It is postulated that the night my mother died I pissed oatmeal. It is also inferred that I already had errant brain waves, but since this was 1988 I can't blame it on the proximity of the cell phone to my skull. What, then? Let's call one - the last conversation I had with her was a knockdown drag out argument. What can I say? There was drama in the 1980s. I would come home at dawn shitfaced drunk and we'd sit and talk like the Tyrone brothers in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. Bah! Inamorata! Pond scum! Gambler! Let's Call One - Thelonius Monk.

I want you to learn my fruit.

Check it out: early in the CONFESSIONS Rousseau explains that he feels great culpability over the fact that his mother died as a result of complications she incurred while she was giving birth to him. I think he declares it "the first of my misfortunes." Well, this is the bullshit of literature. This is a microscope upon the bullshit of literature. He's not a sentient being with will and volition. There's no agency there at all. He's a newborn infant in the process of being born!! Drama queen! At most you might be able to say that the physical action of his birth contributed to her death, but to imply that he was somehow "responsible" - well, that's just making up your own language. I think we all do it. You've read Thomas Szaz, correct? Of course you have. Wipe the smirk off your face.

See here: I was going to tell you all about my long abandoned project of New Historicist type criticism involving the reading of CHILDREN OF CAIN by Tina Rosenberg alongside A FLAG FOR SUNRISE by Robert Stone but I whacked off (for eleven years) instead. Theory's loss.

You know how it goes: the sulky, sullen, pouty teenage girl working the cash register announces "Thirty four seventy nine." What does she think, that you can't read the numerals as plain as day on the screen? The cream doesn't come until she woodenly mumbles "Have a nice day," through the wad of gum that her jaws continue to chomp. Like a cow eating grass in the field. This is your life my babies, your spectacle - you created it. Don't look at me. I was reading Robert Stone and Tina Rosenberg.