Hey Harry, Hey Matilda
Page 3
Aggressive-Depressive: I am sad and it is your fault and I am going to nap.
Depressive-Hyper: I am sad and things are pointless but let’s have some beers and jump around.
Aggressive-Hyper: I am sad and it is your fault and I am going to start a fight with you.
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Hey Matilda—
Do you have a therapist these days?
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Harry,
I had one, but we just talked all the time about how I resented paying him so much at the end of each session. And of course the whole reason I was in therapy in the first place was because I was so panicked about money.
So then we had sex and went our separate ways.
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Harry,
Just kidding! About the sex.
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Matilda,
I wasn’t all agape.
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Harry,
Oh yeah? What would truly shock you? I want you to show some emotion.
BTW: I saw a chart today entitled:
“States Where I Can Live Happily Ever After with My Cousin”
I’m going to send it over to you.
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Hey Matilda,
Why would you even bring that up?
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Harry,
It’s the Aggressive-Hyper talking.
Harry, what’s your favorite emotion, and what’s your worst?
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Matilda,
Emotion, or state of being? I like sadness, in its plain old basic state, without any agitation mixed in. I can handle that quite well.
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Hey Harry,
What about anger? What about rage? Harry, what would make you truly, irretrievably angry with me?
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Matilda,
OK, just blurt out whatever’s bothering you, already. This dance is tiresome.
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Harry,
I can’t, you’re far too moral.
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Hey Matilda,
Tell me! Lance the boil. I’m not that moral.
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Harry,
Just remember, Harry: I always have your best interests at heart.
Tell me something about what you’re teaching, Harry. Tell me about the bats.
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Hey Matilda,
I think the seasonal depression is starting to get to you. It creeps up, you know. Get one of those lamps before it’s too late.
Since you’re asking: I recently gave my writing students an assignment to help them learn to write convincing dialogue. I told them to eavesdrop on a conversation in a public place and write it down, word for word. Here’s one I liked. One of my best students actually stood up and sang it out loud. What a breath of fresh air. Reminded me of something you would have done!
I don’t think Obama would have an infidelity, doesn’t seem like him
You can kind of tell
Michelle would kill him
This seems like a nice place to have breakfast
Maybe ham and cheese
A croissant
I don’t think it would help to wash those pot holders
It’s too late
Hmm maybe so
I don’t like that Newt
Want a bite of my bagel
Oh this is good
It seems like a type of tropical fruit is in this
Mango?
It was almost four dollars
I need to get some ice
On television last night there was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughters
She was talking about some fellow
Said he couldn’t have had an affair
How would she know
He does make Domino’s pizza
I’m not finished yet
I’m gonna finish
Want to see the Times?
OK
You see the article
Page A6
Sure
Here it is
This thing is all crumpled
Appeared to be a protest against Britain’s tough new economic sanctions against Iran
They tore down the flag
And burned it
Maybe it’s peach?
The other students and I were riveted by the singing. A good day.
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Harry,
I would have done something like that. I was a spectacular college student, I assure you. I could have gone pro. But then they forced me into the world.
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Matilda,
They tried to do that to me, too, but I said, NOPE; PhD.
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Harry,
I have taken your couch
that was in
Mom’s Stock N’ Lock
and which you were probably
saving
for someday
forgive me
it was irresistible
so sweet
so pink
and so pungent
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Matilda,
Was that his idea, to take my couch? I give you two three more months. Also, that assignment isn’t until next semester.
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Harry,
My favorite emotion is shame. Because it’s the one I can deal with the least, and the one that comes up the most. Thanks for asking.
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Matilda,
I didn’t need to ask, because I knew that already.
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Harry,
Oh, well did you know that I’ve never made myself a sandwich?
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Matilda,
Yes.
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Harry,
Say something mean to me so I can react badly.
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Matilda,
Tomorrow I’ll tell you the dream I had and you won’t be in it.
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Harry,
Jerk.
I wrote something for you.
Things I Shouldn’t Say Out Loud
“My brother has a nice scrotum.” That’s going on a list of things I shouldn’t say out loud. It will go above “Meat Loaf is my favorite singer” and “I eat cookie dough with raw eggs just to tempt fate.”
