Wisdom

The village sage stood in a field all day, hat cocked, eyes fixed forward. He was handsome and kind. He was made out of straw.

To the villagers he was indispensable. They talked of their sorrows with him, sought him out for advice. He was known to be an excellent listener. He served as an arbiter in the bitterest disputes, for people trusted that he would never take sides.

Only once had anyone gone to see him and left disappointed. There had been a young girl, a lonely young girl, who had come to him for companionship. She had asked, "But what of your life, sir? What do you think, and what do you feel?"

This was generally regarded as a foolish thing to have asked. It was not the role of a sage to feel anything.

Cottoning On

My mind communicates to me through a thick layer of cotton. I ask it questions but cotton balls are stuffed in its ears; it tells me answers but cotton balls are stuffed in its cheeks. I strain my ears to no avail: I cannot make out what it is saying.

I need it to lead me places but it cannot. Its movements are hampered, for it is fighting through a world packed tight with cotton.

The Internet

Nightly before bed, I stare at the static lines of text on my computer screen and wish the letters would begin moving, would sprout arms and legs, would morph into tiny black and white figures with laughing voices and lively eyes. They don't, though. So after a while, sighing, I surrender to solitude; sighing, I surrender to sleep.

A memory from a while ago

His frame (incongruously sturdy) landed softly with every step and he moved with a hesitance I could never connect with any particular gesture but it always struck me nonetheless. When he walked he did not obtrude upon the world. Deerlike he held himself in, always alert to the omnipresence of danger, one supposed, though what form he thought it might have taken I don't know.

Knowing he would pass by I had waited there a quarter hour to appear before him and with my presence say: I exist, damn it; I cannot be wished away. I recognized him in the distance by his walk. Unexpected: a paralyzing admixture of sympathy and terror. The words rehearsed a thousand times in my mind (conciliatory words, indignant words), how would I now say those words? Which ones of them could squeeze my swollen thoughts into a moment?

I hid till he had walked past; he didn't see me. The rest of the day: propping myself up with the hackneyed phrases with which one serves the public I hoped my impersonal polite well-rehearsed smile would hide that I was trembling.

On Prescriptivism

Language use is a game of hide-and-seek with coy teasing laughing fairy words. They flit about your head but then dart away whenever you want to use them. Even if you catch them they will only wriggle free again. They are lively and delightful but they can't sit still long enough to mean anything.

(To write with them you must be patient, you must be coaxing. You cannot give them orders; they will only scowl and fly away. But if you sing to them then sometimes they will waltz for you. Then afterwards when they are tired, they will alight soft-footed on your shoulders and nuzzle up against your neck.)

Sometimes people grow frustrated with words: they are capricious, unreliable. These people put up great nets to catch words in. The goal is to tranquilize them, pacify them, so that they will finally just hold still. You must understand: when words stop squirming they can be made useful. They can be lashed together into any shape. They can even be tied into bundles, then crammed into cardboard boxes and shipped across centuries.

Their proponents say: "See how efficient they are! They mean today what they meant ten years ago, and they will mean the same in another twenty. This is the way of the future. This is modern industry at its best."

But as I look at them lying still I note their waxy skin, their dull eyes. They cannot fly anymore for their wings have been clipped. It is said they have a longer shelf life, but to what end? Is the only purpose of language to ship more meaning at a cheaper cost?

It is true that words in the wild are inefficient, that they are not optimized. But I find it delightful to watch them dance.

Lovely

The child had filled up his shelves not with books but with dolls: lines and lines of them, all wearing pink. To each one he had given a name—Esther, or Julia, or Sue, or Cindy. He would take up each in turn and play with it for a while. With their distinct personalities they suited his several moods: one was gentle and good, another feisty; a third cried a lot and always clung to him. Towards them all he showed kindness and benevolence: he complimented them, and he doted on them, and indulgently he showered them with gifts.

Late at night when he was lonely, he would look out from his bedstead at the pretty pink dolls and watch their distinct features melt together in the fading light until there were only the lines (stretching on forever) of pleasing pretty pinkness; and then drifting softly to sleep he would murmur: "Oh! that is lovely. Oh oh! that is lovely."

My Body

I am soft, pliable. My spine bends, my ribs expand and contract. I am made up of small chunks of interconnected flip-flopping things. I stand like a jig doll on collapsible joints.

