TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: I'm going to keep it close to me for the first couple of minutes just to make sure that it's recording because it's been going off spontaneously. I think it has something to do with the memory on my phone.

CLIENT: Oh, oh. I have a digital recorder, if you're interested.

THERAPIST: I might just have to invest in one.

CLIENT: They're not too bad.

THERAPIST: They're not that expensive I don't think, right? $100 or something like that?

CLIENT: Under that $60.

THERAPIST: Do you like the one that you use?

CLIENT: Yeah, a Sony. You can organize it into folders. It has settings for if you're under voice-mail mode or if it's a presentation or an interview it has different recording settings, so it supposedly takes in the sound differently for each one. It's pretty easy. [00:00:57]

THERAPIST: Like it will record differently if it's music or if it's an interview?

CLIENT: Yeah, it's by setting. One of the things is lecture if you're in a classroom, interview in an office, like if you're a doctor just recording stuff.

THERAPIST: And what kind of files does it save them as?

CLIENT: MP3.

THERAPIST: MP3, okay. Ah, it looks like it's going.

CLIENT: I'll try to talk [bearably] (ph?), too. It's just a memory thing?

THERAPIST: It's totally just a memory thing. The last two times, not with you and me but with the other meetings I've had, it stops spontaneously. I went back and deleted a couple of other things off the phone to free up memory space and it seems to be working, but I just wanted to make sure. [00:02:11] One other thing, I'm going to be out the week of March 18th. I'll remind you but I wanted to give you a heads-up.

CLIENT: I was looking to break down that week and now I'll have to put it off.

THERAPIST: (laughs) Move it up or move it back? (laughs)

CLIENT: But thanks for the notice. I was thinking on the way here about a period last summer that was kind of confusing. As I've shared, I took a couple of jobs for the past couple of years that have involved logistics and moving around, delivering stuff flower shop and legal courier (inaudible at [00:03:01]) like that and they gave me missions to do and I'd carried them out. That was satisfying in some sort of way. [00:03:10] And then after I left those jobs during the summer I found myself just getting on a train and then I'd change my mind and start going the other way. Or I'd be like, "Okay, I'm going to go to the library today." I'd start going to the library and then I'd something I could only describe as an OCD impulse, even though it wasn't that strong. It's not like obsessive, but it was like random. It was just like, "No, I shouldn't do that. I should turn around." Anything could trigger it. It could be like I'm just getting bad things now but it could be like some person who reminded me of some period of my own life and seemed to be having a hard time; or it could be the time like the digits would add up to 13 on whatever time it was, so like 11:56 or any number of other things or there may have been other unlucky numbers. In fact, I'm sure there were. [00:04:10]

THERAPIST: And that would cause you to do what?

CLIENT: I would get off the train, start going on the train the other directions, decide to go back home, or, specifically, the worst one was I was thinking of going to where my extended family has a house that I sort of grew up in as a kid. My grandparents died and they owned it. Their children kind of have care of it. My experience there has changed since I was a kid. Now the aunts and uncles are in charge and my cousins and I are growing up; it's a different experience going there than when you're young and running around through the woods and [taking some lessons] (ph?) or reading and playing games most of the day. Very different. [00:05:05] I was thinking of going down there. I hopped on a train to do it with the bike and then I changed my mind and decided to go back and then I thought, "I should go down." I hopped off the train and wandered around [...] (inaudible at 00:05:20) for a while. I called my sister and was thinking of visiting her because she was away at summer camp nearby. She sort of said, "No, you don't get to visit." She said, "Well, it sounds like you have two good options," because I shared my problem with her. It seems to me like I was sort of probing the nature of my relationship to my extended family, which I think has been confusing to me as I slowly migrated into adulthood (chuckles) because you have a very caring entity which, in my age group, is history and I'm not even sure what I want to say it's sort of going home, in a sense. It's some sort of dependency/wanting to be independent ; some sort of conflict there. [00:06:25]

THERAPIST: For yourself with your extended family?

