The quiddity of my existence, alas, was to be an oxymoron.
A divided soul. A victim of irony.
An existentialist demagogue by night, by day a malingering and covert sophist.
Perhaps it is not altogether fair to castigate myself too harshly as an ergophobe (one who is afraid of work) or a micawber (after the Dickensian character who though poor lived in the optimistic expectation of great fortune), for I did work. Indeed, I worked like a dog (rarely to address a languishing bank account) but rather to unearth a bone, a bone whose scent was stirring me to madness, a bone I believed would deliver me from my hunger, from this gnawing feeling that there was something else to existence. But a dog can find justification enough in Olfacto Ergo Sum, so why not I?
The tough thing about my me-ness is that for some reason I have wound up being a jittering nexus of numerous divergent streams of culture all in contraposition to one another… On the one hand a party girl, on the other a hermetic bookworm. On the one hand a punk modernist and on the other a romanticist. On the one hand a chill Cali girl and on the other a wannabe ruler of culture. On the one hand a transcendentalist and on the other an atheist. So for every step I take in one direction, I take another in the opposite. Maybe it all boils down to me being a weenie. For not taking a position.
Maybe I could retitle this book Confessions of a Weenie or How Not to be a Weenie.
Naturally, it is not easy to pull yourself out of your weenie-dom onto the cold bright stage of life. Self pep-talks might be a start. Every morning look at yourself in the mirror and say “I am not a weenie.” Maybe get a little name tag to hang around your neck saying I AM NOT A WEENIE. At the very least this will provoke conversation, leading others to say “Really, you’re not a weenie? How do I know?” Then you will just have to step up and prove it.