the perfection of fruits grown under glass

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My instincts are always to avoid person-to-person argument. (I like arguments in the academic sense of reasoned and defended thoughts, especially when they’re kept clean and on paper and authors take issue with others using citations and rarified, polite language.) If we are having a conversation at lunch, say, and you start challenging my opinions on politics or laws or something in the realm of ideas, not casually but with real verve, I would be vehement and clever, but I’d also be boiling over. My body goes into overdrive when I feel attacked: bull breathing complete with flared nostrils, wide eyes, quick mouth, blazing spine—I get fierce and aggressive and I hate it. I don’t come down quickly. I pant quietly for a while with a glare even after the discussion has closed.

Here is no different. When I have the impression that a stranger’s trying to pick a fight with me, my first reaction is to let it happen. I want to respond, to hit back, because I’m pissed off and I think they need to be checked. I start to see myself as an operative of the universe at large, with a special assignment to stop people from being dicks by trying to make them feel foolish. Self-control in this arena is very hard. Saying nothing is a good step for me, although the ultimate reversal is to figure out some response that manages to be calm, kind, and judicious. I’ve managed this a handful of times and the results are not as viscerally satisfying as a cutting reply, but it’s better than carrying around a fountain of flame for hours while I stew about what to do or not do.

[…]

I had a pregnancy scare recently. No period came during a week when it should have come, and eagerly at that, since I’d used birth control to skip the month before. But there was nothing. Not a single spot. And do you know what I thought? Oh God, I can’t write about another abortion. I can’t. I can’t tell that story again. It’s going to be tedious and irritating. There’s nothing new to be learned. Yet there was no possibility of not writing about it here. I have become a self-tattletale, trying to bite her tongue only when it comes to others. One of my teachers says, “It’s very interesting to have something important to say but to not say it.” This doesn’t mean that one should be silent in times of crisis but rather that sometimes it’s okay to let the thought bake a little more. And it’s okay to not cast yourself as the cosmic corrector.

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