M. B. Clark - Waxing Pathetic: My Two Cents, For What Theyre Worth

Introduction:

W hat? You wanted poetry? Oh, I have that stuff tattooed right here . I figured it was the only way anyone would actually read it.

Waxing pathetic . Waxing poetic. Waxing philosophic. Waxing politic. Waxing lunatic. Just a lot of waxing...of the literary kind, not the spa kind. I dont go there. I can shave myself. The last thing I need is another stranger focusing on yet another area of insecurity.

It is just the nature of my chaotic life and these times that drives me to capture the essence of both. The quintessence. The umbrella theme of pathetic seems to cover the majority of this material. And my pathos does matter. Striving for mass appeal is a fools errand, after all. I can only hope that I can somehow connect with a few readers who are a bit more adventurous than the average Jane or Joe who have both been chomping on fairly formulaic fodder over the years, so much so that their literary teeth are rotting. We will drill down and fill these cavernous cavities with solid divergence.

In regard to the last book, the impetus to write it was basically: Why be greedy with my own tragedies ? I should spread out the burden, give it all away . Social media will suck me dry anyway. Yes, that last book was pansy ass. This one will have a backbone...and guts. It will cut even closer to the bone, suck out all the marrow, and regurgitate it. In this way, I will capture more precisely the actual conundrum of the inner workings of my so-called brain, as it also attempts to slice and dice through American society at large, like a ninja. So yes, there is some stream of un consciousness involved. More like a River of Hades. But for the readers benefit, I do use the traffic signs known as punctuation marks. This is my marked improvement on that James Joyce kid.

Pathetic . I like the word. Its not sadits more like pitiful. It kind of wallows around and whines a lot, even though the whining is probably justified. It also connotes a certain obsessive cyclical pattern. A pathetic pattern. A train of thought that just keeps picking up where the caboose left off. I, for one, would prefer to leave my caboose at home most of the time. Unfortunately, its just always there, taking up space, pulling up the rear, and not very well.

How and why does a person become pathetic? Where does it start? I wont say that I have been pathetic all my life, but certain episodes and entire phases of my life definitely fall into that category. Some of the most pathetic material I have is in my high school journal that I scribbled on during class and when sitting on top of the dryer in the basement at night to avoid my family and stay warm. I did not spend precious moments of my adolescence writing about my tribulations for nothing. And since I am an immature and sentimental type, I still have all of this material at my fingertips. Is that pathetic too? Im 50-something. Well, I for one am damn proud of my immature heritage.

Anyway, I am sure there are plenty of people out there who want to walk down my memory lane with me, as pathetic as that is. Most of the journal entries included here are in the original voice of the teenage girl that I was at one time, but I had to step in as, you know, the adult, kind of a Ghost of Merry Future, at certain points, to have a chat with her. But dont worry, this book contains much more than just these blasts from the past. It will also include the deconstruction of said blasts, and the continued line of development from my stellar personal history to my present-day worldview that lacks a Harvardesque pedigree, yet is steeped in bold experience gleaned from coddled college towns, the mean streets of Small Town America, the asphalt insane asylum of Los Angeles, and the star-dusted streets of Las Vegas.

This book has five parts:

Part 1: Been Down This Road

This is the section where I dredge up the most mortifying scenes from my youth and then attempt to connect the personal to the professional to the political, as in why is this happening to me? Oh yeah , Im a liberal. Again, it was those commie parents of mine, so concerned about social and environmental justice. Ugh .

Part 2: This Is How I Do It

This part blithely addresses the unbearable lightness of the undoing of mid-life. Some of it reads like a comedy routine, because that is what mid-life is.

Part 3: Pushing the Envelope

This is the part where I accost the reader with further meandering, horrifying anecdotes of loss and heartbreak, albeit embedded in an undertone of this is not my life. New wordMeanderthal: Meandering Through It All. There are some tales of cancer in here but feel free to skip over those parts if

A. You are sure cancer will never happen to you.

B. You dont wish to be reminded of this mortal threat.

C. You believe that no self-respecting author should punish a reader in this manner.

Part 4: This Is Realand Surreal

You will just have to read this part with the understanding that the author is now dog-paddling through her underdeveloped political intellect, confronting her eroding self-image, and grieving the loss of the idea that was America. Might just be treading water at this point.

Part 5: Bouncing Back Again

Jumpstarting a life after multiple near deaths. Is it possible? This is about resilience. And of course, still sexism with a side of ageism.

Yes, this book is a work of fiction. There are no references, and my recollection and regurgitation of anything and everything is certainly to be taken with a shaker of salt. But if the reader chooses to believe that I am recalling events as they actually occurred, that is his or her choice. It is a novel because as soon as anything hits the page, unless it can be cross-checked and verified by a number of independent entities, and since the author is by definition both fallible and highly suspect, it must be fiction. This is material that is based on the most absurd parts of my life, which I have probably misremembered, misunderestimated (Bushism), and then tweaked here and there for effect. Fiction. Definitely. Not only is this fiction, it is possible that all of American culture is fiction too. Your net worth could even be fiction.

On the other hand, this work may not even fit any category or genre, so maybe it is A Novel...Approach. Of course, I had to investigate the theory that the conventional plot structure (foreplay, climax, resolution) originated from the structure of the male orgasm. Female orgasms are much more complex and nuanced, from what I hear. Thus, womens literature should reflect that fact. This book does, anyway. So if you are a man, consider it a semi-guided tour of one womans trek towards multiple variable intellectual orgasms.

I should add that perhaps I was drawn to the underground (yes, this book does go there) partly because I wanted to go undercover, like Gloria Steinem did at the Playboy club. It took guts, (and a degree of desperation) because there is the chafing between being a respectable upstanding member of society, and working in that world. There is still a stigma in certain circles. Stormy Daniels is not everyones patron saint, and I cant understand that. She has become a lightning rod in the womens movement. I suppose I am biased.

Anyway, I wanted to know what it was like to do that work. I wanted to discover what I could learn about society, men, sex, women, and human nature. Perhaps, due to this fact, this piece of literature is not so much a meta-memoir, but feminist literature . Whatever you wish to call it, that will have to be fine with me. Ultimately, any writing I do is based on the radical notion that a womans (even this womans) voice, experience, and thoughts matter . To what degree and to whom, is also something beyond my control. Its a perennial political question: Who really matters ?