Sent: 11:44 AM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: oh, man....
oh man, my soup got
cold driving back!!!!
anyway, check out
http://kisrael.com/viewblog.cgi?date=2004.06.18
when you get the
chance...
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 11:52 AM
To: Israel, Kirk
Subject: RE: oh, man....
are you kidding? it's gazpacho - it's cold
soup.
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 11:54 AM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
I try to make funny.
Maybe I make not so funny.
But I have other redeeming
qualities.
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 11:58 AM
To: Israel, Kirk
Subject: RE: oh, man....
funny not-funny.
i dunno...i don't believe in archetypes and absolutes, so
i'm not sure i agree with peterman. like, i never felt competition with my
momma - though, now that you mention it, i do feel competitive with my father
(and i am, by some respects, a man :) i personally think your
competitive thing isn't all that uncommon (i always think i'm the smartest,
coolest in the room too...) sometimes i think it's a self
esteem thing...like, if you're/i'm not the best, then we're unworthy of
love...the ol' american idea of needing to stand out to be recognizeable and
worth. honestly, i think it's that more than some archetype anachronistic
crap...
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 12:09 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
but, to some degree, Gazpacho is inherently a little bit
funny.
I mean, just the name sounds like a Spanish Man's name for
his mustache!
The jury is still out on me for the Oedipal thing. I
could definately
see the possibility of that kind of thing happening.
Or, even if you
don't buy it strictly as a competitive thing, it might be
that there is
a kind of ingrained urge to prove oneself to one's folks
one way or
the other. But I was impressed that it started to
suggest a possible
path of an answer for a question I was wondering about but
making
no headway on: it seems likely that our parents influence
our later
relationships and way of dealing with the world, both as
models
we might emulate and in the tools we develop to interact
with them.
So, then, when your dad becomes helpless for a year
and then
dies when your 14, in what ways is it likely to change your
ways of relating with the world.
I wouldn't want to fault my parents for withholding love
unless
I was the best. At least not on purpose. But
could them wanting
me to live up to the potential they saw in me...could I
have gotten
that message and gotten "love" and "approval of behavior
and
accomplishments" mixed up in my own
head?
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 12:14 PM
To: Israel, Kirk
Subject: RE: oh, man....
i think it's uncommon for love to be given freely (esp. in
this culture)...and many parents want to nurture what skills they see in their
kids...
that your father died, yes, i'm sure that's shaped
you.
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 12:34 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
I dunno. Saying "love isn't commonly given freely" seems
like a
really
damning inditement. I think it's as much of a
communications gap as anything, and that my mom believes-and justifiably so-that
she loves me unconditionally.
Actually I have memories of this one time of feeling really
uncomfortable driving w/ my dad in the car and him just checking with me that I
knew that they loved me absolutely and unconditinally and all that...it made me
so squirmy, it just felt weird. So I don't think we can
just
blame the
parents for this...there's something innate or cultural or something about the
kids' ability to
accept
love.
Hell, I still have trouble with expressions of love put
into simple sincere conversational terms...I cover it by saying how it feels
manipulative to me, I never quite believe that it's said just because the
speaker thinks it's something the listener needs to hear, or somehow needs to
say, but that there's something about the speaker wanting the listener to be
dependent or someting...and that real love is only demonstrated by actions of
sharing a life and more together. I think I'm getting better at it, and
the blow up w/ Mo has taught me the importance of working my way through
it...
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 12:44 PM
To: Israel, Kirk
Subject: RE: oh, man....
that memory is beautiful.
as for believing the intention of someone telling you that,
well, that sort of sounds like trust...and perhaps believing that you are worthy
of the love, etc. intellectually you probably know it, feeling
it is something different (you are very cerebral...do you
feel
enough?).
as for the love = achievment - i just think that it's not
commonly okay to be a 'nothing' - i.e., to stay home and watch t.v. all your
live for example. you will feel more love from your parents if you make
them proud, etc. this, i personally think, is standard. but maybe
there are some few stellar folks like your dad who tell it freely and
often.
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 12:49 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
that time wouldn't stand out so much.
And now it's kind of strange; I really feel I don't
need to hear it. So, chicken and egg, did I not need it so I didn't hear it
much, or did I not hear it much so I learned not to try to hear it
much?
to hear it' but I dunno. I'm still a believer in love-through-doing not
love-through-saying.
