Create a Personal Utopia, Manifesto, and Reflection (Ideal Worlds 08-26-12).

Joseph Melanson

Ideal Worlds

Prof. Monte

21 August 2012

Utopia Final

Utopia:

          One night I fell wearily into bed, after a long, busy day, unknowing that within my slumber I would have such a dream, when generally upon awakening I have no recollection of the substance of my nightly unconsciousness, but in this one night I dreamt and recalled with more intensity and clarity than was my usual sleeping experience.

          I saw within my dream, an unknown place, peaceful and serene in its appearance. I found myself within the green and placid suburbs upon the outer edge of a great city, seeming bejeweled as its various structures of an unknown substance that shined like glass and mirror, yet retaining a great deal of reflectivity on their polished surfaces, but in no way becoming harsh in its glare upon the eyes. I moved forward towards its tall structures, seeming innumerable in their quantity and quality, curious about that place, knowing that my interest would be more aptly rewarded there than where I was in this placid and green, yet anonymous seeming suburbs. I saw other people approaching what seemed some kind of small building, made of what seemed like glass, seeming to me some kind of transportation system, as a strange light emanated from it when a person went inside. I intuited that this structure would serve me in my purpose to find my way to

the city.

            I approached a man heading toward this small building, and asked him about it and how I could most quickly arrive within the place of this foreign city. He looked at me warily, but gestured towards this small edifice with which I had interrupted his progress.

           “The channel will take you to whatever destination you choose, all you have to do is say it in the channel, and within the voice of your mind”, he said, and I followed him towards the building. It had a number of people approaching it, yet when I entered it was empty. I saw the man with whom I had acquainted myself enter within its confines, and disappear in light before my eyes.

           “To the city”, I said to myself after within this small structure that was continuously absorbing people into a burst of light, while also delivering instantly in another part of the building other people in a same burst of light.

            After arriving within the streets of these enormous edifices, I spotted what seemed to be a popular temple, and made my way towards it, believing that it would have been one of the more safer places that I could find to help me get more information about this city, and my bearings within this strange world.

           As soon as I entered the temple I was observed several people and overheard them talking. As I looked around I saw inscriptions upon the wall that informed me that where I was, was dedicated to a new religion of science in human development, and it’s emphasis on the attainment of high levels of mastery in all of one’s various levels and functional capabilities.

          There was a video playing on a screen on one of the walls near me, and I made my way over in order to view it and hear its message more clearly. After some years of a terrible war the country resumed with the surviving inhabitants. Later a prophet appeared revealing his visions to the populace and he became an important architect in the rebuilding of this destroyed civilization, due to the number of various yet useable ideas that seemed appropriate to this society’s reconstruction. There were multiple temples that were built in dedication to the salvation of the world’s surviving knowledge, an attempt to recall and record what was lost, and rebuilding a society that would not degenerate back into the madness that had been our human tradition. The prophet developed the workbook Stages and Levels of Being: Instruction in the Attainment of Your Human Potential, and this book became an instructional primer expected to be read by children in the first years of their education.

         Before his death, this prophet finished several dozen other works that were published with great success, and the only title that I can recall from the televised documentary is his The Use of the Reciprocation Machine: The Study and Practice of Evolving One’s Various Selves in the Natural World through Education and Technology. Apparently this book provided a means to use several important methods of accelerating one’s capacity to learn and function within this new society.

         Averting my gaze from the television, I noticed upon the wall of this temple were written its fundamental laws and tenets that were applicable to the whole of this society, and offered as practical knowledge to every individual in the proper participation of their society. If there were any more fundamental rules to this new religion I cannot recall as my mind does not permit me to recollect any more of them from the substance of this dream. Here is all that I can recollect:

Laws of (some unreadable name):

1). All people are equal under God and the Law.

2). Development of the self is the highest goal in life.

3). Development of the self in others is the second highest goal in life.

4). Development and maintenance of the soul of the community is the third highest goal in life.

5). Everyone is entitled to food, health care, shelter, and the wealth of the community.

6). Everyone must play an equal part in the welfare of the community through work, service, and volunteering.

7). One’s gifts and talents belong to the community from which they came, as much as they belong to the self which has spent the time and effort in their development.

