I saved these on my PC because I loved them so much :) They really spoke to me as I continue to try to get out a depressive funk I've been in for a long time, and spark up my life! Thanks, Cary.

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Monday, August 08, 2005

Dear Lost,

Society is a gun. Don't point it at yourself. Society is a disease. Wash your hands frequently.

How to live in society without being killed by it? I do not know. It takes a little more out of you every day. It seduces you out of your seductiveness. It coats you with white flour. It makes your voice sound strange. It puts you in a uniform. It wears you down.

You could live in an apartment full of drag queens and record-store clerks for the rest of your life. There are such apartments to be had, though the rents have gone up.

You could tell your parents all about yourself or you could let them guess. Either way, you will not be understood.

Life is not something you can ace like a test. It's messy, glorious and strange, filled with blowhards like me who say things like "Life is messy, glorious and strange" and "society is a gun" like some 1950s beatnik. (I would march with the beatniks if I could.)

Become friends with queer people in their 60s. Talk to them. Talk to veterans of Stonewall and be prepared for a world as empty of theory as a brick wall. No matter what you say to it, you cannot persuade it.

Rejoice in your singularity. Get used to being alone. Accept that society is out to crush you -- but not because it is malevolent! Is the common cold malevolent? That's its nature: to make you sneeze.

Your job is simple, really. It needn't be complicated by tortuous contemplation about what you reveal and what you hide. Neither hide nor reveal. Just be. It's not your job to figure it out. It's the job of society, that ravenous beast of sameness, that gravel-crushing machine.

And one day, like me, assuming you survive, you will say to people in their 20s: You know what's really terrifying -- more terrifying than the deadening effect of society? It's that, bit by bit, completely of your own accord, you eventually become so boring that you want to stomp yourself in the face with a boot.

Which you cannot do because your knees are too stiff.

I am so happy that the Salon editors did not waste their time dignifying your silly complaint with a response. Hopefully that taught you a lesson.

Yeah, it did. It taught me that they don't give a flying monkey fuck how I feel. So I didn't renew my Premium subscription.

I guess they showed me.

"Lone Cow" -- I think someone already mentioned this one. I still read this letter from time to time because the answer was so good. [about the grad student who wanted a deep & meaningful relationship but couldn't find one]

"Mrs. Heartbroken" -- the lady whose husband wouldn't have sex with her. I still read this one from time to time as well since it really resonated with me.

"Getting too used to the word 'Spinster'" -- excellent & nonjudgmental response to a question about meeting the right person.

Secondary favorites:

--the one from the woman who feared being asexual. Great, great response.

--"Wits' End" - the lady who feared her musician husband was going to leave her. Another terrific response.

--"In between a relative & a hard place" -- was going through a similar situation at the time of this letter which helped me personally.

April 7, 2007

Help! I'm avoiding and hiding again!

I get into these states where I just can't do anything and stuff starts to fall apart.

By Cary Tennis

I want to know if LW did something about it. How and What?

Thank you!

"If you fail the exam, or if you pass the exam, there's still a universal exam held every day, for which you study all the time. Every time you drop your coins on the sidewalk or get turned down for a job or somebody cuts you off on the road, you're taking the universe's pop quiz on minor adversity. And every now and then there's the big exam on the subject of getting the one thing in life you really want; and again, whether you get what you want or don't get you want, what you do about it is still the test that matters.

"Here's another quick thought: The important thing is not how you distinguish yourself, whatever reputation you achieve for yourself, but whether you're able to do any good in the world. It doesn't matter what people think of you and your achievements. What matters is whether you are actually useful to anyone else. It sounds as though you have equipped yourself, through your educational efforts, to make yourself supremely useful in the world, regardless of whether you pass the licensing exams."

I haw-haw all the time. Love to laugh. Just don't like pornish visions of young girls, and didn't expect it from Cary.

I didn't want the intrusive vision of him shouting this stuff while red in the face and sweating...

And yup, I was distressed by the fixation on juvenile girls. I don't care if it's a frequent porn theme, (since when is ubiquitous the definition of acceptable?).

I don't accept it. It degrades girls as the whole culture does rampantly, and I have a daughter. Enough said. You either get it or you don't.

So I protest. Nothing else I can do.

To the poster below who took offense at Cary's "dirty talk."

I am so happy that the Salon editors did not waste their time dignifying your silly complaint with a response. Hopefully that taught you a lesson.

In the real world, people who are very sensitive or easily offended do not write letters to Salon spewing their private sex fantasies. They save that for private therapy/counselings/talks with close friends, whatever.

Cary's response was highly entertaining. And that is what his column is entertainment for the thinking crowd.

And as for your discomfort with the high-school cheerleader riff, please. Just read the slut-o-ween piece. Adults wear this as a sexy Halloween costume. This has been standard-issue mainstream fantasy fodder since... like forever!

You certainly can't please all the people. But I hope that those of us with a sense of humor aren't beaten down and bullied by the oversensitive crowd!

2-4-6-8- who do we appreciate...CARY-CARY-CARY!!

[twirls, shakes pompoms suggestively, and sinks into splits]