Ad Hoc Identity Death Protocol

From the archives of The Weekly Zephyr

Dear readers,

Every day this week I’m going to post an archived piece from The Weekly Zephyr as Clown Class fades away and the new form of the newsletter gestates. 

---

April 4th, 2018

Dragica Carlin, Fountain

One way to know that you might be experiencing an identity death:

You feel like you have something traveling around your body that's like a cross between a vibrating Roomba and a black hole and you're so tired you can barely move and also the external circumstances of your life are changing rapidly in ways you did not predict.

But the main way to know that you're experiencing an identity death is that you just know that you are.

I can't tell you what your identity death feels like. You know what your identity death feels like.

CASUAL POLL:

____I am having an identity death
____My identities are fine

Results: 57% identity deaths
43% we're still us
How did I get those results so fast
Never mind I just did

IF YOU'RE HAVING AN IDENTITY DEATH

(OR IF YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE YOURS LATER WHICH DON'T WORRY YOU WILL)

DON'T PANIC

I'M MAKING SOME THINGS UP FOR US TO DO ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW

---

1. Give yourself a home haircut.

Look, it's fine. What's the worst? Somebody else might have to fix it. But what if it turns out you're pretty good at it? POSSIBLE NEW IDENTITY.

HOW TO DO IT:

• Feel your hair. Feel it all up and down the strands. Feel how much is the dead you and how much is still relevant to who you may be going forward.

• Go get the best scissors in your house. Here's hoping they're okay but you're not buying new scissors for this. If you're leaving the house for new scissors you could probably just go to a salon. No, this is to be done on the spur of the moment immediately right now because you need this.

• Splay a hand through that hair like you know how to do layers. You know? Spread that handful out, pull it taut and angle those scissors like you think you saw somebody do before. This is it, baby.

• When was the first hairstyling academy? When was the first haircut? You see where I'm going with this?

• Find the death/life divide on the hunk of hair in your hand and chop it at that place. Err on the side of getting all the death off.

• REV A NEARBY MOTORCYCLE

• Do the rest of your head. Don't doubt yourself. Just go. Whack. Ch-thwock. Don't overthink it which obviously we're already not doing that but keep it up. Fwock.

• Whatever bits are sticking out, some of them are cool like a rock-and-roll fairy so keep those ones. Fix the bits that feel more like you escaped from a sanitarium. Those bits you can finesse a little.

See, look! You did that. It's better than if you didn't because you at least got the ball rolling.

• Ride away on the motorcycle.

2. Investigate vitamins.

There are some you're not getting enough of. Have some fun figuring out what they are. Then get some. Some of them may not end up being vitamins themselves. Some may end up being actual medicine that you need and some may end up being comic novels/candied ginger/more sleep/magic mushrooms.

3. Deposit your old identities here

This photograph of a fire has been specially designed to attract and dispose of any identities that are ready/need to go. Feel free to take a second and drop one in there.

---

Edvard Munch, Two Women on the Shore, 1898
And One Is Obviously A Dying Identity Obviously

Let's review.
Don't panic.
We all have to die a lot.
You don't want to be the same costume of a person for your whole life anyway.
That costume was not even that well thought out.

Love,
Tina