i have been using this word

I have been using this word as a password for some time, ___________, but I have no idea of its significance.The first time I said it, there was a wonderful response. so gradually here and there and then over and over again to save a conversation I would use it. Silences would somehow activate it. eventually it became compulsive. if No One was paying attention to me, or if other people were showing their superior accomplishments, or, often, for no reason at all I would simply come out with it or come back to it, if i had already said it. In truth I began to drop so much of my self into it, into the word _______. so many other truthful statements began to come to my lips when i would say that word, ________.
Not once though when I pronounced that single word did my vagueness meet with confusion. Never, even when it was irrelevant, was there a moment's hesitation, but an instantaneous explosion of my listeners into a frenzy of recognition and delight. in tete-a-tetes or small groups it was impossible to fail whenever I felt it necessary to make a mouth or two part slightly, and the only hindrance in this respect was of course that I could only do it once or twice to each person per conversation.
So it was, until, soon, when I whispered or shouted that word in times of need or desire, and unanimous understanding and appreciation surrounded me, I was in deep fear of having to say something more, of having to explain myself or pretend to join in the commotion. I waited and restlessly I waited. but No one ever suspected me of having no idea what the word meant because, luckily, everyone was simultaneously in terror of being discovered ignorant of its definition, and afterwards no one ever remembered to find out. so now i use it wantonly like there is no tomorrow, and no one ever gets sick of hearing it as long as i keep rotating company.

this week i was on a research trip. it was just me, thousands of old rare dictionaries, and two librarians nonstop, except when i was alone at night back at the hotel. one of the librarians was a tall man, and one of them was a man of my height.
of course, i looked up "fuck" and "penis" in every dictionary i could get my hands on.
one of the librarians was in charge of making my photocopies. it was the man of my height. i made him photocopy different definitions of "fuck" and "penis"all week.
most of the time, he would bring me the copies, and i would say, "no no! this isn't what I wanted! this must be done over again!"
and so i would send him away to copy "fuck" and "penis" over and over again. which was very frustrating for us both.
finally, i said, look, come here, look at this book. let me explain to you the significance and importance of what i'm doing, because it may not seem obvious. look at this catchword down at the bottom here. what does it say? "penis." now, look up at the rest of the page. among other entries is the conspicuous "Pe'nis, a Man's Yard. L." Now, why does the catchword say "penis" if "penis" is already defined on this page? Because: voila! "Penis" is defined again on the next page too! Now do you see? The compositors felt like setting the page with the definition of "penis" on it twice! It was printed twice, bound that way, and now this dictionary has two pages which define "penis." Now! The mise en page here is very important! I need "penis" and the whole thing. Don't cut anything off! ok?
away he went.
**************
he was gone a long time.
***************
later he returned with a stack of copies, some of them big, some of them small. but i was too tired to look at them closely, so i just flipped through them and said, great. this is great. thank you. i'll see you tomorrow.
later back at the hotel i began to look over my copies. ***, ***, here, good, that's the one, *****, okay, wh---, wh---, where's that penis? where's that penis?! again and again i searched for it. papers were strewn everywhere. i went out to the car. but of all the interesting discoveries i had made that day and duplicated, this was the one that I lacked.
******!!!!! I pounded my fist. i slapped my forehead. now i understand! before i left, he had said to me, "now if you get home and something seems like it's missing or you're not satisfied, email me and I'll scan it for you."
now it all made sense!
he couldn't come back and say to me, i don't have the "penis," I couldn't do that "penis."
well, the next day, we did do that "penis," after all. i had that book pulled again and slipped that request into my list of pages to be copied! it said, "Universal Etymological English Dictionary. Vol. II. 1727. Copy the page that runs from 'penis' to 'perfection.' oops! we forgot that one yesterday, sorry!"
in the end i got all the fucks and the penises I wanted, enough maybe to write a good conference paper. i do not return to toronto empty handed. and so my friends, i have been successful.

response to elegy written in a country churchyard

i just think that if the poor chap in the country churchyard had calmly and honestly stated his qualifications and interests on a social networking site, he would not have been so fatally neglected and maybe not forced to molest ancient bowers. Hemmed in and undervalued as he was by stupid plowmen, personal ads or matchmaking services could have put him in touch with people who were more his type. alas-- that his death had not been so unnecessary! that is what readers say. what he needed was a better public school with after school programs to realize his potential! he needed some creative outlet other than writing his own epitaph, which none of the ignorant farmers for miles around could possibly ever read. tell us! talk to someone about it, we say. you aren't alone--there are several support groups in your community and on the web for the recognizable symptoms you have. you speak to us on the page, as if from beyond the grave, with very unreasonable expectations. you want it all--eternal life, teenage suicide, a soul-mate, self-expression. i think all you really care about is poetry. am i right? is that fair? as i said, i just think this sense of your own unnoticed potential is a product of never putting yourself out there and making contacts enough. i mean, it's easy to send a rumor around about what an unappreciated diamond in the ruff you are blushing unseen and running around muttering and all that, but have you ever tried to write a resume?

all in all, it was a good day. i saved a baby from running into traffic and gave that neighbor who is always coughing some vitamins. i was kind of bored by about noon. all of a sudden, i remembered that i would be cooler if i had a therapist. "who can say how disadvantaged you are, because, in your whole life, you never had one?" how many people are saner than i am as a result of that little measure?
******,****,*****,*****,five,six,seven...how many? well, that was about to change. there would not be at least seven cooler people.
i looked up u of t's services and we get maybe 14 free sessions. don't quote me on that. in time, i could be twice as cool as seven people, maybe.

