By Edward Curtin

January 03, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -    A few years ago I married myself, but we’ve reconsidered and have filed for divorce.  It’s no one’s fault, really, but we are emotionally devastated nevertheless. At least we have no children.  Sologamy didn’t seem to suit us.  We had acted impetuously.  I had gotten the idea after hearing a NPR radio report about a woman who fell in love with herself and said that after she tied the knot she had never been happier.

The world was getting me down at the time with all the political news about the Russians coming and insinuating themselves between me and you and all good Americans who had just wanted to elect Hilary Clinton and be happy.  And as I was thinking about this happy married couple – the woman and herself, not Bill and Hillary – I chanced upon a New York Times article in a coffee shop that convinced me to take the plunge.  It was a  weird article that jumped out at me about transracialism and transgenderism and this big debate about these big words and a big philosopher who claims if you can self-identify as a different sex, or is it gender – I  can never get them straight – you should also be able to self-identify as a different race.  It was a long article with a lot of people arguing back and forth about self-identifying as this and that and what names to call themselves and I couldn’t concentrate on it all but I got the gist of the professor’s point and thought this might be for me.  It might help me get OK and happy, which was my goal. So I self-identified as I and me, a couple, and we said I do and I do too in a private ceremony.  I really wanted to be happy like that woman and to forget all the stuff about Trump being in bed with the Russians, and the Russians trying to get into our heads and voting booths, maybe even our beds where they would whisper lies about capitalism being immoral and other sweet nothings meant to confuse us about our identities and what was right and wrong.  I figured going to bed with myself might help me forget.

But it hasn’t worked out as we expected.  Last night, we had a little New Year’s Eve party and had a few anime hologram friends over.  As usual, we talked about the past year and old times and old friends and sang a few lines of Auld Lang Syne as we toasted left hand to right with some nice Prosecco with pomegranate juice since we heard that was the drink all the smart set use to celebrate their clever happiness.  But then we got to arguing, and between you and me, it wasn’t pretty.  Our friends were mortified.  It was a scene straight out of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  The Prosecco had gone to our head, so we don’t remember all the scathing interchanges, but I do know our anime friends said not a word and that me said to I at one point words that seemed to echo Martha and George’s. Martha: “Truth or Illusion, George; you don’t know the difference.”  George: “No, but we must carry on as if we did.”  Martha: “Amen.”