February 07, 2004
The Geography of Yearning
Cartoonist Chris Ware, on the periphery of his miserabilist epic Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, gives the following bleak definition:
He's too purist, I think. Is anything, even unhappiness, ever quite that crisp and uncompromised? Still, a suitably gloomy thought for a gloomy day.
This afternoon I waved off a cherished lover on his way to a weekend of athletic sex with a chiselled hunk of potential boyfriend material, when all I really wanted to do was hold him in my arms and whisper wetly into his open mouth, stay with me, stay, don't go.
Well, not all. Not even close to it.
I also wanted to say, perhaps in some inarticulate way almost managed, go, now, and don't look back; go, and return with a ring. Because, you know, that's what he needs, someone to be with him, to have and to hold, not the part-time devotion -- intense, but insufficient -- of a married man, however open his relationship, however legitimized the dalliance.
So, boys and girls, the watchword for today is ambivalence. As every day, truth to tell. Emotion is a tricky business, not clear and swift-running, but thick and turbid and murky with contradiction. We think, pessimistically, that misery is trustworthy, but it isn't in the least. It lies the worst of all.
Pain is as uncertain, as treacherous, as pleasure. Wallow if you will; but put no faith in it.
Posted by matt at February 7, 2004 12:49 AM
