I Good things.
1. This webcomic called xkcd, which Marshall alerted me to.
2. This weekend's upcoming visit from Marshall.
Just because you're paranoid.
I was nervous about typing that, up there. No: fearful. This book I'm writing, about well, death, has fed into an previously-held superstition with regards to speaking excitedly about the future. I'm constantly concerned that my loved ones will have fiery accidents on the way to birthday parties, family holidays and bar gatherings. These accidents will be, secretly, my fault. I caused both the plane's engines to fail because I expressed a naive excitement about reunion at the upcoming happy event.
I talked with a friend recently and discovered she harbors the same fear. Before her s.o. leaves the house each day, she must tell him, "Wear your seatbelt! And be careful on the Interstate!" We do the same thing, she and I: Search our minds for potential disasters and then name them aloud out of some superstitious belief that doing so puts us one up on Evil Fate. Or, if not one up, then at least we've voiced aloud a healthy respect for its power. And maybe we just can't be surprised if the worst does occur. (Laughable, of course.)
I don't know about my friend, but for me, it's like I'm bracing myself. I feel real stabs of fear at those moments when I warn people against walking on the side of the road without the sidewalk on the way to my house, although I keep my voice light and casual when I do it. I don't want them to think I'm crazy or that I think they have no sense. But really, it has nothing to do with their actions; crazy things happen every day beyond anyone's control. What I'm doing is between me and fate, alone. It's an incantation, a spell. "Watch out for crazy drivers" means now those drunken lane swervers will steer clear of you, and "Pack a lunch for your trip," means I've now evaporated potential disguntled fastfood employees armed with uzis into the ether. At least for you. At least for you, my dear, my friend.
For a long time, hearing Channel Eleven Holiday Greeting proclaim its innocuous, "Have a Safe and Happy Fourth," or "Have a Safe and Happy Groundhog's Day" or whatever, drove me nuts. How false a well-wish is that? It says, "I wish for you on this celebrated day the bare-minimum of no permanent injury or scarring." Besides, it's condescending. Your viewers: this uniform group of eight-year olds about to shut off their TVs to run out into the streets, scissors in one hand and lit bottle-rockets in the other.
And the acceptance of the "Have a safe" whatever, or the infinitely more cloying "Be safe," only grew. Now it was an acceptable send-off from the office on Fridays. Now it was an acceptable send-off before your trip to Vegas, a place where a certain kind of lack of safety is supposed to be the entire point.
It was wildly unacceptable to me. First: the condescension, and second, the implication that you could control anything that happened to you, that you could make yourself "Be safe;" it made anything unsafe that befell the greet-ee his or her own fault. From inside your own head: "Yooou weren't saaafe!" chided the now finger-wagging receptionist from your afternoon's dental appointment, after your mugging later that night. And thirdly: This wasn't fun. This was freaking paranoid. As a college student, I didn't want to have a "safe" Halloween. Granted, the life-transforming sort of sophisticated debauchery I envisioned, always to the tune of some woozy old Bowie song, never quite materialized; but still. Likewise, for this and other occasions that are Supposed to be Fun, who wants to be told that someone's fearing for your life? Talk about a downer, man.
But, holy shit. I realize now that I've joined the ranks of the legion of warners. What I want to know is whether there are still more people whom actual fear prompts to say such things to people. Are you out there? Where do you stand, Henshaw, on the eve of this Labor Day Weekend, which will be safe for some and unsafe for others and who knows on which side of that line any of us stands on this Friday afternoon?
1. This webcomic called xkcd, which Marshall alerted me to.
2. This weekend's upcoming visit from Marshall.
Just because you're paranoid.
I was nervous about typing that, up there. No: fearful. This book I'm writing, about well, death, has fed into an previously-held superstition with regards to speaking excitedly about the future. I'm constantly concerned that my loved ones will have fiery accidents on the way to birthday parties, family holidays and bar gatherings. These accidents will be, secretly, my fault. I caused both the plane's engines to fail because I expressed a naive excitement about reunion at the upcoming happy event.
I talked with a friend recently and discovered she harbors the same fear. Before her s.o. leaves the house each day, she must tell him, "Wear your seatbelt! And be careful on the Interstate!" We do the same thing, she and I: Search our minds for potential disasters and then name them aloud out of some superstitious belief that doing so puts us one up on Evil Fate. Or, if not one up, then at least we've voiced aloud a healthy respect for its power. And maybe we just can't be surprised if the worst does occur. (Laughable, of course.)
I don't know about my friend, but for me, it's like I'm bracing myself. I feel real stabs of fear at those moments when I warn people against walking on the side of the road without the sidewalk on the way to my house, although I keep my voice light and casual when I do it. I don't want them to think I'm crazy or that I think they have no sense. But really, it has nothing to do with their actions; crazy things happen every day beyond anyone's control. What I'm doing is between me and fate, alone. It's an incantation, a spell. "Watch out for crazy drivers" means now those drunken lane swervers will steer clear of you, and "Pack a lunch for your trip," means I've now evaporated potential disguntled fastfood employees armed with uzis into the ether. At least for you. At least for you, my dear, my friend.
For a long time, hearing Channel Eleven Holiday Greeting proclaim its innocuous, "Have a Safe and Happy Fourth," or "Have a Safe and Happy Groundhog's Day" or whatever, drove me nuts. How false a well-wish is that? It says, "I wish for you on this celebrated day the bare-minimum of no permanent injury or scarring." Besides, it's condescending. Your viewers: this uniform group of eight-year olds about to shut off their TVs to run out into the streets, scissors in one hand and lit bottle-rockets in the other.
And the acceptance of the "Have a safe" whatever, or the infinitely more cloying "Be safe," only grew. Now it was an acceptable send-off from the office on Fridays. Now it was an acceptable send-off before your trip to Vegas, a place where a certain kind of lack of safety is supposed to be the entire point.
It was wildly unacceptable to me. First: the condescension, and second, the implication that you could control anything that happened to you, that you could make yourself "Be safe;" it made anything unsafe that befell the greet-ee his or her own fault. From inside your own head: "Yooou weren't saaafe!" chided the now finger-wagging receptionist from your afternoon's dental appointment, after your mugging later that night. And thirdly: This wasn't fun. This was freaking paranoid. As a college student, I didn't want to have a "safe" Halloween. Granted, the life-transforming sort of sophisticated debauchery I envisioned, always to the tune of some woozy old Bowie song, never quite materialized; but still. Likewise, for this and other occasions that are Supposed to be Fun, who wants to be told that someone's fearing for your life? Talk about a downer, man.
But, holy shit. I realize now that I've joined the ranks of the legion of warners. What I want to know is whether there are still more people whom actual fear prompts to say such things to people. Are you out there? Where do you stand, Henshaw, on the eve of this Labor Day Weekend, which will be safe for some and unsafe for others and who knows on which side of that line any of us stands on this Friday afternoon?
Labels: home life, subbacultcha
posted by Alice at 11:50 AM
1 Comments:
I like "take care" - it only covers the part the person can control, like not running with scissors, or wresting gators. I say it a lot.
And I think it's a common feeling, when you've been lucky in family and friendships to fear there is Another Shoe up there, just waiting for it's moment. I come from a family of four. When three of us get in a car together, there's always a tiny bit of fear...
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