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July 9, 2001
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July 9, 2001
I'll Huff and I'll Puff
My father threatened to blow my head off with a rifle. Well, he didn't actually say anything to me — his ex-girlfriend told me. And she didn't say he actually said it to her either; that he could come here with a rifle was just her impression after having lunch with him. (He never does say anything. "Driving the truck" meant picking up drugs and guns in Mexico; to "have a talk" with someone in the old days was to break their legs. After killing a little dog to keep it from alerting the police searching for my father, he described it as "convincing him not to bark.") He and I fought over money and visitation rights a month ago, and I hadn't seen him or answered his calls since. "It's better to make up with him than to get your head blown off," reasoned my father's ex, pulling blades of grass from the cracks in my stone steps and examining them.
Having been in the public eye my entire adult life, and being wont to correspond with schizophrenics, this was not my first death threat. After abruptly cutting off correspondence with a Vietnam vet, I received an envelope filled with something like powdered poison. I threw it away, but every place I'd touched with powdered fingers — my knee, my forehead, my neck — came up in giant, red lumps. I had to go to the hospital, a stumbling Cyclops with a goiter. Since I didn't have health insurance, that piece of mail cost me $450.
What was I to do now — get a restraining order? Against my own father, who has never laid a hand on me and goes to work every night at the plant and hasn't said a single threatening word to anyone? Besides, murder victims always have restraining orders. They're a prelude to murder, like pinning a carnation on a dress before the prom. I called A Safe Place, and they said get a cell phone, program it to 911, and keep it with me always. And be vigilant. Me, vigilant, with my twenty years of insomnia, my memories of uniformed men busting down the door and taking my father away and shining a flashlight in my eyes while rummaging through my possessions? No problem!
If my father did come over, what would I say? "Go away, I think you're going to murder me"? No, I would have to let him in. So I didn't answer the door for a week. I stayed upstairs with the shades drawn. I felt like I had low muscle tone — it was hard to move. When Fed-Ex or the mailman showed up, I looked both ways and darted out. I tried to imagine every scenario possible so I'd have an absurd reaction ready. Bernadette suggested that. She said people hellbent on vengeance get confused when your response isn't "right" (scared, defensive). So I thought of absurd things to say. "You're going to kill me, you say? How about a banana? I love bananas!" I wondered if he would want to have sex before the end. I mean, why not, at that point? I tried to imagine how that would happen, too, to ready my absurd response, but I couldn't. I never have been able to. I see his hands on my neck turning me around and that's it, it always dissolves there.
When I was a kid, my dad would tell me about things he had to do. Like the guy who owed him $500. If people found out one person got away with cheating my father, then no one would pay up. So my father entered his house through the window. He didn't put a silencer on the gun — the guy lived in a sleazy section that the police didn't much care for, and my father wanted everyone to know he'd done it. Just that one time. That was the first one. After that he got stealthy. He told me these stories so seductively; they were our secret. When I got married the first time at nineteen, my father grew suspicious of me and claimed he'd fed me wrong details all along about his "activities" — places, times — so that if I ever went to the police, it would look like I was crazy. Just maybe, he never did any of that stuff. Perhaps he simply liked to talk to me like that, about murder. When I called my father four years ago to say my mother was dead, he said, "Of course she is. You killed her." My mother had cancer of the stomach and brain. At the end, the doctors gave her three to five more days — three if I authorized stopping liquid feeds. She was in a morphine/pain/terror nightmare and I authorized it. He says he's going to get away from me so I can't kill him, but he never does get away.
And now I was afraid he'd kill me. All he did was have a look on his face, just gave an impression to a third party, and to me that was death on my head and I had to go to him and make up and give him what he wanted.
Except I didn't go. He doesn't have to know it's because I was too scared; he can think it's because I got out from under him this time, that I'm free. In fact, I'm sort of wiggling out from under his thumb, very slowly, if I'm moving at all — not triumphantly casting it off and rising up whole and mighty. I can't get him out of my fingers. Writing is how I think, and I keep coming back to him, like a daddy's girl. I look like him, I walk like him, I'm stubborn and manipulative like he is — everyone says so. Who knows? Maybe I like it.
