13b. An Unfortunate Tendency

“The human being has an unfortunate tendency to wish to please.” —Philip K. Dick

Flipping back through the pages near the end of the book, Jen found the beginning of the diagnostic test, which was not called a “test” at all. Instead, in bold letters, it was titled “Aura Diagnostic Tool.” Below that, the first page was all explanation and instructions.

“This Aura Diagnostic Tool will allow you to determine the primary color of your aura,” said the first paragraph. “This will give you insight into the current state of your Life Force.”

“The questions on this Tool—one hundred total—have been carefully developed to access and measure particular frequencies of your Psychic Energy.

“Auras change over time, as the stages of your life progress. You may not always have the same dominant aura that you have right now. For this reason, you should not think of this Tool as measuring a permanent state. Instead, consider your immediate present as you answer the questions on this Tool.”

These are long instructions, thought Jen impatiently. She scanned quickly through the following paragraphs, which described the accuracy and effectiveness of the Tool, looking for anything important. The only thing she found was at the bottom of the page, which said: “Materials: you will need a pen and paper.”

Jen hopped off the bed and over to the writing desk and found a small notepad in the top drawer. There were lots of pens in the drawer, but when she tested them on the notepad, they all left deep, colorless scratches across the page. Rooting farther back, she found a shimmery purple pen whose plastic casing was decorated with little lavender pictures of shooting stars and flying horses. Jen drew a large scribble on the bottom of the page. The metallic ink was pale and difficult to read. Jen considered looking for a darker pen, but she was anxious to get started, and if she thought about it, the pen’s ephemeral color seemed fitting for the project she was about to embark upon.

Jen sat back down on the bed and opened the book to the beginning of the Tool. The instructions said that the questions were to be answered using the following responses:

A. This is always true.
B. This is often true.
C. This is usually not true.
D.This is never true.

Jen remembered taking a similar type of survey a few months ago when she had visited a new dentist. She wondered if the questions would be similar: “I am happy with my smile.” “My teeth are as white as I would like them to be.”

In fact, this guess was not far off, as the first questions all seemed related to her body. The first one read:

I eat a lot of food.

Hmm, thought Jen. This was difficult already. How much food was “a lot”? Didn’t everybody eat a lot of food, every day, just to stay alive?

Jen thought back to the instructions. “Consider your immediate present,” the book had said. Presently, during the past three weeks to be specific, she had been consuming more food than she had eaten in years. She hadn’t been limiting carbs, or fat; she had been eating whatever Becky cooked, as much as she could stomach until she became too queasy to eat any more.

“B,” said Jen aloud, marking the letter on her notepad. Often true. She moved on to the second one.

I am slender.

This one was even more disconcerting. Certainly she was slender now, but she might not be for long. With all the food she was eating, she was certain to gain weight. And then, there was also the distinct possibility that her body was about to begin a transition, that she was about to start growing larger and larger, past the borders of her own frame, like her legs in that old nightmare. She had a flash, a vision of a large, round belly, bursting out from between the lapels of a jacket like a smuggled cantaloupe.

But again, she was straying away from the present, this time into the future rather than the past. The answer, for now, seemed to be that she was slender. But just in case, she chose “B” again—often true.

I frequently feel dizzy or nauseated.

Once again, focusing on the immediate present altered her answer. Jen hadn’t ever felt dizzy or nauseated on a regular basis until the last month or so. It seemed odd to characterize herself based on such an anomalous time period. But whatever was happening now was the most important, she thought. She struggled between A and B for a moment, trying to remember how dizzy and nauseous she had been, exactly. As she thought, a wave of queasiness washed over her, and for a moment she felt that she might vomit. Then the feeling passed, as it did every time, many times throughout the day, she realized.

She wrote “A” in the column of letters on the notepad.

Once she got used to thinking purely in the present, the remaining questions about bodies were easy to answer: she “often” had fair skin (she took this answer to mean that her skin was medium-fair), she “often” had aching feelings in her body (thanks to her broken rib), and she “always” enjoyed the taste of astringent foods such as lemon. She “almost never” was ashamed of her own appearance, and she “never” craved fatty or sweet foods.

After the first thirty questions or so, she noted a shift in the subject matter. The new questions all had to do with her personality. These were more difficult to answer, since she needed to assess not only her own feelings, but other people’s feelings about her. She realized that she knew very little about what other people thought of her. For example, one question said:

People often describe me as cold or standoffish.