Defensive Driving

My driving instructor is middle aged with a gruff voice and grey curly hair. He is twice my size and he talks very fast. I explain that I am nervous about driving and he says, "Don't worry: I believe in student-centred learning."

It comes up that I have just graduated. "From where?" he asks, and I tell him I went to Harvard. He then tells me he has to go down to Boston himself sometimes. "I'm the president of the Porsche Club of Upper Canada," he hastens to explain.

What am I planning to do next? he wants to know. I tell him that I'm not sure what to do with my life; that I thought maybe I'd dabble in other subjects for a while; that I'm planning to learn some math in the fall. "I think it's great when women study math," he says. "It's so untraditional."

In the lesson I have some trouble manoeuvring the car. I overshoot a few turns. I get flustered when several things are happening at once. He responds by increasing the speed and volume at which he talks.

Sometimes I mix up which signal is left and which is right. To this he says, "What school did you tell me you went to again?" I turn to look at him. "Relax," he says. "I've got to amuse myself by making some jokes. Otherwise I'm going to get bored."

He tells me to pull over to the curb. At the last moment I am worried I will hit it instead and start steering away. "What are you doing?!" he exclaims. "I asked you to pull over on the right and you're steering left. Come on, this isn't rocket science."

At the end of the lesson, he tells me, "At this rate, you're going to need some extra lessons." He just wants me to know, that's all. But if I feel more comfortable going at this slower instructional pace, that is perfectly okay with him. "Like I said," he assures me, "I believe in student-centred learning."

The Good Life

Once upon a time there was a man who was supremely happy.

His life was proceeding splendidly. Years of hard work, combined with an uncommon intelligence, had brought him considerable success. He had attended prestigious schools; he had earned A's. He had a job now, and it paid well, and he liked it. He had interesting hobbies. He exercised. When he had time, he appreciated art.

He had a wide circle of friends. They met together every once in a while in big groups, and photographs were taken, and he was always in them. These photographs showed up on the internet and proved to the world that he was well liked.

Sometimes his friends would argue amongst themselves, but he never got involved with their in-fighting. It cannot be established that he regularly knew about it. He was very busy and rarely saw his friends outside of their big group gatherings. When he did, he talked with them about grand ideas and theoretical models of things and curiosities of the intellect. Their conversations were fascinating, but they were never personal.

He had never been in a serious relationship. It wouldn't do to get too close to anyone; there was the risk of getting hurt. Consequently he was very careful to avoid emotional, and sometimes even physical, intimacy. He termed it "entanglement": a dangerous thing that led inevitably to disaster.

This, you see, was the secret to being a supremely happy man: you just had to make sure that nothing bad ever happened to you.

Menswear

Here he said draping a button-down shirt over my shoulders: this is your bathrobe.

Holding it closed with one hand I walked out of his bedroom into the dormstyle bathroom down the hall. In the mirror was my reflection, hair tousled face flushed. The shirt was blue and came down to my midthigh, the shoulders landing where teeshirt sleeves should end. I looked at myself engulfed and tiny and wondered who am I to venture into the world?

Plainness

I want to look ugly for a while.

I want my body hidden beneath oversized sweaters and baggy pants. I want to wear the same clothing for weeks, even if I spill stuff on it. I want to smell. I don't want to shower.

I do not want anyone to think I am attractive. I cannot offer myself up for them to find me so. All I want is to be unnoticed and unnoticeable.

So I will make myself drab and small. Then, should it be required that I tiptoe into the world, no one need ever know that I was there.

Overexposed

Was it safe out there? After prying open the cellar door I peeked outside. I was met with a wall of faces and of bulging eyes and hands pointing and voices crying and stampeding towards me feet and legs.

I slammed the hatch shut again, locked it, barricaded it, quivered in fear. I shall stay down here for a while. Should anyone need to reach me, they may slip a note through the slat on my door.

Indecision

"Here," says the wizard, handing me a ladle bubbling with liquid. "Drink this."

What is it?

"Why, a magic potion!" He clears his throat. "Brewed painstakingly for many weeks, it is my finest work, a paragon of excellence and craftsmanship. May I draw your attention to its vivid colour, its subtle hints of elm and oak. No wizard alive could produce its better."

