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"[...]a vessel cleaving the dungeon of the waves[...]"
You're Love in the Time of Cholera!
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Like Odysseus in a work of Homer, you demonstrate undying loyalty by
sleeping with as many people as you possibly can. But in your heart you never give
consent! This creates a strange quandary of what love really means to you. On the
one hand, you've loved the same person your whole life, but on the other, your actions
barely speak to this fact. Whatever you do, stick to bottled water. The other stuff
could get you killed.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
Never miss a word
You're Infinite Jest!
by David Foster Wallace
While you1 consider yourself2 to be clever,
there are those3 who think you're just full of yourself or, perhaps worse,
playing a joke4 on everyone around you, and yet you are pretty sure that
you really are that brilliant after all, since people would hardly take the time to
get to know you5 if they didn't care very deeply about what you had to
say to them, to wit, about their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their
drug habits, and of course what videos6 they prefer to watch, since,
after all, your impressive vocabulary and tendency to go on and on7 makes
you seem superior, able to educate them, and really drive a sense of something
ineffable into their measly little skulls while you are not above making a cheap
gag or really going after anyone or anything or telling them about incredible
futures involving tennis, geopolitics, and
1Meaning you personally, not someone like you or your own
personal daddy, for example.
2As well as you can see yourself, which, frankly, may not be that well.
3Though we wouldn't deign to be so peripatetic as to name them here, mind.
4Jokes, though not common in Victorian England, were known to originate
sometime in ancient history, perhaps as early as the time of Babylon, or even before.
It is thought that the history of the joke plays an integral role in the mindset of
the characters depicted here, though you may disagree at this point, in which case I
am facing quite the dilemma in relaying this narrative, no?
5It is rather time consuming, after all.
6Ha!
7and on and on and on...
Take the Book Quiz II
at the Blue Pyramid.
You're The Metamorphosis!
by Franz Kafka
Though you think you're in the midst of a dream, the fact of the
matter is that your life has become a nightmare. The nightmare at first seems
horrific to you, but you are slowly able to adjust to the facts of the matter
and settle down and make do with what you've been given. There are those that
would say you're pointless and absurd, but you're really just trying to
demonstrate that people can (and do) adapt to anything, no matter how absurd
it is. Not that this will really inspire them to change, because they probably
don't understand.
Take the Book Quiz II
at the Blue Pyramid.
About Me
- Σφιγξ
- possesses wholly unmerited academic pretensions; examines love as an entomologist; collects haunted dollshouses; notes the lunar phase as regularly as the temperature; peruses field guides; reads like a serial magazine subscriptionist; functions through coffee and "mood" music; draws to the very corners of the page; takes notes on unlined paper; reads poetry as prayer; observes textual authority with the incredulity of fiction; suppresses the smart-ass answer(s); adapts as well as anyone beseiged by her own bibelots; she is a sensation seeker in spite of all of this.
6 comments:
Jane Smiley, author, A Thousand Acres: A Novel
I used to have a newspaper clipping announcing my parents' marriage. They were tall and handsome, holding hands and smiling. On the other side was the headline, "Russians Have H-Bomb." Thus was my fate decided, or so I thought throughout my childhood, because I was obsessed by nuclear war. Alongside The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew and The Black Stallion, there was always the nightly news, announcing the latest little step toward mutually assured destruction. No doubt this is the know-your-enemy reason that I went to summer school to study physics between fifth and sixth grades, even though I had no math aptitude and had always run the other direction when my older boy cousins tried experiments. (How high would three firecrackers blow an empty tin can into the air, and would they blow the can apart?) But that summer, and for another year or so, I loved the atom. In those days it seemed so simple-electron, proton, neutron, everything adding up so benignly until you made you way up the periodic table to U-235 (nice uranium was U-238). I liked those inert atoms best (helium, neon, argon, krypton)-they were harmless and minded their own business. But every element was like a character in a book, and I thought I would study them that way, once I grew up and became a nuclear physicist.
http://www.doublex.com/section/life/secret-dreams-famous-women
I love this children's book, and the vintage ones in general, with photographs.
https://books.google.com/books?id=JMzKPtgCsm0C&pg=PT602&dq=Marjorie+Morningstar+%22there+aren%27t+fifty+pages+left%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfuITf76iBAxWKGFkFHaQLDDkQ6AF6BAgKEAM#v=onepage&q=Marjorie%20Morningstar%20%22there%20aren't%20fifty%20pages%20left%22&f=false
https://1drv.ms/i/s!AsA4BY25Ql_1m3P2I6iEclquqWeI?e=yJYqXb
Jane Miller's Birth of a Foal (1978). Reproduced here for educational purposes.
I understand; if, and when factoring in the upfront costs, and pains to do it are too high, but I cannot bear the thought of not investigating it. Being attached to other people’s children is a heartbreak. Dying alone without attachments is something I have seen.
If it is impossible, we can amp up our retirement savings respectively, and be at peace. I will still love you either way. The last decade made me only contemplate family formation, as a person like myself, with a person like yourself. You are a good person, and our values do not fundamentally conflict.
I have no final thoughts about having a child with you. My current work demands require that I am standing and doing for at least ten of the fourteen hours that I am there. The OR empties without mercy. It is not easy. That is why it pays.
My endeavor is to transition from a first to a second profession or a hybrid without a loss of income. Prolonged standing and sitting are associated with preterm birth. Having a situation, a compromise, on all fronts is necessary
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