I should also include “When you told me to give you a compliment, and I said you were smarter than most normal people, that was a lie,” and “I don’t actually like your cologne, it disgusts me. I don’t care if it IS designer.”
That’s it so far. Maybe I’ll think of more later.
Oh! In elementary school I used to pick my nose and then wipe my hand on your pillow. I shouldn’t say that either. Also I hate your hair.
Do you like it, Harry?
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Matilda,
It’s not bad.
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Harry,
Would it kill you to have a personality?
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Matilda,
I hate your hair, too. And your attitude, which should be improving with age, is deteriorating.
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Harry,
Yes!!! That’s more like it.
Part Two: November
Hey Harry,
I’ve been on a real Depressive-Depressive kick this week. I could use some input. Yesterday I had to do corporate headshots so I could pay the rent. My camera’s sensor is dirty, so I borrowed a friend’s Nikon. It felt like I was kissing someone else’s boyfriend, but in an unpleasant way.
It really added to my general disorientation about life. I’m just sitting here in my apartment now, very still, waiting for something to happen. That way it will feel especially like fate when something DOES. And something does always happen in the end, right?
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Matilda,
I made a chart, too.
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Harry,
Well, having a PhD is not bad, you’re third highest on this chart! Perhaps third best is good enough? That seems like a nice motto for life.
Let’s distract ourselves from the cruel current world, Harry. Tell
me a funny story from our youth.
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Hey Matilda,
One time we went to a wedding. We must have been about seven at the time. I was very interested in Transformers, because it was the ’80s. The wedding took place at an old camp. It was fall but it was hot, and all the guests wandered about the place with brightly colored drinks in hand. I remember this because we were drinking punch, and you kept cackling “Punch me!” and giggling because you’d had an impossible amount of Hi-C. There were big trees clustered closely together, and if you looked through them, you could see a lake in the distance, but it didn’t even look like water, it looked like just a shimmer. The trees had enormous roots that were growing above ground and we put the Transformers and plastic toy ponies on them like totems. We all stayed overnight in little cabins on the property and when we awoke the following day, we walked out onto a still-balmy field strewn with middle-aged bodies in sundresses and suits. And right there among them, sitting and snoring, propped up on a golf cart was Dad, Smirnoff bottle still in hand. “I found him!” you yelled, like you’d won a prize, and ran off to tell Mom.
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Hey Harry,
Oh, I do remember that. It was one of the only times Mom dressed us alike—you as a sailor with white hat and blue piping, me in a pinafore. Both in bowl cuts. We were positively a sideshow. People were much more charmed by twins back then. Now that there’s IVF, it’s all old hat.
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Matilda,
True, twindom felt more special back then. That was a good day. Mom wasn’t even mad at Dad. Maybe she’d just given up by then.
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Harry,
Or maybe it was a rare day when she could see some humor in the wreckage of her marriage.
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Hey Matilda,
Guess what? My genetic test results came back. Pretty much what you would expect, but still interesting.
Dad’s a mutt, which we know. French, English, Irish, German. But also 2% Native American! That’s sort of fascinating to me.
And Mom’s a Jew. They don’t even qualify it with Polish or Latvian, they just say: MOTHER: 100% Ashkenazi Jew. They should make it more interesting, i.e.: FROM THE PALE, very learned.
I do like to consider the most mundane aspects about our ancestors, Matilda—like, what did they read before bed? Chaucer?
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Harry,
That’s your biggest question? What did our ancestors read before bed? Chaucer?!
Good lord, we’re part Native American, I’m going to take horseback-riding lessons and come up with an appropriate name. How about Worried Moon?
You can be Hopeful Bear.
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Matilda,
I think 2% does not allow us to be culturally insensitive.
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Harry,
You would think that. But we’re burying the lead here—what does the disease portion say? Oh god, it makes me so nervous to ask.
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Matilda,
I already ripped that envelope up, I don’t want to know. Why would I want to know? It would ruin my life to know something like that.
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Harry,
Oh my god, I don’t understand you at all! What a wasted opportunity! I NEED TO KNOW!!
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Matilda,
I think you admire my bravery in the face of the unknown.
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Harry,
You’re not brave because you were spared boobs. You’re just lucky.
Worried Moon needs to know the future.
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Matilda,
Hopeful Bear trusts.
