It’s Sunday night as I begin writing this, but it may not get posted until sometime on Monday.
I just got through watching a very good (and rather momentous) episode of Dead Like Me, and so I have time to kill until Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
So here I am.
Prior to DLM I watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent. It was also a very good episode, it a bit odd, and disconcerting.
One thing about it that sort of jumped out at me was that there was a character on it named Fontaine. As she was a stripper, it was her stage name, thus, like “my” Fontaine, she had no last name.
Unfortunately for her, she got whacked pretty early on in the episode.
The other disconcerting aspect was the killer. He was sort of Dahmer-esque serial killer in the making played by Neil Patrick Harris (TV’s “Doogie Howser, MD”).
Unlike Dahmer, though, his victims were members of the opposite sex.
The elements of the story (home-brewed lobotomies, cannibalism) were disturbing enough in and of themselves, but what made it especially so were some of the aspects of Doogie’s character.
Basically, he was a lonely, socially awkward, loveless loser.
Named Jon.
Okay, so it was probably “John,” but still, it was a bit disconcerting, and it’s one of the inconveniences of having such a common name.
He also seemed to be developing a drinking problem (in addition to his many other troubles), so again, the similarities were bothersome.
Of course, I’ve never abducted a woman, drilled a hole in her head and scalded her brain with hot water, nor have I even considered doing any of the above.
I started writing a story about a guy abducting a woman, but I never finished it, and that imaginative abduction was as close as I ever plan to come to such an act.
In any case, the real point is that, sure, he was crazy, and yes, he did horrible things, but at the heart of it all he was just a guy who didn’t want to be alone anymore and didn’t know what else to do.
A guy named Jon.
Okay, so it was John.
And no, I’m absolutely, positively, not going to abduct any women and do horrible things to them, and no, I never even consider it as a possibility. Rather than being even slightly titillated by the notion, I am, in fact, repulsed by it (and this isn’t me protesting “too much;” I find the idea of taking someone by force and forcing my will upon her to be utterly abhorrent).
Still…
I can’t help but wonder why I don’t. I mean, I’m no less lonely, no less desperate for companionship than Doogie’s character, but I don’t even consider doing the things he did. Unless confronted with it, as I was by this episode, the thought never even crosses my mind as anything other than just a bad joke (I used to joke to friends about how I'd like to take a particular attractive woman home with me and that I'd feed her three times a day and clean out her cage).
I just wonder what it is about me, considering that I’m at least slightly unhinged, that keeps me from going completely over the edge.
Is it just that I lack some sort of genetic predisposition towards that sort of behavior? Is it just a matter of societal conditioning? Is it a conscience? Am I just too nice of a guy? Is it all of the above? None of it?
There’s no way for me to avoid wondering. For the most part, the guy was exactly like me. Admittedly, despite my social awkwardness, I’m not nearly as painfully shy as he was, but, basically, we would seem to have been cut from the same cloth.
So how is it, that despite the continued privations of loneliness and desperation, I continue to go right where ultimately he went wrong?
(And yes, I recognize that it was just a story on a TV show, but these things, and worse, do happen in real life.)
I suppose that if I knew the reason for why I don’t engage in that sort of behavior it would be possible to figure out why other people do.
Bear in mind that I’m not complaining. I’m not thinking, “Gee, why can’t I go nuts and kidnap women and lobotomize them and eat pieces of them?” Just because I wonder what keeps me on the straight and narrow that doesn’t mean I’m not thankful that whatever it is manages to do the job…
As mentioned, I started this on Sunday night. It’s now fairly late in the evening on Monday.
I didn’t accomplish much today. I had actually gone to bed last night thinking that there was nothing finer I could do with my Monday than to spend the whole day sleeping.
It was a long three days that, for reasons that are beyond me, left me in a pretty black mood by Sunday evening. I have no idea why, but as I was leaving work I felt myself becoming incredibly annoyed at…well, everyone and everything. It was one of those wishing-that-the-asteroid (or whatever)-that-took-out-the-dinosaurs-would-return-for-another-earth-shattering-engagement kind of moods.
I think the foulness of my mood contributed to the overall effect watching Doogie play a desperately lonely psycho had on me.
So, when the time came to make the only real escape I can from the world (sleep), I was hoping to maintain that escape for as long as possible.
That plan was brought to an abrupt end a little after 8 am, first by a guy on a lawnmower, then his partner with the weed whacker, and finally by the guy with the leaf blower.
It finally drove me to get out of bed, at which point I decided that I would go out into the world and accomplish everything that I’ll need to accomplish out in the world for the week in one shot.
It helps that all I really needed to accomplish was some grocery shopping.
Even so, I failed to accomplish it all, as once I was out in the world I discovered that it was the last place I wanted to be, so I rushed through and grabbed only a few essentials.
I came home, talked to my mother, then tried to give the whole sleeping thing another shot.
I tried it for about an hour and a half before deciding to call it a miss. After getting back up I wasted time doing not much of anything for a while, then went for a four mile walk.
I came home and began to prepare dinner before realized that I’d neglected to pick up the “cacio” (cheese) component of my planned dinner (Pork chops with hot and sweet peppers and cacio e pepe spaghetti), so I had to venture out into the world once again.
I guess throughout the day my mood has gradually improved a little since yesterday, but not by a whole lot.
Hopefully it’ll continue to improve, though.
I guess we’ll see.
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