Jen’s first inclination was to answer “A,” always true. She always felt standoffish, always felt that she was alienating everyone around her through her failure to engage properly. She had spent years smiling for cameras, warmly greeting members of the press, happily signing autographs, but it never felt like enough. Whenever she failed to make eye contact with someone smiling at her on the street, or turned away from someone aiming a cell-phone camera at her, or stretched at the beginning of yoga class rather than making chit-chat with curious classmates, she felt like the coldest, rudest, least generous person on earth. Always true, she thought sadly.

Before marking down her answer, though, Jen reread the question. It didn’t ask what she thought of herself, she discovered; it asked how other people described her. So rather than trying to imagine what other people thought about her, Jen tried to interpret the question in the most literal manner possible: to the best of her own knowledge, did people describe her as cold?

She tried to think of who might describe her. There were very few people in her life who spoke honestly to her: Becky, Paula, her mother. All of them had faulted her for various shortcomings: inconsiderateness, laziness, lying to herself. Not eating enough. Not eating the right things. Not being tough enough, too fragile, not resilient. Not open-minded. Those were the ones she could remember right now. But nothing about being cold, unless you counted her mother’s admonitions that she was too “uptight.” Nothing about unfriendly, which is what “standoffish” meant, right? So at least to the people that she knew, the people who mattered to her, she did not appear to be as cold and distant as she often felt.

The only other places she had seen herself described were in magazines, and she had stopped reading those years ago. She tried to recall the last time she had read an article about herself; it was that article about Skipper, she realized with disgust. She tried to remember how it had described her. It had implied that she was crazy, she realized. And promiscuous. But not cold, not standoffish. Nothing about that.

All right, then, she concluded. Not cold or standoffish. But she could not dismiss the idea that people she did not know, those at the health club, those on the street, were describing her that way, without her knowing. “C,” she wrote, not usually, as a concession to those people.

As with the “body” section, the questions in this “personality” section became easier to answer with practice. Some were obvious, such as the fact that her relationship with her family was “usually not” close, or that she “often” kept her most important thoughts to herself rather than sharing them.

A few questions had answers that shifted if she only considered the immediate present. She wanted to answer that she “always” had a good relationship with her closest friend, but remembering the recent months when she had gone for days at a time without even speaking to Becky, and the awkwardness that still loomed over their interactions, she changed her response to “often.”

When she was about two-thirds of the way through the hundred questions, the focus of the Tool changed once more. This time the topic was a bit more difficult to pin down, but there was clearly some affinity between the questions. As she read each one, she tried to articulate the overall topic: perhaps it was her goals, or her desires, or her view of the world. Her philosophy, she thought, remembering Skipper for the third time in the last hour.

Whatever the topic, these questions were the most difficult to respond to, given her current state of transition. The answers to many of the questions seemed to have changed as of today; nowhere was this so evident as in the following statement:

I am comfortable where I live.

Oh no, thought Jen. Where I live right now? Here finally was a question that forced her to make a commitment to her new surroundings. She could answer based on her house in LA, in which case the answer would be “A,” always, she always loved her house. She would miss it, she realized, as much and perhaps more than she would miss her friends. This new house seemed cute enough, and cozy, but it did not make her feel comfortable. “Where I live,” she thought, looking at the question again. I don’t even know where I live. She lived off the map, in the uncharted, alien middle of the country, in a house that belonged to strangers that she had never met.

“D,” she answered with a sigh—never.

There were a number of similar questions about her level of comfort with her current life. Many of them received “never” answers, based on Jen’s total lack of knowledge about where she was, what she was planning, where she would be in a month or six months or a year. “My life feels settled at the present moment”—never. “I have concrete plans for the future”—never. “I feel that I am in a rut”—she felt comforted, maybe even cheerful, as she answered “never” yet again.

Her favorite question in this category was:

I have hope for the future.

The statement seemed sweet and quaint and Jen very much wanted to agree with it. She thought for a moment. The future seemed so fuzzy right now; she could barely imagine what tomorrow would be like, and next week, after Becky and Paula’s departure, seemed incomprehensible. Still, she realized, thinking of her quiet life, and the lake, she felt incredibly hopeful, and, in spite of her fear, more excited about her future than she had felt for years.

“A,” she answered—always.

