two short essays by Jennifer

[Alan Sondheim]

Violence

Why do I write these things? Alan won't have anything to do with me and I want 
him so much to have to do with me! So I told him I'd write about violence which 
I guess means fighting and hurting people.

Well, violence certainly never did me any good, and I asked Nikuko and she said 
just the same thing. But then I got to thinking (yes, I can think!) and 
sometimes it just seems the only way to get things done. If you push a 
bulldozer over a cliff, it can't hurt any deer any more, can it? I know there 
are other bulldozers but-the-exigencies-of-capital-create-a-situa- 
tion-of-limited-surplus-accumulation but someday there won't be any more. And 
if I look at our great country of ours the United States of America, I see a 
killer in the White House of our Presidency and it's a good thing I don't 
believe in capital punishment because he has killed far more than any serial 
killer on television and he's allowed to walk the streets. Well he didn't kill 
them directly, it was what television calls a "mob hit" by other people he pays 
to kill of his enemies along with his friends and cohoarts Mr. Rove and Shaney 
and Mr. Rice. If they were really alive they would be hunted down 
and-killed-by-the-police-like-the-dogs-they-are and thrown into jail where they 
could be attacked by other people there who lost loved ones in a world full of 
torture and lies. I know that violence is bad and wrong but if someone is doing 
hurtful things to people you love shouldn't you stop it shouldn't you? Does 
that make me worse than Satan?

Old Age

Alan keeps telling me he is invisible but I can see him. He says it's the 
cultural-grid-spitting-out-people-over-a-certain-age way things are, that after 
a time you can't get any work and who would want to work anyway. I think it 
would be terrible if Alan starves to death but he is unbelievably inkredibly 
old and he won't have do suffer long because even if the starving thing doesn't 
work he will die soon anyway, we spend lots of time talking about this, he 
doesn't seem to have anything else to do except fondle me.