Saturday, October 14, 2006
(1:52 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Human Interaction
All morning, I've been checking Craigslist's Wyoming site for reasonably-priced caves. I've found a few no-frills models that seem to fit with my budget. I'm already stocking up: "Hamburger Helper" to go with the lizards and vultures I'll be eating, a corkscrew for drinking out of cacti, etc. I've got some quotes from contractors to come out and build me a pillar if I decide to become a stylite, but hopefully it won't come to that.Human interaction is becoming a problem for me. The awkwardness has become overwhelming -- facing down the social order and losing every time. Reading all day, then unwinding with a couple episodes of South Park, seems to be about my speed. My best model for the kind of companionship I'm looking for right now is a cat.
I'm waiting for a package to come via UPS. It seems to be getting toward that point on a Saturday afternoon when I shouldn't expect it any longer. I ordered a couple books, but when I open the box, I just know it's going to be objet petit a. Together again, at last! My excremental remainder and me. If it doesn't come, maybe I should look on eBay, because they sell "It," according to the commercials. I'm glad that eBay has cut to the chase, because the commercials for debt consolidation, impotence cures, hair club for men, adult incontinence products, etc., just were not quite hitting the spot.
I'm not yet a broken old man who will never love again. At the tender age of 26, I have experienced an uncommon amount, but I'm not yet cynical. I will pay off those credit card bills myself. I can get an erection. I have hair. There are still episodes of South Park I've not seen, though I fear that I've run out of Seinfeld -- where will I get my next fix of nihilism? I feel like making a habit of watching Adult Swim would be admitting defeat.
But even blogfights aren't grabbing me like they used to. Against my better judgment, I've been having a back-and-forth with Rich Puchalsky, but my heart's not in it and I think we both know it. How will I procrastinate without blogfights, though? Do I seriously want to go the rest of my life without feeling that pointless anger? Without being deeply annoyed at people I've never met?
I'm worried -- maybe even a little frightened -- about what's happening to me. I fear I've lost my ear for philosophy, if I ever had one at all. I reread The Stranger the other night and felt nothing, nothing! The same with Dead Poets Society. Those were the very same cultural artifacts that once convinced me to give up on shaving and start drinking a lot of coffee. I tore my poster of "Le Chat Noir" off the wall and broke down in tears over my inability to cry.
Crumpled, defeated, I crawled to my computer. I started searching for caves.
