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dictionary June 14, 2001

i got lots of problems as you are well aware or soon will be.

for starters, why am i self destructive? i think back to my childhood and can't really find anything significant. i spent more time beating myself than my parents did so i started early.

my compulsion to do things personally damaging is bounded only by my current physical, emotional and mental state. and as each day goes by, these limitations seem to wear away a little more.

i'm not looking to change things necessarily, but rather to understand them so i know what to put on my tombstone.

merry xmas.

[In the interest of full disclosure, I must state that this message is from a friend of mine. This explains the "as you are well aware" comment. And since I AM well aware, I won't waste time with my usual (masterful) analysis of today's letter. I won't point out the "call for help" crypticness of the subject line and signature. Nor will I show how the self-deprecating humor and e. e. cummings typography scream "low self-esteem" (or at least, "i'd like to score with poetic goth chix and cyber grrls").

This time, I leave the pop psych analysis to you, reader.]

Dear merry,

You ask me why you are self-destructive. Let me restate the question somewhat and ask why you remainself-destructive? Why aren't you "looking to change things"? If your car mysteriously crashes into a lightpole and catches fire, I recommend getting OUT of the car FIRST, asking questions about WHY the car crashed later.

This is what I want you to focus on -- stopping your self-destructive behavior. We can deconstruct the meaning of it all later.

By the way, with you it would be no mystery why the car crashed, would it?

About that tombstone: if you stay on your current path, I'd opt for a sidelong reference to that saying about a frog and a pot of boiling water -- maybe "his was the slow boiling pot" -- translated into Japanese. (Wow. I'm hungry for Sun Hing's "homestyle bean curd in hot pot".)

- Dr. Max

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