CLIENT: Yes. It's something I know will be there, and it's great. At the same time I wish I had, or at least at the time and I still do wish I had, a more robust I don't want to use robust but a more exiting personal life that didn't belong to my extended family, wasn't under the prevue of other five or six or ten 50-year-old adults. (pause) [00:07:02] Things with Cleo (ph?) sort of brought this to the front of my mind as well, because her fiancé supposedly is her cousin, so he has sort of rescued her from a bad relationship. When he came I was not at best and I didn't care either because I wasn't really going after her. It was something not I won't say it was unnatural, but they guy wasn't a man, like he wasn't an independent human being with any motivation. [00:08:11] That's still not getting the heart of it. I don't know what it is but it's just [faceted] (ph?) somehow. I guess that's a concern I could project from myself that could probably apply to me as well. (pause)

THERAPIST: The question of independence and what kind of life he was having of his own? Maybe robust isn't the right word, but what kind of life he was able to form for himself? [00:09:00]

CLIENT: Like who is he? (chuckles) My problem is I'm trying to attribute it to my impression of him when, in fact, an impression of someone is something you build up over time. So I guess I want to portray it like I would if the guy and I see it was like that, but really it's also based on what Cleo has told me and also her own sort of behaviors and seeming to fall back into a comfortable relationship, which is something I've done with the family as well. I told you the time I suspect that my other roommate and Cleo sort of got into it, even after Cleo and I started having sex. I was role-playing with my cousins on the computer. [00:09:54] It's not the first time or even the most articulable or explosive time where I have conflicts where I can choose something that's part of my individual personal life, which is kind of fledgling, or I can go to familiar family gatherings. I have to choose. Most often, I choose the family gathering. As I've gotten older, I think they've been less and less fulfilling. I've sort of translated that into a feeling of "this family is doomed" or "The family is changing. Everyone else doesn't realize it, but it's not what it used to be," or whatever. But in fact, it's that I'm changing everyone is changing and the familiar structure which was almost prelapsarian (ph?) when I was younger is just not the same structure, the same people that somehow don't fulfill me in the same way. Trying to reach back for that is a counter-productive process. [00:11:03]

THERAPIST: Yeah, do you feel that it kind of related to the whole ambivalence about going out to see the family and taking the train, getting on and getting off?

CLIENT: Definitely. I had something else that I could have done that day, but I forget what it was. It was sort of important or promising, I think. I completely forget, but it was something.

THERAPIST: What is it like to spend time with the family now?

CLIENT: The extended family? It's different every time. Sometimes I'm sort of withdrawn and very tentative in my interactions, even with the kids my own age. Other times, I'm quite happy. In fact, I shared that there are periods when I feel like I've sort of burned my fingers or someone has sort of mistreated me and I have expectations of romance or intimacy and that sort of disrespect with me. That's how I perceive it. When that happens, I seem to work very well afterwards or I focus or I build the website or whatever. It's also true that after I feel mistreated or some sort of rugged cut with non-family people in the real world, after that occurs I have more fun with my family, more appreciation of our bond. [00:12:42] I sort of recognize the importance of keeping it whole and strong. In any culture it seems like a matter of how to fit in and when you have a collection of people that's stale-mated by elders, it can be difficult at times. But in any culture I feel like your obligation is to speak you just to be you, even if you're completely at odds with something. Like I go to a Quaker church and sometimes a lot of Quakers are really passive and bend over. They contort themselves into funny positions to try to be polite to people; but instead of doing it they not only abrogate or undermine their objectives, they don't help the well-being of the community or even the people they want to help. [00:13:59]

Something that occurred to me that I wanted to go back to a school or my high school or my swim team to say actually just to my high school is that you have a responsibility to be who you are and not in a trade way, either. If' you're the miserable kid, then be miserable (laughs) just be that. Or if you hate it at your high school we'll take that example if you hate it at your high school, then it's your responsibility to hate it; and not in cover fashion. Be pretty up-front and articulate it in whatever way you want to articulate it. What's not acceptable is hanging back and sort of quietly ruing your day or something like that because the conflict of different people when they come together is always productive in the end. [00:15:01] The challenge of interacting with other people when they're present, motivates everyone to greater greats, I think. So in the family, sometimes I'm withdrawn but other times I'm there like I'm there. A few recent meetings I'm becoming like "the guy" because I'm in the middle of fourteen cousins, all in various stages of what I've just described as kind of a dependency on the family structure sort of have their own lives but the family was wonderful. It's a wonderful family. We still gather pretty regularly. [00:15:51]

THERAPIST: Tell me, is it your mother's side or your father's side?

CLIENT: It's my father's side.

THERAPIST: Your father's side. And the elders, are their main and peripheral players. Is it an aunt and uncle or is it your dad and mom is central? Does it vary?

