TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: Thanks. I’ve been living in apartments where the heat’s been like controlled.
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 0:00:07)
CLIENT: Long enough that I think it should be like 75 all winter. (laughter) (pause) Amazingly enough, the like option screen isn’t good to tell you where to (pause) I wore like, basically it’s any of the other shoes that aren’t these shoes yesterday, because like, well, they take forever to put on and take off. I had my shoes off all day and whatever; like I’m so cold. (laughter) (pause) [0:01:08]
(Sharon) (ph) has a different cold; like a new one. (pause) So I’ll remember. (chuckle) She’s also like, I think her face gets really chapped, and she doesn’t like me wiping her nose constantly throughout the day, and her lips are chapped. She’s big enough that it’s often not a battle, but like more fighting. Either I’ll hand her a tissue and she’ll start (halfway) (ph), it’d be like swiping her face. [0:02:01]
Or, more often, I’ll pick her up and kind of wipe her face. And she’s like, “No, no, no.” And there’ll be a fight, and then 10 seconds later, she’ll just wipe her nose on my sweater. (laughter) Thank you (Sharon) (ph)
THERAPIST: So I just remembered something logistical, which is, I am in next Monday; it’s a holiday; I’m here. And I don’t know if I will, but if I see you later times on Tuesday and Wednesday, do you want me to let you know?
CLIENT: Yes please. (laughter)
THERAPIST: It’s okay if you don’t; that’s okay. (background noise)
CLIENT: Okay. Sure. Also logistically, I guess there’ve been like a couple of times recently where you’ve asked if I could switch to Friday afternoons. If there is a better afternoon time that’s earlier that would work better for you, I would be happy to switch. [0:03:12]
THERAPIST: Oh, okay. And are we particular? It doesn’t matter as much to you?
CLIENT: Yeah. It’d have to be after about 1:30.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: Or on Friday morning.
THERAPIST: Yeah, I think, (pause) I think I’m going to have to put you on – I think so far, it’s been kind of a random thing.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: But thanks; I’ll keep that in mind. (pause)
CLIENT: So we had a requirement that I might. (laughter)
THERAPIST: I’m not sure of that.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: No, that’s fine. (inaudible at 0:04:06)
CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:04:09) She would wear it, but -
THERAPIST: Where’s she at? [0:04:15]
CLIENT: She doesn’t wear pink very much. (pause) So like everyone in my family, pretty much every year, somebody will give me like a sweater or something that’s this shade of pink. So that’s become my color in their minds. I’m like I’ve never picked out something that shade for myself. I’ll wear it, but I’ve never – I don’t ever pick it out. (pause)
[James has this gold-filled tooth] (ph) and it’s pretty dramatic gold, and like finished drafting. So his advisor is like, “Hey, let’s take, you know, this piece of this (inaudible at 0:05:32) we’re going to publish, and publish it, and put it in like a 4-6 page format and talk to the (claimer) (ph) magazine. And that’s how James referred to that, but it cracks me up. (laughter)
The nice thing about that, is that James would be the author on that. So, you know, it’s highly unclear whether he’ll stay with it (inaudible at 0:06:01). He’s like, “I want to get that done by this week.” And then I’m just realizing the last (inaudible at 0:06.07) apply for jobs in the city. That’s his goal for the week. It’s like oh, okay, and I think that was his goal for the last week too though.
THERAPIST: And Prue goes where?
CLIENT: I don’t remember, or he didn’t say to work people in the office.
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 0:06:27)
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Okay, got you.
CLIENT: I guess the city is usually Austin, but not to me.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: (pause) Well. (pause) I’m really ready for winter to be over. Not so much, because it’s like getting me down, but I do stuff with the kids. And they get antsy at being cooped up; I get antsy at being cooped up. The logistics of small children in the snow, or worse than the logistics of small children other times. I (inaudible at 0:07:42). (pause)
But I find that I get a little (inaudible at 0:08:21) better and just assume that winter is never is going to end. (laughter) It’s like winter in (inaudible at 0:08:29) for like 50 years. (chuckle) I don’t know if you’ve read this, but it had -
THERAPIST: Okay. (inaudible at 0:08:41)?
CLIENT: The Game of Friends Book.
THERAPIST: Oh, okay.
