panic

I have officially designated Saturday, August 8 as Comprehenesive Exam Panic Day (CEPD). I am not allowed to panic about the comps except on this arbitrarily designated day.

Body, Ailment, Treatment; & Books

Extremities: fingers, toes, hands, feet, ears, nose. Neuropathy, poor circulation, numbness, injury, infection, gangrene. Amputations! [Phantom limb phenomenon; phantom pain.]

Moving on.

Kidneys: Corrosive damage by sustained hyperglycemia. Reduced kidney function, infections. Renal failure. Dialysis, transplant!

Moving on.

Pancreas: Doesn't work.

Moving on.

Eyes: Natural aging and wearing out. Corneal damage, retinal detachment. Burst blood vessels due to increased blood pressure, sustained hyperglycemia, eye trauma or injury. Poor vision in one or both eyes, decreasing in quality over time, eventual blindness in one or both eyes. Seeing-eye dog! Helper monkey!

Moving on.

Heart: Increased strain. Higher blood pressure. Sustained hyperglycemia leading to damage of the heart muscle. Circulatory system damage. Heart attack, stroke, leg clots. [!]
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Curiosity has prodded me to buy two books recently:
Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others by Daniel P. Mannix
The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids by Paul Spinrad

Those of us who have read Katherine Dunn's Geek Love understand "Freaks." Hardly a spectacle, this book is more of a look at the everyday lives of midgets, dwarves, hermaphrodites, giants, pinheads, half-people, the multi-legged, and the like. Maybe the Freaks are normal, and the normal people are the freaks.

Of course bodily fluids are disgusting. We remember Georgie the orderly from Denis Johnson's Emergency, don't we? "There's so much goop inside of us, man," he said, "and it all wants to get out." But who isn't curious? Who?

Mornings / Strange Words

How I have missed the early hours. At one time, several years ago, I would go to bed at 8:00 or 9:00 in the evening and wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and write. I have spent much of the past year-and-a-half pursuing that schedule. I’m finally reclaiming it: up yesterday morning at 6:30. Up this morning at 5:45. My goal for tomorrow is up at 5:15. I would like to rise by 5:00 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday and Saturday, I will try 4:45.

What Julianna Baggott said about writing despite distractions (children, in particular) is very very very very true. We have to carve out our writing time with a fine blade. Free time? Time is what we make of it.

On a related note, I have successfully held, used, and kept a calendar book since February 13. Hooray. I think this is a new record.
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flummox, v. colloq. or vulgar
[prob. of English dialectical origin; cf. flummocks to maul, mangle (Heref. Gloss. 1839), flummock slovenly person, also hurry, bewilderment, flummock to make untidy, disorder, to confuse, bewilder (see various E.D.S. glossaries, Heref., Glouc., S. Cheshire, Sheffield). The formation seems to be onomatopæic, expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily; cf. flump, hummock, dial. slommock sloven.]
1. transitive. To bring to confusion; to ‘do for’, cause to fail; to confound, bewilder, nonplus.
2. U.S. colloq. To ‘do up’.
3. intransitive. U.S. To give in, give up, collapse.

flummadiddle, n. U.S.
slang. Nonsense, humbug; also, something trivial or ridiculous.

The Mold that Grows on the Mold

I would like to argue in favor of something awful, something without a vocal majority's support. Something that makes one into a social pariah. Something only the Bill of Rights protects. It's good practice. I want to argue on behalf of the funk that builds up on the inside of a garbage can. I want to know the pervert inside the bunny costume. I want to map out the underside of the underside. I want Charlton Heston and Ronald Reagan to crawl forth from their graves, gibbering and spitting, shaking their dessicated fists in righteous outrage. That kind of awful.

Any ideas?

Yet Again More Words: Obsolete and/or Unexpected

strummel, n. slang. Obs.
1. Straw.
2. Hair.
3. Comb.: strummel-patch a., a contemptuous epithet for a person.

strumpet, v. Obs.
1. transitive. To bring to the condition of a strumpet.
2. To repute as a strumpet; to debase (a woman’s fame, name, virtue) to that of a strumpet.
3. intransitive. To strumpet it, to play the strumpet.
Hence strumpeting vbl.n.

studmuffin, n. slang (orig. U.S.)
A sexually attractive young man. Freq. humorous or ironic.

stuffage, n.
1. The act of stuffing or filling full; concr. the material with which a receptacle is stuffed.
2. Path. Obstructed condition, stoppage. Obs.

