Friday, November 8, 2024

The Vance Stock Bump

I'd finally broken up with a deeply damaged - and damaging - girlfriend who'd inflicted real torture. I had put up with it not because I dig that sort of thing, but because I'm someone who can fall in love with a ham sandwich (literally, now that I consider the statement!). And love, alas, is love.

She chased me some. A few weeks after the breakup, I mentioned on Chowhound that I had trouble finding good butterscotch, and she sent me a fancy little package of the stuff. My cinematic move would have been to violently throw the package in the trash with a vicious snarl. Set it on fire. Donate it to hungry children. Anything but eat this tainted butterscotch from a person who'd worked tirelessly to make me miserable for the sin of loving her.

But I don't play out cinematic scenes. In fact, that's the only reason I'm still alive.
Once, a long time ago, I was feeling severely suicidal, and it was patently clear what comes next in the movie scene. "THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU JUMP OFF THE CLIFF OR TOSS ALL THE PILLS DOWN YOUR THROAT!" But I don't mindlessly follow tropes. I don't stay on-script. I'm thoughtful - which, in this grand Idiocracy, makes me seem shmart, but only in the sense of a one-eyed man in the land of the blind.

It seemed plainly evident that I had no beef whatsoever with my body. That wasn't even an issue, so it wasn't the move. So I simply let go of my pain and anguish en masse, which, I instantly discovered, is exactly what a suicidal urge really urges (read the tale here).
I didn't need to think much. I scarfed the butterscotch, enjoying every last pellet. I didn't relate it back to my ex in any way, for better or for worse. I just ate the butterscotch. Yum!

This week, because finance bros are feeling exuberant about the upcoming reign of President Vance and Vice President Musk, my savings have gone up by a ton. And I don't feel an iota of petulance about it.

I'm still very upset about the election, and rueful about what's to come, but I don't do cinematic petulance. Not once have I violently swept objects off a desk or table while hollering madly. I'm not pretending to star in a movie. I'm real.

So I'm eating the butterscotch! Not bitterly. Blithely happy with the gain. Why not? I mean, of course it will sink back down as kakistocracy has its real world effect. But for now, I'll enjoy it. I don't need to tie together all strands of my Emotional Journey into some Grander, Bigger Story, because a story is just a story, while a tin of butterscotch or a little extra money are concrete and enjoyable.

I'm not "playing along". I certainly haven't been "bought out". I'd do anything legal to remove these m-f'ers from power, regardless of its short-term impact on my finances. The money doesn't make me appreciate Trump any more than the butterscotch stoked fond feelings for my ex. But even a stupid poodle understands what to do when kibble lands in its dish.


Regarding the millions of Trump-voters who don't have savings, and have not reaped this reward - and won't reap much else in the next four years: I don't gloat at them, nor does my heart bleed. I earnestly hope their situation improves...while I blithely and non-petulantly scarf the butterscotch.






4 comments:

  1. Did I just read a deleted scene from American Psycho?

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  2. No, you didn't. A psycho remains cooly detached in the face of suffering (preferably caused by her/him).

    Appreciating what life brings me (as I endeavor to be as helpful and generous as possible in every manner possible....while you spit snarky anonymous bile on the internet) is only psychopathic from the perspective of a dull-witted misery-stoking, tribal gesturing, bored aristocratic ninny.

    I’m pushing appreciation while you push misery. Sorry, but company doesn’t love misery, psycho.

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  3. A psycho remains cooly detached in the face of suffering? hahaha omg your whole post is you bragging about your ability to maintain cool detachment, first in the face of suffering of your ex gf (your only crime being loving her) and then in the face of your classist sneer at working class people who have no savings. Dark triad types always paint themselves as benevolent innocents.

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  4. Look, buddy, I get it. I make nuanced points requiring lengthy processing, but you're not here for that. You’re skirting surfaces, playing the stupidest game - the game of agree/disagree - empowered by a simple worldview and a sneery stance of pugnacious superior inferiority.

    So I understand how you drew this ridiculous conclusion from what I wrote. You read fast and without an iota of empathic effort to glean nuance, because the moment you snapped into disagreement mode, I lost all right to empathy. Like a rottweiler, you sniffed something that smelled vaguely oppositional, and that was that.

    But here's the thing. You’re NORMAL. The way you’re reading, and responding, is NORMAL. Which make you RIGHT and SANE. So I have no notes. As you were! But I do have one question: what in the name of Jesus Godly Fuck are you even doing here?

    In a world where literarily every written thing is directed at the agreement/disagreement engine - earmarked for either scorching or celebration - I deliberately, defiantly, daffily traffic in grey zones, playing subtle judo with inclination and expectation. I serve ONLY counterintuitivity, for slow thoughtful chewing. So why are you here?

    I will never corroborate your worldview. My writing requires oodles, not just iotas, of empathic effort to even begin to offer value. So how - you great big, beautiful, surface-dwelling fish - did you EVER get caught in this net? You have a whole internet out there full of material to amuse your babyish agree/disagree engine, but I serve neither. To you, I must seem like a gaseous babbling static cloud of digressional bullshit. Yet here you are YELLING AT A CLOUD, because you managed, via an impressive feat of creative misinterpretation, to stupidly sniff some red meat to feed your inner rottweiler.

    You will feel like I'm giving you my attention. Please don't imagine it's because you've "triggered" me (a holy mission for oppositionalists), or that I care about you. I care about you precisely like a fisherman who finds a lemon in his net. It's super easy to toss the fruit back into the sea, but a curious fisherman will feel compelled to puzzle out its inexplicable presence. That's what I'm doing here. How the fuck did a lemon get in here? What's here for lemons? Wouldn't you be better served by literally anything else in this world?

    ReplyDelete