CLIENT: It’s one of the things like, I don’t know quite what to do, because I have this very strong reaction, and it’s completely against the tide. It’s like not just like general public opinion, but all of my friends who ordinarily have good taste, (laughter) which is I think they’re horrible. And, you know, they’re not well-written, but not terribly written like it’s fine. But it’s just like one horrible thing after another. Yeah, all of my friends love them. It’s just like terrible things happening to characters that you like, and then more terrible things, then more terrible things. (pause) [0:09:56]
I don’t know, and there’s something about like, I think there’s something about it being in the novel that makes it. You know, like, no wonder I’m thinking about it, that’s real life, just a series of terrible things happening to people you like. (chuckle) But like there’s, like you do things to deal with it as a person in your life. Like you put it within a framework that makes sense, or that tries to makes sense of it; tries to be okay with it, or tries to be like, well it’s not all terrible things. There is redemption in some terrible things or whatever. [0:11:11]
And I feel, you know, you’re really just bound by the framework of the author to find that maybe. So if it’s not there, it’s just not there. Does that make sense?
THERAPIST: (pause) I guess what I understand is that the author just presents a terrible thing without some kind of frame around them. Then you’re kind of stuck with that.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: As opposed to an author who does what the rest of us are doing most of time, which is minus a certain contact or something. [0:11:59]
CLIENT: Yes; yes. (pause) Yeah I think (pause) that I’m trying to think whether I actually picked that or not. (laughter) (pause) I mean I liked Moby Dick was one of my favorite books and that’s pretty explicitly, the author like wrestling with the fact that terrible things happen for no reason. And he sort of said like this is what we do, and we can’t always explain it, and we don’t know how to handle that.
But somehow that to me, that really works and makes sense, that plants that just like, huh, now your favorite character is killed and his head is found outside of the capital walls (inaudible at 0:13:13) Oh, now this, I don’t care if it would be like; it’s right; awesome; we’re going to tell you all about it. (laughter) (pause)
It’s something like 800 pages long, and that’s just, you have to have something really good to say if you’re going to talk for 800 pages. (chuckle) Like eat (laughter) in seven of them. (laughter) (pause) [0:14:14]
I read an article last night about this sort of thing that had come up about Woody Allen, that turned out to be like (inaudible at 0:16:21) talking about her childhood sexual assault. It’s like, I don’t know how to deal with that. I don’t, yeah; I don’t know how to deal with it. I guess if I could deal with it, then or it’s like if I knew how to, then I think that would be the bigger problem in some ways. (pause) [0:17:21]
This talk, I’m like, I don’t know what to talk about. I guess basically that (pause) talk about this will sort of introduce the way to wisdom literature in the Bible works with the genre, that like you’ve got the very sort of standard tropes set up at Proverbs, like this how we deal with evil in the world. There are ways of talking and ways of thinking, and they, “If you’re righteous then you’ll be rewarded.” Right. [0:19:16]
Then things like Job; they call it like really set out to just be like, nope, nope, nope, nope, (laughter) and completely undermine it, but like undermine it using the ideas and the words from it. I think specifics, but they talk about it like, the Bible as a conversation. They say, what does the Bible say? Well like, that’s a silly question. (pause) [To talk it at like] (ph) (pause)
THERAPIST: I’m trying to think one, kind of what you’re talking about, is this really what almost like what the relation or sort of the relationship between the author of the text and reader in regards to this summary? I mean in (pause), I don’t understand what you’re describing, from like Job for example. Part of the point is the author in part of the conversation with others stuff you’re missing is sort of confronting the reader with like, “Hey, it just doesn’t work like that. What do we make of that?” Or something along those lines like. [0:21:03]
I guess I’m thinking, but just like I guess in that sense, this is sort of like questioning, and abdicative and realistic kind of threats to all of it. I guess I was opposed to like (inaudible at 0:21:30), but it sounds like the other is more inflicting it on you, or at least that’s how it feels to you.
CLIENT: That’s how it feels to me. Yeah.
THERAPIST: Which is just like it’s a different relations between the author and (inaudible at 0:21:44).
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And that that has [going forward] (ph) to do with (inaudible at 0:21:58) to react.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) I don’t know, it’s sort of like I mean I try to pin down why I dislike this series so much. I read the first book like the [whole one day] (ph). And I think it was like picked a genre that basically I liked everything else in it. I read a lot of (inaudible at 0:22:44). But there’s something about like the plotting that is not in any way like disciplined at all. There’s no structure to it, basically like things just happen, and then more things happen and more things happen. And he’s not doing that on purpose; like it’s not – yeah, I think that I feel confident in saying that sort of just like, because he’s not very good at structuring, rather than because he’s like deliberately (inaudible at 0:23:27)
THERAPIST: Just does the organic when stuff keeps happening.
