The mood I've been put into is, I think, less fatalistic. Less vain, but also less reserved. I'm looking at a diagram that God set out in front of me, it's such a weird looking thing sometimes.
The Transparent Anatomical Manikin. It refers to a transparent, three-dimensional, life-sized diagram of a woman's anatomy, created to help medical students identify organs and systems in their studies and practices.
The first and only example of this apparatus that I've ever seen was Tammy, the T.A.M. displayed at the Michigan Science Center. When I was younger, it was still called the Detroit Science Center, and in my mind, it still is the Detroit Science Center.
The last time I laid eyes this eighth wonder of the world was in 2024, I think near the start of the year. I was at the Science Center to watch an abridged educational cut of a documentary chronicling the history of Detroit Techno music, and I was visiting with dear old Dad. Tammy was no longer in the same spot she used to be displayed in; she's now in the back entrance near the academy. Her plastic skin had developed a yellow tint, and the interior lights that highlighted each section of her anatomy had dimmed quite a bit, some systems and organs losing their highlighting entirely. But Tammy was still mesmerizing, still a manikin that warms my heart to see. In my childhood, I had visited Tammy at the Science Center probably a hundred times. Every time I'm there, I make a point to find to her and say hello. I press all of the right buttons that light up her body, and from that point, in my mind, my trip can be complete.
This familiar manikin of my childhood is the very same variety of feminine plastic that was used in the album art of Nirvana's third and final album, In Utero. The very specific kind of visual kitsch the transparent anatomical manikin provides is one that I have kept in the back of my mind for years. I tend to reference the memory of this object as a feeling in a lot of different ways, and in my mind, I feel a sort of connection to the manikin, a kinship with Tammy I could never rationalize. In my heart I felt sad to see Tammy so weathered. To be pushed aside from where she was normally displayed, I must admit that a piece of my heart was broken.
It's raining really hard today in Detroit. What I wouldn't give to lay in the water again.
It's this kind of bizarre sentimentality, this sort of unnaturally affectionate attachment to others who can never move to meet my gaze. It is a personality flaw I've always had. I think it's an issue whether it's things or people, but...
It's bad enough to imprint onto inanimate objects, I feel like. I do that a lot, but here's the thing. Unpopular opinion, but I do feel like it's worse that I do that in non-reciprocal relationships with real people. It's the worst. I have to remove myself from the equation whenever this happens. I'm thinking, less of "Type A," going forward. Let's try avoidance. I think it's worse for my mental health, but better for social saliency.
I don't think I recognize what I see in the mirror anymore. It has been almost freeing, to feel so lost. I don't have to belong anywhere, and there is nowhere I need to be wanted anymore.
For the first time in my life, I really feel as if I don't care anymore. The kindness I work so hard to maintain conceals something more hateful. That lady said something similar to her man in that one German movie that was in the Oscars. Anatomy of a Fall, I think.
Anatomy. We're building a motif for this habit of grieving the self, if you can believe it.
It's Monday.
This is not a mindset from which I can create good things. Art that feels worthwhile, something that I feel eludes my capabilities. I'm on the stewing part of the wheel.
Yesterday was good. It was good, I think.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. They're playing Latch at the swimming pool for our water aerobics class. This song... let me put my Walgreens Plus One Reading Glasses on so I can see tweed on this Michal Kors bag. I'm going to be so incredibly normal and civilized, you haven't a clue. I went round SpongeBob on 'em, I'm Clark Kent in this bitch. Better yet, for my blood, I'm Clark Gable on these niggas. Walk in this bitch like Norm from Phineas and Ferb, 50 miles deep in my Kelly Clarkson bag. I got my business casual shit on, step on you niggas like Dilbert. Marge Simpson ain't got shit on me, had your accountant uncle looking like Forrest Gump when I touched down at the Office Depot.
I'm at H&R Block filing my taxes in them ironed out khaki-colored chinos. Call that a government shutdown, fuck nigga. Rated E for Everyone the way I'm making $32,000 a year before deductions, swimming in that proletarian pussy from Topeka, Kansas. If I get a band in my pocket right now, I'll shut the fuck up. Call that shit the silent majority. Stepped outside the cubicle and laid against the drywall so long I think I turned white, they're calling it the Virginia Vitiligo. That Wal-Mart Pump-Action so loud it woke the dead, had Karen Carpenter singing the opps a lullaby to the great beyond in the Nordstrom Rack parking lot. 2001 Justin Timberlake wigger pack hittin' so bad it made me hate Gay People, got me turning on my own kind like an Orlando Magic fan voting Republican.
I use Percocet like a responsible American citizen. I drink Knob Creek on Sunday nights when the Dallas Cowboys are playing, and I only bathe with Irish Spring soap. I use body wash to clean my hair like a nice young man, and I raise my kids right in the path of the Lord Jesus Christ. I clench my fist in anger when I log into my daily visit of my favorite Facebook group, Libertarian Guys With Asian Wives, and see a nigga post a picture of some Sicilian fine shyt that look like Ronette Pulaski tryna ask the mods if she's "Asian." I outghta knock your block off, mister. Mods, get a load of this nigga.
My beautiful 16 year old daughter Shaeighlynn recently had a difficult break up with her long time boyfriend of 3 years, Brody Wyczerski, after finding out he had fathered 2 secret children with another woman while he was deployed in Afghanistan. While this is difficult for her to process, I read in her diary (without her permission) that she was secretly happy to have a reassurance that Brody was not gay. She secretly feared that he was after finding out he is an avid player of the sports shojo anime gashapon mobile game Umamusume: Pretty Derby, which she discovered while looking through his phone as he slept in her mother's bed. In her mind, she would not feel personally slighted by his being a homosexual, as my daughter tends to endorse a lot of left wing gender ideology my wife has personal objections to. She was instead irritated by the possibility that he may have withheld sage wisdom regarding the appeal of her outfits and makeup for more than 3 years, and simply allowed fear to prevent him from telling her, honestly, if her favorite lime green tank top actually looked good on her.
Okay, I'm done with this bit. I'm weird again, thank God. Okay, let's return to the deviant headspace.
Uhh... what's stuff that I like. Frank Quitely... Jimi Hendrix... Lafayette Coney Island... Sonic the Hedgehog... James Baldwin... the beautiful woman who almost sat down in the chair I was sitting in at the Kresge Court in the DIA (core memory)... Kate Bush, especially the look she had in the signing event for The Dreaming... the album Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane, but no other projects from Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, or Starship... an insecurity about the shape of the back of my head (it's flat, subject two of our prior examinations will likely benefit from confirming some suspicions about me)...
And we're back!
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