felt certain it had developed a testy tone, or was at least speaking louder.

“When I was just Pancho, Malcolm! It felt so good to kick.” He stopped then, and looked as mortified as was possible with a face that could only approximate human expressions. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that.” He sat up partway then, leveling his head, attempting to make eye contact with Malcolm for as long as he could keep his eyes focussed.

“It’s okay,” Malcolm said.

“But then I connected with something.” Herman ran his hands over his muzzle. His horrible, crawling, superfluous hands that were a mistake, that science should never have given to him, regardless of how much the people didn’t know they badly wanted to see a donkey perform surgery on live television.

“My face. You connected with my face.” Malcolm felt his jaw begin to click involuntarily, as it did when he thought back to that day.

Eleven years old. Episode four. Jaw shattered and then rewired. He had been intervened with and then rebuilt just as Herman had, the difference being that Herman went from being a dumb animal to a star, and Malcolm went from being a rising star to being a trivia question on a quiz show. Herman was given human flesh and he was given metal plates and pins. His father out of his reach, after his mother had taken him to live in the big city to be near the television studios. Why did he never go back? He didn’t remember.

Work–he had to go to work. He stood, making himself dizzy. It was going to be a long day.

“Do you ever think about that? That was so long ago,” Herman said.

“Every day,” Malcolm said to himself, closing his door on his empty apartment behind him.

Advice Wednesdays: December 17, 1991

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DEAR ABBY: I’ve waited almost a year after my mother died to write this letter. I am one of five children, and obviously the only one who even cares if the date gets put on our mother’s tombstone.

Is there a polite way of mentioning this to my brothers and sisters? I make minimum wage and can’t afford to do this myself or I would. Any advice would be helpful.– NO NAME, CITY OR STATE

I’m going to do something which simply doesn’t happen very often, which is recommend one of my esteemed counterparts: Cary Tennis. Just kidding! That shrublet couldn’t advise his way out of a three-foot-high noodle forest. And it’s important to keep in mind that in this scenario the noodles are cooked (al dente).

Who I really meant was Miss Manners. Miss Manners says it is rude to point out the rudeness of others. This can lead to quite a pickle, sometimes! But it’s important to remember that breaking this rule by both sides led to the Third Punic War. Carthage sent a fruit basket and Rome didn’t respond! Carthage really should have left well enough alone. But no! Elephants. Always with the elephants.

This, of course, reminds me of when I was an older girl, almost a woman, when they passed the first phase of all the proper burial laws like you have today. My parents were up in arms then. In the old days, you could just lay a body to rest almost anywhere, really. As long as it was far enough away from the water supply.

The morning of the last truly grand funeral I was to attend, I am ashamed to tell you I was actually excited. It was my Great-Great Uncle Kilgore. I didn’t know him well and he lived in another territory, so none of us really knew him. It was set to be more of a catch-up than an occasion of deep sadness. Mother met him once when she was a girl, during some kind of trip to hand off a cousin for a wedding, but all she remembers is that he smelled like gin and wore a ushanka, even in the house. What man over twenty-four doesn’t, though?

Uncle Killy had made it to the other side of 100. How far in he was, we are not certain, because this was when they routinely burned down orphanages during quarantines and outbreaks. Mother’s best guess was 104, based on some signatures from a moldy old Bible she found in our attic.

We traveled for four days. I’ve forgotten most of the trip, which was uneventful, except for passing through two towns that had the painted sign of cat-on-HVAC on barns and garages, which meant that everyone was down with the gollywompers. In the second town the painting was only half finished, and Father said the sign painter must’ve died mid-brushstroke. How my younger brothers and sisters screamed with laughter as Father mimed clutching his throat and keeling over like the painter did! We didn’t want to catch what he had, not while we were on the road, let me tell you!

We made a pretty good guess then that this was why our neighbors never came back last summer. And that was all right with us, because we took over their garage to dry our weed in (the Andersons had already gotten to the house).

We got to Uncle Killy’s town and found it out of quarantine, which was a relief. Though if you ask me, the younger ones were just glad to take a trip anywhere, even if we would have turned back immediately. Mother marveled at the fact that the old gallows were in place, and that the townsfolk still clung to the tradition of decorating them with flower garlands every week the ground wasn’t frozen. It was the only detail she seemed to remember from her last visit as a girl.

We met our people out by one of the big barns that was nearly emptied of grain, since winter had just ended. There was a marvelous feast that night. Father told us to savor every bite since the canned meat, a delicacy, was hard earned by slaying some folk in another territory and digging it up from a secret underground cache. We children reflected on this as we surveyed the display of empty gold cans the meat was stored in, arranged into a pyramid, their labels long destroyed with time. The younger ones had never had MSG and it was a real treat. Mother reminded us that we should profusely thank our distant relatives for serving us like this. What showoffs!

A breeze blew through the barn, first announced by the flickering of the tiki torches outside the door. We children looked up from our dinners as the ropes creaked against the old rafters. My smallest brother said he was worried that Uncle Killy’s body would come down on us while we were eating.

“It’s lashed up good, dummy,” I said. This was no sibling rivalry. Sput really was dumb as a bag of hammers. The summer after that we think he fell down an old mine shaft or into a ravine. No one was certain and I’m pretty sure Mother and Father didn’t bother looking too hard.