[Oxford English Dictionary Online]

Play Areas

In the mall there is a crossroads, between Barnes & Noble and Scheel’s, and in this crossroads there is a great circle. The circle has but one opening, an ingress point at which stands Dr. Bear in all its loveable menace. The bear wears a doctor’s coat but not pants. Just inside the circle, on either side of the opening, there are cubby holes, ostensibly for the storage of children’s footwear, and a single hand-sanitizer dispenser. Padded benches line the circle’s low wall most of the way around. The carpet is spongy, but firm. Around a necessary structural pillar a padded mat has been attached like a bootie. And of course the playthings themselves: an ambulance, a thermometer, a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, a Band-aid, a building in the likeness of the Mankato Clinic, and a teddy bear the size of a great big fat man. The playthings are made of a pliable material both soft and firm. Everything in the circle rebounds, with the exception of the cubby holes and the structural pillar itself.

Watching a rampage of children play in the arms of the circle is like looking into a moshpit from balcony seats, except no one is smoking cigarettes or drinking beer or wearing earplugs. Adults behave no differently from children as far as I can tell. The distinction is that adults have learned how to control themselves to various extents. Among children, drama unfolds quickly, plays itself out, and soon evolves into another game. Adults squeeze drama out of drama, drama out of rocks, drama out of thin air. It is refreshing how quick children are to judge, like cats. How many times has the play area carpet been puked on? The absence of visible stains suggests that puking incidents are quickly cleaned up, rarely happen in the play area, or do not happen in the play area.

My sister would tell you a story about me, when I was seven years old. I had just eaten a bowl of cherry cordial ice cream. I shouted, "I’m a human vacuum cleaner!" and instantly fell on the carpet in complete imitation of the vacuum cleaner. In a matter of seconds I had inhaled something, a piece of fluff or fuzz, on which I choked. Coughing didn’t help much, not right away. The fluff or fuzz stuck long enough to teach me a lesson, and then I threw up all the ice cream I had just eaten, on the carpet I was attempting to clean. Why am I telling you this?

I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours

Over the past week I have been opening neglected folders on the computer, one of which bears the label Starts & Stops. The Date Modified column of the document files contained therein reveal that these gems come from that ancient epoch known as 2005 (though a few date to 2006 or 2007).

For example, the first document is titled A Frog and a Horse. I open it. What does the text say? "A Frog and a Horse." That’s it. I typed "A Frog and a Horse" into a word processor file, saved it, and have been toting it around since 12-16-06 10:38 AM.

Here is another excerpt, the opening lines of something titled Dirt Stew (05-10-07 12:49 PM):

Dad started the fight. He said Connie’s stew tasted like dirt.

Dad was Ed’s brother, and Connie was Ed’s wife. Ed glared across the table over the pot of stew at dad. ‘What?’ dad said. ‘I had better stew in the service.’

Connie had made the stew earlier that day, as soon as she found out that dad was coming over to talk. It wasn’t a holiday, merely june 12th, but it was the first time
in at least twenty years that dad and Ed willingly sat at the same table.

It has...potential? And here extracts from some kind of list I engineered and saved and never looked at again (02-06-06 8:20 AM):

1. Do not pay any attention to grocery store tabloids. Celebrities are not generally interesting people.
2. Swimming pools are not toilets.
3. Think with your own brain, not with someone else’s brain.
4. Surrender is an option, if you wish to.
5. Do you ask questions?
6. Go ahead and try it, you might like it.
7. I am beginning to hear phrases such as "non-democratic totalitarian state" in mainstream media outlets.

Your guess is as good as mine. Nowadays any list I deem worth saving will almost assuredly be composed of nouns and verbs, broken bits of overheard conversations, impossible hypothetical arguments, unusual names; little of it will make sense.

Not Subtle Enough?

The previous post rather lacked subtlety, didn't it?

