Short Circuits (12 page)

Fretting certainly does not respond to logic. We
know
it's pointless. We
know
that whatever we're fretting about will resolve itself one way or the other without the fretting. But still we do it.

A case of “simple pleasures,” I guess.

* * *

NEVERENDING

“Johnny, Billy has three apples. He gives Ted two. How many apples does he have left?”

“One, Mrs. Jones.”

“Right, Johnny. Very good. Sally, Jane has three apples. She gives Milly two. How many apples does she have left?”

“One, Mrs. Jones.”

“Right! Excellent, Sally. Roger, Dorien has three apples. He gives Peter two. How many apples does he have left?”

“One, Mrs. Jones.”

“
One?
Roger, how many times must I tell you? If the cohesive tangent of two is divided equally by the square root of 16, the answer is always…
always
five, except when it is 7.8 or 11! Please pay attention! Now, moving on…Gloria, if Albert has three apples and gives Richard two, how many apples does he have left?”

“One, Mrs. Jones.”

“Excellent!”

And thus is paranoia born.

I have had my Mac laptop for two weeks or more, now, and I still haven't the foggiest idea why, if I do something the same way sixteen times, fourteen of those sixteen will be wrong. I have tested myself over and over again. I do something and it works. I go back and do it again, exactly the same way, and I end up watching a YouTube video! I cannot make bigger those things which should be bigger, or smaller those things which should be smaller.

I constantly am merrily working on one thing and suddenly finding myself in a totally different window, necessitating my opening “Documents” then opening “My Writings” then opening “Blogs and Websites” then opening “Dorien Grey and Me” then opening…provided I can find it…the blog I'm working on at the moment. I will suddenly find an entire sentence underlined when I did not underline it and did not want it underlined. And when I try to eliminate the underlining, I go to a YouTube video, necessitating my opening “Documents” then opening “My Writings” then opening…well, you get the picture.

Driven to raging paroxysms of frustration, I call Gary, who stops what he is doing, comes up to my apartment, sits down at my computer, casually extends an index finger, and presses seemingly any key at random, and the problem is solved. What key he pressed, or how pressing it solved the problem, or whether I could press the same key and get the same response is an utter mystery.

I take a perverse pride in having mastered the art of self-loathing. My incompetence is boundless, and I say this in all modesty. But fear not. I am not about to pour myself a tall, cool glass of hemlock. I too strongly agree with Dorothy Parker's lovely poem, “Resume”:

* * *

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WINDOW

Let's face it: I simply do not get it. I never have gotten it, and chances are I never will. I have spent my entire life on the other side of the window, looking in and watching life without really comprehending it.

There are so very many things I have never understood. The entire list is far, far too long to lay out here, but here are just a few.

I've never understood organized religion. From everything I've seen, heard, read, or experienced, it has caused more human suffering than all the plagues and wars—many of which have been fought over religion—in the history of mankind. Despite the occasional notable exception, organized religion has consistently fostered hatred and intolerance and all the things it claims to be trying to counter. I have never been able to comprehend how simply and sincerely following the Golden Rule would not all but eliminate the need for organized religion. I find it infinitely sad that “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” has been corrupted into “Do unto others as you would have done unto them.”

I've never understood organized sports. Enjoying the physical activity in the form of sports makes sense, and provides great exercise. Sitting on an overstuffed sofa or a barstool guzzling beer and scarfing down bowls of popcorn, peanuts, and pretzels while watching people you have never met and never will meet do what you're too damned lazy to do totally escapes me. This week's BIG GAME!!!! over which people seem to drive themselves into an incomprehensible frenzy, was preceded by last week's Big Game and an endless string of long forgotten Big Games before that. It will be followed by an infinite string of others. And their point is…?

I've never understood computer spam. Do these cretins who so blatantly invade my privacy actually, seriously think for one second that anyone who has had a computer for more than two days is going to open a message whose subject line is: “Hi. Bedroom faucet rises the early…” or “We cure all disease” or, worst of all, those little strings of small squares with no text at all? And how could anyone with the intelligence of a hamster actually respond to a letter from a “Barrister” in Nigeria informing you that a billionaire relative you have never heard of has died tragically in a car accident and named you sole beneficiary to his (interestingly, it's always a “his”) estate. But they do, and I truly despair for humanity.

And I've never understood heterosexuals. Never. I've lived among them all my life
(“Why, some of my best friends are heterosexual”
), but have always felt totally apart from them, as though I were a different species. I love my family—heterosexuals all—, am deeply fond of my straight friends, and I like and appreciate many others, but I have never really understood them, and never fail to be mildly infuriated by the automatic assumption of heterosexuals that
everyone
is heterosexual…or should be.

But the primary thing I do not understand, and which has caused me more anxiety, frustration, and grief than all my incomprehensions listed above, is why I am not—and no matter how hard I try, can never seem to be—the person I so desperately want to be. But I take some small consolation in the thought that maybe I'm not the only one standing on this side of the window.

* * *

PERSPECTIVE

My friend Gary and I recently went down to Navy Pier to see the annual Flower Show. It's a big event and attracts busloads of tourists. Navy Pier is, I understand, Chicago's premier tourist attraction, jutting a half mile out into Lake Michigan. The south side of the pier is lined with cruise boats of varying sizes and impressiveness for excursions along Chicago's spectacular shoreline and through the amazing architecture lining Chicago River. On the north side of the pier, tour busses disgorge their passengers.