            I began to think of seeing this community in action, excited in the need to see the theories of this new religion as they were practiced by its citizens. I made my way to the temple door desiring to leave and begin my exploration of the inner workings of the city. When I reached the door to the temple, and upon laying my hand upon the handle of the door, I awoke instantly from my dream, returned to my regular life of expectations and responsibilities. I wrote down everything that I could remember as it was still fresh in my mind. I hoped that someday these words that I was setting down on paper would bring me some later advantage, and hopefully be useful to people for ages to come.

Reflection:

1). The most appealing features of my personal utopia are: the idea of a place without arduous labor, yet offering people several purposes with which they can expect to live out their life, and a community that had a high value for the life of the individual.

2) The most significant barriers to the achievement of this utopian community would be: the cost and expenditure of creating it, resistance from other people and other social groups, and the dedication to the ideals of the community by its members.

3) The connection between my utopian vision and the readings of utopian literature was an influence in several different ways. It seems that one person’s utopia can be another person’s dystopia. Utopias are often begun with the best of intentions, yet oftentimes they fall apart as people cannot successfully maintain a utopia for very long. Utopia needs to function on the local level, as well as the community level, and the societal level. Utopia is a narrative journey, perhaps a metaphor for the journey of life that we all take, and perhaps we all should in our own way contribute towards the development of utopia here on earth.

4) The reading of utopian theory in Kumar’s Utopianism shaped the creation of my utopia in several ways. There needs to be an individual who can function on the level of this new society, and be able to create and maintain the best qualities of it. Utopian theory needs to be taken very seriously and considered how it would apply in one area, as well as another, as it seems that utopian theory is generally a criticism of one system over another, denouncing one set of values for another.

5). The difficulties in creating my utopian plan were:  what to fill the utopist structure with, considering how a society truly functions, and what would be proper behavior for people living in this place. Other considerations that needed to be developed was the design of a social blueprint, an agreed upon standard for appropriate behavior, and a community that encouraged this behavior, while punishing inappropriate behavior without harsh penalties for the individual. One must consider in creating a utopist plan is whether the state needs to conform to its people, or do the people need to conform to the state, and what does it mean for both to “conform”?

6). The difficulties of writing my utopian fiction were: having never considering writing a utopia before, creating a narrative out of my theories, as well as developing theories for my narrative that did not seem childish or unbelievable.

The Influence of the Spectacle of Theater upon William Shakespeare (Shakespeare 08-24-12)

Joseph Melanson

Shakespeare

Prof. Tryon

26 July 2012

The Influence of the Spectacle of Theater upon William Shakespeare.

            William Shakespeare, the author of many famous plays like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, had many influences in his life. He grew up in a culture that “prized ornate eloquence, cultivated a taste for lavish prose”, and “expected even people of modest accomplishments and sober sensibilities to write poems” (Greenblatt 24). This culture that held such high regard for prose and poetry often presented them through performance in the theater. It was the power of the spectacle of the theater that was one of the greatest influences upon William Shakespeare.

            The instruction of the curriculum of schooling for William Shakespeare in his youth included the use of famous plays. According to Greenblatt, “virtually all schoolmasters agreed that one of the best ways to instill good Latin in their students was to have them read and perform ancient plays, especially the comedies of Terence and Plautus” (27). Learning, in Shakespeare’s time, consisted of: “rote memorization, relentless drills, endless repetition, daily analysis of texts, elaborate exercises in imitation and rhetorical variation, all backed up by the threat of violence” (Greenblatt 26). The use of the performance of plays in the instruction of material became a “kind of recurrent theatrical transgression, a comic liberation from the oppressive heaviness of the education system” (Greenblatt 27). “There is hard evidence from later in his life”, Greenblatt states, “that Shakespeare loved” Plautus’ The Two Menaechmuses and Shakespeare borrowed heavily upon this play when he created The Comedy of Errors (28). It was the exposure to such plays in his schooling, and their use in the instruction of curriculum that continued to be an influence upon Shakespeare throughout his life.

            In his youth William Shakespeare saw the spectacle of the theater in the various troupes of traveling performers that occasionally arrived where he lived. According to Greenblatt, “the arrival in provincial towns” of these performers “generally followed a set pattern” (29). These performers arrived in a “flourish of trumpets and the rattle of drums”, who “swaggered down the street in their colorful liveries, scarlet cloaks, and crimson velvet caps” (Greenblatt 29). These performers carried “letters of recommendation, with wax seals, that showed that they were not vagabonds, and that a powerful patron protected them” (Greenblatt 29). Records of the time tell of “broken windows and damage to chairs and benches caused by mobs of unruly spectators jostling for a good view” of these performances (Greenblatt 29). The arrival of such performers broke the monotony of everyday life, and the spectacle of their performances had the power to cause the people to become unruly in their excitement.

