Dear DPers,

Last week as I was coming home from work I saw a half-naked older man getting CPR in the park. You could see the tremendous effort it took the EMS guy to thump his chest, by the waves of flesh that followed every move. You could also see the effort was going to be futile. It was hard to walk by even though I knew the cops were shooing us lay folk away: not because I wanted to see what was happening, I saw plenty already. It's the girl scout in me. I don't have the strength to move the ribcage of a guy that size, but it still feels wrong somehow, to keep walking.

I know damn well we were on the methadone side of the park, and the guy spent the last decades of his life putting himself under that EMS's hands on the dirty pavers, but somehow the thought of his soul parting his body as I walked by just wrenched me into tears. On the other side, the family-and-dogs side, a short walk from the dead man and his attendants, were a group of folks under a tree, doing some kind of tai chi thing and making these laughing sounds, and at first I wanted to tell them to shut up and respect the dead. But I realized, aren't we all, always, on one side of the park or the other? The business of living well or poorly is intimately pressed up against the undignified business of dying. I just kept walking. And trying to sort out in my mind, the meaning of all that had just passed before me.

So, awkward segue back into the arcane, and this week's Isolutions:

Dear Prudie,

Here's how you can tell I'm not ready to have relationships with breathing creatures, and it has nothing to do with fucking cuddling: 1. dating a few months, things are already very serious, fast; 2. we never argue, except that I can't stop trying to force him to sleep on top of me every moment of the night and I refuse to compromise. I even turn on the waterworks tearfully!!! to defend my cuddling needs!! 3, I refer to this as a need; 4. My definition of compromise, if you read carefully, is to insist that he change to accommodate me; and 4. I'm already hinting I'll dump him if he doesn't obey me. Oh and 5. I'm putting him on trial online in front of Judge Prudie to prove what an insensitive lout he is so he should do what I say.
signed,
Just Say I'm Right So We Can Move to the Penalty Phase

Dear Mounting Python,
If sleeping entwined with someone who is being made miserable by trying to accommodate your demands is so fucking epiphanic for you, why not dump this guy and find a willing masochist (or perhaps a tethered goat) who can really appreciate your charms?
signed,
Iso give you two another month, tops

Dear Prudie,
Our book club has been taken over by LW1. Is it rude to kick her out or should we let her slowly strangle us?
signed,
Please don't use dorky literary analogies in a vain attempt at humor

Dear don't worry, I'm not Prudie,
Make sure next month's selection is an etiquette book.
signed,
Iso suggest a really long one.

Dear Prudie,
Me and the owner of my company are exactly alike except she's a total racist who thinks that she's better than the Jews who she says are rude and stuck up. Do I point this out to her, even though no one else who's been there for more than five minutes dares speak a word for fear of her ire?
signed,
Soon To Be Fired

Dear Soon,
Sure, go ahead. I'm sure she'll be completely open to your criticism.

If you really can't take another year of this, find a new job before you tell her what you really think, because you're going to need it. Better yet, go out in flames. The next time a Jewish client shows up, repeat, complete with eye rolling and if possible, her vocal style, everything your boss said about them before the appointment.
signed,
Iso hate to miss really good fireworks

Dear Prudie,
My mom dumped her dirty secret on me at age ten, yet my dad is the one who apologized. To top it off, they're the ones who went to counseling, and forgot to bring me, hello?!
signed,
Mommy's Used Kleenex

Dear your Mom's an asshole, don't let her turn you into one;
Go to a good therapist. Send her the bill.
signed,
Iso hope you find a therapist who believes in slapping bad parents, hard, but if not, Iso volunteer.

Isonomist:

your Mom's an asshole, don't let her turn you into one;

awesome! i couldn't believe this was sorta the "afterthought" in P's response.

A plus Iso. Love the Python segue from L1 to L2. Brilliant.

I am sorry about your park fatality. Two day ago a man threw himself onto the train tracks by where I live. Nothing makes sense.

....by my literary hero, archy

from my literary hero, archy the cockroach.

_____________________________

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life it for

it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
archy

_______________________

For what it's worth, it's one of my favorites. On second reading, a bit depressing, but there you go.

Are you and I living out fragments of the same life, Iso? If so, we need to develop some sort of a warning system for horrific events like this.

Some three years ago my wife and a friend and I came upon the pale, corpulent hulk of a dying man. His bride of three weeks was too stunned to do anything, and his purple face and lack of a pulse meant it wasn't much use anyhow. I live in a small enough town that there is no anonymity, so I knew who they were. I am big enough to compress a large man's chest and did so repeatedly for the twenty minutes it took to get the emergency medical service truck to the scene. For some reason, the final stages of brain death happened after the emt's got there. It was interesting in a garish sort of way.

Why does the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner come to mind?

Ettiquete book? Love it.

Rime.

I stand corrected. It's a holdover from old English, seldom used in modern English.

you made me cry.

I've always loved that stupid roach.

First, there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain.

Then there is.

Yay, universe.

..

tonto_goldberg:

...It's a holdover from old English, seldom used in modern English.

Right. For me, one of the nicest things about this marvellous poem/tale is its unusual title, hence the pedantry.

There are numerous instances of old English words and outdated (even then) usage throughout that epic poem. I wasn't well enough educated at the time to truly appreciate the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Silas Marner in the same semester.

I've been thinking about your last line a bit lately: and things do make sense, even these events, just not in the way we'd like them to. Life isn't very forgiving, despite appearances.

I hope you're doing ok.

When my parents were bringing me home for the hospital there was a call on my dad's work radio about an accident that the emergency people couldn't get to. It was in a weird spot and the crew was having a hard time explaining to the emt's how to get there. So my dad flagged down a cop and took a 2 day old baby, my 19 year old mom, his 20 year old self, and a group of resuce folks out into the middle of nothing so they could deal with this accident. When they got there my folks ended up taking a man with a crushed leg, held together with my baby blanket, to the hospital. He later died. My mom said the shock of having this dying man in thier truck right next to this brand new baby was more than she could process. She has said that she thinks about it every time they pass the spot the wreck was at.

Sometimes things are just too hard and weird side by side for us to beleive.

sigh.