I was lying in bed with Dave. I said, "What if a giant were kneeling outside our house and he stuck his six-foot penis through the wall into our bedroom — do you like that?"
"No, I do not like a six-foot penis in my house."
"Big pulsing veins . . . I think you do like it, Dave." I reached under his half of the sheet.
"See? I'm not hard."
"You're half-hard, and I've only been talking about it for fifteen seconds! You're going to come to love the giant penis. We could get on top of it naked and have sex — it would be vibrating under your bum."
"Ew!" said Dave.
We lay there for a few minutes, then I remembered something. "Hey Dave, where's the tarp we bought that time we went camping?"
He didn't know — maybe in the basement. Why?
"Because I was thinking we could get that and coat it with all the lotion and shampoo in the house, and then rub it back and forth along the giant penis head — me on one side, you on the other, like folding a sheet."
"You're sick," was Dave's only comment on my brilliant plan.
"Okay, if I tell you this, you're really going to be hooked. The giant says in his big voice: 'Get me off now. You better do a good job or I'm going to beat you to death with my cock.'"
I was right: he was hooked.
There is a six-foot penis in our house that threatens to beat us to death. It's my father, or my poison pen pal, or my kidnapper. It's my longing for a man like this, and Dave's longing, too — only he'd never let himself invite them in. He lets me do it for him. Our marriage is me, Dave and the six-foot deadly penis. I suspect every couple has a hidden third. Like me, Dave wants to be told he has to please the six-foot penis; he pretends to try, and then how he loves to taunt and evade the much stronger, much more masculine foe every time. We hold hands under the giant penis and plot our escape. I wonder if I make all this up, if Dave is leading a normal life with me and all this is in my head. Whether it's under the shadow of authority that Dave and I hold hands and conspire, or whether the shadow is my own insanity — either way, I think this is a pretty good life.
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Lisa Carver and Nerve.com, Inc. | |||||
Commentarium (40 Comments)
what a great piece, I feel the terror and I doubt it's just in your head, if it weren't really there then dave wouldn't really be there either.
Viva Lisa!
Huh?
Nice oedipal story. Some say all stories are oedipal, only in this one, you really do kill your mother. Dave will protect you from your wishes....sure he will.
You really got me thinking about that "third
> > party" theory. Yep, I think that's true. Every
> > relationship is built around a dynamic that is
> > established early on and never goes away. It
> always
> > lurks just beneath the surface and can emerge
> > unpredictably. It
> can
> > be annoying, but it also is a vestigal reminder of
> the
> > original spark of lust and excitement that
> consumes every couple in the beginning of
> a
> > relationship. So, when it rears its head, it can
> > result in a big fight, fabulous sex, or both.
> > Keep up this focus in your columns, please! Every
> > installment for weeks now, has had great insights
> and
> > I LOVE the way you parallel impulsive acts with
> > deep-seated motives.
it totally worked. blade of grass detail yes yes yes. you complicated your observations. i can see the ufo at the end, the blue light. you didnt sell out his hideous charm.
"parallel impulsive acts with deep seated motives"... oh yes this is good, jdv, did you ever think about being a shrink or a reviewer of some sort? You,jdv, see the things I could think vaguely but never express in words. Fun. LC, this is a very ballsy piece. I think you needed to do it though. Great work, heartfelt. But that sounds retarded. Heartfelt when we are dealing with paternal death threats sounds trite, to say the least.
Lisa, I got your mail today. I was reading your diary entry and I must say, you have a really strange father. From what I infer he's a little whacked out, but I don't think he will actually, physically hurt you so don't worry. He hasn't done it before and he won't start now. I think you are beginnig to feel the male authority figure opressing you for the first time (the six foot penis), maybe that's just me. Just relax and take care of yourself.
as usual, this reads like some juvenile weblog.
I have to hand it to Lisa for managing to get *paid* to do what thousands of others do for free : incoherently spew badly written and usually implausible dreck about their sad and tame , yet still unsavory personal lives.
And you trained numbnuts fawn over this shit! Just like you are told to.
Lisa : you are only qualified to work in a bowling alley or a massage parlor. You haven't got the insight, brains or talent for the serious writing game. Anais Nin you ain't.
