I asked him what this meant. He said that since the new isomers of anti-depressants are rewiring his brain, and since he's becoming a new person because of it, every day he forgets more and more what the old person was who used to be.
"On the stuff I'm taking, booze never really makes you smashed," he said, "but it does allow me to remember the sensation of what / used to be and feel like. Just briefly. Life wasn't all bad back then. I'd never go back to it full time, but I do get nostalgic for my old personality. I imagine in a parallel-forked road universe there's a sad, fucked-up Ethan, achieving nothing, feeling cramped, and going nowhere. I don't know. Once you've experienced the turbo-charged version of yourself, there's no going backward."
He had another Wallbanger-"You know, pal-maybe I should de-wire myself. De-wiring would reconnect me to the world of natural time-sunsets and rainbows and crashing waves and Smurfs." He took a final sip. "Nahhhh..."
Susan caught a cold, "From having my panties systematically saturated with fruit pulp at the Tonga Room."
Tomorrow we move into our house-sitting house.
Before bed I told Karla about Ethan's identity holiday-of drinking to recapture the feeling of what your real personality used to feel like.
"It's all about identity," she said.
She said, "We look at a flock of birds and we think one bird is the same as any other bird-a bird unit. But a bird looks at thousands of people, at a Giants game up at Candlestick Park, say, and all they see is 'people units.' We're all as identical to them as they are to us. So what makes you different from me? Him from you? Them from her! What makes any one person any different from any other? Where does your individuality end and your species-hood begin? As always, it's a big question on my mind. You have to remember that most of us who've moved to Silicon Valley, we don't have the traditional identity-donating structures like other places in the world have: religion, politics, cohesive family structure, roots, a sense of history or other prescribed belief systems that take the onus off individuals having to figure out who they are. You're on your own here. It's a big task, but just look at the flood of ideas that emerges from the plastic!"
I stared at her, and I imagine she was assuming I was digesting- compiling-what she'd just told me, but instead, all I could think of, looking into her eyes, was that there was this entity-Karla-who was different from all others I knew because just under the surface of her skin lay the essence of herself, the person who thinks and dreams these things she tells to me and only me. I felt like a lucky loser and I kissed her on the nose. So that's me for the day.
Oh ... I found a big stack of old Sunset magazines for sale in a secondhand shop. I bought them for Mom. She's a Sunset freak. Mom picked them up like they were feathers. She's strong now. She's all for Dusty developing her body. She and Dusty have been comparing notes. It's such a relief when your friends date cool people.
FRIDAY
Abe:
Today I called 1-800 numbers and ragged on companies about therir products. I complsined to the Matell hotline (1-880-524-TOYS) that the new HotWheels aren't as cool the ones I had when I wazs growing up. The only decent one they have is a Lexzus SC400. I've bought 3 of them (the toys), but be this as it may, Mattel is NOT exonerated, where are the Bubble cars, may I ask? So this is my life, Dan. C'est la Vie.
Mattel karma! Susan came storming into the office late in the afternoon, having just visited a Toys-R-Us store in pursuit of a present for her niece. Susan was furious about Mattel products, too-in particular about Barbie dolls. As I was the only person in the office, I received the entirety of her postfeminist critique.
"The aisle-it was pink-I mean, the entire aisle was this shocking, moist, Las Vegas labia pink color, and it was a big aisle, Dan. Tens of thousands of Barbies gazing vapidly at me-this wall of mall hair-the aisle haunted with the ghostly sound of purged vomit yet to come-of unsustainable desire. Their necks thicker than their waists; sparkles; an incitement to eating disorders-"
Susan was just going on and on, so I used that tactic you use on little kids who won't stop crying-I simply changed the subject. I told her how weird it is to think that simply by walking down the wrong aisle at loys-R-Us at the wrong moment in your child's development, you can forever screw up their future: "They have a whole aisle devoted to McDonald's restaurant products-french-fry making machines, burger makers, shake makers . . . Say you overlook the computer aisle and walk down the McDonald's aisle instead-one tiny error and your kid's got a drive-thru headset surgically embedded in his cranium for the next seven decades.
"Toy stores are like Brave New World. Mom! Pop! Choose your aisle correctly. That's all I can say."
I later e-mailed this Huxleyan thought to Abe who replied:
*1959*
100th McDonald's: Fon du Lac, Wisconsin
*1960*
200th McDonald's: KnoHuille, Tennessee
*1964* Filet-o-Fish horn
*1966*
First indoor-seating McDonald's: Huntsville, Alabama
*1970*
First McDonald's breakfast: IDaikiki, Hawaii
*1973* ^ Quarter Pounder born
*1975*
Egg McMuffin born
*1975* Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonions-
onasesameseedbun
*1983* McNuggets born
At the office we've decided that instead of Friday being jeans day, we'd have Boxer Shorts Day instead. It's way comfier, way sexier, and it's funny watching Michael admonish the male staff members, "Er . . . gentlemen: no units displayed if at all possible."
Dad came in to the office from job hunting around sundown. We made him a Cup O'Noodles and played some crank phone call tapes to cheer him up. Dusty tried to get him to wear a pair of striped boxers but Dad politely refused. Later on I went up to the house and helped him remove an old basketball hoop above the garage that's been there since the dawn of bell-bottoms. I fell and cut myself on some of Mom's rosebushes, and I know it's corny, but I got to thinking, it's no surprise roses are the Official Flower of Love.
My hard drive accidentally trashed today's file, so I include a snippet of the trash here as a curiosity piece. Language!
All 11I 11 It the office we" live decided that instead of Friday Fll 11113636111136being jeans day, we" 11111111113636373733d have Boxoi Shorts Day instead. It" 11113838393940404141424243434444s way comfici, way sexier, lllland it"lllls funny watching Michael admonish the male stall members, ""1111451111114545464647474811114848Please guys, no units displayed if at all possible.""! 111494950505l&f&v&w&x&z&A&e&i&a&A&n&O' '4'O'S'['_'o 'Q'U**"*t*l*}+ + + L + h + v, ,?,'-9-a-}-A-6-0-©-*-0-»-A-0-fl-,,-AOU. .?.G.O.S.T.b.l.~.N.6.e.e.i.i.u.ii.B.0/ / /S/b/c/d/e/A/6oOO¥Of~lT'lJnLrt^^^
" " I " I A A I " „ " „ " „ " " U " U " " " U " " U " U " \ ] c U A V A I vUAcH]UA]c$\]cPR5151525253535454555556561111111111Dusty tried to get him to wear a pair of striped boxers but Dad politely refused.
SATURDAY
Today was the day Karla and I finally moved into our (temporarily) own place ... the Apple friend of Anatole who's going to Tasmania for eight months to study batik (she got the layoff package . . . it's like backward Microsoft) and so we're house-sitting for her. Like so many techie houses, it's big, sterile, stuffed with consumer electronics, and there's nothing on the walls and there are about six empty rooms lit by dozens of skylights. At least it's not one of these big Mediterranean 1980s stucco houses Susan calls "Drug Lord" houses-ostentatious stucco monuments with a Porsche 928-S parked out front.