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Harry,
Ugh, we will have to rectify this.
Speaking of the future…Maybe being a wedding photographer isn’t all that bad?
I mean—think about it. There is far too little ritual in our culture. Our barren culture doesn’t even celebrate death properly.
Weddings are the ultimate ritual, aside from childbirth. And photography is one of the only ways to preserve a moment.
Maybe I should just charge $10,000 a wedding and be a fucking wedding photography boss.
Also, it’s such a sociological study I can’t stand it.
You can break all the brides down by the kind of fucking dress they wear:
1. SHEATH bride: Sheaths appear smooth talking, thoughtful, and innocuous at first, but turn high-maintenance when the pressure is on. Sheaths often have very involved parents with money. Sheaths wear straight, tasteful gowns and put gardenias in their hair. They have those little net-type veils that are trying to be chic and traditional without saying “I’m wearing a veil.” But they’re wearing a veil. They met their husbands in grad school.
2. A-LINE bride: What you see is what you get. A-lines don’t try too hard or think their wedding is the one moment in life to show what their very essence is about. They allow the bridesmaids to dress themselves and they get married in someone’s backyard, at a camp, or in Vermont.
3. COCKTAIL bride: Hey, I’m a cocktail bride, I’m doing things a little differently than normal! We might only have appetizers at my wedding! I might wear red! I have a pug and he is my groomsman.
4. PRINCESS bride: Fussy, naïve. Confusing choices may include glitter hairspray, Hummer limo, and impractical heels. A hotel venue, matching bridesmaids, and many drunk, red-faced groomsmen. Groom’s cake more often than not takes the shape of a state school mascot. Michigan/Wisconsin/Chapel Hill.
5. MERMAID bride: Aggressively stylized. Confusing choices are made, generally in the form of a country club venue and a black shirt for the groom. Bride wears a dress that literally makes her resemble a fish human. A tremendous level of self-regard and bravery about one’s bottom is required.
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Matilda,
So what about you? What type would you be? A combination Sheath and A-line?
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Harry,
No kind, because I can’t locate a suitable mate.
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Matilda,
Well, in that case, I have the answer to your previous riddle.
The midpoint between a loafer and a boot = a clog. Perfect for spinsters!
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Harry,
Wow, that is correct!
I shall now take clogs out of the “Unacceptable and Just for Mothers Over Fifty-Five” column and will procure a pair as soon as possible.
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Matilda,
I imagine you could borrow some from Mom. She has a pair for every occasion. Even waterproof, for the garden and the farmers’ market.
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Hey Harry,
How often do you go over and see her? What do you do for fun out there in the boonies?
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Matilda,
Well, just last night I went out to dinner at Atomic Wings. And then Mom called and asked me to come fix a broken stair that was keeping her from going to the basement to do laundry, so I swung by on my way home. It was a bigger job than I thought, though, and I finished up late, so I ended up crashing on the couch. But I was totally unable to sleep; the house is really not in great shape. I could hear mice running through the walls all night like we used to hear when we were little, scratch scratch scratch. I got up at dawn and went for a run down by the river and then I came home and had a better writing day than I’ve had in a while.
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Harry,
That makes me think about how we’d sit in the bath until we were cold prunes listening to Dad’s stories about the two heroic mice lost in the woods. What were their names? He had notes on a yellow legal pad; that’s the most I ever remember him paying attention to parenting.
Also: There are several things about your last note that raise red flags for me, but I’m going to go straight to my own related mouse story, which coincidentally happened not more than a month ago. Our friend Amit was over, crashing on the couch for the fourth night in a row, because he is twenty-five and I am a too-permissive thirt
y-something.
So we all went to bed and around 4 a.m. I hear this scraping noise coming from the kitchen. At first I thought it was part of my dream, and then I thought someone was breaking in through the window. So I tiptoe in there and grab a broom on my way (note boldness/braveness) and HOLY SHIT there is a mouse stuck on the glue trap I set. The glue trap that is supposed to be the humane way of killing a mouse is being dragged around the floor, back and forth, and the thing is clearly in distress and it’s horrifying and I might be starting to cry a little and then Amit comes in and puts a pot over it and shoos me back to bed. He’ll “take care of it in the morning.”