CLIENT: Everyone has their own personality. I suppose I can only tell things from my point of view, but if you ask different people they would definitely name different cousins. They would name different people as the forefront. My uncle, the eldest child of my grandfather, so my oldest uncle on my father's side, he's probably the patriarch. Then you have my aunt, who married into that side of the family. My eldest uncle is a teacher at boarding school where I went and he's still there. He never really left high school. (chuckles) [00:17:03]

THERAPIST: He went there, too?

CLIENT: He didn't go there. He went to a public school, but he was sort of like the cool kid in high school. He's like 60-something now. He just never grew up and everyone loves him for it. So he's sort of the patriarch and then my aunt had a baby out of wedlock which, at the time, was I guess I'm not supposed to know this. Not like anyone was saying, "Oh, you're not supposed to know that," but no one ever told me except my mother in a gossipy tone. So apparently, she had a kid out of wedlock and my grandmother, my father's mother, got very upset about it and sort of marginalized her and my uncle because they're kind of a strict Roman Catholic family. [00:18:05] They were supposed to get married. That baby turned out to be a still-born. The baby died. So the way I see it, she's sort of like a traditional enemy for me because she went to the high school that I went to before I transferred and she's like that upper-crust what do you call it bourgeois girl who was popular, doesn't care about people. Or popular and screw everyone else? I don't know how to say it, but I think the death of that first kid changed her in a way because it gave her like a stiff streak inside. The kid died and she was kind of off in the family because she and my uncle had premarital sex. [00:19:04] At the same she became very religious because of that. She's one of those people who you don't connect with on a personal level, but she's so effusive and communicative all the time in talking to so many people that you sometimes have to go through her. She ends up organizing things, so it's not like she's I wouldn't say she's especially respective at all. That's redundant, but she is kind of a hub in one sense, especially for the women.

THERAPIST: The cousins? Your funeral cousins?

CLIENT: No, not the funeral cousins. My aunt. Maybe my funeral cousins, some of the older ones. Generally, from my point of view, they're like a layer. There are ten of them. The brothers and sister have, obviously, known each other since they were very young. (laughs) They were playing sports together and we played them in football this past I guess it was Thanksgiving and so my uncle was in charge of one team and I was in charge of the cousins' team, and they're so fucking old, but they still win. They know each other so well. (both laugh) They know little tricks and stuff, so we lost three to one. But we at least played the game. [00:20:46]

One of my other cousins was saying, "They're cheating. They aren't counting to three." Somebody was going, "Shut up. They're going to do it anyway. You're complaining about it and it's not going to do anything; so let's work with it and see what we can do." Jesus Christ. It's getting long here. But I take it seriously and I don't think my other cousins take it that seriously. They guys hog all the attention when we're together and I want to relate to my cousins, so it complicates something or I kind of like one of my cousins. How would that possibly work? Because I don't really have independent means, for whatever reasons, and the only times we're together we're with the whole family in a setting where that sort of relationship would be under scrutiny from a lot of angles. But, yeah, so I second-guess liking my cousin. It's just sort of an easy fall-back sort of like falling into a rut, you know? No, it's not that, but... [00:21:58]

THERAPIST: But it's one element of it. It's just somebody that you'd be comfortable with and is familiar and you have deep feelings for.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's forbidden, so it would be strange. I would sort of slide away from "the rut" situation, but it's forbidden and it's somehow a little sacred and it's good. But recognizing Cleo and her cousin, or whatever, is something like these people aren't really giving it a go with the beast. I don't know what to say about it. [00:22:58]

THERAPIST: What do you think about it?

CLIENT: Like they're not making anything new. There is sort of like...

THERAPIST: They're going into a fall-back by being with each other? It's just sort of a fall-back for each of them?

CLIENT: For him, I just think he has no momentum of his own and she's like the object of his worth. For her, right, it is. It's something familiar. I wish it didn't sound like I was moralizing it, but the sense I get is that it's like going back into a stuffy room once again. [00:24:07]

THERAPIST: How so?

CLIENT: For her well, if we're going to talk about her anymore it's sort of speculative.

THERAPIST: Going back into the stuff you wrote, you're meaning going back to being with somebody that's familiar and...

CLIENT: It's not really enterprising.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I see. I guess it also brings up this whole kind of, with your cousins and, I guess, (sniggers) Cleo is having her own kind of struggle or conflict around it. I don't know how you'd characterize it, but there's this kind of conflict between something of what's beyond the family and what's in the family and you feel, I imagine, that there's something that is available in the family immediately. [00:25:13]

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: But, yet, you're aware that it's a changing thing. It's not what it used to be. It's not what it was and meant to you when you were younger, whether it be because you've changed... but the family has changed. The grandparents are gone is that right?

