As those of you who know me, the infamous Mademoiselle Lapin, have indubitably discovered, I have a huge amount of rage. Over the years, Jen has told me that her therapist has encouraged her to express her own repressed rage. Before she left, I told her that I had an idea for a post in which I would, shall we say in the manner of Fight Club, become Jen's rage, but I was worried about poisoning her site, as she is so sweet and amiable, and I have the temperament of a crack addicted pit bull on his third espresso shot. But Jen was delighted with the idea, and so I give you now a full dose of rabbit fueled anger.
Dear Human Race,
I suppose we knew it was doomed from the very beginning. I suppose my early, almost terminal, bout of cancer should have been a hint that Things were Not Meant to Be. Strange that an English professor would miss out on such obvious signs, but I was so young then, so hopelessly young. It's not that things between us even started out that well, the doctors, surgeries, treatments, hospitalizations, specialists. It was, in a naive way, very romantic. The struggle to get through every day, the few moments of joy, and of course the rush of discovering new and mysterious joys-a swimming friend in Florida, the Boston Aquarium, a Broadway show, the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue at Christmas, making snow angels, real cornstalk scarecrows, cows, dairy fresh ice cream, babysitters who could enchant ducks, fairy tales. And these joys were amplified by the struggle and even the misery of our early association.
I would like to think it was the books that really came between us, the way that Lifetime television destroys the reality of female experience. It presents a totally unrealistic view of how humans can behave, it creates so many false expectations. Romantic, heroic, even reflective and in the rush of discovery it is easy to imagine that those books reflect reality in the same way that sappy romance novels seem to reflect reality when you first meet that special someone. But time moves on, the roses on the pillow, the special dinners, the phone calls, the chocolates, the gifts, slowly dwindle, perhaps to nothing at all, or perhaps to only grudgingly bestowed on Important Occasions, and then only after much wheedling and warning about possible repercussions, IE the withholding of sexual favors.
Not that only you changed. Sure after the newness became more comfortable, more predictable, there was the my shift in attitude as well. The woman who tried to beat her husband to death with a frozen squirrel was no longer a tribute to the strangeness and originality that people can achieve, but rather just plain stupid. It became yet another moment where I thought "What the hell is wrong? Why can't anyone think straight? A squirrel? Why not a frying pan or some Drano or for crickey's sake a gun?"
And then there are the bad qualities revealed. Not just the small annoying habits, people who try to walk through me, students who pay 30,000 dollars to come to class and then act like they can't be bothered to, you know, actually learn, but the really awful dark should remain repressed in your id side. My favorite professor killing himself after losing his job, his longtime lover, and his apartment. All the friends who have died of cancer and AIDS. And this is just what I know of you personally. We shall ignore what I hear from other people, about holocausts and wars, rape, serial killers, and the backalleys of corporate America.
And I suppose that is where we really diverge. The real problem is, of course, that we want different things. I want people to be able to act in a reasonable fashion, to achieve small goals (show up on time not an hour and a half late, call on the day he/she claimed he/she was going to, actually read the six page assigned reading) and be at least vaguely concerned with the welfare of others and you, apparently, don't. You think it is too much for me to ask that my friends occasionally show something vaguely reassembling interest in my trouble when I spend hours on the phone listening to them, that passing grades should actually reflect the level of learning achieved not that higher education has become another business where grades are just another purchase, that most people should actually enjoy thinking and being intellectually challenged.
And it's not even that there is no good left. That little girl I saw last week with the pussy willows, the dinner party in Paris, the Nick Hornby book I am currently reading they are all small joys, but they are simply not enough. Better we should go our separate ways now while we both still have some good memories, some dignity, than completely degenerate. And so I hereby resign from the Human Race.
Best of Luck,
Miss Lapin