Letters from the Outside, In, KK to Swango, #12

As you know, I sometimes will post the letters I have written to the inmates. Many times, though, I handwrite them so I don't have copies. This last one, in response to the letters of his [#15] I just posted, was typed so I will share it with you today.

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Hello Michael,

Just got your letter about how you deal with incarceration. Much to digest and reply here. First, I, too, like particular names and words. In fact, there is a website devoted to just that---words people like and their reasons why. I submitted my word, “FURTIVE.” I have always loved it. A friend told me he loves the words, “LINGER” and “TROUSERS.”

I have to admit I understand clinical depression really well. I suffer from bouts of it. I understand, so well, that “What next?” question. Seems like you are not depressed about your situation and have mentally adapted to it. Also, seems like it isn’t so awful, meaning you mentioned the food was adequate, it appears you have access to TV shows/movies and reading material. For someone who is interested in these things, it is important that you continue to be able to keep abreast of what is going on in the world, the physical one and the artistic one.

You mention letters of these sorts—the more personal ones—take more time to write. Good! I enjoy these much more than the others. Sure movies are exciting, but nothing beats the rough and tumble real world. Reality is always more interesting than fiction. I am very interested in human nature, so I find this stuff particularly compelling. The incarceration and how one deals with it, but moreso, the actual crimes. The compulsion that put you in this position in the first place. I know you frequently write that you cannot discuss all details. However, you also reiterated in your last letter that you are eager to delve into it, no matter how personal. I am not skittish about hearing about the murders or poison. I am fascinated and would welcome great detail.

As for IN TREATMENT, I am working my way through the dvds of the first season as I also watch the second season in real time. The first season has a woman, Laura, who is a dr. and really attractive. She goes to Gabrial Byrne (who is so attractive!) for relationship issues. She falls insanely in love with him and being that his own marriage is flawed he begins an affair with him. At the same time, his other patient, a fighter pilot who killed a village of children leaves his wife and beings an affair with her also. We also see the Dr. with his own therapist discussing his marriage decline and unethical behavior.

Anyway, in season two he has different patients because he has now moved his office to Brooklyn because he moved out of his wife’s home and is living alone now. The affair is over and he is alone. He finds out the fighter pilot who had discontinued therapy had then killed himself and he is being sued for not helping him psychologically. The lawyer on his case is an ex-patient who is really successful but single and unhinged. She blames him for having an abortion 20 years ago and she felt as a doctor he abandoned her. She gets off his legal case and delegates it to another atty. but decides to resume therapy with him. She is lonely, wants to be married and have a kid, but meets all the wrong guys. Then she gets pregnant from a one-night stand. That is where I am with the show now and eagerly await more episodes. He still sees his therapist who counsels him on his behavior. He tries to regroup with his wife but she has moved one. He has two other patients; one is a young boy whose parents are split and who have issues not fighting over him. He is attracted to that woman. Then he has an older man, a CEO whose company did something faulty that lead to the death of people and now his world has crashed down around him. His daughter lives in Africa doing charity work and he worries for her. He tries to kill himself and is in the mental ward.

I am enclosing an interesting article from this week’s New Yorker about interesting and freaky neurological research.

I’m noticing some changes in my city. I remember the NYC of the 70s and 80s. Man that shit was gritty. Dangerous, artsy, dark and pained. Then the late 90s came, and I moved here to a more homogenized, Disneyfied City. Believe me, I'm not complaining. While the gritty City was something interesting to see from AFAR, I am happy to live in a cleaner, safer place.

But the economy has really tanked. The educated, middle management types are without jobs. Rents are dropping which almost never happens. Stores are going out of business. There are more homeless than I remember seeing in the last 10 years. The crazies are OUT.

It's getting scary and tension-ridden up in this piece, but way more interesting.

I don't want an unsafe, tension-filled City, but still appreciate the fact that this environment is the petri-dish from which true art grows.

Anyway, I look forward to more serious and soul-searching letters. Hope you are well. --KK