I blog, ergo, I'm traumatized.

I think the relationship I have with writing is like my mother's relationship with olives.

My mother hated olives. She despised them. She wouldn't let pass even a single opportunity to spread slander against them. "They look like discharging eyeballs," she'd say, "Weren't there olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane? Jesus was captured next to an olive tree. Judas hung himself off one. Olives are the Devil's Testes! Don't even get me started on carrots."

Before I carry on, I need to clarify something: my mother's not a religious or carnivorous zealot. I know that may be the impression you now have of her. That might have something to do with something I once wrote. The point I may have overstated a little is that my mother didn't like olives. Now I feel rotten about having misled you into the impression you have of her and...how do I fix this?

My mother is a sadomasochist - not the HBO-After-Dark-Special kind of sadomasochist: I'll thank you not to think of my mother that way. She's the asexual kind of sadomasochist who would put her asexual self and her spawn through immense asexual discomfort because she believed it was asexually good for us all. Asexually, you understand. To sum up, it was precisely because she hated olives that she would put them in her mouth and retch and gag. She thought she should like them. And after a while, she still didn't, but the misery made her happy.

That's masochism, right? I mean, you can't tell me that Sir Spankalot likes the pain at the very moment Lady In-the-rear's paddle strips the epidermis off his shaved ass. Then it wouldn't be pain. It's not the pain itself masochists like. It's that intangible something after. It's whatever endorphines or adrenaline does to minds used to numbness. It's an after-effect. It's what makes bulimics feel just alright after a good puke. It's what makes psychopaths feel at peace with themselves after a filleting. Just like my mother.

After a while she began to eat olives with regularity. Don't misunderstand me, she'd retch and gag. She hated them. But something new was happening. There was something about how she felt after spitting out that disgusting pit. There was something about transgressing against her heart and soul and taste buds that made her feel alive. Alive, I tell you.

As for the sado- prefix, she brought her olive-logic to the dinner table. She foisted our dislikes upon us. If one of us declared "stringy green beans are gross", we could be sure to find the vilest, stringiest green beans heaped on our plates for the next week. I'm positive she undercooked potatoes on purpose. We wouldn't get meat unless it was in identifiable organ form. Kidneys. Mmm. Tongue. Yummy. She really was quite inventive in her efforts to make us hate food. She once plonked down a rabbit carcass at an Easter-lunch. Do you understand how disturbing that is? First of all, you're eating a rodent. Second, it's like being served a chunk of Santa Claus on Christmas Day.

I think I've adjusted quite well. My mother cooked crap (maybe even literally, sometimes) because she wanted to make us happy the same way olives made her happy. It was out of love that we were traumatized as children. And, who knows, maybe it was good for us. For example, I think I write for the same reason she ate olives.

I don't like the writing process. I think I may even hate it. Right now, I'm miserable. I'm in between a thousand possible choices. It sucks navigating my way to full and effective sentences, pulling random words from a lexicon most of which I don't understand. I can't pretend to have control over this. God knows what you think. I'm a mess. You should see me. I think I may have soiled myself a little.

But then again, who knows? There's the possibility - best forgotten in the process itself - that something good could happen. The torture might be worth its while in the end. Something good could come out of this discomfort. But the discomfort's the thing. Were it not for the discomfort, I could never come away feeling like a bulimic wiping the bile from the corners of her mouth, or like a psychopath wiping the blade on his pants.

What more can I aspire to? One day I might even come away feeling like my mother.

Um...