“Was he really a bear?” Sput asked quietly. He blinked his beady eyes and paused with a bite halfway to his mouth. From where he was sitting, Uncle Killy looked like a dead bear on its back hanging from a net of ropes. I understood his confusion, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to smack him on the back of his head and take his meat.

“No,” Mother said. “They cut a bear open and sewed Uncle Killy up inside of the bear.”

“Why?”

“No one knows, Sweetheart,” she said. Liar.

We were put to bed in a different barn that night, thank goodness. I didn’t want to sleep with that creaking above me, especially since I was pretty sure I had seen something drip from the bear’s carcass onto the dessert table. The adults stayed up and caught up, doing whatever they needed to do to reconnect as a family–drinking, fucking, hammerfighting, and so forth. I think Mother was hoping to be knocked up by one of our distant cousins with bright green eyes. We were told if we woke up early to go play by the creek and not wake up any adults, as they were sure to have hangovers and/or concussions.

Sput was up first, and shook me awake. I was assigned to him and always had to help him when Mother or Father weren’t available or were working. I did have a pang when he disappeared later, because I knew that would put me in line to take over the care of Mother’s next baby and I didn’t relish raising another one. Sput was a screamer and a barfer when he was small.

“I have to go,” he said.

“Bye,” I said.

“Aaaaabby I will wake up Mother!” His whining was making the other kids stir, and I knew they would all need something too.

“If you wake up Mother you’ll be strung up next to Uncle Killy,” I warned.

His eyes went wide and he shut his stupid mouth for a minute.

“I’m scared of this place,” he said, barely above a whisper.

I wouldn’t admit it, but I was too. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and we walked out into the morning, his sticky hand in mine. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the meadow surrounding the barns yesterday evening, since we were quickly ushered inside for dinner. I could hear birds and enjoyed the sight of dew glistening on the new-sprouted hay.

I took Sput to the creek, downstream from the barns.

“Go here,” I told him. “I’ll be over there.” I pointed to a stand of pricker bushes that were thick enough to shield me from view, though they hadn’t entirely leafed out yet.

I had my skirt hiked up around my hips and was letting it rip when I heard the scream–a woman’s. It felt too good to stop so I gave it a few seconds more before I cut my stream off. I figured whatever it was, I probably couldn’t help anyway. I heard a crunching nearby and saw that Sput had run over to where I was, dinger flapping in the breeze, piss dribbling down the front of his pants.

“Abby! I see your butt!” he laughed.

“So what? Put your pecker away, dumbass.”

We rushed back to the big feast barn, where the adults now gathered, and I saw some kids were being held back or shooed. At twelve I thought I was too old to shoo. I was right–Mother let me come forward and stand next to her. Uncle Killy’s young widow wept, surrounded by some of our cousins.

“This is not going to end well,” Mother said, sotto voce. I remember focusing on her fresh black eye as she spoke. “Gather up the kids.”

The breeze from last night had stuck around, still licking its way through the barn, playing at the ropes, which had been cut and freed from their burden. Their frayed edges yielded no clue as to the location of Uncle Killy’s body or the bear that contained him: vanished.

My advice to you, NO NAME, CITY OR STATE, is to buy a Sharpie and decorate your mother’s tombstone any way you damn like. Future date it, see if she walks again. There’s a reason your other four sibs don’t give a rat’s rannuculus about your mother’s final resting place. It’s all you.

Advice Wednesdays: February 21, 2002

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DEAR ABBY: I am the other woman you rarely hear from. I had an affair with a married man and married him after he divorced his wife.

Please warn your female readers that even when an affair leads to marriage, it isn’t going to be what they expect.

My husband and I have been married nearly nine years. We have a beautiful daughter. She is the only good thing that has come out of this mess. My husband is selfish and cares only about his own needs. His ex-wife still won’t speak to me (not that I want her to), and their son barely acknowledges my existence. All I feel is guilt over breaking up their marriage and remorse for the mess I made of my life.

So, Abby, if any of your readers are dating a married man — give them this warning: Run for your life now! He may seem sweet and caring, but that is only because he likes the chase. Once he gets you hooked, you will be treated the same way he treats his present wife. If you complain, he will tell you that you “asked for it.” After all, you knew he was married. — SORRY FOR EVERYTHING IN TEXAS

This is a textbook example of what my inbox looks like day in, day out: a depressing stew of cliches from an embittered person. Most people get my form response, since there’s simply too many letters to personalize an answer for every one, and my stock reply usually includes suggesting some kind of writing therapy. This advice may seem ludicrous on its face, but I figure if they think writing to me could help them, they may be inclined to keep writing. I’d like to think I am responsible for no small percentage of little outposts in the “blogosphere.” Even if it’s just a Myspace “blog.”

But I have lifted your letter out of the dross pile because today, it resonates with me. Since you don’t actually have a question, let me ask you one: what do you think sets man apart from the animals? I like to ask people this question as an ice breaker at parties. I know the answer, but I always pretend there isn’t one. Most people will say things like, well, clothing. Or medicine. Or even the heart of your letter–infidelity.

We can make claims that animals participate in all the rituals–the expressions of our human-ness, if you will–that man holds dear and believes are unique. Infidelity is an obvious one, but I could make compelling, if slightly tortured, arguments about animals and their use of clothing, medicine, politics, rudimentary postal systems, and so on.