One or more of the tour busses brought a large number of severely handicapped children and teenagers. Gary and I were having lunch at one of the open-to-the-concourse restaurants, and I was just in the middle of bitching for the ten thousandth time about how terribly brave I am to put up with the terrible burdens of not being able to open my mouth wide enough to eat a hamburger, or tilt my head back far enough to drain a can of soda, or having to wait for the waiter to bring my coffee before I could begin to eat, since I can't swallow anything solid without being able to flush it down with liquid, and watching other people do with ease what I can no longer do, and…when a group of the handicapped kids came by, many in wheelchairs, with their surely-candidates-for-sainthood counselors and attendants.

And I was immediately once again thoroughly ashamed of myself for my unmitigated gall in assuming that the sun and moon revolve around me, and for focusing almost entirely on my own petty problems. We all know that old saw: “I had no shoes and I complained until I saw a man who had no feet,” yet like so many absolute truisms, I—like most people spared true physical and mental challenges do—tend to totally ignore it until something like seeing someone with real problems hits us in the gut. I try not to pity these people: pity is, I feel, a form of condescension, and I have no right to condescend to anyone. For some of them to get through a single day takes far more courage than I will ever possess. But I am truly sad for them.

When I lived in northern Wisconsin, I would frequently see a man with his young daughter, who was probably just entering her early teens. I don't know what condition afflicted her, but while she could walk, she was severely physically and mentally limited. Yet her father was infinitely patient, and loving, and always had a smile. My heart ached for him, and her.

And I've often told the story of the middle-aged man who delivered newspapers to my mother's work. He was, as the condescending euphemism puts it, “slow.” Yet he functioned, and held down a job, and would never, ever accept money from anyone, other than the price of the newspaper…and even then, he would not take the money unless the person offering took the paper. He was, Mom found out, the sole support of both himself and his own mother. One day, one of Mom's co-workers was having a birthday, and had brought a cake. Everyone was in the coffee room when the paper man arrived, and they insisted he come join them for cake and coffee. He was truly delighted, and at one point he said, happily: “This is just like a party!” And I still can't think of that without wanting to cry.

Life is a party. And most of us have far more presents than we ever acknowledge. We ignore that fact at the risk of losing our humanity.

* * *

WORTHLESS

There are those who devote far too much time reflecting on their weaknesses and shortcomings, examining each through a magnifying glass as though they were so many insects-on-pins in a display case. Alas, I am one of them. And while, way down deep, I know I am not being fair to myself, and that I'm not really all that bad, it doesn't change the fact that I've always measured myself against others and inevitably come up short. And I'm talking about it here because, once again, I think I am not totally alone in these negative assumptions, and that you might catch just a glimmer of yourself in me.

Though I cannot be absolutely sure from whence my lifelong, deep-rooted sense of inferiority and unworthiness come from, other than my tendency toward melodrama, I think I have put something of a handle on it.

It most certainly was not the result of my parents' actions. They loved me unconditionally and never criticized me any more than I'm sure any parent criticizes a child. But I think it largely stems from the fact that I have always lived in a world of dreams. I don't think I ever fully was able to separate fairy tales and Santa Clause and all the wondrous things that I found in books from real life. I expected myself to have all the sterling qualities, all the marvelous talents and abilities that the heroes in books and movies had.

I was, I felt, a great disappointment to my father because of my total inability to grasp the concept of organized sports, which he loved. The fact that I was also what I've always unkindly referred to as a “motor moron”—totally lacking in the hand-eye coordination which leads to physical grace—created a very real sense of self-loathing, echoes of which remain with me to this day.

I looked around me and saw how easily other people seemed to be able to interrelate, how effortlessly they understood what was expected of them by life and society, did wonderful things with astonishing grace, and comparing myself to them, how could I not have felt less than they? I could not understand why I could not be what everyone else seemed to be. So many of the things I ached to be, even as a child…graceful, talented, handsome, at ease in any situation, able to fit in anywhere…I knew I was not and never could be. Therefore, obviously, I was inferior and unworthy.

And of course growing up in a world in which a boy who knew he truly, purely loved other boys was constantly told, by the entire world around him that he was an abomination in the eyes of God, would burn forever in the fires of hell, and was generally not a good person, certainly didn't help. (But even as a child I never bought into that nonsense. One of the reasons I had abandoned organized religion by the time I was twelve was because if God considered me to be an abomination, then why was I also told I was made in His image? I was never very good at specious logic, and I got it every Sunday at Sunday school.)

I suspect one of the reasons I concentrate so strongly on my own flaws is because I do not feel qualified to comment on the flaws of others. And besides, I know my own so very much better. And I truly do realize that I am not nearly as bad as I insist upon making myself out to be. It's just that I expect so very much more out of life…and myself…than it is realistic to expect.

Which brings us back to the vast gap between the mind and the body. The mind can do anything. The body has to rely on muscles and nerves and joints and the infinite complexities of the connections between them all. Some bodies are better able to do things than others. And while mine has always been very good to me, and I am infinitely grateful to it, it is simply not able to meet the physical demands my mind makes upon it. And in the end…literally…it is the body which has the final say.

* * *

AS ITHERS SEE US

Robert Burns wrote: “Would but God the gift tae gi'e us, tae see oorselves as ithers see us.” (Better work on that spelling, Bobby!)

Being the consummate egoist, I've often rather coveted that ability, though more careful thought, and reflecting on just how deeply I loathe myself at times, dissuades me from putting in a formal request. We all want to be liked, admired, and respected. (I personally would go for adored and revered, but that's pushing it a bit.)

However, because I spend as little time as possible in the world of reality, I suspect that others' opinions of me might be somewhat different than my own. And they might be skewered further by the fact that people have been very kind to me over the years, leading me to believe that I'm more loveable and cuddly than the facts warrant.