The Vampire In You, The Vampire In Me

Dear PVS,

Is everyone either a vampire or not a vampire?

I really appreciate this question, since it allows me to distinguish one of the few differences between "actual" vampire slaying and "practical" vampire slaying that I'm aware of.

In both actual and practical vampire mythology there is often a "transition time" for vampires (i.e. when a vampire is feeding on a victim but the victim has not yet crossed over to vampire-hood themselves -- they are a bit of both) which can sometimes, I think, put us in a postition to wonder just what in the heck we're dealing with (and should, by the way, cause us to consider very carefully who we're extending our invitations to). So there's that aspect of your question to consider.

But I get the feeling that your question is really more about whether some individuals among us are objectively vampires, and others are objectively...om...not. And I'd have to say that my answer to that question is that, for practical purposes (which are our purposes) there are no "objective" vampires -- there are only those vampires that feed on us personally.

Are there horror-shows of human beings out there, born without conscience or soul? There could be...I'm not a psychologist or theologist and not here to argue the point (although I think there are) -- my interest as a practical vampire slayer is in the vampires I do have some say over in my life -- how I can make clear decisions about them, and how I can take effective actions to either evict them or make peace with them.

Your vampire may not be my vampire. I mean, I can't stand the sound of someone eating a banana in my vicinity -- it can just about ruin my day, you know? That may not be a vampire to you, but it sure is to me. Maybe your vampire shows up every time you're driving and the person ahead of you is driving"too slowly" and you can't pass them, or when your spouse walks through the door at night and fails to notice that you've made a gorgeous dinner...I mean, you've got yours, I've got mine. Nothing objective about them.

Then of course there is the aspect of the vampire within us all -- the one who is always hungering for more and more and more of what we refuse to acknowledge we've already been given (see Monday's post), or the one who tells us we're not rich enough, smart enough, handsome enough, or whatever enough to make it (ya loser!); or the one who criticizes, punishes, or minimizes the people we love (and who love us). These vampires fall into the "practical" camp, too.

Which makes them practically slayable, incidentally.

Does that answer your question?

Necessary Lengths, Part 2

As I was saying: Polite hints and clever innuendo are never going to cut it with our vampires -- they're just not designed to receive that stuff. And since vampires will ONLY leave when asked to do so in clear and precise terms, they force us, in a roundabout way, to get clear and precise with ourselves first. After all, how can we tell our vampires what we want if we don't even know what that is ourselves?

See? Our vampires are good for something.

By the way, see that picture? I want you to notice at least two things about it:

1. The Slayer does not love his work, but appears to be proceeding anyway, and


2. The stake is pointing exactly to the heart -- not approximately, not almost, not close, but exactly.

This is what we have be: EXACT.

Here are some sentence-starters that WILL SUCCEED in shooing the vampire away:

• I want...


• I don't want...


• I will...


• I will not...

and my all-time favorite

• I'm sorry if my previous actions confused you on this point, but I'd like to be clear about his matter now: I want, don't want, will, will not...etc.

Notice how in each of these examples the speaker's WILL is engaged. This is because if we tell a vampire that we "can't" or that we "have to" (both commonly used and always-failing phrases) it sounds as if we would if we could. And you know what's wrong with that? The vampire will be only to happy to assist us in overcoming our obstacles! I know you know how this goes:

We: "I really can't help you clean your attic today, my back..."

They: "Oh, no problem! You can just do the light stuff and dusting..."

We: "Yeah but, I haven't even had a chance to go through my own junk at home. I have that income tax to do..."

They: "Oh, when is that due? Geez, I have to get to mine, too! And then I have the lawn besides! Man, do you think you could help me for just an hour?"

We: "I don't know if I'm going to have time later today..."

They: "No, that's fine! We'll do it right now!"

And 3 hours later...well, you know the story when it comes to insatiable appetites, right?

So I guess the question is: What do we want? What are we protecting or avoiding by not telling the truth about ourselves, and is that thing worth bleeding for?

If we decide it's not worth the blood-loss anymore, we speak clearly and directly about what we want.

If we decide we're not ready to give up whatever it is we're holding onto, then we remind ourselves that we made this choice freely, next time the vampire comes to feed. That way we don't have to see ourselves as "victims."

And we can always reconsider our choice, whatever it is.

The Gratitude-Insatiability Connection

I've been thinking about this condition of insatiability in our vampires and how it relates to my own difficulty in receving things I've not said "thank you" for.

