Godammit, I’m Mad!

When I was little, I loved mermaids. I loved the illustrations in my book of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales. I drew pictures of mermaids over and over, draping them in strings of pearls.

Now that I’m addicted to tumblr, I’ve discovered that mermaids are more popular than almost any other image. A mermaid also encompasses two hugely popular tumblr subjects: Tits, and women submerged in water. While tits need no explanation, the drowning women are disturbing.  Paintings of Ophelia tend to be lovely and melancholy, but depictions of modern women floating under water or laying dead in bathtubs are reminders that people like to see women in jeopardy (if not actually dead.)

Mermaids are always beautiful and young, so that aspect of their attraction is obvious. In mythology and folklore, Mermaids are sirens who lure sailors to their death.  Do men find this danger seductive?

More important, mermaids have no genitals. Do men love them because of this or in spite of it? Does it relieve them of performance anxiety? I’m convinced that the anatomy issue is key somehow.

For me as a child, The Little Mermaid was a beautiful fantasy of a daughter who was loved by her family and showered with jewels.  I didn’t really understand why she would leave her home. I wanted a home filled with love and warmth. I didn’t feel good about her deal with the sea witch. The prince seemed kind of dimwitted not to recognize her or to intuit her love for him.

Later on, I remember reading The Little Mermaid to little Max, at bedtime. The book I read to him was an old unabridged translation of the original Hans Christian Anderson stories. It probably took several nights to get to the end, and I was so engrossed in the story that I forgot what was coming. I choked up with tears and tried to think of a way to spare Max the tragic last paragraph: The Little Mermaid threw herself overboard and turned into seafoam, comforted by some angelic sprites who asked her to join them. I think I made something up but I can’t ask Max.

Why do we love a story where the heroine sacrifices everything for love, even suffering constant excruciating pain, and ends up getting nothing but death? Until Disney changed the ending and turned a classic tragedy into a sappy feel-good product to sell other products, it was, for me, an inexplicably melancholy story.  It punishes a girl who seeks adventure and romance, so what else makes it such an enduring favorite?

Theories, memories, insults, anyone?

Rag and Bone Moto Pants with Removable Kilt,  $695 at shopbop*

“It’s called ‘moto’ because _________________.”

~

*Only 2 let!

I’m reading a book about addiction that Max read last year. He told me I might like it. I also remember him writing to his girlfriend that the book caused him to review his childhood, which he always thought was “pretty normal.”

The book, by Gabor Maté, a physician and psychiatrist, is extremely compassionate toward the addict. In fact, he explains at great length why the addict never really had a chance: Improper bonding during infancy harms the infant’s brain and sets him up for addiction.

Maté recounts study after study to underscore his thesis. When rats are removed from their mother for only one hour a day, their brains show damage. In human babies, this faulty bonding fucks everything up. The child is forever doomed to suffering and attempts to extinguish the suffering.

I can’t read too much of this book. Someone needs to do a study on my brain, to show how much harm the book has done.

Maté ends the long chapter about the origins of the addict’s malformed brain by assuring us that he’s not saying it’s hopeless! People can be healed, he says, through the indomitable Spirit that lives within all of us.

Meanwhile, I am compelled to look back in time and question everything. I remember loving my baby at first sight. I remember adoring his every expression, every gesture, every hair on his head. I remember nursing him for 14 months. I remember friends coming over  just to  admire him. I remember dressing him in his little outfits, reading to him, cuddling him, singing to him.

But I was a depressed mother. Depressed mothers ruin the brain as well. I forgot to say that. The baby picks up on the mother’s depression and is irreparably fucked.

I wish I could talk to Max about this. I want to know if he blames me. Or rather, if he forgives me.

His addiction must have been a nightmare for him. So much worse then the nightmare it was for us. It was such a long struggle. I never really felt it was my fault, until now.

My own mother hated me and told me so, but I didn’t want to become a drug addict. There was no comfort anywhere, from anyone, when I was a child. I have my problems but I never wanted to stick a needle in my arm. If everyone with an imperfect or depressed mother needs to escape their pain through opiates, who’s left?

I’m caught in this argument.  Depressed people don’t all become addicts. But my son did, and it’s my fault.

I wish it was nobody’s fault. I wish it was a wrong turn that led to more wrong turns. I wish he had been able to overcome his addiction and the pain that caused it. I wish I could comfort him and convince him that he was loved and he was perfect, addicted or not.

Mothers and children, what are your thoughts?

I was fucking around with my google account when I scrolled through all the options and came to the word “more.” This brought me to a page with the question below: “What do you love?”

I instinctively (and somewhat drunkenly) typed the word baby, and voila! A whole world of baby-related searches appeared, including this one:

Hahahahaha! Isn’t this awseome? Now I can find babies nearby! Don’t tell their mommies that I’m coming to get them!

Here’s another nice google suggestion:

I could also “Explore Babies in 3D” or “Find Patents about Babies.”

Well, that’s my fun activity for a Saturday night. I recommend trying it. And no, since I’m not ten years old I’m not going to try it with “penis,” unless I have more to drink.

I have always hated Dr. Phil, even without seeing his show. It’s just unconscious knowledge that he is a jerk.

This week, everyone on TV is talking about him because of his interview with Casey Anthony’s parents.  He’s been pimping his show with the Anthonys everywhere. And in one discussion, he agreed that the Anthonys had “a menagerie of excuses” for their daughter’s conduct.

ENGLISH,  MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT?

Menagerie is a collection of animals, you fucking idiot Dr. Phil! You can find some online dictionaries that say you can also use it to mean a diverse group of things, BUT YOU CAN”T BECAUSE IT MEANS ANIMALS.

Words matter, remember?

