Faulkner's Northern Wetdream

      You know what's curious? You say you don't have the time to take your son's letter to heart, and read the literature he suggested you read, to gain a very important insight in to why he feels the way he does, yet you have time to read this bullshit.  I find that rather odd, especially for a person such as yourself, who just doesn't "have time for hate and negativity."  That is the battle-cry of the phony optimist.  Whenever anyone says that shit, I immediately know they are lying.  It's to overcompensate for the disproportionate amount of hate, jealously, or rage they feel inside, yet don't express.  You seemed to be focused on plenty of negativity, instead of doing something proactive to help repair the fractured relationship you have with your son, you'd rather just complain. Why?  Probably because it's a lot easier to hate others, then to look inside yourself, acknowledge wrong-doing, and make a change.  It's a lot easier to blame someone else, vilify some outsider, so you don't have to take a shred of responsibility.  And it's worked for you in the past, so why fuck with success?  The only problem is, it isn't working any longer.  You've bottomed out.  It hasn't worked for some time, in fact.  Because he broke his pattern.  Things were different this time around.  He wasn't involved with some pesky chicken head, that could be run out on a rail with a modicum of double-crossing.  He met someone that didn't care about all that bullshit, she just cared about him, and him alone.  She treated him in a way that he's never been treated before, in a way where his inner workings mattered to her more than anything, like a true human being.  She'd shown him things he'd never seen, made him feel things he never even knew existed.  They have a connection.  They have love.  They have a family.
      "I guess if you are universally supposed to be together, there is nothing I can do about it."  What a thing to think, let alone say! A hateful defeatist.  "He should have asked before having his girlfriends move in."  What forty year-old man needs his mommy to vet his girlfriends for him?!  That's pretty fucking weird.  That somehow you feel he should ask you if it's alright for him to have his own love life.  Yep, perfectly normal.  No emotional incest there...Yikes!  But then again,  I'm just an "evil, word-twister." Using things you've said, to call you out on the way you treat him.  He's not going to be your pushover.  And my daughter certainly isn't going to be a pawn in your obsessive game, either. Neither is my mother, though you keep trying to involve her too, but she doesn't take the bait.  You know why?  Because she's not an idiot.  Though you keep trying to play her for one.  It's pretty clear that you are trying to systematically dismantle my happiness for you own.  Why do all you crazies feel like I *stole* him from you?  He certainly acted single the night I met him, as he lusted after me.  He then invited me to his house (I wonder if he asked first?) and, despite saying he wanted to take things slowly, and me agreeing, he decided that meant initiating sex about ten minutes later.  I guess that's how long his self-control lasts.  Not that any of that mattered, we both knew it was something monumental.  We were what the other had been longing for.  Further, how could you all have been married to him?  He's married to his ex-gargoyle, who lives across the continent, he's married to his mother, he's married to his sister, he's married to his friends.  What the fuck?  I didn't realize I was getting involved with such a god damned polygamist. He sure was beholden to a lot people for being a single, forty year old man.
     Your son is his own man now.  And boy did it take a lot of undoing to mitigate the damage his family dynamic caused.  But it's a work-in-progress.  He's getting stronger, he's learning how to stand up for himself.  He freezes up when it comes to expressing himself to you, because he feels like a child again, helpless and scared.  It's really heart-breaking.  It's not because he doesn't feel those things, it's not because I've put him up to something, or convinced him of some lie, it's because he never was allowed to express himself.  He was taught to lie, taught to pretend that things were just fine when they were falling apart, taught to hold it all in, because it isn't about him.  I listened to it, in action, as you tried to talk over him, when he was pouring his heart out to you.  It was always about every one else and their problems and their needs.  No wonder he escaped into a fantasy world of sex and drugs.  He had no where left to go.  He was never allowed to emotionally mature.  He was stuck in this adolescent mindset, thanks to the problems that led up to and including the emotional incest.  Getting him to open up and communicate to the level of an average adult has been exhausting, to say the least.  But I actually do give a shit what he thinks and what he feels.  I actually care.  I really want to know.  It's important to me.  I think it's also imperative to a successful marriage that each person cares about their partner's emotional well-being.  It's not about me, it's about us.  It's supposed to be a partnership, fifty/fifty.
     I'm not sure why you expect him to want a relationship with people who want to see his marriage dissolve, so they can "have him back."  He's not a lawn mower, or a set of poker chips, that you just begrudgingly loan out, then demand be returned when you need them.  He's a human being who makes his own choices.  He has his own life, in which he is seeking his own happiness.  It's pretty lousy of you all, to put him in a position where he has to make those type of choices.  He's not able to be a son, and a brother, as well, as a husband and father, like most men, because you simply wouldn't allow it.  You didn't want to share him, (as if he was "yours" to dole out).  You forced an either/or situation.  You expected to be prioritized first, and his wife and daughter could just get in line somewhere behind.  That's not really how marriage and parenthood works.  They are pervasive parts of one's life if they are taken seriously.  Even more so if it actually makes the person happy.
    It didn't start out like this, and you damn well know it.  You inched your way to this, with this weird sense of competition you eventually revealed, and some desperate and needy choices.   You constantly badmouthed all of his exes, especially that last mongrel, over what amounted to minor infractions.  I learned more about his past relationships from you, than him.  I don't know why I had to hear all about those J-holes.  You must have thought it would endear me to you or something, but instead, it tipped me off to the fact that you really feel no one would ever be good enough for your golden boy.  Also, it made me wonder what you said about me when my back was turned.  And, your son was quite surprised to learn you had such hard feelings for his past girlfriends.  Especially from someone who is so positive, and doesn't think hateful thoughts.  Did you think I wouldn't discuss that with him?  You really take that whole 'divide and conquer' thing seriously.  You knew things were unraveling out of what you thought was your control; you were scrambling for a foothold, as your cover was blown.  That's when the truth started to ooze out.
