As my readers have probably come to figure out, May has devolved into Anger Month at the Madame Tootsie Bagel Blog, I’m just cheesed off about a whole host of stuff. The Grief Group, about which you’ve probably heard too much. The fact that The Wall Street Journal teased me with an article about six new fantastic documentaries, and then hid the damn thing behind a paywall. Mother’s Day. The weather. My friends’ kids continuing to grow up. Pollen. Striped fantods.
Does anyone but me remember Ed Anger’s My America from the Weekly World News in the 1980’s and 90’s? Ed posed as an extreme right-wing reactionary but I think the column was actually written by a stealth liberal. Anyway, it wasn’t the politics that made Ed’s work so fun to read — it was Ed’s expressions and his persona. Ed was madder than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest — his phrase. (Over welfare benefits, Russians, Jane Fonda, McDonald’s changing its menu, or what have you.) He was beer-spittin’ mad all the time about America and Americans and not afraid to tell everyone why. In college, we sometimes walked to the local grocery store (High’s Market) just to read Ed’s column, without actually buying anything.
It can be very funny to read someone’s screed in retrospect, and very cringeworthy too sometimes. I think I mentioned that my Dad dropped off a bunch of old papers and letters for me. I found a letter I wrote my family from Girl Scout Camp, I think the summer I was 10 or 11. I was apparently upset and angry because my mom had written to me that the family cat, Sasha, had been spayed while I was away. My beef was not over the spaying itself, but the fact that I was not there to proctor her through this important experience. I wrote the family on camp stationery:
Dear People,
I am extremely angry with you for having Sasha altered when I was gone. I asked you if I could be there and you said yes. I’m afraid that I can’t trust you anymore. Sasha is my cat and I want to be there when important decisions are made about her. You are dumb, stupid, fools. I am not sending you anymore letters for the rest of the session.
To make sure they understood just how really indignant and aggrieved I was, I then wrote “I Can’t Stand You” for the return address and sent the letter to “The Stupid Fools Who Live At: —, Austin, TX.”
I don’t remember much sequelae to this incident looking back; Mom wrote me a rather mild letter explaining that the veterinarian had told them they needed to have Sasha altered as she was going into heat again, and I would be at camp for another month or so and they did not feel they could wait. And for the record, Sasha wasn’t “my cat,” she was the family cat, although we did have a special relationship. I think, although I can’t swear in retrospect, that I did continue writing home to the stupid fools.
I guess the thought of Sasha having surgery made me anxious and I wanted to control my anxiety, and blasting my family was the way I handled it. It reminds me a little bit of the fact that while Max and I usually get along very, very well, our minor fights and kerfuffles would often arise in the context of taking Sarah to a doctor or specialist, or to the hospital for surgery. We both were desperate to control the situation and control our anxiety. Which is so hard to do.
The First Year Without Sarah 