Here's what I'm talking about: Before starting on the road to recovery from my alcoholism, I always found it very difficult to receive compliments. I don't know where I got the idea that it was somehow more attractive to refuse them, but wherever that idea came from, it certainly stuck. It was impossible for anyone to tell me that they thought I was funny or pretty or smart, or even that what I was wearing that day looked good -- without getting some kind of an argument from me. I would disagree, or explain their misunderstanding ("oh that's just a funny story -- anyone could tell it" or "I'll be a lot prettier when I lose 10 pounds!" or "I'm not really smart, I just looked good because no one else was talking" or "this dress was a gift -- I'd never pick out anything this nice myself!" and so on), or just plain ignore the praise. It was practically a reflex with me.

How insulting for the person offering me their gift to have it thrown back in their face that way! Ugh.

Anyway.

Necessary Lengths, Part 1

Hi,

I have a vampire in my life that I think I'm trying to get to "see herself," but let me tell you what I mean: She may ask me to help clean her attic -- something I don't really want to do -- but as the very willing host, I try to get her to take the hint by doing these things:

• holding my back as if to say "see how hard I've worked and maybe I should stop?
• "Man, look at the time, I haven't had dinner yet, I better go home", etc.

I think that comments and gestures like this should get my point across, like, "See what you're doing to me? Haven't I done enough to help you?" But it's not terribly effective.

What are some words to use to this vampire?

Nothing is more draining and futile than waiting around for a vampire to take a hint. Just imagine someone trying to get a vampire off his neck by saying something like, "You know, I'm really starting to lose a lot of blood here..." Yeah, that's going to work! Because the vampire cares so much.

There are lots of reasons for not wanting to be straight with our vampires: maybe we don't like confrontations, or we're afraid they won't like us any more; maybe we feel sorry for them, or we're afraid they'll get mad at us. Perhaps we have an image of ourselves as "generous" that we don't want compromised, or we have an exaggerated sense of responsibility and power. I myself have a fear of getting yelled at by vampires -- they can be so scary! Whatever.

No matter what the reason for offering gestures and excuses instead of just telling them the truth, the fact of the matter is:

Vampires don’t take hints. It’s their special gift.

They are immune to innuendo.

And, for you who think they can still find a way around it, I'll add this:

100% of the time. Always and forever.

Here are some sentence starters that WILL NOT SUCCEED in getting the vampire off our backs:

• I'm not sure...
• I don't think...
• I have to...
• I can't...

Now, what do all these sentence-starters have in common? They do not engage the speakers will. We'll talk more about that in a second.

But first, here are some gestures that WILL NOT SUCCEED in getting the vampire out of our homes:

• Starting dinner/picking up and dusting around the vampire
• Looking at the clock/making references to things that will be happening "soon"
• Getting ready for bed/talking about how early you have to get up in the morning
• Turning on the television/intently watching the television
• Taking phone calls/making phone calls
• Seeming not to listen/showing no interest in the vampire

And what do all these gestures have in common? Right: They are indirect, nonspecific, open to interpretation.

Okay, that's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow with Part 2, to talk about the stuff that DOES SUCCEED.

Reflections

We all know that a vampire can't see its own reflection, of course -- Dracula was in fact angered by the sight of mirrors (how symbolically delicious, can you get?) -- and most of us have tried so hard and so fruitlessly to get our own vampires to "see themselves" as to be utterly convinced of the truth of this fact. So I know that I needn't go on and on about vampires and their reflections; I'm pretty sure we all get it.

However.

There's another aspect to all this reflection business that I do fear gets missed sometimes, and it has to do with what we, as hosts, sometimes see when we look into the mirror.

Stephen King wrote the sweetest, most heartbreaking scene in 'Salem's Lot that addresses this subject, where the mother of a little vampire boy talks about how she perceives her own reflection in the mirror. Her thirsty little boy has been visiting and feeding on her for a while, and although she's not a vampire herself yet, she's certainly feeling the effects of his appetite: she's tired, weak, confused, and doesn't want to go out of the house. At one point she says to her husband (and I paraphrase here), "I looked in the mirror last night and I could almost see through my reflection, it was so pale."

Talk about symbolic deliciousness and heartbreaking metaphors!

Lately I've been listening to stories (including my own) about how it feels to do things for our loved ones that go unnoticed and without acknowledgement of any kind. You know the stuff I'm talking about -- the dishes, the laundry, the cooking, the vacuming, the shopping, the patient listening and understanding -- all that stuff we do that so often gets taken for granted. I mean, just hearing that someone (ahem!) liked the dinner we made last night might be nice for a change.

Or not making and spilling popcorn all over the livingroom after I've just finished cleaning the kitchen and vacuming the livingroom might perhaps be another way of saying "I care." In case anyone was wondering.

Absence of acknowledgement and absence of gratitude: they're vampires that can make us feel invisible, like we're not even here.

Sigh. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I can almost see through my reflection...it's so pale.

Tell me, Slayers: Is there anything that makes you feel invisible?