Dust Up at the Ponies

So she’s says to him, “when I was younger and finally got a prescription for Prozac and Lithium I thought my life was finally pivoting.” 

He was nonplussed. He’d been talking about the horses and such.

But she went on: “I hoped the medication would uptake all that awful brain chemsistry and wash my brain in the good stuff, and that the darkness that pervades my thoughts, my emotions, my outlook would somehow lighten…” 

But he’s still thinking about trifectas and quinellas, and if the odds are correct for that pedigree. He’s still engrossed in the Daily Racing Form.

What’s that?

The horse racing newspaper, dear.

Okay, and then?

She hadn’t paused a beat, she was still wound up, she said: “I never wanted to be an ‘up with people’ type person, and attend Sunday services, and say things like ‘praise the lord’ and ‘thank you, Jesus’ in conversation—I still wished to enjoy David Lynch, Joy Division, and Samuel Beckett, without having to live the life portrayed in their art. But much to my amazement the medication—”

And he hit her!

Don’t even!

He hit her with that Daily Racing Form. I remember it was the July 14, 1997 issue. The newsprint left that date marked upon her forehead. 

It was the darndest thing!

What I’m Reading:

If the only thing that differentiates us from animals is the fact that we hide to defecate, then being human rests on very little…”

— Jacqueline Harpman / I Who Have Never Known Men