{"id":13783,"date":"2016-05-26T19:09:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T00:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=5499"},"modified":"2016-05-26T19:09:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T00:09:17","slug":"exclamation-point-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2016\/05\/26\/exclamation-point-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Exclamation Point!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tI was not fishing for the comment today, but the therapist said something that has calmed an accumulating fear about myself. Her exact words were: “Wow, you really like and respect all your exes.” I laughed, because I did not see that coming. Since leaving her office I have let it trickle down. She said it with genuineness, and with a certain look of puffiness in her face and eyes. She answered one of the key questions I had entering into this midlife round of therapy: Am I and have I always been a latent misogynist who does not deserve love or happiness, and whose latent misogyny helps sabotage all my relationships? I now answer that compound-complex question with a word: No!, with an exclamation point. I am an OK guy, and a decent human being. That conclusion is sufficiently moderate in its scope that I can accept it sans<\/em> fear of backtracking on account of its exuberances. <\/p>\n

I celebrated this triumphal insight with a rare-for-me shopping excursion up Madison and 5th Avenues. I was looking for a jumbo-sized canvas messenger bag, the likes of which I cannot seem to find satisfactory specimens on Amazon or anywhere else, though I found something pretty close to what I had in mind last night. I seek zillions of pockets and plenty of room for a DSLR and either a tablet or laptop, as well as a light jacket or vest and a handful of porns. I found nothing close to what I had in mind on Madison\/5th today but I decided to celebrate my Declaration of Human Decency<\/em><\/b> with a purchase of a pair of shorts that is as white as I am. White!, with an exclamation point.<\/p>\n

In less moderately sanguine developments in my ever-fascinating life I seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest of incredulity between myself and a 2600\/HOPE conference organizer who asked me to speak at said event. I see now that I never should have responded in the first place but that is my damn fault and I accept responsibility for getting myself into this increasingly strident e-mail exchange. <\/p>\n

I was not on e-mail last night because I was spending time with a good friend (we had a great time, btw, for the ages). So I did not see the “URGENT” subject line message asking if I had heard any of what turned out to be 9 or 10 voicemail messages (hah, almost typed “voidemail”). I am supposed to get text message alerts whenever a voicemail lands at my (212) area code number but for some reason that did not happen. I already noticed he had called 5 or 6 times but I had no idea he went on to call again and again and again. <\/p>\n

I am not blowing sunshine up my ass but I have to imagine that the conference is having trouble finding speakers this time and that this person thinks I am interesting because I have some media pedigree with the various features and appearances. A virtual celebrity by phreaker standards? I don’t know but it makes no sense for someone like me to be pursued with such urgency. I am staying away because I am not a phreak or a hacker, I am not a script kiddy, I have nothing to say to an audience of such individuals, and most importantly I do not want outiders of that realm to think I have any stature, relevance, or self-assumed prestige in the world of phone phreaks. <\/p>\n

Phew.<\/p>\n

I am at the millennial bar, waiting for the band to start. The bartender remembered me this time. I smiled. It is a dichotomous void over which I dangle. I come here because no one knows and me and no one cares that I exist; yet i take some satisfaction in being recognized and remembered by the bartender. It makes me feel famous. <\/p>\n

Famous! \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was not fishing for the comment today, but the therapist said something that has calmed an accumulating fear about myself. Her exact words were: “Wow, you really like and respect all your exes.” I laughed, because I did not see that coming. Since leaving her office I have let it trickle down. She said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-3Aj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}