One of the those pretentious people walking around with showy books

Zeus is finer than Socrates

Nah, I’m not one of those people above, except when I was 19 and carried a fat old Sigmund Freud book with the cover positioned outward for people to see.  Now I don’t like people looking at the covers of my books actually.  On the train I don’t let passengers see what I’m reading, unless it’s Mean-Spirited Tales – yuk yuk.

Reading the Dialogues of Plato, well, half of it, made me feel spiritual.  Socrates talked about that energy underneath the flesh.  He talked of denying weaknesses of the flesh.  Can scholars of Socrates out there tell me how he knew so confidently that after you die you go to a better place?

Socrates also says “In the name of Zeus!”  I love that and I’m waiting for the perfect opportunity to say it.  Other than that I got dizzy reading it and had to give it up after five months because – I don’t know if you know this but knowing this makes the knowing of the dialogues knowable – Mr. Socrates talks in circles, which is why the book made me dizzy.

Normally I might be able to handle it but I have too much going on between my ears now and that interferes with my ability to concentrate on books like this.  Between reading that book I read three other books, including the proof copy of my own book – I tried – I tried to read this book.  It was a library book that I kept having to check out over and over since I couldn’t read it in one shot.  I finally returned it yesterday.

This is embarrassing but I wrote a post about not being able to read this book in April – APRIL!  So I’m off to read the next thing.  I’m reading An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke.  I tried reading this Arsonist book on the train but looked like a lunatic because it made me el oh el it was so damn funny.  It’s well-written too.  I hope it stays this way.  I hate when a book is promising in the beginning then leaves you hanging.  Ta ta!

Crazy Old Aunties Deserve to Die

I walked to an ad on the train platform — a picture of an old woman with smeared lipstick, spiky drunk hair, holding a glass of liquor and a cigarette.  She wore flashy clothes too young for her wrinkled personage, and she was dancing.  The caption:  Crazy Old Aunties Deserve to Die.  Why I’m of this ilk.  I’ve written about it mmm hmm, in this blog.  Crazy ‘ol Auntie Sandee, the middle-aged death metalist, alcoholic.  Me and the poor old woman in this poster — people just don’t understand!  The ad was an off beat anti-smoking campaign.  Generally they were saying people make excuses when it comes to smoking.  But I quit smoking — quit the same time I quit drinking.  Considering the circumstances it was a wise decision.

A long time ago Crazy ‘ol Auntie Sandee went to the bar and met a boy quite a few years younger.  From the Canary Islands.  We talked and talked and talked.  He leaned over and in his Spanish accent said, “I want to kiss you.”  Yeah, yeah, so I made out with him in the bar loosey goosey, whatever.   All I remember is waking up alone to discover that I had apparently had safe sex with someone. Twice. I threw the condom wrappers away and went to work, recalling vaguely saying the night before, ‘Oooo, that’s niiice.”

A day later I get a call.  “Hello Sandee.”  It was the Spaniard!  “I have no idea what happened here the night before.  Why don’t we meet at the diner so you can tell me what happened and then I can see what you look like too.”  I recalled a handsome young devil but I was drunk.  I needed to know.

He was a handsome young devil on some kind of a work visa.  He would be leaving in a month.  He was studying to become a lawyer — I had sex with him.  In a blackout.  I wasn’t present, wasn’t there, didn’t get to experience this because I was in a blackout.  This made no sense.  I stopped drinking immediately.  Crazy ‘ol Aunties do indeed deserve to die when they deprive themselves of being present to experience having sex with handsome young men with European accents.

Corporate Sheet Cake

 

Dawn of the millennium, 1999:  my nervous breakdown manifests itself as clinical anger.  I smear on war paint and get on the A train.  Beware the person who opens a newspaper too wide into my space, who sits next to me and bangs me with their elbow while searching for gum, who rests a bag on a seat while the train is crowded…

Flowing with the stream I’m a fucking human lemming on 42^nd Street.  GOD FORBID I walk west while everyone walks east — these gray-suited motherfuckers would knock me down!

I get to the corporate hell-hole without a bruise, without running into co-workers on the way demanding exhausting talk.  I don’t like a lot of the people here.  Most are aggressive, game-playing, conniving, shit-eating grinners – back-stabbing, pus-filled goons.  They keep the system going in circles with great numbers of casualties all over the world.  Consciousness doesn’t negate my complicity, as I purchase the shoes made in Chinese factories, consume the items that require the going elsewhere and sucking out resources and labor for this never-ending demand of we who seek great distraction for the cost of a gaping hole filled with Zoloft.  Ahhhh, but what soothes a mind heavy with routine and knowledge?  A call from Martin Lemmon’s secretary Gabby on the 57th floor – “Sandee, let everyone know there’s cake left over from the meeting in conference room B.”

Talking, the Plague of Society

Psycho Killer, by David Byrne: 

You start a conversation you can’t even finish.

You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything.

When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.

Say something once, why say it again?

 

This is one of my favorite songs.  I sing it with a facial tick to portray a person fed up with mindless communication.  I especially love when people ask you a question then answer it themselves.  I wish we would learn to be quiet around each other.  The longer I hear people talk the more I can pick out meaninglessness.  At that point I can translate their subtext, which is the same for everyone who runs off at the mouth, including me.  I think we’re really saying that we’re lonely and that we want people to know that we exist.  We want people to like us.