            The bulk of the performances that formed the spectacle of the theater were morality plays. These morality Plays, also known as “moral interludes”, served as “sermons designed to show the terrible consequences of disobedience, idleness, or dissipation” (Greenblatt 31). Shakespeare built upon these crudely written, and didactic morality plays with their simple, one dimensional characters with names like Vice, “Riot, Iniquity”, or “Misrule” (Greenblatt 32). The characters of these morality plays “embodied simultaneously the spirit of wickedness and the spirit of fun” (Greenblatt 32). It was commonly known that these characters would be beaten at the end, “but for a time” they “pranced about, scorning the hicks, insulting the solemn agents of order and piety, playing tricks on the unsuspecting, plotting mischief, and luring the innocent into taverns and whorehouses” (Greenblatt 32). Grasping that “the spectacle of human destiny” was “vastly more compelling when it was attached not to generalized abstractions” of the flat characters of the morality plays, “but to particular named people, people realized with an unprecedented intensity of individuation: not Youth but Prince Hal, not Everyman but Othello”, Shakespeare expanded upon the simple characters found in the moralities when he created his own characters (Greenblatt 34). The spectacle of the morality plays that he witnessed in his youth were a significant influence upon William Shakespeare’s own

creations of characters in his own written and performed works.

            Various celebrations in Elizabethan England also contained within them the same spectacle as the theater. “In Late May or June”, Greenblatt states, “the great annual Corpus Christi pageants” occurred, “presenting the whole destiny of mankind from the Creation and the Fall to the redemption”. (37). Also known as “mystery cycles”, they consisted of a “grand procession to know the Eucharist, and were a “major civic enterprise, involving large numbers of people and significant expenditure” (Greenblatt 37). “At various places in the city”, Greenblatt states, “usually on specially built scaffolds or carts, a part of the cycle – the story of Noah” or the “angel of Annunciation”, for instance, was performed by “pious (or simply exuberantly histrionic) townspeople”, whose cost was assumed by individual guilds (37). Typically “the shipwrights undertook Noah, the goldsmiths the Magi, the bakers the Last Supper, and the pinners (men who made pins and needles) the Crucifixion” (Greenblatt 37). Another traditional May event was the May Day festival that “celebrated the legend of Robin Hood, with raucous, often bawdy rituals” (Greenblatt 38). These events, according to Greenblatt, would contain a “coarse Robin Hood show, with a drunken Friar Tuck, and a lascivious Maid Marion” (40). These festivals offered just as much spectacle as the theater, and they show their influence in Shakespeare’s various works.

            Another event which influenced Shakespeare as theatrical spectacle was the tour of her realm that Queen Elizabeth made when Shakespeare was still a young boy. “In the summer of 1575, when Will was eleven”, Greenblatt states, “the queen had gone to the Midlands on one of her royal progresses – journeys, accompanied by an enormous retinue, on which, bejeweled like a Byzantine icon” (42). The Queen, according to Greenblatt, would have been “arrayed in one of her famously elaborate dresses, carried in a litter on the shoulders of guards specially picked for their good looks, accompanied by her gorgeously arrayed courtiers” (46). Queen Elizabeth was the “supreme mistress of these occasions” who had for her staged “elaborate entertainments” such as “speeches by Sibylla, Hercules, the Lady of the Lake” to name a few, and displays of “fireworks”, “bearbaiting (a “sport” in which mastiffs attacked a bear chained to a stake)”, acrobatics, and “an elaborate water pageant” (Greenblatt 43). Either William Shakespeare witnessed “these pieces of his own local culture staged for the grand visitors” or at the very least “have heard the events described in loving detail” in an “elaborate written description of them” by Robert Langham which was “inexpensively printed and widely circulated” (Greenblatt 43). Langham’s letter, Greenblatt states, would have been “useful reading for anyone who was in the business of trying to entertain the queen – and Shakespeare was shortly to go into that business” (44). The power of the spectacle of theater embodied in the excitement and awe inspired by royalty would later influence Shakespeare to use them in his later works and plays.