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 12:57 PM
To: Israel, Kirk
Subject: RE: oh, man....
that you seem so rigid about that 'love-through-doing not
love-through-saying' -ie one being better than the other - to me that says
something (as well as the skweemishness over hearing your father say it) about
your ability to hear it as it is, to feel the impact.
i guess i believe in both - i want to see it and feel
it...my parents never -NEVER EVER EVER said it (my father still hasn't) and this
is damaging. my mother showed it but until 23 when she and i talked about
everything, i didn't know that she loved me. my father is incapable of
loving, i think, so i don't think he loves any of us. if my mom had said
'i love you' while she was doing something kind, i would have maybe known
earlier in life.
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 1:08 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
I'm not so much rigid about it as defensive, and yeah that
says some things.
and see, I can't easily think of a scenario where "saying
'i love you' while doing something kind" would ring true for. Like, if
they said "I'm doing this thing because I love you" or even leaving out the "I'm
doing this thing because" part...can you see how it could possibly seem to carry
a 2nd unspoken part "I'm doing this thing (even though I don't want to do it for
it's own sake) because I love you"...it seems like it's diffiuclt to hear (or
maybe say) "I wouldn't neccesarily want to do this for it's own sake, but
because I love you, I want to do it"
Do you see what I mean? I hope I'm not seeming like
any kind of loveless monster here.
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 1:12 PM
To: Israel, Kirk
Subject: RE: oh, man....
my mom helped me last night think through some
things. then when we hung up, she said 'i love you.' this to me is
everything. it is one further expression - like her helping me - of her
closeness to me. to me, there's no reason to be sparse with the love when
you feel it - life is short, and you're gonna be dead, and do you want any
ambiguity to exist between you and the people you love most when that's the
case? silence = ambiguity, and just doing something nice doesn' cut
it. sure, people feel warmth, but hearing 'i love you' strips away all
ambiguity, and helps you feel the full impact of that person's closeness to
you.
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 1:20 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
and see, me and my family use "I love you" as a "hang up"
phrase as well. But sometimes it seems like as much of a puncuation
mark as anything. It doesn't mean a ton by itself in that context; it acts
as a singifier and reminder of the deep feeling that is there, and that probably
is important (though more so to them than to me, which is why they're usually
the ones to say it and I'm the one to bounce it back with hopefully a "I love
you too" but sometimes just a more problematic "you too") but it doesn't really
*flow* from the deep feeling, you know? Thoughtful actions *flow* from the
real feeling, and those can't really be faked, but, for me, the words are
signposts only.
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 1:24 PM
To: Israel, Kirk
Subject: RE: oh, man....
do both. do the actions, but also say the words when
they're right. to hold back is as much of a hangup as what you say of your
family's use of it. if the people you're close to (your future wife) want
to hear it, for godssake stop rationalizing it and just say it. a
combination of both is best, i think. don't say it as often as your
parent's, fine - keep it more special and rare, but say it too. actions
aren't enough. wouldn't be for me, anyway. if your not saying it is
an issue for your partner, then your not saying it is an
issue.
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 1:45 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
Oh, believe me, I might be trying to justify or at least
explain my past actions, and figure out where some of my notions come from, but
in the context of a future relationship, I'm definately gonna work a lot more at
finding out about my partner's emotional wants and needs, 'cause I've learned
the hard way that even relationships that might be relatively "low-maintenence"
have needs...and sometimes they're going to be harder to sound out BECAUSE of
the "low-maintenence" idea. (One thing that Terrence Real relationship book
talked about is that sometimes women won't talk about their needs, they don't
want to be seen as needy or a nag, and that can let a problem build up pressure
without a safety valve 'til it explodes)
Another anecdote that may (or may not) have had a
significant impact on my view on this: when I was a...hmm, Jr. in high school I
guess, I made this goofy small poster with all these ltitle clowns (Zinger the
Clown,
my pre-Alien Bill signature guy) holding signs and pulling banners from airplanes and
all that all saying "I Love You". I was going to give it my girlfriend (who,
retrospectively, wasn't one of the 'great romances' even on the high school
level...in fact she was the one I broke up with to go out with, *sigh*, Veronika
the German Foreign Exchange Student who I had it REALLY bad for) but for
some reason before hand I showed it to my boss at the pharmacy where I did some
stock boy stuff, Mr. Johnson...(of all the men who kind of offered themselves as
a "father figure" after my own dad died, he was the one I most accepted, he gave
me frank guy-guy talk about sex, let me borrow his huge caddillac-style car for
jr prom and rented my limo for prom my senior year) He saw it, and just
gave it a kind of disapproving vibe, he asked something along the lines of don't
I think it was a bit strong, or something like that...and I got that message,
and took it maybe too much to heart; I Love You isn't a phrase to be tossed
around as lightly as some people do. Which does it mean it's healthy to be
as stingy about it as I am either....but this might one piece of where my
conservatism about that comes from, you
know?
