Vaguely nauseous. Always a mystery where I will end up starting. I think about these things all the time, you know. Will I tell about this or that conversation, as if the events themselves are daring me to introduce them to you. I say ‘you’ with some discomfort, now, more discomfort than I have articulated previously, because I have cast you adrift this past week. I say this past week like this has become a diary. Yuck. This is not a diary. I must not hesitate to remain firmly in contact, in touch, in connection with you, even though I have cast you off, told you in your office that I would no longer be writing to you, dear John (and that is borrowing a phrase I used in our in-person session), and that you like the rest of the world will have to find me online, impersonally…though still writing to you. This whole paragraph makes me uneasy, because of course you know all this, so why must I tell you, unless I am mugging for the camera. You know that I have given you the big finger, told you to get lost.

Not wanted you to.

Oh, how dramatic that was, creating that new paragraph to say exactly the opposite of what I was saying. How effective. How writerly. How…what?…I make fists in the air as I write…forceful? I am no longer in your office. I am on stage. I must forget about all that.

I need to proceed as if you are still there. I know you will be on occasion. I know you will tune in now and then. You told me. (But of course you know that; why must I tell you?) I will write for that timeless, or unappointed, time, when you will click on to me…right? Okay. Let‘s just pretend that nothing has happened.

As I was saying, it is always a mystery where I will begin. That is one of the mysteries of therapy to me, that I can have all these things circulating in my head, but somehow the one that just comes out in the moment of actual writing is the one that matters. I don’t know. I kind of have this image of a blockage, like loose mud. And any ar--…what?…think of the physics. I think of the mud outside, the sludge in the rain, or diarrhea. Imagine a puddle of that on a slope. Not diarrhea, because it all just rushes out willy-nilly. But…what’s the feeling I have?



Thinking.






I’m thinking of cooking, something in the kitchen, like breaking the skin of some thickened heated milk, something that will not run on its own, but once the skin is pricked, or the opening opened…it comes out. So think of that. And imagine…I don’t know…a line of force…(What does this have to do with anything…am I writing for you or for the world?)…an obstruction within that restrained puddle. Like in a subway line. A bunch of people waiting to barge through, and in the middle of the crowd, a bigger man, more aggressive (Persis), who will push a little harder than everyone else.

And once that gate is opened, yes, the crowd, the liquid will spill through, but that thing that is pushing the hardest will come out before the others. It is not like falling. It is not like the pebble and the baby grand hitting the ground at the same time. It is about psychic pressure. The admixture still has tension as it comes out, a desire, no, a force restraining it…surface tension…trying to keep it in. But that thing that is in the middle, away from the sides, either exerting more forward pressure or not as subject to restraint…(What is that? Repression? Does that mean that even those things most subject to repression are not likely to come out at first? I suppose that would be consistent with my experience. That the big release, and big ‘ahhhhhhh’s, like giant turds, must also wait until the meager [In the sense of quality here, not quantity] scum has cleared out, later in the session.)…where was I?…

So I guess it really does not matter where I start. That opening that is provided by the beginning of talking or typing will determine the slope of, the downward…the…what is the opposite of apex?…anyway, that. I am tempted to look up the word. It would be very in character. I resist because of the pressure, the urging from Reinhardt, whom I am now seeing exclusively and thanks to the fact that I am no longer paying you to read these, you moocher (I can call you anything I want, right?, because you are likely not reading. Of course, I could do the same before, you poser, but only did so when it seemed appropriate. This hostility toward you, which came up in the post this week – that is, a month ago – continues. I suppose I am just getting out the aggression and grief of this change that makes me anxious. Whatever. Poser.)…uh…Reinhardt…

So we are talking about going more than once a week, or twice a week, as it is also called in some instances. I am wary. Why am I still writing to you? Why do I not write to her? She does not have a right to this. She does not have the right to come in and interrupt what was so wonderfully established before her fat form (I hope she never reads this) plopped onto the landscape. She is an interloper. An interplopper. I want to continue writing to you.