No one is listening. Give up your silly aspirations and suck dicks or sling scrapple - something you are capable of.
You are no writer, never will be.
what a boring complaint, not even a good juicy attack in the whole thing. So I'll change the subject-isn't Rufus Wainwright hideous? Why is that priss on my magazine's cover? Yuck. This whole archetype of pasty, narcissistic, bohemian slut for gay dudes is really turning me off and I can't listen to something like the Magnetic Fields (which I have to admit has its qualities) without picturing it vividly. Is anyone else having this problem? oh and keep up the good work, love xoxo Anais Nin p.s. don't invoke me, retard
"Anais Nin you ain't"... what an odd 'insult' of sorts. Anais Nin was dismissed by her detractors as a hack writer of erotic literature. Her diaries, at the time, were not taken seriously as literature. So this asinine attempt at telling Lisa her next career move was hilarious, at best. Gosh, you have a LOT of anger towards this writer don't you? You don't HAVE to read it, right? Or is someone holding your eyeballs to the computer? As for me, I do like to be told what to like, what to read, what to wear. I enjoy submissiveness. I'm a good consumer.
Actually, working in a massage parlor or a kitchen -- and I've done both -- DO require talent and insight, as well as organization and social intelligence. I find writing a lot easier.
What is it with you Lisa? Even your retort to MK is completely bloodless and lacking teeth. I'm coming to the conclusion that you are lazy, why else watch would you watch soap operas. You're reusing your own imagery; there just isn't any excuse for that. You say that writing is how you think. Well, there is some muddled thinking going on, bordering on incoherence. You write because it's easier??? NO ONE worth reading writes because it is easier. You are all over the place and it's not a pretty picture. Even your claque has dwindled to the loyal JVD, who sounds as if he too is losing his enthusiasm as he directs you, and sls who hasn't been around long enough to feel the confusion. I don't have to read what you write. I was just hoping I would want to.
This piece is NOT all over the place. It unfolds in movements that are related to one another. It shows how psychic processes and identity are in part mediated through and created by thought and language, how survival strategies are a painful and beautiful double-edged sword, birthing an internalized antagonist or dance / sex partner, intimately linked to the pain they negociate yet also carrying a creative, renewing force that rockets right out of the boxing ring. If people's expectations are not being met by reading this column, perhaps they should challenge their expectations and where they got them from instead of trying to pick fights with marginally substantiated blanket statements about someone's global writerly worthiness. How does one - and why SHOULD one - retort to such things? What Lisa pointed out about jobs shows up the classism and elitism of her detractors - factors which may tie into their unfulfilled expectations - with exceptional grace.
"rockets out of the boxing ring" with a mixed metaphor like that, CP, Lisa doesn't need you defending her writing.
"You haven't got the insight, brains or talent for the serious writing game. Anais Nin you ain't. No one is listening."
When I read poorly written essays, I never even think or bother to write feedback, let alone something so venemous and judgemental as to determine the writer's next career move! Also, I would never venture a guess as to the writer's intelligence level from reading an essay. And the line "no one is listening" is just plain wrong. There are lots of us who have been around since Rollerderby days and we are diehard fans. I'd say thousands. So we can only wonder at this feedback writer's true intentions, or even the feedbackers own 'career'. I wonder if this person has ever done anything worthwhile so we can assess that (whatever travesty that may be) and critique it. But, I doubt it. This mean person is probably just a failed artist. Failed artists,talentless people, and parents (including my own father) are good at that: telling others they will never amount to anything. I'm laughing, because Lisa already has achieved success. I'm sure this kind of 'critique' has no effect on Lisa either, she is probably immune to losers telling her in a wisecracking tone to flip scrapple. This flamer is just jealous his dick ain't gonna be sucked by the venerable Lisa C!
Viva Lisa!
"This whole archetype of pasty, narcissistic, bohemian slut for gay dudes is really turning me off."
YESSS!!