Alright, lest you begin to suspect I am being paid by the letter, I will out with it. What separates us from the animals is the notion that we are special. Think about it. Celebrities think they are special and it is proved to them by the number of pageviews on their particular pudenda. Your coworkers think they are special. They do not even think they are coworkers! That guy you saw on the bus one time wearing a hat in the form of a frog’s head, even he thinks he is special, as if he held some kind of patent on being a loser.

As of this writing there are about 6.5 billion humans on this planet. If everyone realized tomorrow exactly how special, how un-unique they were, you would hear the wailing sound of an entire planet’s human hearts breaking in unison. There would of course follow rioting, men raping everything in sight, and sportkillings. The fact that we’re all just basically deer in pants will be our secret, okay?

Reread your letter. Do you know how many of this flavor of confession letter I get a week? Christ. It’s like a treatise on the futility of human existence. I recommend having someone read you some Russian novels and spending less time outdoors, or failing that, leaving the thinking to the professionals.

That might have been a little harsh. I mean, even I, “Sorry for Everything in Texas,” have fallen prey to thinking I was special. I, too, was once the other woman. Because of my notoriety as an internationally-acclaimed and award-winning advice columnist, it has been challenging for me in the past to have a normal dating life. I can’t just walk into the pub and grill down the street and meet the man of my dreams. I mean, I could, but I might get stepped on.

See what I did there? I think you could use a little self-deprecating humor in your situation as well.

Naturally I did what any woman would do with additional dating challenges: I logged on to the World Wide Web and I found what was the only site at the time with the mission of connecting little women with the men who adore them. There were some unsavory sections of that site that I avoided spending time on, involving relationships of a more “casual” nature and downloadable photos and “art.” No, I was looking for real, lasting love with a man who understands the specifics of my situation and was willing to prove it by building me special staircases.

Then I found Him. His profile said “divorced.” His children were grown, and of average size, having taken a big bite out of his genetics. He was a professor of Etruscan Studies, the real deal, leather elbow patches on his tweed coat. If that doesn’t send your heart racing then you and I should probably never go out for lemondrops.

After months of getting to know him, I flew to his city. On leaving the airport, I had my driver take me straight to his office at the university. My future husband had offered to meet my plane, but I demurred. I didn’t want to make a scene there; I knew if my driver opened my bespoke traveling case I would be immediately recognized.

Upon being delivered to his office and first laying eyes on him, I immediately felt this intense connection between us. I asked my driver to beat it for a couple of hours. I felt foolish and hypocritical that I had repeatedly cautioned my readers about internet romance and how it is false and dangerous, when here I was standing in front of a man I thought I knew so well. I managed to keep my tiny pants on through exactly one scotch, which he had helpfully provided to me in an antique glass thimble.

We made love then. I will avoid boring you with the lurid details, since we’ve all been there. I guess it’s a little different for me. Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of people standing next to a great sequoia? Or perhaps you have stood next to one yourself. Let me say, though, it was not my first time at the giant redwood rodeo. I was not afraid. I knew I was in love.

Afterwards, as I laid out across his hands, he admired my perfect proportions and extremely toned arms. I have never had a special typewriter or keyboard made until recently, so when I work it’s a process that looks a little like cross-country skiing, or like I am using giant dialing wands. Why not multitask, has always been my philosophy.

There was a natural lull in the conversation and I knew I was getting a little sleepy from the scotch and our frenzied activity.

“I have something to tell you,” he said.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re married.”

I moved to be near him before the ink was even dry on his divorce papers. I spoke with his wife exactly twice. The first time was before the financial settlements were finalized, in the home where they had raised their children. I was living with him in his temporary apartment by then, and he drove me over so we two could meet. It was a kind of formal attempt to be civil, since it wasn’t like I would act in the capacity of a stepparent to their grown children. And she already knew who I was, of course, having seen my face over the column in the newspaper every morning for a dozen years.

They had been married for twenty-seven years, and I was surprised how resigned she seemed about their impending divorce. She was just under three feet tall and even managed to make a few jokes, which as I said, is a trait I always admire. I sat on the armrest of the couch, with him next to me for support, though he assured me he did not expect an emotional scene.

“Well. Good luck with him,” she said, putting her feet up on a tiny footstool with an embroidered cover that I could probably not even touch the top of without a strenuous jump. She tsked at me, and addressed my soon-to-be-husband as if I was some kind of pet or a child. “Smaller than me and famous. What a coup for you.”

As the tiniest living woman in the world, nay, in all of recorded history, it was a coup for someone who loved small women. He could do no better than me, and I believed other women posed no threat. I was his prize, his jewel. Our small, private marriage made minor headlines with the attendant puns, like “Thumbelina Marries Paul Bunyon” and other ridiculousness. Reputable publications were respectful, and we even granted People a short interview, which became a sidebar on married couples with physical compatibility challenges.

It was a happy time. I had a new book to promote and was glad to make the breakfast show circuit, which allowed me to gush about married life a little. He was traveling for work and preparing to publish a paper on some pottery fragments that had been found in the Alps, but he was set to wrap up his travels and settle in for the new school year, which was about to start.

