My Definition of Hell

You want to know what hell is? Hell is being so attuned to the people around you that you can tell exactly how they’re reacting to you at every moment, but being completely incapable of doing anything to change it. 

I’ve expended so much energy over the years trying to behave in a ways that will make me pleasant to be around, and a good friend. 

For even years at a time I’ll do a pretty good job, and I’ll have friends and I’ll have to keep reminding myself to keep up the friendship. But eventually one of two things will happen: things will slack off to nothing and it will be up to me to get things going again, or I’ll fuck up somehow and the person will decide she no nolger wants my company. Then it will be up to be to make it up. 

There’re all these movels and movies and memes about the power of female friendship. I look at them and I get it, but I also feel like–wow. That is not my life.

But really friendship is only part of the picture. Professional life is a whole other thing. I’ve had jobs where my prevailing feeling, underlying every interaction, is something’s wrong here. This doesn’t feel right. And this is what I think I’m feeling: I think I’m feeling people’s discomfort with me. Whether because of how I look or how I talk or how I smile or don’t smile. Or I’m feeling people simply disliking me. 

Please don’t tell me that I can’t feel people disliking me. Because I’m just going to go ahead and put some trust in my own perceptions over several decades. All this time I’ve been trusting everyone else when they tell me I’m just imagining it, or I’m projecting my own discomfort. Beause you know what? Maybe it’s not actually paranoia when they really are out to get you. 

I’m telling you truly right now: I weird people out. And to not weird people out is simply beyond my ken. And you know what else? Maybe I’m sick of trying.

You Can’t Tell Anyone the Truth

That life is so hard you think you’ll die from how much it hurts to just live through a day and get your kids to school and not be a complete piece of shit all the time–just a partial piece of shit.That you love your kids so fucking much, and you know that you’re failing them every day.

That long weekends are hell because you all have to be together as a family for an extra day. And the Saturday night after Thanksgiving you think: well, only tomorrow left, and you just have to survive that.

That since having kids, your week has flip-flopped and Sunday is the new Friday, and Friday is the new Sunday: full of dread and anticipation. And Saturday is Monday: just the longest slog. And Monday is Saturday: one big sigh of relief.

Do people really live like they do in ads and on Facebook and in casual social encounters? I think maybe they do. I think we must be freaks. If we’re not, and this is how people really live, lots of us…I don’t even know what that means.

Correspondence: On Smut

Regarding smut and its ability to slip in: as you might have guessed, I have no problem with that! I love smut and I think it serves a number of readers’ needs beyond tittilation. Or perhaps I should say, tittilation serves more needs than it gets credit for.

One of the weirdest things I’ve noticed about smut recently is that reading it can actually be comforting and soothing-have you ever felt that way? I think it evokes a deep, primal connection that so many people are starved for. For women especially, who do so much of the emotional work in a family, romance and erotica can help refill emotional reservoirs.

Correspondence: Reading Erotica

Hi!! So sorry for my sporatic-as-usual communication.

Regarding smut and its ability to slip in: as you might have guessed, I have no problem with that! I love smut and I think it serves a number of readers’ needs beyond tittilation. Or perhaps I should say, tittilation serves more needs than it gets credit for.

One of the weirdest things I’ve noticed about smut recently is that reading it can actually be comforting and soothing-have you ever felt that way? I think it evokes a deep, primal connection that so many people are starved for. For women especially, who do so much of the emotional work in a family, romance and erotica can help refill emotional reservoirs.

Along the D&R Canal

Cover of Along the D&R Canal, by James and Margaret CawleyI found this charming book in the Princeton Room at the Public Library last week: Along the Delaware and Raritan Canal, by James and Margaret Cawley. As a result of our move to Princeton last month, I’ve recommitted myself to the region in the way I know best: exploring hidden nooks and reading obscure local histories. The Princeton Room is full of the later, to my great excitement. It was written by a husband-wife team, local experts who were fond of camping along the canal. James grew up in the area, and his childhood memories are interspersed in the text. Mr. Cawley also apparently took most of the contemporary photos in the book, and it was only when I was most of the way through it that I looked up and thought, “now this is a man who really loved his wife.” Not only did he bother to take photos of her along with all his shots of the scenery, he put several of them in the book, for no other reason that because he felt like it. And not only did he do that, but he went on to write silly, lighthearted captions for them. Whereas I’d been a little irritated by these shots until that moment, framing it as a sign of conjugal love changed the entire tenor of it (to wit, “When I Start Paying Attention“).

Atlantic Terra Cotta Co.
A remaining kiln from the defunct Atlantic Terra Cotta Company.

Anyways, the book has given me a bunch of ideas for places to go exploring. Yesterday, just because it was close, I spent some time in Rocky Hill, poking around the canal and river bridges and walking the tow path. I was looking for this, a kiln for the Atlantic Terra Cotta Factory, that apparently still existed in 1970 (when the book was published). I was looking in the wrong place, though. I’d thought it would be located near a local business that I believed to be a remaining building from the factory, but I could be wrong–not because I didn’t find anything (goodness knows it could be gone or I might not have looked hard enough)–but because another look at the caption on this photo says that the factory was on the canal, and I was looking on the West side of the Millstone River. Time for another expedition!

What is it? (American Cyanamid Edition)

What is this place? An old farm in West Windsor, New Jersey? A prime site for retail or mixed-use development? A not-so-prime site for development? An albatross around the neck of one of the most affluent towns in the state? An environmental juggernaut: too big of a problem to be addressed by the business sector, too small of a problem for the feds to care? Is it a perfect example of the American agrochemical industry in the 20th century? A site with great gothic attraction?

All of the above, of course.

And in the most basic terms, it is a 650-acre parcel of land in West Windsor, at the junction of Rt 1 and Quakerbridge Rd. It was used for much of the last century as a research campus for the American Cyanamid company, where crop treatments and livestock medications were developed and tested. As such, it housed an impressive number of attractions for fans of gothic abandonments:

  • A state-of-the-art “swine enclosure”
  • A site for detonation of volatile chemicals
  • two landfills, one rather more toxic than the other
  • A multi-million dollar greenhouse complex built in the 90s, just a few years before the site was abandoned

And that’s just scratching the surface. For the past few years I’ve been desultorily researching the site, and it’s my hope and plan to share some of what I’ve gleaned here.

When I Start Paying Attention

If it’s happening between a man and a woman, I’m paying attention. For that matter, if it’s happening between two men or two women and there’s a spark there, I’m also paying attention. Watching “Knick” with the husband, I’m giving half an ear to the proceedings, the gory early medical procedures, the male posturing over status in the hospital. Then Clive Owen has a scene with a young nurse, and my eyes dart to the screen, my ears pricking up. Now this is what I’m interested in. What’s going on between them? He’s paternalistic and a little suggestive, bringing his status to bear in pressuring her to be silent about his opium addiction. But is he actively trying to seduce her? If so, does he feel desire for her, or is this just part of his method of influence? And her—how does she feel here? She’s showing deference, but does she feel attraction? Does she really feel the respect she’s showing, or is she disgusted and afraid? Is she really that good at hiding her feelings, or is she really naive enough to believe his line?

This is the stuff I’ll always care about in a story: a sexually or emotionally charged connection being played out while we watch. This is the kind of interaction that will always draw me in.