     But, you never really had that control, not with me anyway.  My cynicism keeps people at arm's length, without those people really even realizing, because I'm nice, I listen, I make jokes, but that doesn't equal trust.  I still keep my eyes open.  He was the only one I desired to know that deeper part of me.  The rest was just friendliness, that you mistook for manipulative progress.  I certainly didn't expect to be mired in this bullshit, though.  I had no ulterior motives.  I just wanted to build a solid relationship with him, and stay out of any immature dramatics.  It seems, you were all hellbent on dragging any person ever foolish enough to get involved with him, down into the depths.  It's really none too shocking that he acted so funny around you when you came around.  He would make this big show of getting everyone espresso and biscuits, but then run off upstairs like he was a busy, busy man.  Lots of big, important joints to smoke in his "office."  No wonder.  Everything within this family dynamic was an act.
      Why was it that I was the only one that has ever taken an interest in who he is as a person?  Why was he so attracted to someone that was so drastically different from every one else he's ever known? I mean if you are all so fantastic, wouldn't he be attracted to someone more like you guys.  Hmm, that's so weird, right?  Why could that be... It's a real head-scratcher.  He literally sought out the polar opposite of everyone in his phony world.  He was tired of props and sets, and yearned for something genuine.
     It's such a ridiculous idea to me, that somehow you feign bewilderment as to why he doesn't want to be around you.  It's so painstakingly obvious to everyone else.  Why would anyone want to be around people that make them feel bad about their happiness?  But you would never do that, because you are such a loving, wonderful person, right?  You aren't hateful or spiteful.  You would never try to come between him and his wife.  You would never try to have some secret relationship with him, like lovers having an affair.  Yet, you always ask him if he is alone when you talk to him.  Another curiosity.  Is he supposed to only talk to you when he is alone? In a candle-lit room, after a long soak in the tub, perhaps? Seems kind of creepy to me.  If your relationship is so appropriate, why would it have to be a kept a secret?  What is there to hide?
      Why should you try to put him in a position where he has to hide things from his wife, anyway, for you?  Unless you wanted to cause problems for his marriage, as a secondary benefit from the pleasure you derive from having an inappropriate relationship with your son, in the first place.  What you deem "close," clinicians deem covert incest.  And it has caused him immeasurable anguish, and problem after problem in his life, yet you just want to continue doing it, no matter the pain it's causing him, just because it makes you feel good.  That's the definition of selfish.  He doesn't like it.  It makes him wildly uncomfortable, it triggered a slew of substance abuse, and it has affected his ability for intimacy with acceptable partners.  Which in turn, has reinforced the emotionally incestuous relationship with you, much to your delight.  But it's not just about you, or him, or any other family members you're willing to share him with.  He has a wife now, and more than that, he has a child of his own, who is being hurt by the effects of all this perversion.  So when you say you don't know how you are hurting her, that's pretty rotten, and pretty stupid, because, by trying to come between her parents for your own personal gain, that is certainly hurting her.  By disparaging and vilifying her mother, that hurts her.  Not to mention the direct neglect, when you begged to babysit her as an infant, but refused to change her diaper, or even feed her a bottle, when she cried.  But, I'm sure you still wonder why I put a stop to that too.  In the long run, you are doing far more damage, just to glean an intimate, emotional fulfillment from someone you are not supposed to glean that type of intimacy from.  It's so beyond inappropriate.  And you've caused, and continue to cause such irreparable devastation because of it.  But truly, you are the one missing out.
     You are literally trying to break up a family, because you think you have some claim to him as much more than a son.  You don't love your son, you are in love with him, and thus make unreasonable, and unseemly demands of him.  It's not a casual relationship.  But you, somehow, don't see, how that hurts your granddaughter, let alone her parents.  I don't make a habit of handing my kid over to people I don't trust.  So, that's why you don't see her.  And that's why you aren't going to see her.  As for your son, you don't see your son because he doesn't want to see you.  Believe me, I'm not in charge of that guy.  He does whatever he wants to do.  And further, I don't want to be in charge of him.  I don't need another person I have to take care, like a child.  I want a partner, not some sycophantic stooge.  Yeah, that's *real* attractive.  Bleh! We share our thoughts and feelings with one another, but beyond that, that's as much sway as I hold.  And it ain't much.  The whole point is to get him to be able to make his own decisions, and good decisions at that, and be his own man.  That's the whole fucking crux of it.  I don't want to puppeteer him, as part of some twisted fantasy.  So not my style.  I want it to be real, or I don't want it at all.
     I can't just sit idly by and watch you all steamroll him anymore.  It's ruining him.  I've tried to ignore it, tried reasoning, rational discussion; nothing has worked.  I'd really like to not have to deal with any of you.  I've cut family members out before, which was the right decision.  I don't want any part of this, but the trouble is, I love him, and he loves me, and we have a daughter together.  It's kind of a big deal.  It's important to the three of us.  He is crushed by all this.  I tried to tell him that this was the likely outcome, but he held out such a sweet, but naive hope that you would come around.  I certainly didn't.  A leopard doesn't change its spots.  I know you loved having him as your surrogate husband, picking up all that emotional slack, but at such a high cost to him.  You can't control him any more, your manipulations are no longer effective, and you can't stand it.  But, that's your problem to fix.  You don't like the way things turned out for you, I guess that's just tough shit.  That's what happens when you, very inappropriately, make your son, your only joy.  Your misery isn't his responsibility.  It never was.
     What did you expect was going to happen, exactly?  He was never going to leave you? He'd never have his own life?  He'd never get married and have a family of his own?  Yeah.  He can just live like Norman Bates, be at your beck and call, take care of the family museum, prey on unsuspecting women in the shower, and dress up like an old lady in his spare time.
    