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and people have grown older and all of that stuff. What I hear, too, is that you're not sure what's out there beyond the family. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe it's more that I should ask another question, do you have a sense of what's out there for you?

CLIENT: That it can be cold at times. In the family, it's like an obligation. It's like Dharma. You never insult someone else in the family. There's that sense of obligation to everyone else in the community, even if you value people differently. You're not supposed to outright betray preferences or anything like that, so there, perhaps I communicate both the stuffiness and the appeal of it. It's almost like a contrived utopia. (both laugh) Damned socialists. [00:26:45]

THERAPIST: But even if it feels a bit like an artifice, there is a want there. You're not going to be treated with the coldness that's...

CLIENT: There's a genuine warmth.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it's genuine.

CLIENT: That's not always apparent. What's out there is a cold, often very mechanical social scape with rules that aren't appealing to someone who doesn't have ready status or direction.

THERAPIST: How do you find people treat you? [00:27:44]

CLIENT: That's a big question. Who? (laughs) I've described a few people. Yeah, it just depends on whom. I would say... (pause) Something about that place that I never quite digested, or either digested at times but it seems to come back up, is regurgitated, is sort of the bland status of it; as if I expected a collective, I think. Once you're there, it's recognized you're smart, you're valuable, we're community, but that wasn't it at all. A lot of people are using it for something else and the sort of, again, the bland recognition of your x-diploma is, as silly and small as it may seem it bothered me because I didn't feel like I was earning the recognition. Like it wasn't connected to what I did, it was just there. [00:29:14] I didn't like it at all. In fact, one of the worst experiences I had is my second year I just sort of bombed a term paper, which is the most important assignment. I wouldn't work on it. I just thought about it and how great it could be, but I wouldn't work on it. Then the last day the parents were also there. They came the day we were supposed to hand it in and I sort of blanked. My papers were all out of order and I had to paper clip them together after showing up 15 minutes late to class with all the parents there and the paper was shit, like the first page and a half was good. It was supposed to be like 12 pages and I'm not sure that it is. But when I got the grade back it was like 87 or something and I was so pissed off because it invalidated all the work I had considered so valuable. [00:30:16] I was just pissed off. I don't think I understood why, but I was pissed as hell because it was like (chuckles) I had tried to find some way out or express some discontent. I don't know what I was doing, but it was not acknowledged. Garbage; just go on to the next stage of your educational prescription. [...] (inaudible at 00:30:47)

THERAPIST: I was thinking about the way you described your dad last week about kind of a way that he's never called you to task on things. In a way, he never really engaged with you in a certain way. I was thinking that, at least with school and that paper, it can kind of leave you cold. What, they don't care? I turn in shit and they give me an 87? What does that mean about the previous work? What does that mean about what they really think about what I'm trying to say to them right now with a shitty paper? (pause) [00:31:52]

CLIENT: I thought that afterwards, in response to your question, one of the things I seem to notice about people is that most people are comfortable with that kind of currency like you're from this area or you're from the same town. Those are the things that people are like, "Oh, yeah." (chuckles) I don't know what I expect or expect it is. It's become less troublesome to me, the fact that I'm loathe to express discontent at all. I don't know. I think people in larger society, most of them spend a lot of their time trying to exist without acknowledging anyone else or trying to be as alien as possible from the other person on the street, unless it's directly useful in some way they can perceive. That's my take-away on this. (pause) [00:33:19] The thing about my cousin, is, she was with this guy I think he was like 33. I don't know what he was, he was pretty old. When I was up there, I had this sort of traumatic experience where (chuckles) she asked me out dancing and the other guy is there. She brought me home with her, too; but she brought the other guy home, too. She wanted me to stay, but I was conscious of her idea that she was kind of making her own life. She was going to school for nursing. I mean, this is a girl who went to India and she went to Global College or something and she was supposed to come back; but she decided to just stay there. [00:34:03] I think she did a few drugs and she climbed the Himalayas and she had a boyfriend over there. Eventually her mom had her come back. She started going there when she was 18 or 19, I think, and her mom had her come back after she spent two years over there. So now, here she is back, and she's living pretty close by to her parents. I guess they got her her own apartment, but she's bringing me back to this apartment with the guy. I had talked to him throughout the night and, of course, he loves her and is an upstanding, independent man; and here I am with my sort of long and incredibly subtle overtures. [00:35:03] First of all, what do I do in the face of this guy who was a better dancer all night? But also, there is a sense that it wouldn't quite be right for me to kind of leverage my relationship to my cousin to try and turn her to me and so deprive her of life outside the family, outside the imperial control of her mother and all the relations that I represent. It was funny to go because I was quite drunk and they were saying, "You should go. It's not such a drive," whatever. But the way she looked at me was something else. She was looking straight at me and her eyes were watering. It was after I had kissed her on the cheek and she had told me to stay. She was looking at me in this way. [00:36:05]

THERAPIST: What way?

