Hi, thanks for being here. This fragmentary essay on pain is a paid-subscriber’s only post, which could be you! I’m running a special on monthly subscriptions until the end of the month. You can update your subscription here. As always, if you like what I write, consider sharing my work with a friend.
+
It’s about deciding what kind of pain you want, the economist says to the crowd. I’m at a Jacobin issue release party and talk on inflation. I write this down in my notes app. I’m in too-tight jeans and a too-humid room for an early October night in Bushwick. I squirm because I don’t follow most of the speaker’s points. I’m hungry. I don’t want to draw attention to myself, but I did joke with my friend before the talk started about asking the economist a non-economics question. Who was your first love, what are you doing after this, what do you think about drinking Modelos with a bunch of leftists, do you think Oasis is a better band than the Beatles. Whatever question I asked him, I realize I couldn’t answer the one he posed. I don’t know what kind of pain I want.
+
You take care of people, the Lyft driver tells me. You’re productive. It’s in your name, the numbers tell me everything I need to know about you. Everything is about three, six, and nine.
What is everything? He doesn’t have an answer to this.
I agree anyways when he asks if he predicted my personality correctly though I am not sure I believe these things about myself anymore. He tells me the sun’s energy enters us through our feet. I ask, like in Haitian Vodou rituals when the gods enter through the dancers’ feet? He dismisses this. What I want to tell him is that I understand the sun. The sun, I like to say when I give chart readings, can feel itself, but it can’t see itself. I read this somewhere, but now I don’t remember where. I think he would like the metaphor, though I don’t get the chance to tell him.
He offers to hypnotize me at another time. I ask him, Am I being hypnotized right now?
No of course I’m not hypnotizing you–it’s impossible while driving someone.
There you have it: Do not hypnotize while operating heavy machinery. I almost ask for his card, but he begins to talk very negatively about his mother. Personally, I don’t want to be hypnotized by someone who has mommy issues.
Stay safe tonight—don’t get drunk, he says as I get out of the car. But you will.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to arbiter of distaste to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.