Merken - To Notice...Subtle, Subtlety, etc.

Yesterday, February 14, marked a significant date: 8 years since Liz and I first met. Though not face-to-face. Our first contact with one another happened over the internet, in a chat room, and later progressed to letters in the mail and hours-long phone conversations. This went on for six months until we did meet in person, after I rode a Grayhound bus from Carbondale, IL to Austin, TX (a 23-hour trip). Someday I will write this story, but not today.
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Recently I have thought about two questions, or rather, a question and a statement. (I don’t know why these have come to mind, they just kind of bubbled to the surface while I was taking a shower.) They are the sort of commentary one hears in workshops and in poor-quality reviews and criticism:

"It seems as though the author is trying to be subtle."
"What point is the author trying to make?"

How is subtlety a bad thing? When do authors write anything with a conscious desire to effect subtlety? Is a clear understanding of "subtle" (adjective) warranted? Should we sort through the word’s many denotations?

[Oxford English Dictionary]
1. Of thin consistency, tenuous; not dense, rarefied; hence, penetrating, pervasive or elusive by reason of tenuity (now chiefly of odors).
2. Of fine or delicate texture or composition (Obs. exc. Arch.). b. Of food: delicate, light. (Obs.)
3. Of small thickness or breadth; thin, slender, fine. (Obs.) b. Of a ship. (Obs.)
4. Finely powdered; (of particles) fine, minute. (Obs.)
5. Of immaterial things: not easily grasped, understood, or perceived; (Obs.:) intricate, abstruse. (Now merged in sense 6).
6. Fine or delicate, especially to such an extent as to elude observation or analysis.
7. Of craftsmen, etc.: Skillful, clever, expert, dextrous. (Const. of) arch. b. transf. c. Of animals. rare.
8. Of things: characterized by cleverness or ingenuity of conception of execution; cleverly designed or executed, artfully contrived. (Obs.)
9. Of persons, their faculties, actions: Characterized by penetration, acumen, or discrimination. Now with implication of (excessive) refinement or nicety of thought, speculation, or argument.
10. Of persons or animals: Crafty, cunning; treacherously or wickedly cunning, insidiously sly, wily. (Obs.) b. Of actions, thoughts, etc. (Obs.) c. Of ground: tricky. (Obs.)
11. Working imperceptibly or secretly, insidious.
12. Of weight: = subtile (Obs.)

Also, "Subtlist" (noun):

One who is addicted to subtleties.

Also, "Subtlize" (verb):

Rare. Intransitive. To indulge in subtleties.

Ah, the verb "(to) subtle" (Obs.):

1. Reflexive and Intransitive. To devise subtleties or subtle distinctions, to argue subtly.
2. Intransitive. To scheme, plan craftily. Also with clause.
3. Transitive. To devise cleverly.
4. To attenuate, reduce.
5. ? To pulverize, reduce to ashes. nonce-use.

I understand that what I am doing is devising subtleties and making subtle distinctions; I am also, perhaps, indulging in subtleties. But how is "subtle" a word to be used in a pejorative sense? How?
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"Subtle" cannot be subtle with a b.

The Uncrossable Boundaries: Revolting Spectacles

When in the course of life I come upon certain spectacles I feel no compulsion whatsoever to cross them. They are boundaries. The uncrossable. That which is too much for me. I have one example:

Eyeball tattoos. The very thought of someone else having the whites of their eyes tattooed in a different color is enough to make me turn away in disgust...which is silly because I’m thinking about it, and turning away doesn’t help. But we get the point. Eyeball tattooing is far worse and more disgusting than Mr. Dave’s enthralling exposition on zits (which, I have to say, is rather funny). Why would anyone tattoo an eyeball? It seems like a torture you might see in an exploitation film with Nazi characters. Can anyone fathom eyeball tattooing? Am I alone in my disgust? Is anyone listening?

Tongue splitting! Not as disgusting as eyeball tattooing, tongue splitting is nonetheless rather silly. Would you like to walk around with a forked reptilian tongue?

That’s all I have. Eyes and Tongues. Lenguas! Augen!