As she continued to search for the theme of this section, Jen noticed another trend. Unlike the previous sections, whose questions had been, if not easily answered, at least familiar, this section contained a number of questions whose topics never would have occurred to Jen, questions about her perceptions: “I prefer round shapes to square ones.” “I would rather listen to music than look at a painting.” “I believe that gray is a color.”
Jen felt that her answers to most of these questions were a bit erratic; today she felt that circles were preferable to squares, the circles being less pointy and safer, but this preference hardly seemed permanent or even significant. On the other hand, several questions alerted her to some deeply-rooted belief or tendency that she had never been aware of, such as:

I enjoy placing things into categories.

Jen laughed aloud, thinking of her own categorization of the books on the shelf and the questions on the test. On the hunch that this was not a new behavior for her, she answered “A,” always. Well, now I’ve learned something about myself, she thought. So even if I end up being an Amethyst, this test won’t have been totally worthless.

Several of the questions in this section startled Jen, making her feel that she was about to cry. One was:

I am happy spending many hours or days by myself.

Jen thought back to the weeks she had spent biding her time in the Encino library between yoga classes, reading on the couches next to sleeping vagrants and practicing yoga poses in the most remote, hidden aisles. She had enjoyed this time to herself; she had felt purposeful and focused, and self-sufficient in a way that she did not when her daily activities were being prescribed by a director or producer, or a husband, or even by Becky. Still, there had always been an underlying sense of loneliness, knowing that no one was taking care of her, no one noticing that she was missing all day or wondering why her clothing had become so unusually ragged. And that was nothing, she thought to herself, nothing at all compared to how this will be. But this way of thinking made her feel like she was about to dive off the brink of a canyon, to float above the ground in a hang-glider, watching her feet dangle vulnerably above the rivers and fields visible so far below. She quickly answered “B,” often, and flipped to the last page of questions, which focused mainly on more innocuous subjects.

The final question on the Tool seemed portentous:

I have or would like to have children.

Jen wondered what she thought about this question. Did she want a child? The change in her life would be enormous, she thought. When she was married, she had often contemplated the possibility of children. The appeal was less about the children themselves, and more about what they signified for the marriage: stability, permanence, the idea that the father would always be linked to you in some way, no matter what happened between you, through this bond of common responsibility and DNA.

Now, she realized, if she were to have a child, there would be no man in her life to share the work, the decisions, to enjoy the feeling of finally having a family with. On the other hand, she thought, there would be no obligations, no compromising, no negotiating. And no marital relationship to be destroyed by the constant pressure, the high-stakes disagreements and debates, the strain of being more business partners than lovers.

Perhaps she would like to have a child by herself, she thought. She wasn’t sure; she couldn’t think it all through right now. She wrote “B,” often, in the final slot on her sheet of paper.

Now that Jen had finished the test (or the Tool, she corrected herself), she stared down at her work, the hundred numbers and letters. Their pattern on the page, the neat rows, looked shifting and surreal in the shimmery lavender ink. Jen hoped the Tool wouldn’t be too difficult to score; she felt impatient to learn her diagnosis.

On the page following the final questions, there were directions for calculating a score. Jen gasped indignantly to learn that the scoring method was hopelessly complicated. Each question had its own set of scores, depending on how it had been answered, and the scores needed to be organized into different columns. She turned her sheet of paper over and started new columns on the back, and began the tedious task of translating her answers into numbers. She noticed that the points assigned to each question increased progressively through the test, so that her final answers about colors and children were worth about five times as much as her early answers about her body.

Jen remembered that she had seen a calculator in the drawer, and she rose from the bed to fetch it. Using the calculator, she was able to total up each of the three columns prescribed by the directions. Then, still following the directions, she multiplied the first column by 2.5, subtracted the second column, and then multiplied that by the third. The result was a palindrome: 161. She double-checked her math, verifying the total of each individual column and then repeating the final three mathematical operations. She wanted to make sure her diagnosis was accurate.

It had been a long time since she had done math, she thought to herself. Becky did all her taxes and bookkeeping, so Jen never needed to calculate anything. Now she regretted missing out; it was kind of fun, actually, methodical and relaxing. She wondered if she’d have more chances to do math in her new, self-reliant life.

On the page following the calculation instructions was a chart explaining how to connect one’s score to an aura. The chart, like the calculations preceding it, was frustratingly complex. This must be what it’s like to do taxes, Jen thought, feeling a bit like a freak for never having done hers. She read the instructions slowly, making sure not to skip any steps that would lead to a faulty diagnosis. She found the numbers corresponding to the Ruby aura—but they did not include 161. Then she found those for Onyx. These numbers were all very low, under twenty, and they did not include her number. The numbers for Sapphire, conversely, were all quite high, over one thousand. Jen gasped as she realized that the only two left were Jade and Amethyst. Please not Amethyst, please not Amethyst, she prayed, scanning the numbers for that most undesired of auras. Triumphantly, she found that 161 was not included. I’m Jade, she thought excitedly, rushing with her eyes to find her number listed under that aura. But when she found the numbers for Jade, once again, 161 was not included.

