Seven Red

It took dominion everywhere.
- Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar

So I had a therapy session with she this morning on the drive into work, and we reached some interesting conclusions. Here’s the deal: I am perhaps the worst person to drive with that you’ll ever meet. I constantly critique other drivers, often in loud tones, for their various failures on the road. This habit makes my wife crazy, since it becomes very stressful to be sitting next to somebody who is essentially yelling at the world non-stop. She often says this: “In all the other areas of life, you seem overly generous to people – so why is it that as soon as you get behind the wheel of a car you become this angry hyper-critic?” That’s what we were getting to the nub of, therapy-wise.

We decided that the specific personality trait is simple: I cannot stand uncertainty. All the behaviors that set me off when I drive have to do with uncertainty; it’s for this reason that my major statement while I drive is “What the fuck are you doin’, dude?” or “Where ya goin’, ya fuckin’ nut?” So, for example, some driver in front of me slowed down today next to a Starbucks on Lincoln, apparently ready to double park and run in. But the driver didn’t stop quickly enough for me. He or she just sort of rolled at about 5mph, crawling, crawling. Should I go around? Should I wait? Should I slam into the back of this nut’s car on general principle? What the fuck are you doin’, dude? This diagnosis made sense, not least because my ultimate driving hate is reserved for fuckers who don’t know how to use their turn signals. Guess what, asshole? I don’t care where you’re going, so putting your signal on after you already break is a worthless procedure; put it on before you break so I know that I will have to break! Grrr. Ah, she says, but just a little while ago you yelled at somebody who didn’t pull far enough into the intersection while making a left turn (I had to really squeeze to get around): “Nice fuckin’ left turn, you dipshit!” “Well, yes, that’s an execution problem,” I say. No, no, she says. That’s also an uncertainty problem: you know they’re going left, but you don’t know when you’ll be able to pass. It’s not, therefore, uncertainty in general, but uncertainty about my ability to go. Other people are blocking my plans! I do not have total mastery over my environment! She also decided that this pathology manifests itself when I lose something. I first fly into a minor rage, as in “Where the fuck is the X?” I search for it for some negligible period of time (the uncertainty about my ability to use the item now in full swing), but I almost immediately decide that it is gone and lost for good, finis. “That’s why you give up on the search,” she says, “Because as soon as it is lost for good, you are no longer uncertain, or rather, you’re certain that the item will not be available for you!” Agreed.

Now, all this is ironic because the major line in critical theory and philosophy I’ve read since I was an undergraduate reading Heidegger and American literature with Bill Spanos is pitched precisely against this mode of comportment. Acceptance of contingency, understanding of social complexity, critique of Subject as final arbiter, against mastery of the social ecology. And yet, that’s precisely how I operate in my driving, and probably in many other areas of life (“Does anyone know what happened to the fuckin’ stapler?”).

Is this really going to be a weather post? A weather post? No. I guess I shouldn’t do that, not least because it really means we’ve hit bottom on subject matter – the worst kind of uncomfortable small talk: “Cold enough for ya?” Yeah, well. But it is winter, finally, after a mild November, so we’re just hoping to get our trips off OK out of the sucking pit of O’Hare. We have quite a few. The whole fam will fly to Albany, and from there the short drive to Schoharie to see Granny and everyone else. Then we drive to Queens, spend some time with the NYC famiglia, then back to Schoharie. Then she and the kiddos make the solo flight back to Chicago, while yours truly takes the Amtrak to Philadelphia, where I have some – ahem – business to take care of. No, not that kind. The other side of the table kind. The asking the questions kind. Should be interesting. Then I fly back to O’Hare, and then it’s New Years. So, winter, finally. I suddenly remembered that we’re leaving from Midway.

Has this been pointless enough for you? Good. Because it was all a thin ruse, a mere delivery device for these adorable pictures of the kiddos in and around various signifiers of the season.

So I was watching this guy give a speech today, about like Afghanistan and stuff? Yeah.

Is anyone else just tired of caring about all this? Yes, I know, I have the luxury to be tired of caring, but really. Here’s what I know about Afghanistan: not much. And, quite frankly, meh. It seems to be some face saving way to throw a punch before you get the hell out of there. I’m just tired of it, not in a “Hell no!” way of being sick and tired, but more in a “Do whatever, dude” way of being just fucking exhausted. I did say to she that the only way Obama comes out of this looking good is if – say – sometime in June 2010, he gets to announce that Osama bin Laden has been captured. Of course, that’s fairly minor stuff, in the big scheme of things, but this is all symbolic economy now.

Oh yeah. One other thing I know about Afghanistan: it’s not Vietnam. The usual suspects on the left are coming out of the woodwork with the usual historical analogies. Something else I’m tired of, but I’ve been tired of that for a long time. Their nonsense is always dressed up in some quasi-smart clothing, quoting Santayana about forgetting history and the like. It’s tedious. And usually wrong. The flip side to Santayana is that those who never forget their history are doomed to never see historical difference. The dress-up left, carrying on like a sophomore who half read Thucydides. It’s embarrassing. I was always partial to Marx on this point: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. The details are unimportant; what he’s saying is that historical knowledge has to be paired with an capacity for perceiving singularity. It’s a lesson that the Nostalgists of the Gulf of Tonkin would do well to remember.

But really. I’m tired.