In the midst of all of this we managed to find a small 40s bungalow and I was having it retrofitted to my specifications. Due to some childhood trauma relating to dogs, I prefer to travel on special walkways that are near the ceiling. The house had a child’s bedroom upstairs that overlooked the back garden and I did my work there, stuffing silicone in my ears to block out the hammering and sawing that went on all day long. My favorite times were when neither of us were traveling, after the carpenters had gone home for the day. We ate with a fire crackling, and I sipped claret out of one of my thimbles while I ate a tiny piece of his lambchop. We applied to adopt a child, and we thought we were in the running for a precious little boy whose young mother consistently peed clean. Our lives felt complete.

However, the honeymoon, as they say, did not last. His paper on the new Alps pottery find was accepted by a prestigious archaeological journal and published. As the bustle of the new school year turned to the tedium of winter, he was out more at nights. He was distant, distracted, unavailable for conversation behind his stacks of papers. Too tired to make love. This was a man, who, a year before, would stay up on the phone with me until two a.m. his time, chatting to me about my day or asking me to describe my tiny custom-made undergarments, his breath growing ragged on the other end of the line.

I knew he was always surrounded by excited, fresh-faced graduate assistants, both young men and women, clamoring for his attention (and probably ready to give him some as well) behind his closed office door. I tried to ask subtle questions about the physical appearance of his colleagues and mentees, and scanned the room at university cocktail parties from my perch on his shoulder, on the look out for any small women.

Again I took a path contrary to all of the sound advice I give to my readers and stand by, now more than ever, after bitter experience. I snooped. I looked through his desk at home; I “accidentally” logged on to his academic email. I was not satisfied that this lack of evidence was a true indication of his fidelity. After all, he had kept me a complete secret from his first wife.

I saw on his calendar that he had written in a regents’ dinner for that night and I hastily concocted a plan to travel to his office. Either he would be out, and I could snoop, or he would be in his office, probably not alone, and I could catch him red-handed. I had my driver bring me to the campus and let me off on a dark corner, making the excuse that I wanted to surprise my husband.

“I don’t think this is a great idea, Ms. Van Buren. What about, er….”

“Cats? Birds?” I said. “I think my biggest worry might be rats. If people are walking dogs on campus they will probably be leashed. This is for the best. Can you park nearby and I’ll call you in about an hour.” It was more of an order than a question, and my driver was always very good about doing what I asked him to.

I had a little antique walking stick that I believe was some kind of skewer or cocktail pick that I carried on rare occasions I went for a walk outdoors. I had used it as an impromptu weapon in the past and I knew how to defend myself. People were not a threat to me in an environment like a college campus because I avoided sidewalks, preferring to hike through the hidden miniature forests under the carefully-manicured shrubs. I made my way to my husband’s office, which was a short walk, and slipped in the door of the archeology building when a group of students left.

His door was ajar slightly and the light was on–had he gone to dinner and absentmindedly left things this way, or was he down the hall or in the restroom and returning shortly? No matter–I knew I could easily hide if I heard someone coming. My heart pounded in my ears and I listened intently to every sound from the corridor or outside.

I knew his drawers were on a very easy glide system, since I had given him this desk after we were married. Even I could open them. In addition to the potential peril brought about by common domestic animals, I was also vulnerable to danger in the form of drawers, cabinets, and vases. Everything in my life needed some kind of latch or release on the inside. In theory, I could starve to death in a bathtub and I took measures to make every aspect of my life safer.

I shinned myself up to his chair and desk by way of his wool overcoat. He was right-handed so I opened his top right drawer first, figuring that was where the good stuff might be. I was in the drawer sorting through a stack of receipts that he was overdue to expense when I heard his voice in the hall, low, murmuring. He closed his office door quietly and I heard his feet scuffle. Was he drunk?

Then I heard a feminine laugh, loud and large, and the unmistakable sound of compatibly-sized mouths meeting with a hungry suck and pop that disgusted me from my spy’s nest in the drawer.

“Come here,” he said to her in his low voice, heavy with desire, that I had once heard over the phone.

That was when I heard your voice for the very first time, soft, girlish, with a Texas twang. I don’t remember what you said; it doesn’t matter. I pictured your face at the last cocktail party: soft, eager, eyes bright, turned up to my husband like you were his own baby bird waiting eagerly for your next meal. I guessed he wasn’t going to stick regurgitated worms in your mouth, though.

Suddenly my drawer slammed shut and I lost my balance then as everything went dark. I bit my tongue as I went down and almost cried out. When the desk started rattling, I wish I would have cried out in pain when I had my chance. I suspected that once you were really going at it, you wouldn’t have heard me had I yelled. I waited for it to be over. I told myself that you were a phase, a fling, and that I sat at the true throne in his heart. Fat, hot tears came quickly.

And then when I heard my beloved husband tell you, “Sorry for Everything in Texas,” that he loved your “monstrous vagina,” my heart broke twice. Once was for my marriage and this man I held so dear. The second break was the sound of me realizing, that I! Not even I was special. Like I said, this belief that is the real thing that separates us from the animals–it will be our secret.

P.S. Apology accepted.

Advice Wednesdays: December 5, 1991

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DEAR ABBY: A while back, you had a letter in your column about a girl who got an engagement ring that looked like a big diamond, but it was an imitation (cubic zirconia) which she was proudly showing around to all her friends and relatives, thinking it was real.

I guess she fooled some of the people some of the time, but it could have caused her a lot of embarrassment.