            William Shakespeare had many influences in his life, yet the spectacle of the theater was one of strongest upon his life, and perhaps decided the choice of his career. The use of ancient plays in William Shakespeare’s schooling might have been one of his first introductions to the spectacle to the spectacle of theatrics. Shakespeare would have also witnessed the spectacle of theater in the arrival of traveling performers, who journeyed freely through the countryside, yet were protected by permit from high authorities despite the unruliness they caused in spectators attempting to get the best view to observe these entertainments. The religious morality plays that would have comprised much of the substance of the performances in the theater had much influence on William Shakespeare. Other spectacles of theater that greatly influenced Shakespeare as well, would have been the various celebrations and festivals that occurred annually, events which comprised the spectrum between the sacred and the profane. The spectacle of theatrics that influenced William Shakespeare was not limited to the theater, or celebrations and festivals, but also in the awe and mystery that was evoked by royalty. Of the many influences in Shakespeare’s life, the spectacle of the theater was one of the most profound, and had, in it’s many forms, the greatest impact upon him in his life.

Works Cited:

Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2004. Print.

The Art of Biological Warfare I (Butler Correctional Facility circa 1997).).

I look around and see no one paying any particular attention to me, they guys around me either sleeping or absorbed in some prurient or generally disturbed interest. My right index finger goes digging for gold. It finds some. I extract my finger and a greenish white slug detaches from the inside of my nostril. I curl my index finger back. I aim my hand in some general direction away from my cube, trying not to make it obvious, as if it was just a gesture of putting my arm back at my side after scratching an itch on my nose. As my arm is in its moderately slow down-slide arc, my index finger launches/flicks its burden into space. It has always amazed me that if you followed the launch of your mucus from you finger, it seems to sometimes disappear mere inches from your finger, it’s arc of flight only known to God and the angels.

I come back from the bathroom and notice an index card that someone had taped to the little wall next to my bed. It could have been there for some hours as I had no reason to pay attention to this area, as I floated on the currents of my own daydreams and preoccupations. As I passed I looked down to see what it read.

“WE WILL FIND YOU”, it read ominously in some inmates imprecise scrawl.

Inwardly I laugh gleefully. Perhaps you will.

Kumar's Utopianism Chapter 5 Summary/Response Essay (Ideal Worlds 08-12-12).

Joseph Melanson
August 01, 2012

Summary:

            Kumar, in the first part of the chapter 5 describes how utopian authors encountered “persecution and imprisonment for their utopian endeavor” (86). Some authors like Zamyatin and Orwell “faced exile and rejection from several publishers” (Kumar 87). This persecution arises because of the threat these utopian works place on the powers that be because of the mirror they hold up to society.

            The basic form that the typical utopia takes, Kumar states, is the “narrative of a journey” (89). These journeys show imagined characters as strangers in a strange land, who find themselves in an ideal place, and this ideal place becomes an indirect criticism of the authors own place and time. These utopian journeys are also more powerful as they show social theory in action in narrative, rather than social theory in abstract principles and concepts.

            Utopia it is reasoned by some critics, must inevitably lead towards “tyranny and totalitarianism” (Kumar 90). This is due to the belief by some that any attempt to organize society into an ideal state, and then to maintain this order, must suppress “the conflict and diversity that are an inescapable and enriching part of human life” (Kumar 90). Utopia in its capacity for becoming real has led some to believe that this realizablity is a threat to mankind due to its tendency to become a totalitarian state. Our “modern utopia”, Kumar states, “is a socialist utopia” and the failure of previous socialist attempts has also been seen as failure of utopia as well (94).

            Utopia still has its usefulness though. Kumar asks if utopia is “to be taken literally, a call to action, to the practical realization of utopias as the mode of progress?” (95). It is feared by anti-utopians that this realization of utopia will result in the “authoritarian regimentation” which has been the result of attempts at utopias for the past two centuries (95).

            Despite this threat Kumar states that “utopian conceptions are indispensible to politics”, and without them politic becomes a mere “soulless void” (95). It is shortsighted though to reduce utopia to only its political usefulness. “As a literary genre” Kumar states, utopia serves as “a mixture of remote distance from, and fierce familiarity with, the real world of politics and society” (96).

