July 20th, 2020 - Jack and Della

Dear TNY,

“Jack and Della” is the kind of writing that wouldn’t make it into a bad romance novel.

Yesterday I was watching a video of a guy who reported on a monster truck rally in Connecticut while very twisted on acid.  He stated that while he understood the words on the paper and the languages being spoken to him were, in fact, organized ideas and thoughts, he couldn’t make sense of them.  The drug had rendered even the simplest form of communication into something that couldn’t—

Break Break Break

My son just came downstairs, went to the bathroom, fetched a tissue, ripped it in half, jammed half up his nose and stuffed the other half into his pocket.  When questioned where he was going after all of this nonsense, he said he had a bloody nose and it dripped on the bed.  Well shit, TNY, this isn’t our house or our bed and this is just one more mess that I need to help with because what the actual fuck does he think he’s going to do with a half a fucking tissue other than just smear the blood around.  So I proceed to get upset, as per usual.  And after we both end up crying, not about the blood at all, and we both apologize and hug, I try to explain to him that he’s fucking 13 and I expect our interactions to be at a certain level, a level commiserate with a fucking 13 year old, but it seems everything we do is at a level commiserate with a fucking 2 year old.  As a parent, you’re trying to move the needle in the right direction, move the family forward, both logistically as well as emotionally, make grown ass capable humans that are gracious and kind and as lovely as they are lovable, and you just can’t because you are hobbled by the samesaid humans because they bring you right back to pull up your sleeves and blow your fucking nose and eat over your plate and stop bleeding everywhere and wash your fucking hands and why are your goddamn feet so filthy and how the fuck can you not know how to fold a towel at this point and get your fucking dirty laundry out of the bathroom when you are done showering and why is everything so wet and where does all the fucking toilet paper go, do you not know how to wipe and on and on and on and on and there’s no room for a conversation about the agony of existence or the most painful thing they will ever experience is heartbreak or how completely overpowering and wonderful falling in love is or the fact that the sheer volume of repeating the same shit to them over and over again, nigh on thousands of times, has got to be right up there with the military playing the theme song from Barney at full volume for days on end for prisoners in Guantanamo.  I told my other son yesterday in the grocery store that when they were little, I used to watch them sleep and would cry about how beautiful they were.  But then when they would shift in their sleep and almost wake up, in my mind I would say STAY THE FUCK ASLEEP YOU LITTLE MONSTER. 

Yeah, I have problems.

What I’m trying to say, TNY, is that I’m trying to have these conversations with literature that are elevated.  Intelligent.  Existential.  Heartbreaking.  Wondrous.  Humbling.  Deep.  And terrifying.  And you keep dragging it back down to a fucking 2 year old’s level with this overwrought, ancient, proud of one’s self, unoriginal, tired, badly edited, ridiculously introspective but only about the most meaningless shit, garbage ass “literature”.  Which, back to the reporter on acid, my brain actually can’t get into because, while I understand there must be a story in here, the words on the page are assembled so horribly they don’t register as writing.  I am truly astonished that you paid someone for this, that you get paid to champion stories like this, and that other people pay you for a magazine containing this.

Hold up. My son just huge-sneezed from other room and I’m sure there’s blood everywhere. 

Must go.

Nick