I have a different problem concerning my diamond engagement ring. My boyfriend told me that his father got it at a very good price because it was “hot” — stolen.

I love my fiance very much, but I do not feel comfortable wearing this ring, knowing its history. I do not want to appear ungrateful, and I don’t want to insult my boyfriend — or his father — but every time someone compliments me on my ring, I want to crawl into a hole and hide.

What should I do? — ASHAMED IN BUFFALO

Do you remember that series of books from a few years ago that promised that whatever you thought about, could come true? You could even make, like, posterboards about your most fervent desire and tack things to it, like it was some kind of science fair project, except the experiment was your own self-actualization. The money attraction one said you could even tack on cash, which I never really got, because that was money you were not spending or saving, and someone would probably just steal it off your board anyway.

I always thought it was more useful to just think about things. I guess I learned about the Power of Thinking Really, Really Hard (PoTRRH) when I broke up with my last boyfriend. He was on what seemed like his twelfth part-time “gig” after graduating. (Lesson: do not date someone who calls work “gigs” if you are committed to the PoTRRH Way.) He had just cracked into my last package of those little Swedish gingerbread cookies that I had been saving since Christmastime, which was the last time my sister was able to give me a ride down to IKEA. It is important to buy at least six and then they only get to come out once a month for a special occasion, like a series finale or your friend gets an overdraft notice text when they’re at your house.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I think being fired counts as one of those times.” He always ate like a starving wolverine and a constellation of crumbs appeared in his beard.

“But it’s my thing,” I protested. “And I don’t think you can be depressed if the job you were fired from was five hours a week and on a volunteer basis.”

I went into our bathroom and thought about it really, really hard, and realized the best way to get rid of someone was to pretend to be very crazy. It has all the perks of being actually crazy, except you could shut it off again. I might be on to something, I thought to myself as I used three fingers to scoop all of the expensive shaving cream out of its heavy glass jar. I was excited when he became interested expressing himself in a testicularly-artisanal fashion but then it took at least 45 minutes to shave when I took him out. He hadn’t touched it in months after he went Movember and never came back.

Globs of richly-scented shaving cream rolled off my fingertips and into the toilet, scenting the air with sandalwood and ylang-ylang. I aimed them at his antidepressants, which were now floating in the toilet as well. I worried for a moment about invoking the landlord by backing up the toilet, but “causing plumbing problems” was probably a plus-one in the crazy column. Points removed for making ocean fish sterile with the pill run-off, though. It was a wash. Literally!

“You sunk my Lexipro ship,” I said, watching the pills get taken down by the cream and flushing. I washed my hands and hid all of the evidence in the trash.

“What are you doing in there?” he asked, though another mouthful of my ginger cookies.

“Kegels,” I said, opening the door and walking past him.

I went into the bedroom to turn one of his prized vintage Lacoste shirts (“coral,” 1983) into a string of obscene paper dolls. I will admit to you I stole the idea from my Crafting for Cunts classes, which spent a lot of time re-appropriating traditional feminine arts into statements about the patriarchy.

(That’s right, the bowl you ate that nut mix out of is resting on a doily patterned with erect penises that I tatted myself. The group was all going swimmingly until it was overrun by polyamorous Burners. UGH.)

I find that breakups are a good opportunity for change. I would do things differently going forward. I started thinking really, really hard about what I wanted from life and more specifically, a relationship. I even created a board, like the book said.

I couldn’t remember what the book said to put on the board, but I decided interpretation of memory was the key here. Besides, I owed too much at the library to check anything out. Did you know they will send you to collections over twelve dollars? Consider yourself warned. I went way back into time, listened to my dreams, and delved deeply into my psyche. Who was the perfect man for me?

I tacked a flattened Amazon box up on the wall where my boyfriend’s dresser used to be for my board. All that I had so far was a picture of Jason Priestley from a Tigerbeat scan that I had secretly printed at work. I decided that represented “dreamy eyes.”

My Power of Thinking Really, Really Hard board was next to my mirror. I spent a lot of time looking into the mirror, into my own eyes, questioning, seeking. Then I realized one night when I was trying to sleep, what I wanted was someone who would take care of me how I took care of other people. More than one friend had commented on what a perfect girlfriend I was. I made every birthday special, and it didn’t just look that way on Instagram. Sometimes things I did for him didn’t even end up getting posted.

“That’s what I want,” I said. “Myself.”

The moon shone into my window and hit me while I lay in bed, which is rare enough, because it seems like it’s always cloudy here when the moon is full. The cat was restless and walked around on my legs. I enjoyed watching the moonlight in her fur. Suddenly I felt hot and pulled off the blankets. My skin started to tingle and felt tight, which I assumed had to do with all the bourbon I drank earlier, or the new lotion that came in a beauty sub box I found on my neighbor’s doorstep. The last thing I remember was my cat meowing loudly and then everything was dark!

I woke up cold, and the ceiling was lit like it was midmorning. Saturday, I thought. I tried to move, but felt like I was tied down. I turned and somehow I had moved the mirror in the night…I looked into my eyes—but no.

“Hello,” I said to myself, lying next to me. I thought maybe my double looked younger, but then she hadn’t been trying to quit smoking for the past…seven years.

The split was incomplete and we were still partly connected by fleshy fibers that reminded me of gum, but it was gum made out of flesh. Gross. Other than that, the bed was surprisingly clean. I expected gore or glop like health class childbirth films.

