Member-only story
WEIRD LETTERS
Dear Cassandra, Russell and I Are Finished
“Call me a lover, call me a fool …” (Billy Joel)
June 11, 2024, Bangladesh
Dear Cassandra,
The term overnight success has certainly taken on new meaning for Russell with all the buzz surrounding his new bake-wear collection. I’d have been more than grateful, though, if the handcrafted half-bamboo, half-rubber spatula I lent him had been acknowledged as the inspiration for his bake-wear bullshit.
Nothing public, of course, but rather a direct nod, which might’ve been a worthy gesture from a man who shaves his back with a lawnmower blade. After all, I was the one who taught him how to crack an egg using his hip.
I wonder what ever happened to his plans to simultaneously become a macro and micro-influencer. I’m not sure that would have worked. It’s like Andy Rooney claiming he’s both short and tall.
Before lending Russell my spatula, he and I corresponded on our Apple watches for nearly a year.
Afterward, in June of 2022, I even received a complimentary message from Russell about my successfully managing my flatulence problem, along with the confirmation that he had been cooking lentils with my spatula.
I’m not saying he copied, stole, or infringed upon my handcrafted spatula for his bake-wear collection. But more to the point: my intuition tells me there were aspects of my spatula that were used to inform his bake-wear bullshit. Which is lit, dope, rad, bomb, if that’s the case.
Then again, maybe Russell never made the connection and drew exclusively from his own experiences as a brownie-making bake-wear bullshit artist, quite frankly. I don’t know. I’m high.
Of course, both of us have had a love for making banana bread in the nude. And, we both ostensibly do it as a behavioral health tactic to generate negative ions through a strange process of our body odor hitting the freshly baked banana bread like a steam engine.
It’s in the same vein as getting a lymphatic massage, eating sushi with a spoon, or clipping your toenails in the corner of the reading room at the public library.
So I am aware that there’s the distinct possibility that he was just doing what he would have done in the manner he would have done it, sans my spatula never finding its way into his massive, arthritic hands.
Still, I can’t help but rely on my primary function on this one: “Intuition does not denote something contrary to reason, but something outside of the province of reason.” (Carl Jung)
Having known Russell for a long time, I can say this one really walloped me in the testes.
Sincerely,
Terrance
