"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." Ludwig Wittgenstein

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Electra Uninsured

Even though Lola had started therapy with Jackie, months ago, as a way to find out if Richard had been cheating on her, she was surprised now to discover that she was actually learning things—seemingly important things-- about herself, despite her original ulterior motives.

Know thyself, isn’t that what Socrates had said, or had it been the oracle at Delphi
? Lola couldn’t recall now, she was preoccupied with today’s session.

Emerging from Jackie’s office, she crossed the burnt grass of Jackie’s front lawn, and slid behind the steering wheel of her little smudge of a beige compact car. She was lost in thought about today’s session: did she really choose men who, on the one hand, reminded her of all the things her father was unable to be for her, but on the other hand, were just like her father in some imperceptible way? Heedlessly, she shifted the transmission into reverse, and immediately backed into the car parked behind her. The smash of collapsing metal instantly jarred Lola from thoughts of her ‘Electra complex,’ to fears that she hadn’t paid her auto insurance bill in more than two years.