TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: So it was interesting (inaudible at 00:00:18) missed Thursday, but I was reflecting on Tuesday for quite some time afterwards and was struck by the fact that is very rare, I think, for me to talk about (inaudible at 00:00:35) (laughs) it’s much or it has at least in the last while (inaudible 00:00:42) talk about what I don’t. She’s (ph) probably significant. (Pause)

Yeah. I’m looking to gather my thoughts. It’s not an (inaudible at 00:01:47) pause, but a reflective one. Random things come to mind. I’ve noticed in the last while kind of very very distinct passive aggressive, as well as explicit manifestations of this conflict with Jennie. Not doing things that I say that I’ve done. [00:02:37]

Last around Tuesday, I just told her I had an appointment and came here and hung out in the coffee shop, which is interesting to me, at the very least. I felt uncomfortable with it. Both in the moment and in retrospect. It was a very strong compulsion. (inaudible at 00:03:08) And I guess that was making me thing about the strong passive aggressive component of a lot of the behaviors that have been so troubling and disruptive. And I think that’s our working theory in slightly different terms than we’ve been using lately (ph).

(Sighs) What else? I was struck or I remembered, very distinctly, the sense of wanting to show something—I can’t remember exactly how it came up, but I was thinking about who I was writing for would be writing for were I to have enough time and sufficient number of brain cells to actually take something to completion. [00:04:13]

And Grayson is very prominent there. I was thinking of having some things that I wanted to say to him. I think that’s the way that I put it. (inaudible at 00:04:23) go Tuesday. And there have been some sweet interactions with Jennie in the last week or so, and one of them was a moment where we were just thinking about how sweet an infant he is and just sort of the—you know, who knows at this very infantile stage how these things interact, but I imagine, I fantasize that there’s a lot more nature than nurture there.

There’s some intrinsic quality to his being that is just, you know, he’s a baby. He cries and gets frustrated and increasingly so as he gets more consciousness, but if some core of very, of calm and enjoyment. He just enjoys so intensely and we’re just thinking about how passionate both of us are and yet, you know that passion has been diverted in various ways by different but fairly difficult childhoods, I think, that we’re still kind of wrestling with. [00:05:55]

And in the connection of what I wanted to give or what I wanted to say to Grayson, I just thought about how everything that my father wanted to say to me so intensely was so completely mediated by the craziness that he gave birth to. In the end, I wasn’t interested in hearing it. You know? I didn’t want it—and I don’t know, maybe I’ll find it again at some point after all is said and done. But for the moment at least, I think about the things that he was saying to me and I’m like, “F*** that.” [00:06:36]

That was not a gift. That was a burden, and I want it to be different. I think about what I want to say to Grayson and I want to say it to him, and I want him to take it and do whatever he wants with it and move on. I want it to be different. I think I mentioned the stories that Jennie’s grandfather had recorded and their connection. You know, whatever. It’s like, these are wonderful things. It’s a wonderful artifact. You look at it and maybe they’re profoundly impactful and maybe they just make you think very fondly and lovingly of this person, and that’s what I want. I don’t want this burden to be associated with it. So, I was thinking a lot about that actually. [00:07:34] (Pause)

It was nice to be thinking about—I feel like so much of this dialogue between us has been defined by the negative space—space that I don’t want to inhabit. It was really a pleasure to be considering a space that I did want to inhabit. It felt like a very significant thing. It’s hard for me to (inaudible 00:08:08). It’s very hard for me to think about stories (ph), interestingly. (Pause)

You know it’s funny. Whenever there’s some f*** up with our scheduling, you know, my end. My thought is always, “Oh, you’re being passive aggressive. There’s something you’re acting out.” Thursday was the first time that there was no (inaudible at 00:09:00) (laughs) by this thing. It was not ambiguous. I really was very excited and looking forward to kind of continuing that conversation. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, which seems very closely connected to your enjoying having a positive space. You had things to say, you were feeling good, you were enjoying thinking about it, you didn’t doubt your motives for (inaudible at 00:09:59).

CLIENT: Cigar? It’s just a cigar.

