Jarett Kobek - I Hate the Internet

“It’s complicated,” said Christine.

The complications emerged from Christine’s decision to outwardly conform as a woman. She had been always been a woman but she was born with the reproductive biology of a male. She had lived the majority of her life outwardly conforming as a man.

Some members of her family continued to insist that Christine was a man. They did not take seriously the schism between gender and sex. They believed that Christine would grow out of it and return to being a man.

Christine had never been a man. She was always a woman.

Her brother had come around. Her mother was tolerant. Her father wouldn’t speak to her. This says nothing of the extended family.

When Christine was still called Christian, she lived as a gay man. Her extended family practiced a benign tolerance towards Christian being a gay man. They disapproved but didn’t exclude.

Christine as a woman proved too much.

It was possible that Christine would only have two family members at her wedding.

Bertrand’s family was no easier.

Christine had warned him that he should approach the topic of her pre-transitioned life with caution. She had told him, flat out, that she didn’t mind if he never told his family.

“I don’t care if a bunch of people in Belgium know about my personal history,” said Christine. “I have my own problems here in America.”

Bertrand insisted on telling his parents and his siblings. He said that if they loved him then they too would love the person that he loved.

This was before he had proposed marriage.

“Be careful,” warned Christine. “Nothing is ever as simple as you think.”

Bertrand hadn’t listened. He did a very poor job preparing his family for the news.

He called his parents and told them flat out. He did the same with his siblings. The same with his aunts and uncles and cousins.

It went worse than when Christine had told her family that she was no longer Christian.

Other than one cousin who was an artist and lived in Berlin, none of Bertrand’s family was coming to the wedding.

And his cousin could only make the wedding if Bertrand paid for her airfare and found her a place to crash.

“If there’s anything I’m glad about,” said Christine, “It’s that gay marriage is legal in California again.”

“Darling, you aren’t gay,” said Adeline.

“It’s a little sad but I never legally changed my gender. It’s so much paperwork. Now there’s not enough time.”

Adeline told Christine that Adeline was working on a new comic called The Blind Washerwoman of Moorfields.

“Have you done much work on it?”

“Only the first few pages. The Blind Washerwoman makes her way through the familiar town of her birth. She thinks of her old father and how cruel it is that death takes us all.”

Christine went into her bedroom and came back. She was holding a magazine.

“Have you seen this?” she asked.

She gave Adeline the magazine, which appeared as it does on the next page.

Fareed Zakaria was one of the many best selling authors and public intellectuals who supported George Bush II’s War in Iraq. He had a decent amount of eumelanin in the basale stratum of his epidermis.

Back during the War in Iraq, Fareed Zakaria had believed that bringing something like Jeffersonian Democracy to a country with no history of participatory politics would be a net good. He believed it would stabilize the Middle East.

This opinion had been very popular with public intellectuals in the run-up to the War.

Most private intellectuals, who were people without best selling books or prominent media positions, had opposed the War.

If you were from California and the year was 2013, and you were discussing the consensus amongst public intellectuals who supported the War in Iraq, you might say, “It was, like, so ironic¸ because, you know, like, all of America’s, like, public intellectuals supported a total, you know, disaster of a war and, like, thought, that there could be, like, you know, democracy in Iraq.”

You’d be wrong.

There was nothing ironic in the wrongness of a bunch of dumb assholes who offer bogus opinions for money.

Dumb assholes who offer bogus opinions for money don’t need to be right. They only need to be loud.

“I was very much captivated,” said Adeline, “by news of Sergey Brin’s affair.”

Sergey Brin was one of the co-founders of Google. He was married to Anne Wojcicki.

Over the summer, news had broken that Sergey Brin was having an affair with an underling at Google X.

Google X was an experimental lab that developed products like driverless cars, dogs that don’t need to lick their own genitals, and Google Glass.

Google Glass was a wearable computer built into a pair of ugly eyeglasses. Google Glass allowed its wearers to act out their social inadequacies. They could record videos with Google Glass and alienate everyone in their surrounding vicinity.

Sergey Brin’s sexual dalliance was with the Marketing Manager for Google Glass. He had internalized his company’s business model.

“I told you,” said Christine. “Google X is just picking up chicks.”

Adeline decided to go home. Christine saw Adeline to the door.

Adeline was in the hallway.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” said Christine.

“Yes, darling?” asked Adeline. “It’s not about Google, is it? Whatever will they solve next? Gravity?”

“Bertrand and I have been talking,” said Christine. “I think I’m giving notice on this place. After the wedding. I think we’re moving to the East Bay. There’s enough money to buy a house. You know, in case we ever want to start a family.”

“Good luck, kid. You’re gonna need it,” said Adeline. “I shall miss you.”

In September, Adeline asked Minerva to help with a project. Minerva agreed. If for no other reason than to escape San Venetia and the hospital.

“Sure thing, bright girl,” said Minerva. “When do you want me?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” said Adeline.

When Adeline visited San Francisco in 1993, she stayed on Jeremy and Minerva’s couch on Steiner off of Haight Street.

By the time of Adeline’s arrival, Minerva had whittled away a year as the lead vocalist and guitarist in an almost all-girl punk band called Daddy Was in KGB.

Daddy Was in KGB had a gimmick. None of its members had eumelanin in the basale strata of their epidermises. Other than the drummer, all of its members were women and former citizens of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Which was also known as the USSR. Which was also known as the СССР. Which was also known as The Russians.

The Russians were the people who caused the CIA to fund literary fiction. There was the idea that literary endeavors could open up a valid front in the information war.

KGB stood for Комитет государственной безопасности, which translated into English as The Committee for State Security. The KGB were the Russian equivalent of the CIA.

The KGB didn’t fund literary fiction.

Mostly, the KGB just kicked the shit out of Russian writers.

Minerva met the other members of her band at Night Break, a now-defunct music venue on Haight. Night Break hosted Sunday events called Sushi Sundays.

During Sushi Sundays, local bands performed on Night Break’s stage while a sushi chef served spicy tuna rolls to punk rockers, metalheads, heroin addicts and tweakers.