“What can we do about this?” I asked my double.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this,” she said.

And she did. How I had longed to hear those words for so long. She moved her hands along our side and unzipped us somehow. We were two.

We alternated between periods of speaking and not-speaking. I knew what she was going to say, usually, and she knew what I was going to say. Of course she didn’t know what happened to me when I went to work, or out with friends, so she was eager to have me fill her in.

“What did you do all day?” I asked her.

“Well. Today I went to the farmer’s market and bought raw milk and I made butter. I didn’t really have time to do anything else, so we’re pretty much having French bread and butter for dinner.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Thanks.” Every day was an adventure now with her there.

“I’ve always wanted learn how to do that,” she said.

“I remember.”

I was concerned that someone I knew would run into her and find out I was at work at the same time. We decided we would cut and dye her hair and call her “Jane.” That was not an easy talk but I tried to spin it like we were wacky spies or something.

“I like our hair the way it is,” she said, but relented. I did a great job, I think. I had been cutting this hair for years, after all. I made her into a dark brunette, a look I knew was good on me, but I thought was too boring to stick with. If she ran into my friends and they called her by my name, she was to pretend she didn’t know them or who I was.

I began to call her Jane around the apartment as well, just to have something to call her, like if I was in the bathtub and my tablet died. I couldn’t call her by my name, after all. The first few times I saw her face fall a little, or her body turn inward with a small cringe, but she got used to it.

Overall I think she was having a fulfilling life. I was sure jealous of her! Jane even began to bring in some money selling crafts online, since she had my work ethic and could not be a lady of leisure forever. It helped offset the costs of her little hobbies. She was an excellent tatter as well, but preferred abstract shapes or leaf patterns to cocks. I took her out for walks in the evenings I wasn’t seeing my friends.

“What are we doing tonight?” she asked. “Doctor Who?”

I shook my head and chuckled. Oh, the delights of being able to watch the doctor all the way through for the first time. I knew she’d love it.

“You know I have my book group tonight,” I said. I hooked my bra and began to pull it over each shoulder.

“Hold still,” she said, and turned my back to the light.

I could see her face behind me, in the mirror, concentrating on a small spot on my back. She went to work on the zit, which I hadn’t even noticed and quickly had it lanced. “You’re so busy lately,” she said. I felt the sting as she prodded the sore spot. “I hope that wasn’t too painful.” She looked into my eyes in the mirror, which were watering. I realized she was beautiful. She reached for a tissue to dab at the blood. I waved her off and threw my shirt on. It was a dark color.

It’s such a cliche, but yes, we barely talk about the book of the month at our club.

“You’re looking good,” Katie said, refilling my wineglass in the kitchen of her small open apartment. We were so grown up, with our book club and our casual chit-chat. She was a roommate in college for a couple of years. “Are you seeing someone?” I felt three other curious heads swivel and focus on me, abandoning whatever they had been huddling over on Facebook.

“Sort of,” I said. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

“Really?” Katie said. In the past she was used to me giving the blow-by-blow of every late night text, every email, every conversation. How could I talk about my current situation? I decided it was basically like talking about myself so I would just frame it that way.

“I’ve decided to just be single for a while. To take care of myself.”

My friends—well, they’re not really my friends, they’re more like Katie’s friends that I’ve kind of gotten absorbed into—their heads all nodded in unison. I knew they all had their struggles, but in that moment I felt like I had won, transcended somehow. It was one thing to nod along with what Oprah’s army was churning out for waiting room consumption, and quite another to be living it.

My eyes landed on Katie’s face and I saw that instead of nodding her head was slightly tilted. I saw it in her eyes, a flicker that said she didn’t quite believe me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, setting down my nearly full glass of wine, “but I’ve got an early morning and I should pack it in.”

I insisted on letting myself out, to get out into the cool air of the street as quickly as possible. I heard the conversation dip for a moment and I felt my ears prick.

“Pregnant,” was all I was able to pick out. Was that MacKayla? I closed the door behind me with as little noise as possible. As far as they were concerned, I was already gone.

When I came home, Jane was already in bed, asleep with the lamp lit on my side, just as I’d left it. Nothing was moved or touched. It almost looked like she’d gotten straight into bed as soon as I’d left. She stirred when I came in.

“I thought this was your movie night,” I said to her back.

“Didn’t feel like it,” she said. She sounded more than just sleepy.

I felt my words coming out stilted. “Are you okay? Is winter bothering you? They can be brutal here.” She shrugged.

This was not how I expected things to be with my other half, or my double, or whatever. I was pretty sure I had given her everything I’d needed–freedom, space, privacy. When I was honest with myself I knew she was living the life that I wanted, and I tried not to be resentful about it. The silences, which had seemed so cozy at first, now seemed ominous and heavy. “Can I do something for you?”

“Just come to bed,” Jane said.

I turned off the lamp and slid out of my clothes, which I remembered was a lot easier when I wasn’t drunk. My brain was very clear. Before I lived alone, I often didn’t get undressed at all, or I would wake up completely dressed from the waist up, dried semen on my thighs to let me know that no matter how much I hated my ex at the end, at least he couldn’t say I wasn’t putting out.