But as I have expressed in her office, I am worried that my time with her will actually detract from this, that it will be…this is cool, it’s like, for a writer, time spent in the psychologist’s office is like the sin of Onan: spilled seed. Material discharged to someone where it will disappear forever. It cannot be disemboweled…that’s not the word…disinterred. Although disemboweled…like taken out of the bowels…like the diarrhea…I really do associate the release, the process of this confession to a process of shitting. Popping a zit. Whence that more than physical…it is psychic, psychic…release when a zit is popped? Dare I say it is one of the most enjoyable, enlightening (in the sense of making one lighter), freeing, and delightful feelings in the world? I prance down a meadow of yellow…what?…those mustardy flowers…[or] edelweiss?…imagine Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp children all popping their zits and singing about it. Do re mi fa so la ti pllllpp! I am mugging for the camera. But it is authentic. This is what this process feels like.

And what right has Reinhardt to it? To take away from this. I brought up with her the fear that I had that was instilled in me by David Lynch who, in an interview that I read sometime after Blue Velvet changed my life, said that he had one session with a therapist and when he asked if his creativity would be affected by continued treatment, the shrink said it might be and he [David Lynch] left. I have had much scorn for that, since so far, in the grand scheme, therapy has made my creativity more…clear…I don’t know. I have…it’s weird. I want to say that it has made the serum that comes out of my zits (now I’m talking about my work in general, not just here. …See, I am now calling this ‘work.’ That is a change. It is not just secret confession out of necessity. It is performance. Forgive me. I will never get back to what it was.), it has made that serum run clear, rather than pussy…oops…no…that’s right, isn’t it? Full of pus? Pussy? Pusy? Ooh, what an unfortunate…what is that called when two words with unrelated and even opposed meanings are spelled the same?…No, I will not look it up…but ‘pussy’ and ‘pussy.’ Love that one. [I have done the research for you, you poser; and it is inconclusive. Take that, and that. You, oh pussiest of pussies.]

Anyway, so therapy has been good to me, but…or has it? Well, back to this fear…and see, I want my ex…my exhument…That is a word now: ‘exhument’…not ‘excrement’ (that which is excreted, that material)…but that material which is exhumed. Maybe it is a word already. I hope not. That will be my contribution to literature. ‘Exhument.’ Created by the author Joel Geller to mean a word…aw, fuck this nonsense. No, I kind of want to go with it. ‘“Exhument.” That which is exhumed, esp. in reference to psychic material that emerges, like congealed sebum, from a pimple when [com]depressed targetedly between two fingers. Coined by the author Joel Geller in his groundbreaking work, To My Poser, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.’ [After the fact, the alternate and more accurate ‘extrudent’ occurred to me. I’ll have to think about that; it appears to have already been used in English.]

Shit. Burt banging banging banging in the background. Must go close the door.