            The writer of literary utopias has the challenge of creating his invented world that not only works on its own, but still provides a means to which one may examine contemporary society. The writer of utopian social theory Kumar states, must also provide a “comprehensive, critical perspective on modern society” (97). Both literary utopias and utopian social theory serve a myriad of functions and should be looked at for their usefulness and not deemed worthless because of past failures at realization. Kumar states, “there is no end to the uses of utopia” (98).

            It is in the past century that “anti-utopian current has been strongest” with works like “Brave New World, Darkness at Noon, and Nineteen Eighty-Four” getting the most attention (99). These anti-utopian works serve to work as mirrors to utopia, and each one serves to show the perfections and flaws in each respective genre. Each genre has seen its own vicissitudes of success and admonishment, but each continues respectively as tools for social movement, especially in the field of “contemporary feminism” (101).

            As women increasingly move into the domain of men and beyond their traditional role as captive in the home and relegated to its maintenance, feminist utopias have arisen to challenge and add to the genre of utopia. Another genre of utopia called ecotopia has emerged from the “ecology movement” (103). The ecotopia hopes to make man’s place in the world harmonious with nature, rather than dominate nature with industry. Both the feminist and the ecotopia are just two recent development in the genre which will only continue to develop and flourish as mankind increasingly becomes able to develop and flourish as well.

Response:

            Until the founding of America there was no freedom of expression, and in some parts of the world this concept still does not exist. I believe that the birth of utopia arose out of this need to challenge the status quo, and the authorities that maintained it for their own benefit. This new challenge to the powers that be naturally suppressed it, perhaps not completely understanding of the danger posed by utopian writers, but still aware that these authors posed a threat to their positions.

            The utopian journey makes us aware that there are always better places than where we are, and the greatest concept that one can get from utopia is that rather than waiting and hoping for some better place and time, rather than wishing for escape from our current circumstances, we can attempt to make the world a better place from wherever we are at the moment.

            Utopia, Kumar informs us in chapter 5, has been misused and abused like so many other beneficial concepts. Utopia is not to be blamed for this misuse, but rather those who merely used it to put themselves in power, and subverted utopia to their own ends.

           

            In our recent history we have seen the horrors and atrocities of world wars, fought by societies that each believed was fighting for their own utopian cause. This fighting has led some to believe that it is the fault of the utopian concept, while Kumar informs us in chapter 5 that utopia, like mankind, is till within its early developing stages.

             What I got out of chapter 5 was that utopia, like many concepts, can be abused and misused, corrupted and bent to self-serving purposes. But as the world becomes ever more interconnected, this utopian concept, I believe, will finally be realized in some form or fashion in the future. It is up to mankind, I believe, to take the responsibility in taking active control in the development of our utopian ideal, and learn the lessons from history to never allow again authorities to ride its wave into power, and then pervert the utopian concept to their own agenda.

              Utopia, I believe, still retains a very important means to examine our societies, and give us a direction to consider in which we should be moving.


Works Cited:

Kumar, Krishan. Utopianism: Concepts in Social Thought. “Chapter 5: Utopia on the Map of the World”. Great Britain: University of Minnesota Press. 1991. 86-107. Print.

Two Short Shorts (Assignment for Creative Nonfiction II 07-12-12).

Joseph Melanson

Creative Nonfiction II

Prof. Cahan

12 July 2012

Two Short Shorts

The following two paragraphs are my attempt at doing two short shorts

            I take another hit from the pipe, and my body gets white hot almost immediately. The car glides through the early morning streets like a boat across water, stopped in traffic I relight my pipe, wondering what the other drivers think of my blatant disregard for social responsibility. The smoke erupts from inside of me like the breath of an angry but impotent god, burning and smearing the sky, the plumes of the desolate volcano. I feel the twists and torqued muscles surrounding their bones, my right bicep seeming to hang from the bone, one of many of my physical reminders of my life of misadventure. After several hours of ingesting smoke and idly roaming old familiar territory, I’m barely conscious behind the wheel, memory and instinct have automatically taken over to preserve this empty shell. I am both confused and serenely unconcerned with my reality, and I will devote the rest of the morning to driving around aimlessly. I have passed the last few years like this in a self-induced haze, through more than two years of unemployment, thousands upon thousands of dollars in student loans, somehow accruing good grades towards my Bachelors, somehow maintaining my relationship with my girlfriend, somehow still keeping disaster out of my life.

