{"id":7507,"date":"2013-12-01T01:11:05","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T06:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=7507"},"modified":"2015-02-15T19:08:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T01:08:23","slug":"takeout-2013-corey-ginsberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/7507","title":{"rendered":"Takeout, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Denise Duhamel<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s only March 2013, but I keep writing 2017 on checks. I think this is a sign
\nthat I\u2019m already done with this year, and for that matter, the next several.
\nI think everything\u2019s a sign and maybe that\u2019s the problem.
\nDriving to work in my wheezing VW, each time the monorail passes over me
\nI make a wish and know something good\u2019s in store. Usually I\u2019m wrong
\nabout what I think I know. Some days when the monorail tents my car
\nI still end up in some bathroom stall, crying about some thing. Last time
\nI wished upon the monorail I fell in a puddle of my sweat while doing lunges
\nand blew out my knee. Knees are a symbol of stability and foundation.
\nI\u2019ve spent more of 2013 on crutches than I have passing as a normal human.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only March and I\u2019m working full-time to not lose myself
\nin the rhetoric of disconnection. I forget faces and names
\nlike they\u2019re state capitals and irregular French verbs. Everyone\u2019s already forgotten
\nthe Mayan apocalypse four months ago. I, though, am still apocalypsing.
\nA week after the world ended my agent told me everyone passed
\non my novel. When my uncle died a month later, slumped over a shoebox
\nfull of orange plastic cylinders drained of their white discs,
\nthey had to bury him in a special casket because his body was rotting prematurely.
\nThere are special caskets that contain premature rot. This could be a sign.
\nMy car died today so I didn\u2019t get to wager a wish. Everything dies
\nalone, I once read. Except cars. My car likes to die in good company,
\nor even mediocre company, with me bitch slapping its collarbone and begging
\nit to hang on for three thousand more klicks. Another AAA resurrection, a new
\nbattery and a promise from Frank, the cross-eyed mechanic, that I\u2019ll make it
\nto work on Monday. The year melts into a mobius strip of undesirable
\nmontage moments, strung together into a wobbly ouroboros.
\nWhen I stare down the horizon, I can see into the hood of my sweatshirt.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only March and I\u2019ve already cemented the divorce between Hypothetical
\nMe and Real Me, a separation that takes others years, even mental illness,
\nto properly reinforce. Hypothetical Me does so much more
\nthan walk in heels and balance a checkbook. She makes eye contact,
\nasks about your mom\u2019s colonoscopy, and has intelligent things to say
\nabout fracking. Hypothetical Me knows what fracking is, whereas Real Me thinks
\nit\u2019s a combination of fucking and racking, which can\u2019t be right,
\nand doesn\u2019t even make sense. Real Me is aware of her diminished capacity
\nfor sense-making, which runs parallel to her compounding aversion
\nto human interaction. Hypothetical Me excels at many things Real Me can\u2019t
\nfathom. She did much better at the strip club than Real Me,
\nwho spent the bulk of the night in yet another bathroom stall, hiding
\nfrom an extremely topless stripper who\u2019d been paid by real friends to give a real
\nlap dance. Hypothetical Me can handle strippers as well as clothed humans,
\nwhereas Real Me drives to the party, sits in the car a block away, then goes
\nhome, puts on eating pants and destroys a pint of raw cookie dough.
\nA stasis of selves requires no true compromise.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only March and I know it\u2019s presumptuous to write off nine months,
\nbut last week the dog threw up on my crutches while I was icing my knee.
\nIf this is a sign I\u2019m not sure what to do with it, other than declare 2013 a takeout
\nyear, three months in. There\u2019s still time to apply the mercy rule and stop the pattern
\nfrom propagating. If that\u2019s settling, then I\u2019m settling for settling, which is meta-
\nsettling, a new dimension to my rationalization spectrum. I didn\u2019t get mad
\nat the dog for releasing his poison. Letting it out is better than waiting
\nfor it to corrode the inside. The next day, when the stomach flu ripped me
\nout of sleep, I threw up in my bathroom sink. Then I had to clean up the vomit,
\nwhich made me puke again, this time in the toilet. There is no protocol
\nfor retracting nine months, and no way to concede without collapsing into self-
\npity. What\u2019s in store for the remainder of the year could be so much worse
\nthan this colossal teaser. For all I know the next time the monorail passes
\nover while I\u2019m negotiating the asphalt below, it may derail
\nand flatten my car before I can cast a final, frugal wish.<\/p>\n

Corey Ginsberg<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Denise Duhamel It\u2019s only March 2013, but I keep writing 2017 on checks. I think this is a sign that I\u2019m already done with this year, and for that matter, the next several. I think everything\u2019s a sign and maybe that\u2019s the problem. Driving to work in my wheezing VW, each time the monorail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1X5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10232,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507\/revisions\/10232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}