Naked and Alone in Maryland; A Tale of Self-Loathing

December 5, 2004
Oceanic Terraces
Hermosa Beach, California

Dear Mistress Michelle,
You may not see this e-mail. Probably you will not read it for a while longer. I will be sure to follow up with another one just to be sure that you have the proper frame of reference, explaining what will have occurred between now and then to keep the story straight. By the time you have the proper time to analyze, the person who wrote it will be underground again beneath the surface of the person you appear to think I am. I am taking the time to explain things further to show you that another person exists - just like you did with those terrible eschatonians, challenging you with their liberal hatred of minority conservatives and your feelings about ethnic heritage - but I'm going to hold onto my cards for the time being because, like a certain character from The Fountainhead, I shall remain true to the iconoclast's mission no matter the outcome. So far so good - and it's made me the tantalizing object of affection for journalism students across this purple nation of Enquiring minds.

I don't know why I bother to answer your e-mails so promptly, given your recent failures. Maybe you are just setting a good example for the holidays. Anyways, it's very noble of you.

Your last response was most interesting at the point where you say in the same breath that you don't want to return to California, but that you "would enjoy very much the pleasure of being near me," if only to run away from a suppressed imagination and that Montgomery County tax assessment debt due by the end of the year. This dilemna, I gather, epitomizes your present state of affairs. Something about burning the candles at both ends and ... poof, it's gone before it got started. What I sense is lurking within you - probably without ever realizing it - is that you are wondering if I could fit into the low-rent lifestyle that you have managed to carve out for yourself. You write you "don't really know what [you] want to make out of [your] life," but I'm gathering that you're simply stuck in awe-struck fascination about my latest offer to come West and begin anew. Not knowing what to do next is itself a pattern of denial, perhaps the most stubborn decision of all possibilities. To take it a step further it's easily the leading social paradigm in the country today, and just another tragic label when we look back at it, for what has become the American lifestyle in the 21st Century. So take it from a studied observer when I say that you are adrift in a very large and jam-packed ocean liner, just meandering around the planet in a fit of aimless parties and introductions in a soon-to-be menacing sea.

There are times when I clearly regret having divorced myself from your cycle of admiration, but it's only because I have maintained a clear and consistent paradigm to life. Things are much simpler this way, and always much more diplomatic. I'm sorry, in a general way, that you were not brought up to believe in such things. I also regret, even moreso, that I have lost the taste for rigatoni quattro formaggi and pan-fried pesto chicken.

It is clear that not much good would result from another visit to the sandy beaches of the Left Coast, only because I don't have the feeling that you would tempt your inner self with my point of view wholeheartedly. It may take a couple more tax payments - and maybe, some more time. (By the way: did you have a chance to view The Last Tango in Paris like I recommended?) I'm in the uneviable position, nonetheless, of hoping that you will reconsider my last offer of substantial journalistic awakening while knowing almost certainly where it would lead us - a veritable nirvana reaching deep into total and revolutionary enlightenment. Of course, it's a blessing and a curse, and it leaves me doubly burdened because of the fact that realize this. I am devoid of any illusions about our association, and sadly I miss them more than anything else.

As for what's in store for you, I guess I am at a loss in explaining what it is about me that attracks you to my way of life, but I'm not careless enough to reciprocate because I think it's based on escapist reality (yours more than mine). It frees the mind, on more than one occassion, to think that we could actually make this work once we get past your tax problem in Maryland. Lord knows we don't want to you to suffer the same fate of Andrew Sullivan this close to the season of yuletide cheer. And every time I think that there is no hope for us, a new piece of information comes across my desk that temporarily convinces me that I may have you pegged all wrong.

Even then, in spite of all that separates truth from diversion, it will come down to how we handle the summer arrangement we have planned. Only fate knows how exactly it will happen - or why, for that matter - but almost anything can happen if you press hard enough, and I may decide to press along with you. It could be interesting, but pleasant. I guess we'll have to see.

If you are at odds about some of the things I've wondered here, just drop me another e-mail to let me know. Clearly, this is one complicated situation, and it pains me greatly to be correct with my conclusions. In the mean time, I don't have much else to do except flogging the administration. It's all good, clean fun anyhow.

Your Starmate Out West,
Team Gonzography