is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Constant [pause] Suction.
Lately people have been telling me things. I meet new people and then they tell me things that they might not usually tell people. I think it�s because I�m new and also because they discern that I�m trustworthy. It�s nice that people can see this, and I don�t mind being told things. None of the new facts are burdensome, or the kind of thing that makes you feel put upon when you have to keep it to yourself. What has happened in these conversations is that people have jumped right away into discussing something that is really on their minds, something important to them, rather than making the kind of conversation potentially required by the event of having to socialize with a newcomer. I appreciate this because part of what can be so tiring about being a newcomer is always having to have superficial conversations. Turns out, superficiality can be more tiring than sincerity. Then there is no need to fall back on superficiality out of laziness!
Not to say that you should always tell all. It�s good to keep some things to yourself. It�s also good to keep some people at arm�s length. There is so much I keep to myself, even though I�m engaged in the practice of public diary-keeping.
Juxtaposing these recent conversations to my situation with LG, I think perhaps I�m being told something. Both by his silence and by the willingness of strangers to trust me. Part of LG always thought he couldn�t trust me with truths from his life in part because I keep this diary. It was a fear of his. As if this diary were a true story of my life instead of the fiction that it is. As if I could not see a barrier between what I know and what I write. Of course the real reasons for his reticence reside in the way his powers of interpretation combine with his past experiences to form a world where certain things can�t be told. I�m guessing. Because that�s all I can do.
That is a situation still underway, the LG-thing. Largely undetermined. And undetermined means free. Things could still happen. However the fact that I�ve written anything about it isn�t going to get him any closer to talking to me. Not that at present he could be much farther. The tone of these paragraphs is resigned, not angry. I�ve never been angry with him.
And to all of you he is of course not much more than an exceedingly underdeveloped fictional character. What do we know? Very little� almost nothing. He has an epithet-acronym, is rather tall, has a daughter, and has been known to make me happy. The end. Not exactly at full-fledged story. Not even a character that a reader of fiction would be drawn to. The odd thing is that I know more than these few descriptive facts about him, but not much more.
Have you seen the advertisements on television for the Dyson vacuum cleaner? I have been making fun of them for years, and I once saw a very funny skit about them on SNL. However, I often make fun of them and then find that whoever it is who happens to be my audience at the moment has never heard of the vacuum nor seen the advertisements. Anyway, last night I got home from having drinks with a colleague, turned on the television, and these were the first words I heard, emerging from the television before any picture appeared, in an odd kind of accent: �constant [pause] suction.� I laughed really hard and turned the television back off. That�s all I needed.
Right now I�m writing a diary entry and eating waffles. I was supposed to do the hard yoga this morning, but when I woke up I really really wanted to skip to the part where I was eating waffles and writing a diary entry, and so I did. After all, what comes next in my day is a little item called �order in the room of chaos,� wherein I finally deal with the second bedroom full of boxes and strewn crap. After that? Write a lecture on Rawls. EXCITING DAY. However. On Saturdays I make waffles! THESE ARE NOT TOASTER WAFFLES, OK? Do not insult me. I am Bree.
By which I mean, Evany recently compared me to Bree in a comparison of her friends to the Desperate Housewives women. She is quick to add how soon one has to draw limits to the comparisons. I am only Bree in that I am well-groomed and bake perfect cakes and then present the cakes on perfect cake plates. I don�t think she�s trying to say that I�m an ice queen or a contestant in the Monsters of Denial sweepstakes. However, as she also mentioned, I do handwash and drip-dry most of my clothes, so that they keep their original shape and color. And when Evany asked my permission to name me part-Bree, I did point out to her, in sardonic tone, that I, like Bree, tend to choose men who do unexpected things. We laughed. (If you want to see sardonic, read this Evany-entry. It's brilliant.) Anyway, unfortunately you won�t find the Jill-Bree comparison in her hilarious recap of DH, because it�s going to appear in an essay in a book. A book on Desperate Housewives. And you were worried you weren�t getting enough of that show?
Take my advice. Stop watching the show. Just read Evany�s recaps. They are so much better.
It�s colder. New jackets are coming out of the closet. I�ve been wearing the brown tweed number that makes Evany angry, and the chic black coat with hidden buttons, and a newer (though not so new) ultra-soft robin�s-egg-blue piece of loveliness. It�s getting dark earlier, and this night�s passing of daylight savings time has not even occurred. I forgot to bring a flashlight with me when I went to campus in the late afternoon last week, and had to walk home in the dark across the geese. Total gooseshit express. I had to perform first aid on my red boots.
(Somewhere Evany is saying �oxblood.� Not because she�s a witch casting a spell, but because it is her self-appointed job in life to point out that my boots aren�t red, they are oxblood-colored.)
I read in a recent faculty memo that some of the lecture halls at QB are going to have �personal response devices� installed in the seats so that students can register their reactions to lectures. Are the points made clearly? Has the professor addressed your questions? Are you bored? Are you hungover, or would you perhaps prefer to be thinking about some cute thing you�re trying to get with? Register your response, stat!
I don�t know any of the details of how this is going to work. But I�m really excited to see the SNL version someday.
12:20 p.m. - October 29, 2005
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