Telephone Conversation with Sister: May 2, 2010 -- Paranoid Ideas

My sister telephoned me last night. She rarely calls me on Sunday evenings. She usually calls on Thursday night.

I noticed several things during the course of the conversation: ideas that might be termed evidence of my paranoia.

My sister was terminated, perhaps unlawfully, from her teaching position in the spring of 2008. She is a special education teacher, and worked at a private school. Last night my sister mentioned, almost gloating, that the director of the school, who terminated my sister's employment, had developed lung cancer. My sister referred to her as a "bitch." My sister very rarely uses language like that in referring to people. My sister talked about the school director being "two faced"--someone who gave my sister glowing performance evaluations, which concealed the director's true feelings. Does this story sound familiar? I too was terminated from my job at the D.C. law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, perhaps unlawfully, after receiving glowing performance evaluations.

Later in the conversation, my sister said something about Barbara Walters after I had referred with surprise to the fact that Barbara Walters was 80 years old. My sister said that on the TV show, "The View," Barbara Walters always "sits on the right" because she only wants the audience to see "her good side." I noted the phrase "her good side" and the way it seemed to parallel my sister's observation about the school director who terminated my sister unlawfully. My sister had said that the school director was "two-faced." I saw a parallel between the phrases "her good side" and "two-faced."  My paranoid inference was that my sister was referring symbolically to something about me and my relations with someone at Akin Gump. Again, as in previous conversations with my sister, I had the impression my sister was in communication with someone knowledgeable about my employment problems at Akin Gump.

Be that as it may.

My sister visited Washington last month. I had lunch with her and her fiancee, Frank. I asked her what she and Frank did after lunch. She said they visited the National Gallery and later had dinner at a restaurant in downtown Washington, Ristorante Tosca.

Coincidentally, Tosca is the name of an opera by Puccini. I had sent my sister a CD of the complete opera a few months ago. In the second Act of the opera the character Tosca stabs the Chief of Police, Scarpia. "As Scarpia advances to embrace her, she plunges the knife into him. (Questo è il bacio di Tosca – "This is Tosca's kiss")."


 
I had a paranoid idea; perhaps my sister's reference to the Ristorante Tosca was a symbolic reference to the opera Tosca, and perhaps specifically a reference to Tosca's "two-faced" act of treachery. Tosca approaches Scarpia as if to kiss him, but with the secret intent to stab him to death. I saw a symmetry between that interpretation--that inference about the meaning of my sister's statement--and her earlier comments about the school director being a "two-faced bitch" as well as her observation about Barbara Walters only wanting the audience to see "her good side."

(Tosca's lover, Cavaradossi, is an artist; my sister and Frank ate at Ristorante Tosca after visiting The National Gallery; but even in my deranged state, I have enough sense to know that some things are pure coincidence. 



And another coincidence.  Ristorante Tosca is somewhat formal.  Frank was dressed in a casual shirt and shorts.  My sister jokingly told me how Frank went to the men's room to improve his appearance.  He combed his hair!  I thought: "Again with the men's room?  I wonder if this has anything to do with the question posed to me by the Justice Department officers, 'How would you react to Dennis Race (the lawyer who terminated my employment) if you saw him in a men's room?'")

Such is the state of my paranoid thinking. I continue to attach a negative meaning to trivial events. Presumably, I continue to be unfit for employment by reason of business necessity per The Americans With Disabilities Act and Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998) (an employer may lawfully terminate an employee by reason of business necessity if the employee appears to exhibit the disorder ideas of reference, which may be associated with a risk of violence).

My fraud is all quite legal!