Lazily drowning

Memory is a funny thing. It is such a familiar experience to be memorizing something in a different language - strange how the act of trying to memorize is calling up five year old memories. My memory has always been so good. But it's failing me in crucial ways, oh, I am so sad about this. I'm just losing things.

I have a case of post-dinner unrest. It isn't late yet, and so there's still time for me to do the things that need to happen, and the music is distractingly loud. But the expanse of time is paralyzing. I will just have to go through the experience of every evening, where I whittle away at my time, procrastinating. I hate this experience, and I can almost feel it coming.

I am going to go swimming, in about ten minutes. I am going to swim hard. I have been wanting this for a while. I need it. Into water with me, far beneath the surface, I will be.

Oh, the sonnets class was so good today. So was my German class. There are brilliant moments in them, when I feel like things are coming together in my head. Sometimes I believe that Europe doesn't exist, or try to think of ways to imagine that it isn't there. Or that nothing in the books has happened. It's all so outlandish - whole other continents. Sure, there are maps, but maps can be made up. I think I've been lied to my entire life, just about. It isn't so much that I really believe this, it's just that I play out the possibility. It seems entirely possible that none of this exists. Oh, sure, you say "Margaret, you have been to Turkey and England!" and I would say "It's all staged! Staged!"

(I'm editing this, because I want to make it better. I used to have rules about this, but I've broken them all at this point.)

In my sonnets class, we talked about "syllepsis" - the figure of double supply. A word having two meanings, and both meanings being appropriate for the context. This is how the OED defines the word: "A figure by which a word, or a particular form or inflexion of a word, is made to refer to two or more other words in the same sentence, while properly applying to or agreeing with only one of them."

Isn't that wild?

A pun is what these are usually called, but the word didn't exist until the 17th century and wasn't used in such a derogatory fashion before the 18th century, when dictionaries were beginning to be written. Also, syllepsis isn't necessarily so funny as we think a pun is. We think this is part of a movement to regulate language. Words should only have one, precise meaning! Puns are not for grown-ups, for serious conversation, and they are in bad taste. But I like the idea of being playful with one's language. It means that it's alive. We need to play with the richness of language. Oh, this was a wonderful moment in the class - and it reminded me of a fabulous lecture I went to about Shakespeare's puns. QUIBBLES! That is what the lecture was about. No one is going to know what I'm talking about, but it was a great talk. Oh, an allegory on the bank of the Nile! Sigh.

A few months ago, I was advocating strict grammar usage (which of course, I don't understand or use myself), so I suppose I have to go back on my word. "Matter of principle," I would say. We should observe who/whom rules - it's a matter of principle. I say a lot of things are "matters of principle" and then I have to go and change my principles, because I change my mind. Now I have decided to reject my grammar strictness, and embrace playfulness.

You should stop listening to me. I'm full of nonsense.

Sometimes all I want is for someone to know all of my allusions, even the ones I don't recognize I'm making.

2002-10-21, lazily drowning

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