i called and said, i really need a therapist, see you in twenty minutes.
but the lady on the phone was coy. "what kind of therapist?"
that irritated me.
i said, "for my head."
she explained that they have services both for learning issues and mental health issues.
I just repeated, "For my head!" and she fit me in
***********************. I was marching my way into coolness. when i entered the office, i glowered at the doctor suitably.
"have you ever seen a psychiatrist?" she asked.
"Over. And. Over Again. " HA!
"Did any of them ever help you?"
"No. Here I am. Again. "
"And why didn't it help?"
"there really is something wrong with me"
"What, in particular, brings you here today?"
I tried to think of something good to say.
"The anguish of the world wafts through the air at night and settles in my heart."
She nodded her head really slowly three times. "Could you be more specific?"
I thought that was pretty good. " I cannot."
"Well, so you have negative thoughts,and something triggers this, so--could you just give me an example of something that might trigger these negative thoughts?"
"I feel responsible for making sure my body doesn't explode."
"I feel responsible for making sure my body doesn't explode. What does that mean?"
"It's subconscious."
"Can you elaborate?"
"It's this idea, way in the back of my head, that maybe, my vertebrae could shoot out of my body."
"Okay (writing) . . . Okay. Can you give me some other examples?"
"Of things shooting out of my body?"
"...... Wh. ......Wh. ......Do. ...... . This is an irrational fear. You are not keeping your body intact.
I just really wanted her to interpret that, though.
"Do you have any phobias?"
"I am afraid of everything."
"All right! Okay! Are you afraid of heights?"
"Yes."
"Spiders?"
"Maybe."
"Well, give me some more concrete examples."
"Of what?"
"Of what you're talking about."
"What am I talking about?"
"About . . . (checks notes). I don't know. What are you talking about?"
"My eyeballs hurt now."
"Do you experience discomfort on a daily basis?"
"Well, I'll be hungry but too busy to eat, and then, later, I won't be hungry but I'll have nothing better to do than eat. "
"You spoke earlier of having negative thoughts at night. What other kinds of things might bother you?"
"I forgot that I can't get outside of time."
"You can't get outside of time!"
"I want to exist outside of time. That is why I came."
"Why would you want to do that?"
She was like a wet book of matches.
when she said the time was up, i felt cheated, even though it was free. i felt like the time i went to the ER because i couldn't feel my arms and sat all night next to a man whose eyes were bleeding. a doctor woke me up the next morning and asked me what was wrong with me, but i couldn't remember.

Today, I felt like Cinderella. I have an acute taste for everything that's missing in my life. I study literature. I know some rich people. They have me stay in their houses for them when they are gone, which I secretly love but let them overpay me to do.
The sound of your alarm exercises an influence on your day of unknown extent. The tone depends on how much you can pay. But I'm willing to pay--that's not it. The ability to buy an alarm that subtly insinuates a sweet invitation>> open your eyes, lovely sleeper, and lie still in tender contemplation of your dreams>> is like the power to know that there is such a thing as a heated toilet seat, which I discovered today.

"Where do you need to go, who do you need to know?"

The cats who belong to this life are not exempt from its influence. They do cuter things and are effortlessly polite. For instance, they never accidentally bite or scratch you, even though they always still have their claws. And even though they are as playful as the rest, they never take a ball of string too seriously. If there is more than one of them, they let each other take turns with the feather, each watching the next play with composure. Today, when I opened my eyes, a stout male cat was peering at me, his paw reached out and resting on my face. They wait for you to sit up and stare at the wall for half an hour, take ten minutes to wash your face, and stare at the coffee maker for fifteen minutes without asking once to be fed, even though they are hungry.
Of course the New Yorker arrived when the coffee was ready. Sedaris's piece caught me at the right moment:

"Bashir was--how to describe him? It was as if someone had coaxed the eyes out of Bambi and resettled them, half alseep, into a human face. Nothing hard or ruined looking there; in fact, it was just the opposite--angelic, you might call him, pretty....Three hours into our conversation, he invited me to get off the train and spend some time in his college town, as much as I liked, in the apartment that was waiting for him. It wasn't the offer you'd make to a backpacker but something closer to a proposal. 'Be with me' was the way I interpreted it."

I shed a tear over my artisan bread. Then I had to go home, but I took the rest of the loaf of bread with me.
At my house, "be with me" is "live with my crack smoke." The contrast would be too strong if it were fictional.
"Because of my education, I cannot endure my situation"
I made myself feel better by gathering up a bunch of cruddy gifts that people gave me in the last year and giving them to these guys across the street, for free after they tried to bargain for them. I did it right in front of this lady i don't like who sells dvds but will never let me look at them. every time you try to pick one out, she screams, "if you're not gonna buy don't look!" so you can never look at them long enough to buy one. she was envious and went straight over to those guys to see what they got.
I also got a glimpse of what is missing in my life this evening: someone else's boyfriend. Think what you will of me. But some people have seductions that cannot be curtailed. This person is too adorable not to share some of his charm with people other than his girlfriend. It would not be fair.

I Have No Motivation

Prolix Reads It, All Night Long, and Through the Day

I went back upstairs and tried to have the perfect reading experience with my new novel. "It's Just me and you, you," I thought to myself.

At one point a mouse fell into the room through a whole in my screen door. all those things were like some other country i had boycotted, though. the kingdom of sleeping, human affection, and little rodents. nothing can be read twice!!

A. There was great importance in the separation of the lovers, the first time. their being interrupted by the brother-in-law determined the outcome of the visit. this was not perceived by the jazz band playing across the lot. which was forcing itself through a strained, ill-judged routine.
B. at the cost of social obligations, I did save some part of my reading experience. i won't deny an urge to turn people on and off, to control their ability to open and close their mouths, to play god.
C. i have professional obligations not to read everything.
who knows? I have nothing to say about the novel.
1. on the subway i swallowed some juice down the wrong pipe.