THERAPIST: Sure. (Pause)

CLIENT: (Laughs) I was wondering if you have to dust in here. If the red…

THERAPIST: I don’t, but I’m not in…

CLIENT: The vent does bring too much…

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:11:30)

CLIENT: Oh, it doesn’t. So there’s no need to dust. I mean, I think—this random thought that came into my head and then I was thinking, maybe this is more interesting, “This space has felt more harmonious to me lately. Interestingly.”

THERAPIST: The physical space?

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think there’s been a major remodel, (laughs) but (inaudible 00:12:08), speaking of positive space.

THERAPIST: Sure. How so?

CLIENT: I couldn’t tell you. [I don’t know if we’ve had anything strange] (ph) about this sometime. I mean, it’s a weird thing. You’re in this building, you come to this building, leave this building, and you’re in this building for over 10 hours a day or whatever you do. A stretch, but...

What in particular, you’re asking? What design elements am I enjoying? Well, it’s a challenging room because you can’t do anything about the carpet and you know, the ceiling is whatever. And on the other hand you have this minimalist aesthetic, which you talked about before. And (inaudible at 00:13:05) spend. It’s stupid to spend thousands of dollars with the (inaudible at 00:13:11). So I enjoy the carpet. I think the carpet is excellent and it’s a great color and you’ve matched the colors nicely. I particularly like the tapestry, and that prince (ph) of the dancers is excellent. Little less sure about the (inaudible at 00:13:33). But the colors work.

I like the mason jar with the flowers, the dry flowers. We also have that same—they dry very nicely and they’re bright and purple, but that lamp is a little dormy. Other than that, I think everything looks pretty good. And thank God you took out the desk. It was doing nothing for me. So here’s my interior design critique. I don’t know. I mean, obviously it’s not about the design (inaudible at 00:14:13). It’s interesting—the way that it gets externalized (ph).

And it’s also the case, interestingly, I guess, after two and a half years in our apartment, Jennie and I have finally finished decorating it. There was like this struggle between us and it was very hard to agree what we wanted on our walls. And it just sort of slowly, incrementally came together. The living room came together first and then Grayson’s room fixed the problems in the dining room, because we divided it in half with a bookcase and put the crib on one side, which it’s a wonderful, very very harmonious, wonderful space with curtains that our friend made for us with fabric we picked out. [00:15:20]

And then in the last couple of weeks, we got a bunch of stuff that had been sitting around framed, and we put it on the walls. There was constant negotiation between us, as there always is, about this stuff. But finally, there are no horrible blank spaces on the walls and it really feels very comfortable to me at last. I don’t know. I mean, part of it is child and being settled and seated (ph)… space, but it’s interesting.

One interesting thing that happened this week was a couple of communications that—the person who introduced us is this courtly elderly professor of History of Science at Harvard with a long scraggly beard and used to be a physicist. Particle physicist, I think. Ages ago. Anyway, he came over for tea and suggested that I talk to the person who introduced us actually used to be the head of History of Science at Brown, who is now a house master, about being a residential advisor. Suddenly sounded very good. Even though I’ve had my frustrations with Brown students in the past— Brown undergraduates, in the past. But it sounded really appealing and frankly, it’s the first idea for a job that has genuinely sounded really appealing to me. [00:17:19]

And the other thing that happened was that Marcus, one of the people I was working on the [Real Armor] project with—

THERAPIST: Right. She was a consultant.

CLIENT: Right. She apparently took over the thing that I abandoned. As I expected that she would and kind of suspected that she was angling for. I think, in retrospect, probably not in any inappropriate way; she saw it and she thought it would be good and [it worked out though] (ph). Anyway, she wrote and asked to talk for an hour about some bull s*** that I was very uninterested in. I didn’t respond [at first] (ph) and she sent another message saying, “I’d really like to talk to you, blah blah.” I just wrote back and I said something very brief like, “You know, it’s really hard to find time for this right now. You should talk to so and so and such and such.” [00:18:18]

And I was feeling very stressed about this communication in a way that I often do, but I just wanted no part of it and it was very clear to me that I wanted no part of it in the same way that I just wanted to be done with it. I wanted to be done with them and I wanted them to just leave me alone and stop. And it was very similar, I guess, in some ways, to this previous interaction with Ginger Roland, undersecretary at Social Medicine about renewing my appointment. I don’t want my appointment. I don’t want to work with you anymore.

