By: Evan39 (Safeway Night Manager | Equity Partner, Perkins Coie Mental Tort Division)

September 21, 2016

I told Dr. Abramowitz about the madeleine.

She stared at me blankly. I said, “You know, Proust?” Still nothing. I tried again. “A small cake, dipped in tea… it unlocks memory, identity, time’s collapse—” but she was already writing something down. Her pen made a sound like filing.

This was our eighth session.

The first seven had focused on more ordinary things—my difficulty sleeping, my confrontations with the overnight stocker named Tyreek (who insists on calling me “Bossman” with an ironic twang), and the fact that I had recently constructed an elaborate HR retaliation timeline against the bakery department.

But when I mentioned the madeleine, she shifted.

“You seem,” she said slowly, “to associate baked goods with longing.”

I wanted to leave, but I was in too deep. I had already told her about Mainlining, and the fact that Boom lives in a shed with ethernet but no plumbing. I had even confessed that I sometimes refer to my own legal memos as “bulletins from The Mahchine™.”

She said nothing.

Just nodded. Wrote.

I asked if she knew what the petite madeleine meant.

She asked if I’d ever tried journaling.

That was the moment I knew: I would never be understood by another human being again.

And still, I scheduled a ninth session.

This is fine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/opinion/madeleine-memory-therapy.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3359684&forum_id=2)#48947288)