I wrapped my arm around Jane, curled my city-cold body against her back. She sighed and I smelled my—our—good bourbon. Her body felt different to me lately. She was no longer my exact double. She felt fleshier. I watched her dress in the morning, and I recognized that body, it was the one I’d gotten after my second abortion, the one with the guy I actually liked, but who wanted to go study in Germany and then did. I hated the flesh on my own body, but I liked it on her.

Jane moved her hand away from her stomach. I hadn’t realized I’d been stroking the soft skin of her belly that now pooched out and oriented itself down toward the mattress now. I knew her breasts were larger as well and I felt my hands roam of their own accord. She sighed again and laid back, legs spread slightly, submitting. I wondered if she would remember it if I got her off. I decided against it and lay back, and sleep came quickly.

Then, suddenly, it was spring. I had some idea that maybe I was ready to start dating. Maybe I was over what happened last summer—I had even unblocked him on Instagram. I knew I didn’t want him, but maybe it was time for me to make a new board and start thinking really hard about bringing love into my life from the outside. I probably had time to add one more class—I had every other Tuesday free, and Sunday afternoons, like today.

“Fuck!” I stepped on something embedded in the rug. I turned my foot over and saw that a piece of wire was stuck in my foot. I pulled it out, watching a drop of blood well up where the wire was. Maybe I would start to think really, really hard about attracting someone who had a social security number and could work a job that didn’t involve making terrible wire jewelry incorporating women’s discarded IUDs and dental retainers. I was pretty sure I was over the whole feminist thing.

Jane came out of the bedroom, where she had been working on some kind of new drawer organization scheme she’d read about on Apartment Therapy. She bent over my foot and gave me a look (apologetic?), though she said nothing.
“When did you cut your hair?” I asked. She had short, crooked bangs that made our face look even rounder than it usually did. It was far worse with the extra weight she was carrying.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, a few days ago.”

“That explains the headbands,” I said. “I could have told you not to cut bangs. When I was nineteen I went through this Bettie Page phase…”

Jane reddened and looked down and away. I know that look and I knew to drop it. I realized then she seemed less like my double and more like a series of snapshots. She was my past, I could see that now. A reminder of all the mistakes I’d made and all the bad things I’d done. I had to get out of there.

“Listen, it’s a nice day,” I said. Sun lit the apartment, illuminating how dingy it had gotten under cover of the dim winter light. I wanted to go for a walk on the street near our house that was full of blooming plum trees. I would buy her a small present when we were out, admire her new jewelry designs, then coax her into dusting later. Maybe she could clean the windows as well. I could do the vacuuming, which I find relaxing.

Tears spilled out of Jane’s eyes and she bit her lip and closed her eyes, shaking her head. I couldn’t even suggest a walk to her anymore. She looked ugly when she cried, and she cried a lot. I’d been with a couple of guys who were criers and I always acted like I thought it was great they were that sensitive, but the reality is that I hate it when anyone cries around me. Living with a woman was like entering the varsity level of the crying championships.

I realized maybe if I really loved her I would think she was beautiful when she cried or something. If I thought about this really hard could I fix it?

“Jane,” I said. I recalled words that had been used on me in the past. “I don’t think this is working out for us. You don’t seem happy. I just think we’re in two different places.”

She stopped crying then, sniffed, and looked into my eyes. I always expect her to be shorter than me, smaller than me, because she’s so much weaker than I am. Occasionally she would stop slouching and pull herself up to her full height and stare at me like she used to at first. I saw my collarbones, softened, lost in flesh. I took in the dark circles under her eyes, under the redness of her face from crying. I saw the light roots of my hair coming in under the dark brunette, which I realized now just made her look washed out. I knew there was a reason I had stopped dyeing my hair that color.

She went into the bathroom. I realized that the hole the wire made in my foot was now dripping blood onto the rug.
“Are you getting me a tissue?” I asked. “Or a bandage?” She slammed the door in response.

I took in the blossoms, but had quickly gotten bored alone, and went down the street to knock back a couple of drinks. When I came back to my apartment later, all was dark except for the light streaming out from under the bathroom door. I felt contrite, ready to give things another chance. I knocked softly on the bathroom door.

“What are you doing in there?” I asked. I heard sniffling. Still crying.

“Nothing,” Jane said. Her voice sounded hollow, airy, like it was being piped in from somewhere else and she was far away, in some other bathroom.

I tried the knob and it admitted me. When I cracked the door, a wave of tropical air hit my face. I thought she’d taken a shower, or had been bathing. A smell followed, dank and primal, almost like sex, or animal guts. I paused on the carpet outside the door, letting me eyes adjust to the light. I took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

“It’s cold,” Jane said. She was in the tub. She was wet, or sweating, but the tap didn’t appear to have been turned on, since it drips for hours after anyone takes a shower. Her eyes, my eyes, were the same as when I had pneumonia and I was admitted to the hospital. I forgot where I was and ripped out my IV out and walked to a mirror and opened my eyes there. They were glassy, sunken. Her skin looked transparent. I knelt by her on the floor next to the tub, on her abandoned pile of clothes.

“Are you alright?” I asked, stupidly.

“I’m sorry about the mess.”

I saw her relax some then, the strain leaving her face. Was this what I would look like when I die? I hoped it would be some time from now and I would look much older at least. I hoped I would be surrounded by my grandchildren, or at least some fans. Not alone in a bathtub—melting?