I know too many of the type already. That was my sentiment exactly. Unfortunately, Nerve is not the only one tooting this pompous ass's horn. oh well, it was funny that was your topic-changer, to say the least.
you people are dancing about architecture. you really arent saying anything about anything and the feedback section is now a graveyard of repulsive cloying ambition--from fans and playahatas alike. the real question isnt really 'Why read Lisa's column each week', but more 'Why in hell do I click to read the feedback anymore?' ...but answer me this instead: why does stevie nicks voice sound like a corpse with a vibrator jammed in it, yet I love it so? xoxo anais nin
Oh NM, just COME to the conclusion that I'm lazy and be over with it! You want me to be like you but better, and that's never going to happen. Our standards are at opposites. When you catch me re-using imagery, I only think, "Doesn't she know that's what obsession IS?" Sad-tame-unsavory will always reflect the times and a real soul better than, say, Napoleon's diary. That's why I didn't argue with MK when he called me those things, or with you for being disappointed that I'm not sweating and agonizing more. Do you think that showing teeth and blood is to leap on a mixed metaphor (CP's) and throttle it? I LIKE the image of rockets coming out of a boxing ring. Is perfection what people really want? At least the soaps aren't picayune in their assessment of human nature. I think anais should do more voices!
Lisa GOT you, NM, she shore dang did!
heehee,
I work with artists and know what obsession is.Your work is not obsessive. I thought it had that promise, but no. That is why I complain. I have a thing about wasted potential. Sue me. The material is there but you fend it off, you don't succumb.By the way, the whole reason for being of soap operas is to present human nature exactly as small, insignificant, petty and mean. When you claim the opposite you reveal muddled thinking again.Yes I want you to be better than me, that's why we view/read art, for someone to give expression to what we cannot. I get angry that you are satisfied so easily and superficially. As for my standards and expectations, I will never settle for less.
Wow, throw people a curve and they jump out of the batter's box. Life ain't linear and neither are Lisa's (or any good writer's) pieces. I've never felt as real as when I'm being petty because what's pettiness but a survival instict? Hahaha. I have no idea what I'm talking about. If people can't see the connection between a fucked up parent and a gnawing presence informing actions, then I guess those people live in bubbles. And I'm not some yesman, I just don't like misguided or misinformed criticism.
Lisa,
"And should I then presume/
And how should I begin?"
- T.S.Eliot
Forgive me: I'm a quote-freak. I figure, if someone can say it better than me, well. I was put onto Nerve (and more specifically, your Diary) a couple weeks ago by a friend. I started at the beginning and have been - essentially -reading your life (or, certain focused parts of it) since then. It has been like some twisted time-lapse photography flick where, instead of a flower blooming, or traffic rushing by on a busy intersection, it's your sex/love-lives unfolding at a galactic speed. I can't decide whether that has heightened the experience for me, or sucked all the day-to-day humanity out of it...I guess I'll know when I get to the end and wait for your life to develop in bi-weekly installments like everyone else -- which is kinda quaint in and of itself. BUT, what I really wanted to tell you was something I'm sure you hear all the time: Thanks. Even if that word - in connection with your writing - has lost some of the oomph! it once had, maybe one more well-intentioned drop in that bucket isn't such a bad thing. I really respect the way you wrap yourself around language. I find myself pausing after certain passages because of the unique way you express universal feelings ("I felt like I had glitter in my lungs"). I enjoy reflecting on my own sexuality after your eye-opening experiences and then poking at my delicate borderlands. And, I get genuine laughs from things you have seen and done and the way you convey them (until I read you, I never knew what I was missing by not having my own arch-enemy). I love words and all the possibility that comes with them. They are as infinite as the palette of human experience, so they're a fine match. And the way you marry the two is a neat thing, so thanks for sharing. I'm glad I found someone who takes one of the most complex acts of humanity, and plumbs its depths with style. I better stop -- people say I'm long-winded...which prompted me to make my own quote one day (I can't say it better than me in this instance!):
"They say a picture is worth a thousand words; I usually take the thousand words."
7/13/01 (<-- spooky!)
see, all these sticks-in-the-mud come in, but don't forget, Lisa, there are people like RAT who stumble in and read them all- and have to say something real good.