CLIENT: I don't want to have to do it, but eyes wide open, you know? Eyes glistening, not blinking. I was leaving her there, but she was up on the alcove halfway up and I had descended the stairs. It was like this connection that we'd ripened or that she'd probably been appreciating I won't say that, I'll just say we'd been nourishing for a while that had an opportunity there, but I was leaving. It wasn't like she was smashed or anything. (pause) It wasn't good or bad. [00:37:04]

THERAPIST: What did you make of it?

CLIENT: What did I make of it? I don't know. I was filled with regret. I contemplated a [subsidy] (ph?) of independent means where I could somehow reclaim a relation with this person. It's still there, but I mean I go through phases that are all in my head. I just go, "How bad is it?" I look at Cleo and her cousin [...] (inaudible at 00:37:46) and it's not a positive thing where I have to get my means together so I can actually drive around and do what I want; which, I suppose, is kind of strange because I could do that anyway but I'm too scared. [00:38:13] What's up with you today? Have you got something on your mind?

THERAPIST: What were you noticing? What were you thinking?

CLIENT: Do you want to know?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Foot shaking, something above your left eye is like it's veiled or something. It's like you're thinking you've got something. I don't think it's related to me necessarily.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Something about my eye? What about my eye?

CLIENT: It is sort of veiled. There's something different about it. I don't know how to put it into words. Just the left one.

THERAPIST: What did you make of it? There's something on my mind? Any particular direction?

CLIENT: (chuckles) I have to put all the stuff out here?

THERAPIST: (chuckles) Yeah. Maybe you're seeing something I'm not even aware of.

CLIENT: I suppose I sense a little impatience. I figure there's... I don't know. Yeah, impatience. Something like when you get up and you've got three things to do and you only have time for two. That's what I figure, but I don't really know. [00:39:47]

THERAPIST: Yeah. I guess I was just caught up in listening, trying to make sense of... I guess trying to get into the space that you're at with your cousin and the complications of I don't know. I was imagining, in some ways, your cousin kind of felt the whole scenario was kind of seductive and that it would be nice to just be with her; and yet there are all of these repercussions about the family. And then there is Cleo, who is actually doing it with a cousin and actually has independent means; but wondering if that is a good thing? Is that not a good thing? [00:40:48]

CLIENT: Yeah, and she's not happy.

THERAPIST: And she's not happy about it. She's been struggling to find her own thing separate from this guy. Yeah, I guess that was where my head was at. I don't know that I have much to say about it at this point, other than just trying to hear more about it, I guess. I was thinking, too, as you're talking to me about this you know you're also talking to somebody outside the family about it and how am I going to escape all of this? Am I going to be cold, unreceptive? Impatient? I don't know what the impatience might it's something picking up on my impatience? I was just thinking about, yeah, I'm outside the family. (sniggers) [00:42:11]

CLIENT: Yeah, it's important because there are plenty of things in the family that if I object to them, I couldn't talk to anyone else in the family about them, really. Maybe but, still, it would be risky. (pause)

THERAPIST: It's also a lot for you to reveal that hey, I have these strong feelings about my cousin. I have these really powerful feelings for my cousin.

CLIENT: Yeah, they're sort of dormant.

THERAPIST: They're dormant?

CLIENT: Yeah, but it was very present there in that case and I don't want to violate it by trying to describe it.

THERAPIST: The reason why I asked was I was wondering if you felt any sense that she wanted if you felt it was a seductive look or...?