Jane’s skin began to slip a little then, and the liquid parts ran out and toward the drain. Her eyes closed and she looked peaceful. I turned on the tap then, and the water hit her feet, which foamed and began to melt away like soap. Some parts took longer than others. I considered pulling her teeth out, but it seemed disrespectful somehow to hurry the process along by throwing the more stubborn parts of her away. Finally her hair caught in the drain and dissolved away as well.

I turned off the tap and sat back against the tub. The apartment was dark and empty and smelled of cold air, coming rain.

Sometimes I still find a short brunette hair around the apartment and it always stops me. I can’t help it—I always have to put it in my mouth and swallow it. It all has to go back where it came from. Every last bit.

Advice Wednesdays: Dear Abby, May 15, 1991

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DEAR ABBY: I am a 28-year-old, reasonably attractive woman. I dress stylishly and wear subtle makeup. I am very nearsighted and wear glasses because I can’t tolerate hard or soft contact lenses. (Believe me, I have tried.)

Abby, it infuriates me when men (whether they are dates or not), casual acquaintances or co-workers think I should feel complimented when they say, “You’d be much prettier without your glasses.”

I am sometimes tempted to say, “And you’d be even more handsome with a little more hair on your head — or less padding around your middle.” Or, “You’d be a much nicer person if you had better manners!”

Abby, please tell these oafs to look in a mirror before they start giving women fashion advice. Thanks. — FOUR EYES AND WELL-ADJUSTED

First of all, it’s “ouves,” not oafs, derived from the Basque. Did you go to an accredited college? Did you check that it was or just assume? I don’t mean to be harsh, but maybe the glasses are only part of the issue. I think the issue that’s deeper here might be one of credibility. You say that you “dress stylishly” and are “reasonably attractive,” but then you use words like “oafs” and are not stranger to “using scare quotes incorrectly.“ The good news is LASIK is about to become available next year. The bad news is that it’s hard to get out of the habit of sounding like a school marm.

Let me put this another way: when I was ten I used to roam through a forest preserve that abutted my parents’ property. A couple of rivers ran through it, with wide pedestrian bridges spanning the river. In the beginning I spent time on the bridge in the sunshine, amusing myself by dropping pebbles in the river’s leisurely current and playing Pooh sticks.

However, and this is important, I spent so much time by myself that gradually my appearance became quite frightening. My clothes were unkempt and my hair had not seen a comb in so many months it was beginning to clump and seize. You know the old saw: one man’s dreadlock is another man’s shitwig. I was in bad stead, sister. One day I peered over the edge of the bridge and I saw a reflection I did not recognize. However, my unfamiliar visage did reflect the drawing on the wanted poster at the Ranger Station.

I went underground after that. I had one connection to the outside world and it was the jogger who left me store brand No-Doz. We all know the song: WHEN YOU SLEEP IS WHEN THE GRIM-GRAW COMES, OUT OF HIS CAVE, NO TIME TO RUN. I would wait until he had trotted onward and then I would retrieve my prize under a rock next to the tree that was nearest to the bridge: Leafy. Sometimes there was a brief note from him about price increases as well.

Another unfortunate side effect to what I affectionately call my “Walden years” was that I lost all track of time. The leaves had just begun to turn, so I assume it was fall. I was able to play Pooh sticks now with my friend Leafy, who was throwing his head-salad into the water. I went under the bridge to cheer him on as he ambitiously launched four leaves into the river all at once when I saw it: the body.

The raccoon was puffed up like a stripy watermelon, and the air was thick with flies, all gathered for one last hoedown ere winter’s icy claw returned to scrape at our coin slots once again. I readied myself with a stick in case it was in league with the Grim-Graw and would flip over and begin scuttling towards me, ready to suck out the sweet nectar of my skull through one of my eye sockets.

I approached the raccoon’s bloated carcass slowly, stopping every couple of feet to listen, stick at the ready in front of me. I could only hear the trickling sound of the river as it licked the pebbles on its bank, the only motion near me besides the flies was Leafy and other trees blowing their autumnal loads into the water.

Carefully I prodded the raccoon’s body, knowing that if had ingested a pixie shortly before death, its belly would be full of gold. How many bottles of No-Doz then? I cackled to myself. No more smashing the Friends of the Forest box that was chained at the southern trailhead with a rock until it barfed up its cache of tatty singles and pennies.

One more touch and BOOM. The raccoon absolutely exploded like a piñata of decay (whoops, did I just name your death metal band?). My face, which was none too clean after I coated it in river mud a few days before to keep the chiggers off, got even more coated. I barely noticed the feel the gore over the smell, like the smell of a Dumpster, expired chicken, and the corner in my parents’ den that was referred to as the “diaper pile.”

I’m sure you understand what point I’m making by now, so let’s move on. I’m going to guess the real issue is that you look like this:

Do you look like this? IS THIS YOU? That is the only reason I can think of for all the scare quotes in your letter. Those people don’t really want you to take your glasses off. They just think they want that. The glasses are your trademark. What would you look like without your glasses? Like no one, unrecognizable. Or like someone people might actually want to have sex with.

I’m like you in a lot of ways: I realized people wanted to have sex with me until I took my clothes off. Now I start naked, which avoids rejection, and people pay me to put my clothes back on. You see how that works?