I'm frightened Auntie Em

So here’s the thing, “The Stand “ is really up on my screen lately. I’m not a huge King fan but “The Stand’ is a truly frightening book.
First I was completely creeped out by a letter I’d seen written to a sex columnist from an abstinence pledged girl.
She described some things she WOULD do for her boyfriend and didn’t enjoy. She was asking how to enjoy what sex she was having, while preserving her pledged virginity.
It was so very creepy to me as it reminded me of the part in “The Stand” where Nadine says to Harold Lauder something to the effect of, “You can’t have that, that’s promised to someone else, but there are lot’s of other fun things we can do”. I had written about this to markmaynard during a discussion of “Abstinence only programs.
Then I spent some time on a website today where it seemed like someone with some kind of military or similar training had established a refuge in New Orleans. He was web casting in various ways, posting pictures of looters, describing horrific scenes and occurrences and pleading with the government to send troops to control the mayhem.
It was the descriptions that were reminding me of the first parts of the Stand. The looting, the killing, the bodies piling up and the madness that arose as soon as the very, very thin veneer of civilization was washed away.
Because it is such a very thin veneer. Do you remember the post where I talked about manners and civility? This is a piece of the veneer. It is so very thin, fragile and antiquated. Yesterday in math lab we all had to listen to an argument a young woman was having on the cell phone with several other people, one after the other, on the other end.
You all know I’m not shy to say fuck, but she was saying it over and over and over really loudly, in the math lab. I was shocked. Not at the word itself but that someone had no qualms, not one, about yelling it over and over in a public place.
It started feeling surreal, like a performance art piece.
Except that she was crying and it was deadly serious.
What will happen when we all feel perfectly justified to “do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law?”
It feels like it’s inexorably edging up, by degrees, like entropy.
My response was to attempt to be even more polite to every single person I had occasion to interact with for the rest of yesterday and all today. I will attempt to keep this up as long as I can.
I’m now going to go write some overdue thank you notes.