     

Who is he? Who the fuck are the Knudsens? Who is anyone?

     The only thing I understand about people is that I understand nothing about people.  I don't fucking get them, they don't fucking get me.  It's this thing we have.  I've said it a thousand times: I feel like an alien among humans or the only human among a race of aliens.  I just don't fucking fit in.  And I've learned to accept that, (mostly), but sometimes, in these rare instances, I think I find a kindred spirit.  What you people call a "friend."  But even that is an illusion.  I don't have many true friends, maybe because I have such stringent standards as to what that means.  I have mostly acquaintances, because I'm not sure if they truly understand me, which I feel is intrinsic and invaluable to be termed a friend.  I think I can count on one hand how many actual friends I have, and even that is being generous.  It seems the rate of attrition for my friendships is laughably high.  I gave up a long time ago on having what other people think of as friends.  I guess I am unable to understand what friendship means, so friendships remain elusive and untenable to me.  The only "friends" I've ever even thought I had turned out to be guys just wanting to fuck me, or even worse, guys secretly in love with me, save for maybe, two people.  That's an abysmal percentage.   It's me, obviously, seeing as I am the only common denominator.  It's fine.  I'm unbearable unless I'm doing something for someone.  Performing some act or task.  Sex, cooking, cleaning.  That is my worth.  Why keep fighting it?

So here's a bunch of songs that represent that dark and abstruse mood.  Because I'm so fucking emo, man.

Blind Willie Johnson- Nobody's Fault But Mine

Tom Waits- Who Are You

Warren Zevon- Heartache Spoken Here
"I've had my share of disappointing love affairs.  I'm no stranger to disillusionment, little darlin'."

Lloyd Price- Just Because

John Prine- Sweet Revenge

Alice Cooper- Only Women Bleed

Allen Toussaint- Cruel Way To Go Down

Bob Dylan- One More Cup of Coffee

Captain Beefheart- Where There's Woman

Dire Straits- Skateaway

Warren Zevon- For My Next Trick I'll Need a Volunteer

ELO- Midnight Blue

Elton John- Slave (Alternate Version)

The Mothers of Invention- Go Cry on Somebody Else's Shoulder

Jonathon Richman- She Doesn't Laugh At My Jokes

The Cramps- I Can't Hardly Stand It

They Might Be Giants- Hypnotist of Ladies

Sublime- One Cup of Coffee/Judge Not

Tom Waits- You Can Never Hold Back Spring
"Even though you've lost your way.  The world is dreaming, dreaming of spring.  Close your eyes.  Open your heart, to the one who's dreaming of you."

Jeff Bridges- Maybe I Missed The Point