THERAPIST: Right. Sort of like, “Get out of my face.”

CLIENT: Well, I didn’t respond to Ginger. And Marcus solicited a direct response so I—Rebecca, I’m sure, understood what no response meant, so I think that was fine. Angelie (sp?) just wanted a more personal interaction, so I gave her a brief one. [00:19:20]

But for better or worse, this is kind of where I’m at. I’m just done. It’s like the divorce papers are signed and I want to move on. I just don’t want to be involved anymore. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, but I don’t know if I feel very resolved about it, but I feel complete about it. It’s like it’s done. So that was interesting. And also interesting, I guess, in some way that this semi-conscious resolution, was not apparently at all violated by the prospect of being a residential advisor for the Brown (inaudible at 00:20:05) (laughs). In theory, you’d think that this would not work, but somehow—I don’t know. Many of these things, I guess, are at this point in my life anyway, kind of intuitive although clearly I’m reflecting about them. But, I don’t know. And I guess I wonder if my various kind of reflexive interactions with another domain of Brown might not prejudice me in applying for such a position. I hope not, because it would certainly solve a lot of problems. [00:20:45]

But my responses feel very complete, so at some level they’re worked through. At a conscious level, I don’t totally understand them; I’m not totally in control of them in the way that one would want to be. And yet, they feel very decisive. (Laughs) And there’s some distinction between that and passive aggressiveness. Passive aggressiveness is a relationship (inaudible at 00:21:18) it exists in the context of relationship. This is not about passive aggressiveness. There are very decisive—like, it’s not engagement. I’m not interested in engaging. I’m not interested in saying, “F*** you.” I’m not interested in saying, “You’re making me angry, but I am not able to really articulate my anger.”

THERAPIST: Right. (inaudible at 00:21:38) three or steps further and it’s like you want to get a restraining order.

CLIENT: Yeah. Whatever. [I don’t need a restraining order] (ph) because everyone knows what it means. Yeah. Right. One imagines. It’s just a break. I’m not leaving anything behind. For a long time I had this weird practice of leaving lots of stuff in lots of different places, like really far from (ph) places. Like my friend’s apartment in Switzerland. After I left in 2001, my step-sister—the house that my step-father bought in the south of Spain, like in their cobb, I left all these papers apparently, after I left Geneva. So I would leave, and yet I would leave stuff. When I left Providence to go off to Holland, I had all this s*** in storage that I was paying an arm and a leg for. [00:22:46]

And now I feel like I’ve left nothing behind. And again, I don’t know what that means, but it feels decisive and different and good at some level. I don’t know that it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know that I’m doing it in the right way. As I say, it’s not something that I sat down and said, “Okay. Well, these are the steps that I’m going to take in this circumstance.” Yeah. Anyway. [00:23:20]

THERAPIST: Well, you (ph) don’t have too much you have to say about it. What occurs to me is that, two things I suppose, that that seems related to the not leaving anything behind and sort of sense of decisively leaving. [00:25:35]

CLIENT: Yeah. That’s what I said.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Themes –I haven’t got to the point yet.

CLIENT: Okay. Okay. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Themes related to perhaps this phase (ph). This phase [at home] (ph), being more comfortable and seeming more harmonious, as though that stuff were not hanging around here either.

CLIENT: Yeah. Some psychic phenomenon that’s…

THERAPIST: And also similar maybe to—I was thinking about the professor who introduced you to Jennie and who also suggested this job. I don’t know what the circumstances were. My fantasy was that he did something that really turned out to very good, of course, for you. So it’s not about him. It’s not about something he needed. It was not about someway (ph) he was going to use you or whatever. [00:26:49]

CLIENT: Yeah. And actually, it’s interesting because he made the suggestion when Jennie was out of the room and we were having a conversation about how I was doing and he’s very intuitive and very sensitive intuitive person. In our previous interactions, I had had the sense or fear, a paranoid fantasy, that he wanted me to support Jennie so that she could do her work, and that his agenda, when he would come over previously, was really oriented toward kind of proletarianizing (sp?) me or something. Making it so that I would be of service to this beloved person he kindly introduced me to. [00:27:44]

In light of that train of thought or worry, it felt particularly nice to have this interaction in which he was really genuinely being very caring and thoughtful about all of our needs. This arrangement would help Jennie too, in the sense of, among other things, it would solve our child care problem. More or less. It felt nice. And it was also nice, I think, in so far as—I felt very bereft of a community, having left one that I felt was not nurturing enough. You know, his suggestion that I talk to Hazel, to Esther rather. [00:28:36]

[He was her successor at History of Science] (ph). To talk to Esther —you know, it’s a friendly network kind of thing. One of the reasons it’s appealing to me as a job, I think, is that it would be, sort of in the classical way there would be—you know, this person that I know and have a sort of friendly relationship with is the house master and would recommend me.