Puzzled, Jen ran her eyes back over the list of numbers. Then she used her finger, tracing along the gridlines, growing increasingly worried that she would need to go back and total all the numbers all over again.

Finally her eye fell on a small list of numbers in the bottom right-hand corner of the chart, away from the other groupings of numbers and colors. These numbers were all three-digit palindromes, and 161 was among them. She traced her finger back across the chart to find the jewel-tone that matched her responses. But there was no word in the box where the color name should have been. Instead there were three small asterisks in a row.

Jen looked to the bottom of the page, and found three more asterisks, followed by a short passage.

“Your aura is inconclusive,” read the passage. Jen felt a rush of disappointment. Of course she had messed up this test; she had felt that something was wrong the entire time she was taking it.

“Do not be alarmed,” the passage continued. “This result does not mean that you do not have an aura, or that there is a problem with your aura. Instead, the Tool indicates that your aura is in a state of radical instability. It is recommended that you wait at least one month before employing the Tool again.”

Jen silently berated herself. She had never been good at tests, but this one was a Tool, not a test, and she had thought it was impossible to mess up, aside from ending up with the dreaded Amethyst aura. She should have been more consistent in her answers, she told herself. She should have thought through how she was answering. No, she realized: the true problem was that she had taken the book’s instructions too literally, answering the questions based on her present moment, not on who she had been over time. Of course she couldn’t answer well today; she had no idea where she was, what was going on with her body, what her activities in this new place would be. She knew nothing. How could she expect to properly diagnose her personality on the same day that she had been extracted, violently it seemed at the moment, from her homeland and plopped down in the middle of this terrifying flat field?

She resolved to take the test again. "Once I get settled in,” she said aloud to herself.

Just as she spoke, Paula burst into the room looking flushed and energetic and smelling of marijuana, which, Jen remembered now, seemed to play a key role in the grounding of the house. Paula must have gotten ready for bed after the grounding ritual. Her dreadlocks were pulled into a messy ponytail that Jen found oddly attractive, and she was wearing worn plaid pajama bottoms and a tank top with no bra.

“What did you say?” Paula asked.

“Nothing,” said Jen, embarrassed. Then, to change the subject, she added, "You guys didn't ground the rooms up here."

"No," said Paula, "we got too tired. We'll finish in the morning. Plus we didn't want to bother you--what have you been doing?"

“I was just reading,” Jen said.

Paula looked dismissively over at the bookshelf. “Those are kind of the b-list books,” she said. “They keep the good ones in the big house in Toledo.”

Jen remembered her categorization question. “Hey, do you know anything about the books on the bottom shelf?”

Paula walked the few paces to the bookshelf and fell into the same yoga-trained squat that Becky so often assumed on a whim. She pulled a few of the worn books from the shelf to look at the titles that had worn off the bindings.

“Oh,” said Paula. “These are all mine. Wow,” she added, holding up a psychedelically designed paperback called The Cosmic Trigger. “I haven’t seen this book in years.” She pulled out another book, The Art of War, and flipped through the pages.

“These are my really old books, like from when I was in college,” Paula said. “My mom must have kept the ones she liked.”

Paula put the book back on the shelf and stood up, her eyes traveling to the book on Jen’s lap.

“Did you take the test?” Paula asked.

“Tool,” said Jen, stalling for time.

“What?” asked Paula, but she didn’t wait for an explanation. “Which aura were you?”

“Jade,” said Jen, feeling horrible the moment the lie reached her own ears.

“Wow,” said Paula, impressed. “That’s the one everyone wants to be.”

“What’s yours?” asked Jen, trying to prevent any further discussion of her own bogus aura.

Paula sighed. “Amethyst,” she said, in a resigned voice. “I took that test a dozen times, and it was always Amethyst.”

“What’s wrong with Amethyst?” asked Jen, making her voice blank with disingenuous naiveté.

Jen still wasn’t sure why she had lied; she told herself that she was merely trying to avoid a complicated conversation about her indecisive aura, but she didn’t quite trust her own motivations.

“I hate Amethyst,” Paula said, her voice dripping with self-pitying disdain. “It’s the worst one.”

Chapter 14:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/10/14-context-and-breeding-ground.html