Can they make it so it charges people to post here? They deserve to pay for being so revolting in public. If I hear one more shitty antisocial or asskissing essay on the totally unqualifiable (taste/talent), I will get addresses, find skyscrapers, and open fire. And I dare you regulars to go away for a month and send your sentiments in private email to Lisa. Then maybe the fish, bunnies, Truffula Trees and the Lorax would come back to the fucking feedback section and frolic. In other words: YOULL BURN IN HELL FOR THIS --AND THE REST OF US WILL GO ON TO BE SHINY SHINY PIECES OF JESUS. Thank you and good day xoxo Anais
oh dear, anais. you are a tortured artist yourself. There ARE people in this world, who can't write, and love to read and know another, who can happen to spell out thoughts of this world. Then there are those in that grey area who can write, can paint, and they still love Lisa's work as well. And then the other,third, surly group: who are quite wordy yet demanding and scathing--nothing to wish on anybody. Can't write themselves; can't find joy in others' observations. We need them though, us joyous artists, we need to see and hear them and say; if I am to create art, beauty, then this is what I should not be. It is a good reminder to eschew hate. We need the darkness to go on.
Anais: You amuse me. Will you be my arch-enemy? I've never had one.
Scathing and demanding, sound like Lisa's kind of people! Other than those two words, I'm not sure what you said there bb, but it gave me a yeast infection. The day I use the word "tortured" or "joyous" trying to analyze art is the day popsicles are sold in Satan's backyard. And no I won't be your archenemy, you are bloodless, and I'm just an alter-ego proving a point by outdoing everybody's narcissism. It's the American law of attack: if you can't beat 'em, oversaturate 'em. Look, maybe nobody told modern writers this, but I don't mind doing it: YOU ARE NOT ROCK STARS. YOU ARE NOT PERSONAE. YOU ARE NOT INTERESTING. There, now that this is out of the way maybe we can talk about something tangible in here? Like what's everybody's favorite hit on the radio these days--I've really been rocking out to I'm like a motherfucking Bird by Nelly Furtado lately. You? Anais.
Rat: Thanks for your thanks. Anais: Surely you jest about that awful bird song! Your Stevie Nicks is always singing that she's this or that -- a gypsy, a white-winged dove. Even when she seems to be singing about some king somewhere, you know it's really about her. But she had mystique ... maybe she IS a king somewhere. This accessible and nice-seeming Nelly woman should NOT boast of her birdiness though. I just don't believe her. She's not like a bird! She's like a Nelly!
If you listen to Madonna's Live To Tell, it goes on and on about her secret story and the kicker is.. there isn't one!! Same with Fiona Apple's line "my big secret...gonna win you over..." - there is no secret! So I agree with you. But man were those outfits cool, Stevie, my scarf is off to you. Re: Nelly, I don't believe her either, but Swedish people make good music. They did a great job on NSYNC's last record, anyway. I just heard Journey for the first time--is it true you like them!?? I heard scientists found if you listen to that too much you become sterile. Oh wait, that was Winger. You know, what I don't get is Nelly's name. Sounds like the name of a Fraggle.
Hmm, all this defining of identities through narrowing. How limiting. Enjoy the diaries for what they are. Or hate them, but they must be pushing some buttons if the detractors keep on coming back. Maybe all you youngsters (never heard Journey until recently!!??) would rather hear about the orgies and the crazy sex. Well, I think Lisa's got like 3 years of that in the Nerve archives. But that shit gets boring after awhile. At least it does to me, an old boring married guy.
Anais- i bet you run that website "the misanthropic bitch". Is that you? Did you ever consider anger management instead of written spew?
Only the best arch-enemies turn down the opportunity to be one. Alas, you must belong to another. Or several, considering.
Don't use the word "you" so often, it makes one sound irate. And I don't get how your comment connects to the Furtado discussion at hand...
Concerning "I'll Huff and I'll Puff"
I didn't get the part about the giant penis.
-Jeff
There are consecutive sentences that pretty much say exactly what the metaphor is, Jeff. What's hard to get? No insult or pun intended.
This is the worst most lifeless prose I have read in a long time
some is pretty good
The six foot penis threatening to destroy the house gave me a small, but significant, woody.
Anais Nin never gave me any woody at all.
mjp: What is a small but significant woody? You mean it didn't get SO hard, but it meant a lot to you? Has anyone else experienced these in life?
Now you say something