The New Me

by Halle Butler

The whole scene is a bitter cliché, the expectations and ego barely hidden behind the flimsy presentation of friendliness.

It’s a Chicago Bears Breast Cancer Awareness stocking cap. Hideous on every level. The rest of her outfit another fuck-you disappointment, thick purplish tights, a knee-length down parka, boots with fur detailing that looks like a dead dog’s stuffed down in there, the whole thing a real carefree snugglefest, a real assault, a real declaration of who this woman is, draped in death and violence and completely unaware of it. The perfect mix of compliance and violence.

I imagine her thinking about that show she likes on ABC where adults pretend to be fairy-tale characters trying to make each other horny, and I imagine her referring to it as a guilty pleasure, like that’s somehow radical or somehow makes her interesting. Will Rumpelstiltskin be able to trick Peter Pan into betraying his relationship with Snow White by reminding him of his long-ago love with the Little Mermaid? I don’t know, baby, will he?? I want to use my hands to redirect her face to a fucking mirror.

supervisor, smiles at me like I can’t tell that she’s faking, and says “Hi, Maddie” and I say “Hi!” but that’s not my name. It’s Millie, not Maddie. I want to go up to her and prostrate myself on her desk, my ribs activating her shitty gold stapler, the one I know she loves so much, over and over, by thrashing, spending staples all over her desk, while I explain to her the difference between Mildred and Madison. I want to press my nose into her keyboard and tell her that my parents both went to grad school, I was raised correctly and in a good home, and it’s an insult to my mother, the professor, to imply that she named me Madison after the mermaid from fucking Splash, when I was named after my great-great-grandmother, a suffragette, you fucking thankless cunt, and in this fantasy, I become insensible and start crying, deep from the gut, which isn’t much of a fantasy, as far as fun and variety are concerned.

I recognize, in a grander sense, that I have a tendency to alienate myself and blow things out of proportion, and that these women are basically guiltless from a certain perspective. I fully recognize the concept of perspective.

She shuffles the papers and sighs, trying to make my job seem more important, so that her overseeing of my job can seem more important. I stand behind her, painfully uncertain of what to do with my hands, remembering being asked not to pee, Tom Jordan still in my system, watching her shake her head no, well, this isn’t quite right, like any of it matters, talking to me but I can’t hear her over the ringing in my ears. She seems to be showing me how to use a paper clip. She holds it in her hands, demonstrating both the right and the wrong way.

I imagine that one day I’ll listen to music while I make dinner, an act that feels very healthy and stable when I think about it, but for now I still need the TV.

I know that Forensic Files is propaganda for the Justice Department, like all of these crime shows are, and that they instill a weird deference to authority and a childish fear of the other, and that TV in general messes with your perception of time and influences your desires and gives you unattainable expectations for life, but I still can’t make it through the night without it.

It’s okay for me to watch TV because I’m aware of what’s really going on. I take it one step further, recognizing that that last idea is wrong. Recognition is not the firs...

Common theme through the book. "This action is not unhealthy if I recognize it and do it purposefully with conviction". The truth of that can be debated from both sides. You can purposefully recognize the harms of a drinking binge and commit anyway because you're "choosing" it. Doesn't make it healthy, but at least it's something you're aware of.

There’s a nightmare familiarity every morning when I wake. The quality of the light, sort of grayish-dim, the stiff feeling of my body, the smell, part dirty clothing, part cooking oil, part garbage, part incense. I’m reminded of how afraid I am to die, and how every morning is just one more used-up day.