Yes. But what does it do?

"It works, my dear girl, as a sort of catalyst. Its exact outcome is difficult to predict, owing to its potency and great complexity. But there is a chance it will fulfill your dearest desires and lead to great happiness."

Just a chance?

He looks at me with impatience. "Well, yes, what do you expect? I did my best to filter out unwanted consequences, but there was only so much I could do. You must understand that in so potent an elixir it is impossible—it is against the very laws of nature!—to entirely eliminate risk."

What risk, exactly?

He sighs. "The potion may give you great happiness, but it may instead cause intense—though, I must assure you, shortlived—humiliation."

I look down at the ladle and at the eerie green liquid swirling within it. That faint whiff emanating from it—is that sweetness or is that rot?

"Well? Don't be such a coward, girl. Drink up!"

Still I hesitate. I bring it to my lips, then stop and lower my arm. If only I had more information. If only I knew for sure.

Familiar Things

Each day I walk into my classrooms and I sit where I sat last week. I squint at my prof from the usual angle; see the usual side of his head. The people around me (who are always the same) say some things they've said before. And then it so happens that the lecture has ended and I walk out the very same door.

(Inevitably, of course, there is given some new information. But I note it down with the pen that I always use.)

Solace from Solitude

I work in a library where nobody goes. It is quiet and the sun shines in. When I am here alone I expand outward solipsistically until my head brushes the rafters and my fingers bat against the ceiling fans. The sun touches me (reaching its rays through the skylights) and like a chubby baby I giggle and squirm. I swell warm and roly-poly into the room and flatten the freestanding shelves. The space is all mine; there is no one else but me.

I remain expansive until there comes a noise. Noise pricks my ballooned happiness and shrinks me back into the meanness of myself. I do not like noise; I much prefer silence.

Digesting the Past

It takes about a decade for my life experiences to process through my gastrointestinal tract. At time of writing: my stomach leeches nutrients from my early college years; high school still squeezes through my intestines. (Thank goodness, I am shitting out my adolescence. It gave me bad gas.)

Just last June I bit off another chunk of my lifespan. I'm almost done chewing it now. It was not bad, but a bit tart, also maybe too much salt. I will wash it down this summer with red wine and white noise.

Ah, Romance!

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. She was sweet on him too. They went on a date, kissed, and fell immediately and passionately in love. They got married and lived happily ever after.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. She was sweet on him too. He was shy and never expressed his feelings, and neither did she. They never discovered their affection for each other, and they went through their lives feeling lonely and alienated.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. She fucked him only because she was lonely and he was there. Afterwards she found him hard to get rid of. She tried not to think of how she had hurt him because she preferred to forget that she too could be cruel.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. She found him attractive enough and his attention flattered her. But he soon got bored of her and began to ignore her. Suddenly cut off from her source of validation, she became obsessed with getting him to notice her again. He never did.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. Her love for him waxed and waned: sometimes her heart overflowed with affection for him, but sometimes she would look at him and feel only disgust. There was something vaguely sickening about his clinginess and his childlike faith in her. But she didn't want to hurt him and so she faked her love. She felt guilty for living a lie.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. He was loving and kind to her but he rejected her sexually. Was he gay, she wondered, or was there just something wrong with her? She was frustrated and unhappy, and her self-esteem withered.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. She took him for granted until he was forced to break up with her. Only when she could no longer have him did she find that she wanted him after all.

There once was a boy and he wasn't sweet on a girl. She threw herself at him so he slept with her a few times, but then he rejected her. Afterwards it was exceedingly awkward between them, and even worse, she had to see him every day. It hurt her to watch him act friendly towards everyone else but distant (though scrupulously polite) to her.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. He hit on her even though he was already engaged. She liked him but felt morally uncomfortable with their involvement. After she moved away he called her and left a message but she never called him back.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. They had a beautiful romance but it turned sour. When they broke up she cried for days. She indulged frequently in nostalgic thoughts about the way things had been between them. Though she was too stuck in the past to find someone else, he had soon fucked several new girls, all more attractive than she was. She stalked them on facebook, and although she had never met them, she was certain they were bimbos.

There once was a boy and he was sweet on a girl. She was sweet on him too. Maybe this time, she thought to herself, it would work out. Then it didn't. Well, shit.