CLIENT: It was like she knew. She knew then. The weirdest thing. I've talked about wanting to connect with people and feeling like my connections have been suddenly severed or I think a connection is there and I get hurt or I try so hard (chuckles) to connect with someone but it just doesn't happen. And she looked at me the whole time this was in like a space of 30 or 40 seconds where I'm leaving and she's not turning away, she's not blinking, she's not turning back to her lover who is upstairs or, not her lover yet, but this big dancing, strong-armed Indian guy and she's not turning to him, she's looking at me for like 40 seconds and not looking away. [00:44:10]

THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause)

CLIENT: I wonder if I short-changed her there because I was afraid because she was reaching out for this connection (chuckles) I've been wanting for my own sanity because she was going to set me up on this bed and she and the other guy were going to sleep together so I would have gone crazy, I think. In whatever capacity, I don't know.

THERAPIST: She had the sense that, knowing that, knowing this was going to be difficult for you to be excluded in some way from the two of them?

CLIENT: No, I don't think she did that at all not at first. Maybe she did that at the end when I was leaving.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's what I meant.

CLIENT: Probably, yeah. (pause) [...] (inaudible at 00:45:27) (pause) Have you ever had forbidden love?

THERAPIST: Have I had forbidden love?

CLIENT: I don't know what "had" means, but have you experienced that feeling?

THERAPIST: I guess Freud would argue we all have. (both chuckle)

CLIENT: That's a way of deflecting. We all have. I think a lot of people probably go to psychotherapy so they can be convinced they're not crazy. I come to you to convince me that I am crazy because I think I want to be separated from my thoughts. [00:46:41]

THERAPIST: Because it's the forbidden love that kind of makes you go, "What am I thinking? What am I feeling? Why am I having these feelings and thoughts?"

CLIENT: No. I don't question that. (pause)

THERAPIST: What...?

CLIENT: Like when I know (chuckles) Cleo and my other roommate are fooling around, it's a painful truth. I wish I were hallucinating or something, you know? (pause) I guess I have pretty negative thought patterns, but I also feel like I'm good a guessing things. I'm good at estimating things. I'm good at predicting things and (chuckles) it becomes very [...] (inaudible at 00:47:47)...

THERAPIST: Crazy.

CLIENT: Change.

THERAPIST: Well, there's clearly a lot of pain in it.

CLIENT: Yeah, so sometimes when I'm talking to you do you have more to say? I don't want to cut you off. Sometimes when I'm talking to you I can describe elements in my past, but I don't really want to be stuck in my past. As soothing as it might be to share some painful experiences, it's not something I want to be tied to. [00:48:23]

THERAPIST: I think, in a way, this exclusion has kind of been something that's been a painful part of your past and that you don't want to keep repeating in some way. I think it's obviously been hell on you. Maybe I'm being dramatic. I don't know.

CLIENT: That is the thing, though exclusion. I never would have hit on that word myself. Like with Cleo, it wouldn't affect wouldn't or doesn't bother me it's the idea of concealing it or kicking me out of it somehow. [00:49:24]

THERAPIST: For some reason I'm thinking about the parking.

CLIENT: Really?

THERAPIST: Yeah. The parking and what that all meant to you.

CLIENT: (laughs)

THERAPIST: I mean, one of the first things you said was that you can't park back there and what that all meant to be excluded and to still want it. Obviously there are practical levels, but there's something real about it, being excluded right away.

CLIENT: That's a clever idea. (pause) [00:50:00]

THERAPIST: And I imagine in some way wanting me to be up front about it, to be clear about it so you don't get burned, so you don't get cold. It's also like you're led to believe it's okay and then suddenly you get towed or I get pissed off or something. Are the lines changing? I don't know. Something about that, that's what I was thinking.

CLIENT: (laughs) That is funny, though, because I do, I relish it; this sort of trespassing into people's lives delivering flowers, for example and then demanding a mandate to bypass security or park on the sidewalk and put my flashers on like I'm supposed to be there and getting away with it. (chuckles) I don't know. That's what I'm thinking of doing. Like if there's a parking space and it's kind of edgy, like if you're not supposed to park, there's a sign just park in the most obnoxious way possible. Then, at least, it's like you have some very important business. [00:51:15]

THERAPIST: (laughs) All right. Friday.

CLIENT: Dress to impress. What have you got there? What are you reading? The New Yorker? There's a story about that lady who shot people in Alabama. She was nationally known for the murdering them, but she also shot her brother possibly by accident earlier. She wrote novels about her experience and about how like her Harvard degree automatically confers status and why should she care about her family when she could be a leading scientist just because of what she had inherited?

THERAPIST: I remember that story. It was like two or three people.

CLIENT: Yeah, she shot six people.

THERAPIST: She's the Indian woman?

CLIENT: No, she's Caucasian. She grew up in Braintree.

THERAPIST: All right. Take care.

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