CLIENT: Yeah, but not even really organic; just like (pause) he sort of leads you to expect that he’s going somewhere with it. (chuckle) And he just never ever does. It feels like it building to something, but it’s not in fact building to anything. (pause) I don’t know. (pause)
THERAPIST: It (inaudible at 0:24:10) problem. Like that just keeps happening. There’s no point in hiding the question about whether there’s a point, and it doesn’t happen like according to some larger plot structure that would also help to (connectulize) (ph) it.
CLIENT: Yeah. I mean I feel like the way that novelists sort of (connectulize) (ph) things or work is like either if you’re sort explicit moral, I think which is usually kind of shitty. Or like through structure, which is one of things that, you know, I like. I don’t know. (pause)
I have to – yeah, it does feel like just inflicting all of these things on us, rather than like inviting us into his story. (pause)
THERAPIST: I mean it does remind me of two things, one is how your depression feels sometimes. And the other is how (inaudible at 0:26:59) can feel, I think too sometimes. (inaudible at 0:27:10) inflicting something on you, you ended another way to understand it, or -
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) I guess I don’t really usually think of myself as somebody who reads for escapism, but a couple of ways I think I probably am, but I don’t want to be in a situation, like I have enough of things I can’t control hurting me, for reasons that I don’t understand in my life. Like I don’t want that to be what might (inaudible at 0:28:04). (pause)
It’s very strange to like become [bad only] (ph) like two weeks ago. It’s like that wasn’t very long. (pause) Yeah I worked to sort of integrate that, to not – I feel like there’s a room that I walk into and I walk out of and it’s not there anymore. And I work to try to make that not the case. Part of me, I really don’t want to, but I don’t – I sort of want to disavow it. (pause)
And this way, like I’m spending a lot of time with you and on my own, because well you know, that doesn’t actually come from work; instead you’re going to nowhere. [There need to be rules] (ph) that you can sort of explain the way of the context of my life. You know, so it just feels like everything I do – it feels like everything that I work to do, and everything that I want to do, and everything that I have done just doesn’t matter anymore; like it just gets wiped out.
That feels like that could happen any time, always. It feels like the choice that I have is to acknowledge that and think about it, or just not think about it. (inaudible at 0:31:26) (pause)
THERAPIST: It takes the feel to you, I think, why can it be so relationship. (pause)
CLIENT: Yeah. (chuckle) (pause) That sort of puts my (inaudible at 0:34:00) in contact, in terms of like what are the choices I have if I were to walk out. (pause) Yeah and I mean (pause) actually now, it feels without the pain, (inaudible at 0:34:54). I look around; this is happening again; sort of a sick feeling in your stomach. (pause) [0:35:54]
I don’t know anything about that. (pause) Yet the thing that’s really interesting, and definitely you know, it isn’t right, but it makes me feel pretty helpless, because (pause) you know, I can’t do the things that I do to sort of get out of like the relationships and stay away from them, like with my depression. I can’t just walk away. I can’t say, no you have to stop treating me like this. I can tell I don’t know what to do. (pause) [0:38:03]
I guess it feels like it’s [in a] (ph) relationship also in that (pause) like somehow I always end up blaming myself for the things that aren’t (now) (ph).
THERAPIST: Previous.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) But my (inaudible at 0:40:48) it’s like who or what is at fault and who or what is the victim is just really skewed.
THERAPIST: I see. (pause) I guess I’m thinking there’s a way this is connected to what we were talking about yesterday, to do with the anxiety that comes for you from needing and relying on people. But I’m not sure how to put that together. I think this is probably partly an end result of that. (pause) [0:43:59]
CLIENT: I also think that it sounds reasonable that that’s probably part of the result (inaudible at 0:44:18). (chuckle) (pause) I guess what it makes me think of is that when like in my life, when people have left me, it’s usually been for some more or less good reason, like not that they just left, but [being there] (ph), there just seems like something there that – but the result of that was that I always sort of felt like it was unreasonable or wrong of me to be upset about their leaving. I’m not sure, but that’s all right. [0:45:30] (pause) You know, like why do people get divorced, and tell the kids that like it’s for the best, and they’re happy that way and all of that. But then I feel guilty about not wanting my parents to be divorced.
THERAPIST: Yeah; yeah and (pause) maybe something gets going about needing to kind of beat yourself up for having that (inaudible at 0:46:19).
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: In order to feel like you’re also fitting in, now (inaudible at 0:46:26). (pause) We should stop now.
CLIENT: Okay.
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