Allegory pie, allegory pie

Imagine my brain is a countryside and through it run many electric impulses, or messengers.

One day from outside my ear there comes a message. My ear receives a collection of sound waves—or perhaps a telegraph arrives by Morse code, top secret, to be delivered to the centre of my consciousness straightaway. The messenger, roused from soft slumber to do his duty, is ready as always: he grasps the sealed envelope in shaking hands, mounts his fine steed, and gallops away into the night.

The countryside is at war: corpses litter the roadsides and everywhere orphans bewail the loss of life. Doggedly the messenger rides past the wreckage, narrowly escaping gunfire and the eerie screech of stray arrows. His proud stallion spooks at the fires in the distance and balks at the booming of canons—until finally he must dismount and continue on foot.

He runs, he walks, he runs again. At last he reaches the palace and, being brought inside, bows before the grim, war-wearied face of his sovereign. "A message, my lord, from the land of Ear."

He collapses in exhaustion and dies on the spot, but—thank Providence!—not before he delivers to his betters this important message: That Letterman said something funny last night, and isn't that neat.

[All I can do is depetal millions of metaphorical daisies.]

A Mildly Flattering Ride Home

On the subway this evening I got hit on by a rich guy. His name was Serge and he worked in a bank.

Maybe it wasn't a bank, but it was something financial. He worked at King and Yonge—my milieu of yore—and did something involving charts and graphs and tables of numbers. I know because he showed me them. And then he said, "I'm not bullshitting you—this is really what I do."

He told me several times that he worked in finance. He told me about how he had two bachelor's degrees, one MBA, and was working on getting his CFA. After he got that, he said, he would go back to school and get a second master's in finance. "I want to be more competitive," he told me, "so that I can get a nice seven-figure salary." He said this several times—the part about the seven-figure salary, that is. I wondered if perhaps he'd meant to say six, but I didn't bother asking.

Then he gave me his business card and told me to email him sometime. "I might do that," I said, politely. To which he replied, "If you do, I just might respond."

I briefly toyed with the idea of contacting him. In a world of careful image construction, you've got to respect someone who wears his toolishness on his sleeve. I'm quite sure he would make a show of taking me somewhere lavish, and, you know, I don't mind putting out for a free meal.

But, not surprisingly, I decided against it. I would have a lot more casual sex if I didn't dislike people so much. I am far too misanthropic for a life of sin.

AMZB vs. Disease/Self-Pity

[Copied over from facebook for consistency.]

My great achievement of the day is not blowing chunks. For the second time in two weeks, I am facing an epic battle against nausea, dizziness, and fever.

Feeling sick gives you lots of time not to do the work you're being paid to get done by Tuesday. Instead, you get to hang out by the toilet (in case you should need it in a hurry) or else lie down because you feel weak and dizzy.

Since both these things are a little boring, I eventually needed a little entertainment. So I allowed myself to get sucked into an online conversation with a friend of mine. The gist: he's fucking someone boring, irritating, and stupid. Having woken up to her faults, how can he now get rid of her?

I could sympathize with him. You misjudge someone initially, and then whoops, a few months later you're miserable. You need to end it, but every way out requires that you be an asshole. There's no way to reject someone nicely. So do you break it off now or later?

This is a really fun conversation to have when you can easily imagine someone saying the same shit about you. Got me thinking about my persistent sense of intellectual inferiority within my own social group. About the disconnect that seems to exist between me and other people. About the termtime sense of isolation/alienation that I can't seem to shake.

So I decided to throw a pity party. Location: the bathroom. Invitees: my sense of self-worth, the bile rising at the back of my throat. Fun-filled activities: pin the vomit on the toilet, hide and go freak.

In the end I didn't throw up, but I was left once again with the feeling that I need to prove my worth to the world. Also perhaps to myself. Unsure how to do that. I can't think of anything in my life that I am currently proud of.

In order to feel better about myself, I decided to play a few rounds of Prolific, currently my online boggle-like word game of choice. I wanted to feel like there was something—even something fairly useless—that I could do well. I played six rounds with people whose ratings were lower than mine. I lost every time.

I think the only possible thing I could do to feel more pathetic right now would be to broadcast my momentary sense of self-pity to tons of people on the internet. It would be shameless and incredibly tacky. Good thing I'm not doing that.