Have you heard anyone misuse a word recently but you couldn’t kill them? Feel free to share your pain.

No matter how awful everything is, Toby Keith has given us a priceless gift in the line about his “daddy’s right eye.”  I laughed at it then and I still laugh when I think about it. Please enjoy his idiotic take on September 11.

~

“Knowing what our core values are and cleaving to them, even in times of testing, must be a lesson when we see the results of situational ethics and temporary, expedient treatment of basic  rights. America should not again panic and overreact to terrorist attacks against this country…….the cost of 9/11 has been billions of dollars spent, an unneeded war, and thousands of lives lost.” -  Richard A. Clark (Former US National Security Chief)

~

For me, September 11 is inextricably linked with Max, who worked at the financial Trade Center, next to the Twin Towers. It took hours before I could make contact and learn that he was okay. He ran for his life and later learned that his office was sheared off by fire.  I was so relieved, and so grateful, and so sorry he had to experience such trauma.

But life is trauma. And that’s why we need Toby Keith to lighten our burden.

I’m excited about (i.e. dreading) tonight’s debate among the Republican presidential candidates.  For those of you who plan to watch, what’s the drinking word??

I am a big fag hag and always have been. I’ll bet it’s politically incorrect to use the term but I think my gay friends are okay with it.  There’s nothing I love more than a gay man who will talk about fashion or just talk shit with me.

I’ve been assured that gay men are not ALL witty and stylish, well-read and opinionated. I’ll have to take this on faith. In my experience, gay men are fun to be around because they are expressive. I feel completely comfortable in the company of gay men.  I may even be a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.

Except for my indifference to Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand, I’m a great big fag. I love to look at men’s clothes and I don’t mine wearing them if they fit nicely. I’m interested in the arts and I appreciated the theatrical in nearly every context. I don’t seek out gay men because they “make me feel safe.” They make me feel stimulated and free to be the bitch I am.

I wish more men were gay! I’m always ready to talk about hunky unattainable models and Dior Homme jeans. My gay friends don’t want to bother me with sports talk or even car talk. I like learning about grinder and I like hearing guys whine about their imaginary weight gain. I can appreciate their attractiveness without sexualizing it. I LOVE being called Doll. It’s all good.

If you’re like me and you enjoy a gay sensibility, you will love http://chateauthombeau.blogspot.com/ , http://fiercerthanyou.com and http://swallowglitter.blogspot.com/ to name just three dazzling websites.

Now. Who wants to chastise me for my terminology or stereotyping or what have you?

ASK A MAN #102: ABOUT NAGGING

“How do I make it sound less like nagging and more like reminding?”
-Sam

“It is of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Samuel is ‘God heard’. Also possibly as ‘requested of God…’”

-thinkbabynames.com

While I’m no expert in regards to dude-on-dude relationships, I’m going to assume that your domestic partnership is just like the traditional male-female relationship only with 100% more man parts involved. Actually since monogomy is as mythical and rare as the female orgasm, most relationships have more knobs involved than your typical mosh pit but fewer than a Congressional session.

Since you’re asking the question instead of giving out answers I’m guessing you take on the female role in your partnership so my advice to you is to use your supernatural ability to imagine ways to improve interior decoration schemes, but use this skill to imagine yourself as the dominant partner. Imagine yourself running around and doing things, making decisions, dealing with immediate situations like bear attacks or “bear” attacks, driving well, and staving off the advancement of the French by recreating log traps you saw in that Swiss Robinson movie. I think there were net traps as well, but few things are as satisfying as felling trees and trimming them down to their trunks, then arranging them using your Y chromosome-endowed engineering skills in a precariously balanced heap in order to crush your enemies like so much foie gras! I don’t know for sure what foie gras is, but it sounds as if it’s mushy and French, so that’s what I meant by that last simile.

So anyway, imagine yourself out there doing things like stacking up gigantic logs and suddenly this person who knows everything but can’t stack logs and doesn’t even uderstand why you’re out there stacking logs in the first place, this person comes out to remind you that… Look, it’s like I can’t even imagine what would need to be reminded about because everything that’s important is being dealt with.

So what you should do is bring out a beer or, in your case, a wine cooler, because stacking logs is sweaty work, then praise the progress on the log trap, hand over the wine cooler, and then as your “husband” takes a swig, look with love and longing at the bulge in his plum-smuggler shorts, and then remind him of whatever it is you happen to think is so important that you have to interrupt the all-important task of shoring up domestic defense against the incursion of foreign threats.

And even though this is the best possible way to “make it sound less like nagging,” it’s still nagging and you shouldn’t do it. He heard your request the first time.

Question answered.

© 2011 Anthony Robert Russo

One of the exciting new features you can look forward to here will be the convenience of A Man to answer your questions regarding male behavior. The feature will be called Ask a Man, and written by my friend Romeo, who is not only male but has served in our armed forces, drives a truck and currently brandishes a forbidding mohawk.

Romeo has always shown a willingness, however reluctant, to answer all my questions and now he will answer yours, too.

Here are the ones that bother me most, or let’s just say they mystify me the most:

When two men greet each other with a handshake, how do they know which kind of handshake to use? If it’s the fist on top of fist, how do they know whose fist goes on top? How do they know whether it’s going to be just an ordinary handshake or a special Bro Shake? What is the signal?

My second question is, why are men so fucking touchy? They can’t take any direct criticism, obviously, but anything that might remotely be construed as some kind of criticism makes them get testy. While they love to open sentences with “You ought to try…” or “Why do you always…” it is strictly verboten to address a man like that unless you want him to snap at you or sulk for an hour. Why are they so thin-skinned??

While I await Romeo’s lucid explanation of these mysteries, feel free to submit your own question for him in the comments. I am looking at this coming Friday as the launch date for Ask a Man.