Yes, Virginia, The World is Your Toilet

On my way to work today, I saw a guy standing in a corner near a fenced in alleyway. At first, I thought maybe he was looking for something; a lost kitten or a Frisbee, but it turned out he was just peeing on the fence. This wasn't a homeless guy or some guy out of his mind. It was just this regular South Philly dude with loads of black tattoos up and down his arms, which were exposed because he was wearing a wife beater. Denim shorts, socks pulled up past his ankles, and thick white sneakers. I almost took a picture of him but then I decided I've had enough morning conflict lately. So, maybe he was a construction worker without a uniform whose been on the job since 4 a.m. and just couldn't find a bathroom. Maybe he has a bladder infection and has to take care of those needs immediatemente. Or it's possible that he was raised by a pack of wild Bischon Frises who taught him to pee on his fence every morning to mark his territory and keep away rivals. Do you think that was his property? If it were your property, would you pee on it?

I need to stop checking out these nonfiction books on psychological disorders (see previous entry about sociopaths) because they are making me disparage of the human race. The one I got from the library yesterday is written by a psychiatrist treating a woman with multiple personality disorder (MPD). She has seventeen distinct personalities who all have their own ages, names, and personalities. The psychiatrist gets letters from some of the personalities, such as the seven year old, Claudia, who writes in large, little girl script and asks him to please not hurt her and to teach her how to tie her shoes. You find out that the adult woman with these fractured selves was ritually sexually abused by her father and her grandfather--they would wake her up in the middle of the night and take her to the neighbor's house and tie her down to a gurney and let other men abuse her. They did other things too; things that you can't believe anyone could even imagine doing, and especially not to a child. Very distressing. I also checked out another book of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates. They're like these books--it's like watching a car crash or peeking into a chamber of horrors. Her stories are Gothic-like--no vampires or ghosts in supernatural form because her monsters are real people, which is worse.