           My car has a silver 2006 Toyota Camry. The official name of the paint job that the car came with is called “Lunar Mist”. It came with some scratches, some large and some small. It has gained a few more scars since the day I picked it up 08/08/08. I was as proud as a father of a new born. When searching out for a new car to buy that summer, I would frequently pass this silver car, a 2006 model with only a few scratches, and only 20,000 miles on the odometer. I’d wonder at this car, as probably everyone else did too, why it wasn’t being sold, why it didn’t have the dealer’s “Toyota Recertified” sticker upon it’s windshield as the majority of other used vehicles in the lot displayed. I spotted another car that seemed as pristine as this one, a hybrid too, and made my way inside to initiate the process of hopefully making it mine. During the conversation with the dealer I happened to inquire about the silver car, the seeming ugly duckling of the dealership, this blemish upon the lot.

 Joseph, both of these short pieces are viable additions to your course writing portfolio. Both capture reader interest from start to finish with a strong and authentic narrative voice; varied and rhythmic sentences (though more time with the final editing stage of the writing process would be helpful, and the second short seems it needs a more definite conclusion); creative sensory imagery; and truth-telling topic choices -- good work. Grade for Essay 2 is B. 84%.

"Strange Joe". Memoir Attempt for Creative Nonfiction (08-01-12).

This essay is about a kid that used to live down the street from me when I was young. For some reason I am unable to go beyond what I already have below, and cannot make much more of it. I was hoping to do a memoir for this piece.

Essay about other Joe

Same name

           There was this older child Joe who used to visit his grandmother Gertie, a woman who lived by herself across the street from me when I was growing up. His appearances were thankfully short and far and few between. He would come to visit every once in a while and usually not for long.

           Grandmother Gertie lived across the street, he would visit from time to time, an elderly couple that were practically invisible, hardly ever seeing her or her husband Joe come and go from their house during the years that I lived there. The only reason she even came into my awareness at all was solely due to her strange first name.

           Once a friend of mine, Frankie, a boy who was living at the foster home that my grandmother had me baby sat, got into an altercation, home that I was being baby sat at, I tried running away to go home he would chase after me, trip me, block me from

            He seemed as if possessed by a demon, and I in my fear, believed looking him in the eye, and paying no attention to him, would save me from the infection of insanity that I felt this strange Joe was going to give to me. I hid from him as if I saw the devil inside this boy and taunting me with the knowledge of the inevitability of the bestowment of these curses of revelations that would imprint upon my soul a distorted view of my fellow humanity. For most of my life I have been but a speck of dust in the background of other people’s existences, content to my solitary, distorted, perverted world of believing that even at my most bravest, was only ever going to be invisible to the real people I cared about, and not the one’s that I had to care about.

             Sling shot in golf course, marble I was hit in the upper arm, but could have easily been hit in the face or eye. He was hunting small animals and I felt compelled to attempt to startle him, given false courage by being in the company of a younger friend. He quickly turns, probably not surprised by our approach at all. He turns when I call out and seeing he now has a target much more interesting(?) than a squirrel or a bird, he pulls back, aims, and fires, a wild look of madness in his eyes, eyes that don’t see the world through fear of consequences like the majority of us, but through a compulsion to destroy

             Swinging snake – horrified to ride by on my bike one day to find him whipping the tree in his grandmother’s front yard with a garden snake, asked me if I wanted to see it, he threw it at me when I refused and kept going on my bike

             I don’t know why I never went back and told anyone, perhaps I was somehow convinced my lack of telling would earn me some kind of credibility with the rest of the neighborhood when and if it got around.

            We found one window broken on the garage door. A hole seemed to made from a bb gun or a sling shot.

            One of the major reasons I learned that it was safer to learn how to live inside one’s mind, than to venture out into the potentially armed hostility of the neighborhood. I had my grandparents duplex apartment egged. I was punched on the bus. I was punched in school. There were two foster homes in the neighborhood, one ran by a stable family, the other one that was a morbidly obese version of the mother on Married with Children. It was blatantly obvious to anyone, even a kid who hadn’t been that she was only in it for the money. She used to lay in bed all day reading romance novels, eating, having the foster children cook and clean, berate some and aggravate others, probably. That was the second baby sitter my grandmother saw fit to have me sent to.

I wonder where he is now. In prison, in this or, some other state? In an institution where they keep the captives of their own mental instability? Or as dead as I feel I will become in the near future, dead as a man who died shortly after realizing that he never truly bothered to learn how to live, who died realizing that he had never truly lived?