Author Archives: Christene

The Avenue



It is Sunday morning, and I’am walking up Columbus Avenue. Couples are coming at me on all sides. They fill the street from building line to pavement edge. Some are clasped together looking raptly into each other’s faces; some are holding hands, their eyes restless, window-shopping; some walk side by side, stony faced, carefully not touching. I have the sudden conviction that half these people will, in a few months, be walking with someone else now walking on the avenue as one half of another couple. Eventually that arrangement will terminate as well, and each man and each woman will once again be staring out the window of a room empty of companionship. This is a population in a permanent state of intermittent attachment. Inevitably, the silent apartment lies in wait. 

Who could ever have dreamed there would be so many of us floating around, those of us between thirty-five and fifty-five who live alone. Thirty years of politics in the street opened a door that became a floodgate, and we have poured through in our monumental numbers, in possession of the most educated discontent in history. Yet, we seem puzzled, most of us, about how we go here, confused and wanting relief from the condition. We roam the crowded streets, in naked expectation of the last-minute reprieve. 

-Vivian Gornick

I was reading Vivian’s work, this particular excerpt she included in another piece, originally part of a different work that she has not yet published, and admits may not. Once the delusional years of youth drain away, is this everyone’s fate? Is this what awaits? At some point in your life you come to the realization of who you are, separate from any sort of role you are supposed to fulfill. You can only fail so many times at fulfilling these roles until you must admit your own inability, and then you have to understand that it is not so much an inability, but an unwillingness, deep seated, that makes it impossible to continue ignorantly participating in your own loss of self.

But what do you do with this new knowledge? So now you know what you want, and who you are. And you don’t want to be foisted into another’s expectations of who you should be. And you have to wonder, which was better? The bliss in ignorance, or this new-found facet of self? In recognizing yourself you can no longer ignore the flaws, the fact that at any given point you can boast more baggage than an international airport on Christmas eve, your own selfish desires that simultaneously include and have nothing to do with another person, and the fact that you don’t want to be lonely, but you want to be left alone. Yeah, just *try* making sense of all that.

Others around you have also come to know themselves. I think it happens to most people eventually. But they haven’t the slightest clue what to do with this either. So you have a multitude of people understanding themselves while trying to live parallel lives with someone else, not necessarily fulfilling roles, but existing together, pleasantly. That is the ideal, not reality. The idea of having to be something to someone else is too ingrained, and these parallel lives begin to converge, too much for comfort.

I don’t mean there should not be compromise, because even the most superficial friendships demand a certain level of it. Yes, compromise is a prerequisite, and healthy in and of itself. But how much of yourself are you supposed to give up? I don’t necessarily think there is an answer to this, and it differs, relying on the idea of picking your battles. There might not be a universal answer, but each person has their own answer. The problem is for two people with complementary answers to actually find each other.

How often does that actually happen?

A New Dress

I bought a dress. I know, shocking. But this dress is special because I bought it online, something I have never done before.I have been actively wanting this dress for almost a year now (venus.com).

But what if her mid thigh form fitting dress is past the knee and bulky on me? Yes, I know I can return it, but that seems like quite the hassle.

I have similar dresses, so I know the style works for me. But these were store bought, and tried on a zillion times. (The dress in the picture below is actually very similar in style to the one above, but in a different color and not a turtle neck).

I have been hesitant about online shopping because I have bought tops and jackets online before, and they have never fit properly. The problem is usually the model representation on the site. She looks fabulous, but she has curves, is probably a good five inches taller than me, and has more than likely had the clothes tailored to her exact dimensions.

However, winter is coming, and the dress just went on sale, and I have a new pair of black boots… so…. wish me luck!

Kitty Psychoanalysis

As I was writing one of my recent posts relying on mirror images of creating the self, the article I was reading was heavily laden with Lacanian concepts, including the mirror stage. Further, there was talk of Freud and his analysis of the Fort-da game. For those of you unfamiliar with this study, he observed an infant playing with a toy. The child would throw the toy, perplexed and dismayed by its disappearance, and then retrieve it to find satisfaction. Freud took this to symbolize the child’s yearning for the mother – the toy was a representation of the mother and the child was coming to terms with the fact that even as she leaves, she returns.

Freud obviously didn’t have children.

I have two, and have watched them play that exact game multiple times. How could they miss their mother when I am standing right there?

Which makes me further question Lacan and his mirror stages. He argues that the infant, looking in the mirror, contextualizes himself apart from the mother, realizing for the first time that he is a separate being. First of all, how does he know this? How can he possibly know what an infant is thinking?

I have seen infants looking in the mirror, and if you ask me, they just look confused. I have also seen cats looking in the mirror. Is the cat for the first time realizing it is not human? Has this cat been looking at me this entire time thinking that it was my replica only to be bitterly disappointed by the recognition that it is a different entity? Is the cat’s meow its agonizing realization of this fact? Or does it just want food?

And what if the food is placed in front of a mirror? Does the cat then have to accept the fact that it is not really eating human food but rather a simulacrum in the form of kibble? If so, then each time my cat throws up on my carpet it is due to the cat’s dissatisfaction with the reality of self, as it rebelliously states “take back your faux chicken cutlets!”

The cat’s cleaning habits are then due to its obsession towards reclaiming the self, a purifying process arising from the death of contamination and a return to the innocence denoted by unknowing. The cat is trying to recapture its state prior to gazing in the mirror.

Unable to complete this process it makes peace with the new knowledge through a complete submersion into the hegemony of the home microcosm. Its subservient role lends itself to a dependency upon the master and thus begins the preoccupation with kitty Fort-da. The cat toy becomes a symbol of the caretaker, and as the cat begins to panic as to whether it will be fed that day, it retrieves the toy mouse, momentarily assured of the master’s return.

My God, I should get this published somewhere! Theory courses around the country would be so much more interesting! How has no one else jumped on this already?