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 2:20 PM
To: Israel, Kirk
Subject: RE: oh, man....
Mr. Johnson was wrong. Sounds like a nice man, but he
was wrong about this. maybe conventional construction of maleness doesn't
include effusiveness...all those i love yous...but i think that definition
of maleness should be challenged, personally. mr. johnson didn't want you
turning into a 'sissy' under his watch.
that's the advantage of adulthood: deconstructing all
those moments that shaped you...and deciding if you now, older
and wiser, agree with the message you took (probably subconsciously) from
the incident.
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 2:33 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
I dunno...is there any chance teens are too casual with
their hearts? Or is it just a natural and healthy, if sometimes painful and
not-without-consequences, way that young romances go, the perfectly wonderful
passion of the age. (One line from a scifi story I read years ago that
stands out was something like "He lay down beside her. She let him cup her
breast. He loved her with a force of love that only a 16-year old could feel". I
think I read that when I was like 14, so I was looking forward to that...
:-)
I might not have describe his comment quite right...I don't
think his concern was "Sissy" so much as just...too much casualness of feeling,
from a guy who'd been around the block to a young guy who had only had his heart
broken just like once before that, and that only barely.
Yeah, deconstructing these moments is interesting and
informative. Though I'm not sure if I can know if they're the REALLY shaping
moments, or just the ones that I remember. And even when you understand where
these feelings come from, can you then consciously escape the patterns and
notions that now seem negative? I'm probably more optimistic than some
about the ability to do just that by intellect and will, but then again, you
noticed that I'm Captain Cerebral...
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 2:43 PM
Subject: RE: oh, man....
i think it's better to move forward and make a mistake than
to think things through so much that you don't act...this has long been my own
struggle...and so, no, i don't think that teens are necessarily too casual with
their hearts. unless they're engaging in egregiously self-destructive
behavior. (a young woman giving a different guy a blow job every weekend,
type thing.)
i remember my brother, several years ago, for some reason,
bringing up an incident he always felt badly about: i was young (and he
was too), maybe around 13 or so, and i was working on my garden in the back
yard. he started teasing me about something, i forget what now, and i
started pleading with him to stop 'stop it! stop!' and he wouldn't. so i
started crying really hard, crying and crying. he said he felt badly
because he could see lines of spit in my mouth when i was crying, or something
intensely human and vulnerable like that. my mother and sister were really
mad with him for making me cry like that. well, that night, i told this
guy i was dating about that. and i started crying and crying. even
though i hadn't remembered the incident until my brother brought it up, once i
thought about it, i felt some of the loneliness and pain and lack of control
that i'd felt back then...anyway, crying as an adult about it seemed to
'release' me in a way...you know the talk about emotion being trapped
in your body? well, i believe in that. i think unexpressed emotion
gets stuck inside you and is damaging. i feel like i grew once i mourned
or whatevered. same with confronting my father with lots of childhood
stuff...once i said it, got it the fuck out of my system, i was able
to stop obsessing about wanting/needing to express it...and just get on with
life already...
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 3:03 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
Wow, that's a pretty amazing story...
I know I'm a bit more intermintently cryable than I was
before the whole Mo blow-up...sometimes about stupid, overwrought stuff, like
the bravery of the WW2 soldiers on that CD or something like that. I guess
it's good in a way, but kind of annoying...
Anyway, it's been a good talk...
From: Lapin, Anne
Sent: 3:25 PM
Subject: RE: oh, man....
crying over something like WW2 soldiers is
great...seriously...just very human, very able to be moved by small things...i
think this is a great thing.
From: Israel, Kirk
Sent: 3:25 PM
To: Lapin, Anne
Subject: RE: oh, man....
Alright, catchya later Lapin...