We don’t have confidence in our ability to simply take positive actions to secure bonds with people, so we run off at the mouth instead.  Why are we afraid of quiet?  Why can’t we just experience time together?  I like when you can nod, sigh, moan, smile, and raise your brow at a person, and they get it.  My grandma and I do that sometimes when we go to the café at the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale.  We stare out of the window at the palisades and Hudson River, drink coffee and eat David’s white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.  It’s very cool, and we don’t exhaust ourselves with all of that running off at the mouth.  More importantly, we don’t run the risk of choking to death from talking with our mouths full.

I get irritated when a stranger says God bless you after I sneeze on the bus or train.  It’s just another one of those mindless things that we say.  It has nothing to do with being good to your fellow human being, not really.  And worst of all it means that I have to say thank you, and sometimes I don’t feel like opening my mouth, especially since I don’t get enough sleep as it is.  Most of the time I’m too tired to even talk to myself – some folks don’t realize how much energy talking takes.  When a stranger says God bless you, sometimes I just nod and groan unintelligibly — Scooby Doo speak.  I respond, “ran ru,” but really, I don’t open my mouth or move my lips.  It’s stressful when a stranger says God bless you.  I’m nervous about having a succession of sneezes as they might be a person who says God bless you after each sneeze, so I hold my face tight around my nose to prevent sneezing again.  I think you could have a heart attack doing that.  

Are you really asking God to bless me or is this just a cheap way for you to feel like a mensch?  A cheap display of humanitarianism.  Blech!  Maybe the next time some stranger says God bless you to me I should say:  ‘Thank you ever so much for asking God to bless me especially during this time in my life where I am plagued by a myriad of mental, spiritual, and physical problems.  There are microscopic pill bugs crawling on me and telephone calls that I get from Uranus, yet it seems that no one wants to help.  The worst of it is that I’m being followed by people trying to brand me with a barcode.  Maybe I should just have a glass of Tang and relax on the fire escape.  Maybe I’m just stressed out.  It’s so nice to meet you.  What’s your name?  Mine’s Sandee, or Sword-chinned bitch, as my friends call me — sometimes I am called Sandor.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you asking God to bless me.  May I have your phone number so that I can talk to someone kind, while I’m at the looney bin?”  The next time someone sneezes, I’ll bet that person thinks twice about saying ‘God bless you’, about saying something to a stranger without thinking about exactly what they’re saying. 

But to be fair, it takes time to cultivate this ability to be silent around people.  It’s a skill where you use body language and good vibes to communicate.  You have to appreciate stillness.  Telepathy – I’ve had it with a couple of ex boyfriends and it’s very economical.  When you don’t talk as much you have more energy for you-know-what.   Maybe in the society of the future we can do this, like in that underground society in the movie “Beneath the Planet of the Apes.”

Ooo-ooo, isn’t she about as cute as a lil’ monkey?

 

How does this work?  I haven’t eaten or slept.  The ugly’s in them, in me.  I shouldn’t be out.  It’s not safe.  The people in my train car they see the bilious ooze coming out of my pores.  I attract noxious energy that makes me hate, back in return.  I’m nauseous.  But God forbid I should have to hurl — this stupid train doesn’t allow you to walk in between cars, like the old big grey ones.  And it’s fucking express. The man sitting across from me digs wax from his ear, rolls it up and flicks it in the floor.  His features are asymmetrical in a non aesthetic way.  This train smells like, like… The woman wearing pink platform shoes and a mini-dress carries her shoulders too high like she’s expecting something.  Her legs — I can see she’s relied on them for a while — they’re long, strong-looking.  But I can still hear her quietly begging.  She’s self-conscious.  I refuse to let her see me, looking.  She’s tossed her hair, that fake-ass hair, too many times.  Shethinks people believe it’s hers.  Trouble-makers.  There are more of them in this train car.  They look at me – I know.  I know they’re judging me.  I am judgmental.  The only one I like is on my left, a self-contained woman in a blue and burgundy print dress and black shoes.  Her heels are moderate.  She’s reading and not looking up and around, all needy.  She’s not looking for approval and doesn’t offend me.  Her gestures don’t spill over into my space.  This is a rolling coffin and damn I could define the stench but it would make me sick.

On the other side of that ear digger guy is a little scrunched in one — people-pleaser. She gave money to that subway car performer.  I didn’t give a goddamned thing!  Oh and now she’s smiling — to herself, one of those creepy, subtle smiles.  Smiling, smiling – what the fuck’s she smiling at!  She’d dig a knife in your back with that thing on her face.  I know the type:  “I have a good heart.  Like me.  Please?  I do good for people.  Oh don’t hurt me.  You’re going to hurt me because you don’t smile at the sunny day.”  Do you know the depth of the world’s dysfunction?  This gesture of giving a dollar to a man who’ll probably use it for crack, will help?  Why the hell can’t she stop smiling?  She looks like a nut!  Crazy. She’s a little thing, like a rhesus monkey with long brown hair, wearing a trench coat.  Ooooo-ooo, you sooo cute, I protect you littoo monkey…