I‘m not sure I like this new…I am envisioning my friend Charlie laughing at all these things. He told me what he thought…I saw him after I saw you and we got stoned together and it was good to see him and it reminded me of what I am missing here in this little hippietown: friends. It is all right except for that, and if Charlie would only move to…and I miss my friend Justin Wolff. I think about him a lot. I want to send him a copy of that letter that I found from him recently, the one that accompanied the xeroxes of the Jock Sturges picture that he acquired for the Bowdoin Museum of Art that ended with ‘All my love, Justin.’ I want to ask him what happened to that relationship. Why did he cast it out like I am [casting you out]…no, with him there was no warning. I told him that maybe I was or was at one point in love with him and the next time I saw him he was distant and we had a bad meal at that pseudo-…what?…Barbados Grill? No, doesn’t matter, where my sister’s…fuck this…and then…nothing from him, and all attempts to reach him nothing. He was my Charlie in…this is it: This is what pains me so much about moving. I have no Charlie, no Justin, no James here to comfort me. To keep me company at night when all the excretia of the day has passed. No one to get high with. No one to…this idea that that person is supposed to be your spouse is fucking…fucking fucked up. I mean, I could no sooner do that with Persis than I could marry Charlie. Though certainly I have fantasized about that. He, or Justin, and I living happily ever after. Together. Our wives kept quietly and contentedly in the next room…no, in, like, the basement…or the guest house. That’s good. I don’t mean to disrespect them. They are a part of it all. I can’t really give it up for [i.e., get excited about] sex with Charlie (sorry guy)…(and see, those little asides shouldn’t be allowed…it is proof that this is all posing…I must…I want to purify this. Charlie proposed the idea of a phantom blog, a decoy blog. Maybe I will do this, and write yet another blog to Reinhardt, and that will be the real thing. I will fool myself into being honest by making myself think that one of the sessions is for her and me alone, and then a month later I will fool myself by publishing the Reinhardt one instead! MWA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!) but the idea of having wives put away in the back while he and I had a life of just being and talking and woring [I can’t figure out what the hell I meant by this, but it was assuredly not the word that here lacks an ‘h’. – Ah! Spell check to the rescue: ‘working.’ Shows you the first place my mind goes. MWA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!] and getting high together would be absolutely…I mean…tell me, really: What is the problem with that? Even if it wasn’t the guest house. What if we bought two lots adjoining…or I see it as opening on parallel streets with their [the lots’] backs facing each other. And Lucy and Persis could live in one and Joel and Charlie could live in the other, and there would be…there would even be two heated underground tunnels between the houses: one for Joel and Persis’s use, and one for Charlie and Lucy. The couples need never get tangled up with each other. It could just…and the couples could communicate within themselves whenever they wanted, you know, Persis could call and ask if she could come over and I would say yes (unless I said no), and she would walk through her tunnel and talk to me. But make no mistake, it would be my house and Charlie’s house. And…well, we would have to talk about Lucy’s rules. I mean, it would defeat the purpose if she could just come over whenever she wanted. There would have to be a protocol that both couples followed. Charlie and I would agree…there would be, like a direct phone line. Like between Washington and Moscow. And either buddylink (that’s the word for the buddy pair that came into my mind) could unplug the phone and would only do so as a mutual decision. And the…okay, it could even be that the phone would be default plugged in, but would be unplugged by each buddy twosome whenever and with no questions asked. So basically Persis could only…and of course Lucy with Charlie…could only get in touch with me when both buddy twosomes wanted the line to be open. Now if Charlie wanted Lucy to be able to get in touch with him and I didn’t…that’s something that Charlie and I would have to work out. But Lucy would never get involved in that. God, that would be so much simpler and more pleasurable.

See, I’ve moved, now permanently, to this nice, wet, green, easy place, and one of its primary virtues is that it is easy to…it is small, you know, you can get across it without…and to the middle of it without much effort. And so if Justin lived anywhere in Ecksville, we could be at a table sitting over beers in fifteen minutes. Home in an hour. But I don’t have anyone like that. And I don’t know how to cultivate that…well, I do, but it takes time, and I don’t have time. I don’t want to invest in an arbitrary relationship. I’ve never done that. I’ve always been handed relationships, and that’s when magic happens. James, Justin, Charlie…roommates whom I was e--…well, I was forced into proximity with them.

But with marriage I am forced out of proximity with anyone who might fill that need for me. It’s a damn shame.





A deep breath.




The clock ticks down.





I don’t want to shoot my wad in Reinhardt’s office. I want to bring everything here. I realized that there is so much stuff that you do not know about…or that you did not learn about here. Persis’s appointment process, how degrading and frustrating and protracted it was for her. Not part of my exhumence, exhumia, what was the word? Ex..hum..ent. But there…But that’s also what I don’t want this to be, as I have already said: a diary. This is not about…I’ve been reading other dad blogs [A lie. I have been roughly scanning them, conveniently, so as not to be able to appraise any of them too high for my ego’s health.], and they’re all…even well written ones, I’m not knocking…(and here I am afraid that they will be reading. I am pitiful.) But they’re all these daily postings, ‘this happened then this happened,’ and maybe some benign reflections. But not me. (Ding. Time’s up.) Me, I’m better than all that. I am the grandest whiner of them all. Fuck that optimistic ‘Oh isn’t this cute look at my harried life and my lovely wife and I’m trying to survive but doing it with a pasty smile.’ No, I’m like, yeah world, fuckin’ eat my exhumence. This is what living is like. It sucks acid.

I came up with a good analogy – isn’t it nice tooting one’s horn (ugh, cliché) – in an earlier post: living like biting into a lemon. But now I’m on free time and just writing because it’s there to do. Like those other loser bloggers. Let them bow (in worship and shame) at my feet.