? (Question; eine Frage)

Writing cannot be rushed. A story that stops, stops for a reason. You must write something. Set down words in the permanence of ink. Type sentences without the luxury of backspace. Scribble lines in pencil on your desk, your wall, your syllabus. When all else fails, write in marker upon your own arm.
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What would it be like to have one arm? Surely if Def Leppard could carry on with a one-armed drummer, a writer could carry on with one arm.
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Wherever it is that you write, consider the images tacked to the wall. For example, on my wall: Das gekrimmte Schachbrett, "Lemuel’s Blessing" by W.S. Merwin, a printed sign that says "Stop doing that and write something.", a photograph of my daughter at age 2 during Easter, a long quote by Georg Foster from Errinerung aus dem Jahre 1790, a map of Blue Earth and Nicollet Counties, a self-interrogation list for the revision process, the MSU academic calendar for 2008-2009 (approved March 2007), a Convenience Bag for use during incidents of airsickness, and two portraits of "Potato Guys" drawn by my daughter. Some of this needs to come down. I get used to seeing things, then I get distracted by the fact that I am used to seeing the same things. Too many inanimate things add up and take on a force almost like sentience. They are aware of me, and I of them. This is my years-long ongoing struggle. The power of things to impose themselves, which exists only and completely in my own head, can distract and annoy to a degree that I cannot describe. It seems limitless.

The Closet Contains a Sump Pump

[On my father’s desk we found papers dated to 1979. He had just died of a sepsis infection. The papers from the seventies were twenty years old. I was seventeen. All my life he had taught organic chemistry at Southern Illinois University. All my life he had worked in a laboratory. All my life he had streamlined the process known as two-dimensional gas chromatography.]
*
[Sunday morning with Legos. Building robots
together, machines with absurd functions,
towering monuments to whim.
We leave our materials on the floor
among chips (sour cream
& onion), punch stains, crumbs.
There, the blocks not used
lay.]
*
[A wish, immediately granted!] [A brook full of baby crawdads, tadpoles, and minnows. A peaceful setting; a violent happening.]
*
[What’s absurd about diabetes? Having it. Is it plural or singular, that -es? This pancreas refuses to produce. {TURNS TO ADDRESS PANCREAS} Stop making a scene, you ungrateful little vestigial...what will we do with you? How do we work this out? What’s the problem, anyway? {PANCREAS DOES NOT RESPOND} I need an unresponsive organ, truly. I need a nonproductive pancreas. Now we have to import our insulin. It ships from Indianapolis and Germany. We must import it and inject it. The apparatus, a syringe, is an inefficient delivery system. Errors will be made. Too much insulin, sometimes too little. This is inefficient!]

Recent Concrete

The work of Jane Bowles. An influence on Joy Williams. Characters behaving strangely. Having affairs on a whim. Purchasing a snake and later releasing it beneath the wheels of buses. Characters engaging in risky behavior. Drinking too much and attracting too much attention, falling asleep in a stranger’s bed and later not remembering how she got there.

The short stories of Flannery O’Connor. What poorly behaved characters these are! A Stroke of Good Fortune:

..."Ponce de Leon was looking for the fountain of youth," Mr. Jerger said, closing his eyes.
"Oh," Ruby muttered.
"A certain spring," Mr. Jerger went on, "whose water gave perpetual youth to those who drank it. In other words," he said, "he was trying to be young always."
"Did he find it?" Ruby asked.
Mr. Jerger paused with his eyes still closed. After a minute he said, "Do you think he found it? Do you think he found it? Do you think nobody else would have got to it if he had found it? Do you think there would be one person living on this earth who hadn’t drunk it?"
"I hadn’t thought," Ruby said.
"Nobody thinks anymore," Mr. Jerger complained.
"I got to be going."
"Yes, it’s been found," Mr. Jerger said.
"Where at?" Ruby asked.
"I have drunk of it."
"Where’d you have to go to?" she asked. She leaned a little closer and got a whiff of him that was like putting her nose under a buzzard’s wing.
"Into my heart," he said, placing his hand over it.
"Oh." Ruby moved back....

I'm no fan of unusual dialogue tags, but I just love it when a character's speech is tagged with 'he screamed.'