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the saddest blog that ever was
9.05.2003:
my favorite story is nabakov's signs and symbols. i remember a friend of oscars (though i don’t remember his name) reading it from a fiction anthology that randy later stole from me one hot muggy summer day when i still lived in fenwick and was still in love with jesse. he said he liked it until the "questions to ponder" or whatever its called section that such books insert to facilitate critical responses to the text. he said that ruined everything. i understood perfectly. later on, nick read it in my tiny cramped 'bedroom' on Idaho street with the glass doors and ceiling fan and mouse poop hidden underneath the dresser. i don’t remember anything from that except him saying: "as i was reading this i just kept thinking 'this is cathy's favorite story. this is cathy's favorite story.'" i'm sure he put in more eloquently, as is nick's way, but i never knew if he ever even enjoyed signs and symbols. i guess i put too much weight in such stories. but i'm grateful for it and him. because that's my thing. other people have lust, fame, glory, greed, spirituality, love, pursuit of knowledge ect ect. i have to preoccupy me the 'incalculable amount of tenderness contained in the world' and its fate, its amor fati. the story is about a young boy and his parents and a telephone ringing deep in the recesses of the night. it begins like this: "For the fourth time in as many years they were confronted with the problem of what birthday present to bring a young man who was incurably deranged in his mind. He had no desires. Man-made objects were to him either hives of evil, vibrant with a malignant activity that he alone could perceive, or gross comforts for which no use could be found in his abstract world." this boy had a system, though it was a delusional one. it was this delusion that made his mother think of that 'incalculable amount of tenderness contained in the world'; "of the fate of this tenderness, which is either crushed, or wasted, or transformed into madness; of beautiful weeds that cannot hide from the farmer and helplessly have to watch the shadow of his simian stoop leave mangled flowers in its wake, as the monstrous darkness approaches." yet what i like most about nabakov and what holds me breathless each time is how unsparing he actually is, how he moves on with such supple grace, leaving behind only a hint of a memory-trace, the imprint of a cathexis of exigency hidden behind a mantel of absolute mastery and strength. he is not a sentimentalist. he loves his fate.
there was a boy at sens house for a weekend when i went to visit. i was hungry and hungover and generally unhappy and so i decided to walk to jackinthebox for some jalapeno poppers (which i had been craving since monday), two tacos, a chicken sandwich and an order of fries. when i got back i offered him and everyone else food since first of all there was just so much of it and second he looked hungry, and furtive, trying to restrain himself from staring at my fries but not on the whole succeeding. since he had been so nice to me when i called at an ungodly hour for a sunday afternoon looking for sen (who was fast asleep ensconced in between fur and aimee and more fur) and placated me about cell phones and boys and other matters of which he had no interest in, i insisted. he took one, stumbled, gave it back, saying: "i'm trying to watch my weight." i thought it was really weird for a skinny boy to ponder such issues as dieting and then admit them so i shrugged and left him alone for the rest of the day. a couple of hours later, he raised his voice from across the far end of the couch over sen, aimee, joe and rambo III: bloodsport on the television to say: "you should have our pin." i said: "okay." he ambled over the piles of enervated bodies and sylvester stallone gunning down gooks to pin a little black and white thing to my black and white dress. they matched perfectly. most people did not seem to like patrick, very much or at all. he was crass and rude, though he never was with me, even in the strange naïf emails he sent whose titles included "killing time with valentines" and even though i was not spared from the disturbing obsessions he outlined on his friendster profile with such seemingly profligate glee. i lost that pin he gave me as immediately as we lose our sense of vulnerability and toss it aside with all the rest of the incalculable amounts of tenderness too tough or tiresome to face just being here, standing, waving not drowning. patrick's last log-in was on september 2nd, 2003. he was twenty years old.
Blog // 7:36 PM
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