Panoptic City; or, the fine art of the self inflicted kidney punch.

I ride on the cresting waves of some advanced level of cumulative exhaustion. 4 hours of bad sleep a night is not going to cut it indefinitely. But, things to do, and the body will not rest until it crashes and will not stay down when it does, lurching awake with knotted innards at 7AM, when the heat and the light of summer pour in. After that long and miserable winter and no spring, now the heat. And that damned, damned sun. Dad calls in the evening as I prepare to fire off a special resume to a target that has suddenly been alerted to recieve. My mom I knew would be on the brink of tears, I did not expect it of him, I think, only death does this to him. Hell of a kick in the nuts son, he says, choked, mentioning a time before he knew my mother, understanding the sudden need for space and a new job. Before I brought her home to meet him, he had never mentioned a time before my mother, and suddenly for that new audience he unfolded stories I had never seen before and I saw him yet again with new eyes. We are both strangled, exhausted, he having worked a 12 hour day. My family loved her, and she loved us. I still love her, she still in some way loves us, but that future will never happen now, not in that way, maybe not at all.

The panopticon is a popular literary symbol, based on a theoretical prison suggested centuries ago. Imagine a prison shaped like a cylinder, consisting of an outer ring made of glass cells surrounding a central tower where a single guard can watch the entire population at once, all constantly visible, silouetted against the transparent walls behind them. Imprisoned by light.

Had lunch with RMT today, who is the person to call on when your love life turns into a Strindberg play. Crimes and Crimes, in this case. Funny, I always thought it'd be Miss Julie, what with all those boots and all that power exchange. Anyway, he had good advice, and was as always an excellent sounding board. And if he was once wondering why I chose to confide certain personal details to him long ago, I think today turned out to be the reason why. 'Cause otherwise certain things and attitudes might appear completely mad to the outsider. You are not insane to imagine the future, he agrees, but no matter what though, the next few weeks will be hell on earth.

But on other topics, we noted what a strange and powerful tool Facebook has become, and it struck me later today just how it enables previously unimaginable correlations and linked actions. After firing off the distress flare on Saturday, I've been buoyed up by the incoming onrush of friends, each contribution small of itself, each small gift of advice (from flaky to prescient to vindictive and solicitous) or assistance adding to the pile of tools to work with, things to consider. I ride at the center of a wheel and feel a legion at my back. It is at our moments of greatest loss that we discover the immense reserves of compassion that everyone carries, held in reserve against such a day. I am large; I contain multitudes. I also think in allusions and I can't just turn it off. Fourteen years of university will do that to you. I see patterns everywhere.

And yet, like most swords, it carries that second edge. I have been sleepwalking for a year, and now I am awake and my mind is never more alive and acute than when it is in agony. Only death does this to me. Why do I hate writing? This is why.

Late in the day, I check Facebook by reflex, and note in my newsfeed that she's added an application. For the last several months, Facebook was the point of contact of last resort, as we threw chains of pixellated flowers and hatching eggs and valentines across the Pacific to each other, building up woefully weak defences against something coming that we sensed rather than understood. Fragments shored against ruins. So as she fell into radio silence, I would check it still, just in case, to see if she stirred at all or was doing okay. And somewhere in there, I nudged that little setting to report her actions more often. I clicked the news item out of habit to see what she was up to today, wondered at the name of it as Her profile comes up. "Miss You". Me?

And the pattern corellation function in my exhausted brain fires before I can stop it, realizes that if that was sent by someone, someone currently away from Korea, and that someone also posts on a wall, and a name repeats more than once-

Jesus Fuck. I cannot hit the back button fast enough, there are things you cannot unsee. I know who she is, now, probably. No wonder this was the weekend to clear the air. Fuck Fuck Fuck. I am an accidental stalker. From nowhere, a lyric from somebody rolls across the airwaves of my mind:

You look at her the way you used to look at me.

I fall back, gutpunched. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The pattern corellation function reports back it has no idea who might have sung that original lyric, or what the genders involved actually were, and I contemplate the prattle in the front part of my brain in stunned disbelief.

Was not ready for that. Eventually, sure, okay, but not today, not like that. Jesus. Fuck. I've creeped myself out beyond all recognition. The beast at the back of my brain murmurs about wondering just when someone met someone, as it's probably all there if you look for it. Fuck. Fuck. Get thee behind me. I am not this. I will not cross that line. There are crimes and crimes. She tortures herself because she imagines she has betrayed me. And I, in turn, see for an instant my own reflection in that mirror, unrecognizable. I get out of the bulding, try to get away, go home, do something, anything else.


yeah.


So, anyway, turns out I had to tweak that resume to get it out tomorrow morning, so I had to go back, get online. I gingerly open a tab and I flick the news setting to bring me news stories from that certain user a little less often. Maybe time to back off the net oh so slightly, step back from the light. The flare has fired and the cavalry are on their way, serried ranks assembled. I am off to the Island tomorrow, and for the first time since discovering facebook a year ago I'm glad it doesn't work on My Mom's ancient iMac.

I'll buy her a newer one, yes.

But not this week.