THERAPIST: So Anne in the History of Science knows this guy and is also a house master where you would potentially…

CLIENT: I don’t think they have openings for RAs at her house, but she would make a recommendation. So as a continuation of my predilection for avoiding anonymous employment applications. At any rate, just the sense of still having a network after having said goodbye to this other woman, I think felt like a relief—a network that wasn’t going to be exploitative, that demonstrated its kind of benevolence and care about my interest and well-being in this very nice conversation. [00:29:48]

THERAPIST: I imagine that in parallel to what feeling harmonious about our interaction as well, that—

CLIENT: Yeah. It’s interesting. I guess that’s true. I guess presumably that’s also true. Interestingly, this other gig would come with a house. I mean, we would move into one of the houses. Whatever. It’s likely not something that would happen [for fall] (ph). (Sighs) [00:30:30]

And she responded immediately. I wrote her at 9:00 PM and she responded at 6:30 the following morning. That felt very nice also.

THERAPIST: Very clear that you didn’t want to feel used anymore.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. I was going to give them an hour to tell them about my strategy for collecting bottle (inaudible at 00:32:28). Yeah. Sure. Certainly didn’t feel obligated. I guess part of this decisive feeling is that I don’t want to pursue something that would require me to rely on them for anything really. And that’s less…

THERAPIST: Maybe you also are more confident than you’ve been in a very long time, maybe ever, that you don’t have to be, to make things work.

CLIENT: Maybe. At any rate, I just want to be done. Yeah. I don’t know. I think it would probably be good to—you know, I haven’t done anything prejudicial to hurt good relations or anything, but (sighs)…

THERAPIST: That’s how it seems to me. You [seem more common] (ph) that it’s possible.

CLIENT: Maybe. I’m getting there. Maybe I’m not quite there yet, but I’m beginning to envision reality in which—I would very much like to understand how I got there and why, in fact, I have had that sense. [00:33:48]

THERAPIST: Like that you believed that was probably that…

CLIENT: I just needed something.

THERAPIST: The only way somebody was going to make a place for you is if they were also using you in a sort of way that felt really bad (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah, or whatever. Just being a little more generic about it. Just that there was some relationship that felt as if I wasn’t getting what I needed to out of it and they were. So I guess that’s another (ph) way of putting (inaudible at 00:34:23). Anyway…

THERAPIST: Yeah, and there was some (ph) promises (inaudible at 00:34:29).

CLIENT: Yeah. We must be coming to the end of our 35 minutes. So, yeah. I’ll think about that over the weekend. I think the decisiveness, the feeling of decisiveness is one that I’m (inaudible at 00:34:53) (laughs). So on the one hand, it’s pleasurable and on the other hand, strange. And a little uncanny, I guess.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I guess (inaudible at 00:35:12) to me is partly confidence and confidence on my, in a way that’s like I don’t need to do that to myself anymore. Like, I don’t need to put myself in that situation (inaudible at 00:35:23) you in that way. Maybe that’s why I had the thought about the restraining order.

CLIENT: I mean, I think about the restraining order is that you’re asking the state to do what you’re unable to do for yourself.

THERAPIST: That is true. What I had in my (inaudible at 00:35:39) was, and God know where it might come from, I thought it might be me not you, is yeah, your (inaudible at 00:35:53) somebody else to sort of set a limit to keep you out of a relationship with (inaudible at 00:36:01) abusive and absolutely (ph) bad to you.

CLIENT: Yeah, I’ll think about that anyway.

THERAPIST: All right. (inaudible at 00:36:12) Tuesday. See you soon.

CLIENT: Okay. See you then.

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