oldies but goodies

“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne your basic paranoia runs rampant story. All I have to say is that if by the end of our lives if we have not walked through the fires of a hell of our own making then we haven’t really lived. I resent the tone of the ending of the story. I realize that this was set, what? a century ago, still, I believe in purification by fire, in the idea that questioning and being suspicious of accepted mores is a means of remaining vigilant against complacency.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe your basic should have listened to your paranoia story. We are all bound to something. We are all consequences of the past. On a different note have you ever had that wacked out friend come to you for help and you try and try and try to help and then seeing that you are being sucked into the vortex of their destruction you have to flee to survive? This story is that for me. Maybe I’m a bad friend.

“Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street” by Herman Melville your basic “is this the life I’m living?” story. I’ve been a Roy Roger’s cashier, a GAP sales girl, i have been a Sports Authority, a Hilton reception/concierge, a receptionist, an office manager, a waitress. I have known tedious work that I would have preferred not to do. I am far from numb and I am far from curling up against a wall and wasting away. Is it wrong to want to slap Bartleby? Is it wrong to want to dig up Melville, drag his ever lovin’ soul from whatever heaven or hell it resides and show him the commercials for Zoloft, Paxil, and Wellbutrin and yell, “what the fuck??!!???” to his face?

--Really though, when did it become so bad to feel bad? Granted I am a shade masochistic but I really believe that it is ok to feel the full range of emotions.

As for living a mechanical life, fine. Don’t do that. Do something else but for god’s sake DO something.

Wow, got pretty worked up there.

Time to revelate baby.