Why should he do any work?
He has everything he needs.
He thoroughly enjoys (appreciates) his own writing.
He finds that they are admirably clear.
How well he understands his own thinking.
Something to make your self-image manifest in your appearance to others.
Or an event confirms someone else's impression of you.
Water damage.
While you sleep, the wall bubbles.
She would be political in the same unthinking way that she's apolitical.
You sold me my orange juice this morning.
. . . was it only this morning?
Have you already forgotten your despair of this morning?
He regarded himself with interest (interest as a way of disclaiming responsibility).
He regarded himself as though hearing someone give a lecture.
Give me a category, I complained.
Give me a category, he demanded.
They adhere to their old prejudices in the name of rationality and science.
They use science to confirm their ancient prejudices.
They use science to explain to their children an idea founded in prejudice.
Which one do I want? Or do I have the power to make a decision?
Which one am I allowed to want?
Graphological portrait.
A particularly ugly capital-I.
My teachers were indulgent of the chaos of my thoughts. (Luckily?)
Would it have been better if they had held me to a standard that I could not recognize (or value)?
--Better to preserve your thoughts in their original chaos.
"Shy" is always a self-description.
Proof: no one ever sees shyness; they see rudeness, self-absorption, etc.
But they can feel shy, call themselves shy--obviously a device or delusion.
How well he appreciates his own writing.
He understands almost every word.
She takes no pleasure in food.
She would forget to eat.
(What does she put in?--crackers and peanut butter.)
To make art out of dissolute living.
They build systems to confirm their prejudices.
Your unsuckable thumb.
"We proudly serve . . ."
It's your own fault: if you're going to be embarrassed by it, you shouldn't keep writing that sentence.
A sentence you would prefer to bury.
Men treat her badly because they know she expects it; women treat her badly because they know she won't see it.
She called you a woman--as a compliment--because she was blind to you in the way that she's blind to what women are capable of.
(By her definition, strictly speaking, there was no such thing as a woman.)
Not flattering to be called a woman by her.
Universal motto: BUILDING COMPLICATED MACHINES TO CONFIRM YOUR PREJUDICES.
"You're marginalizing yourself."
"I don't need to do it myself, I have others to do it for me."
Apologizing as a way of repeating the offense.
Or making it worse.
"I don't accept your apology"
"I apologize for my apology"
"For the tone of my apology"
On the bus going home he remembered this.
She has no power.
She has power only when you give it to her. But she doesn't know what to do with it.
So effectively she still has no power.
What are you supposed to do with someone who doesn't even know how to use her power to give you what you want?
"I'm not going to let you forget that I'm doing this only to oblige you."
You can attack her only because she exists.
Incapable of defending herself only because she exists.
She can defend herself only by ceasing to exist.
"My answer is that I'm already dead."
Every time I went to see him, he mistook me for someone else.
(He always remembered me, but he remembered me as someone else.)
"Oh yes, you're that actor."
"We were going to work on that screenplay?"
He was inviting me to become more interesting.
--Poets of your generation whose writing is suggestive of hidden trauma (I don't include you in this; your trauma is on the surface).
You were never my student.
Kissing me you were no longer my student.
"Anyone who kisses me here has not resigned."
The bad student is the one who remains a student.
Reading them over and over again, do we become more like them?
When they no longer surprise us, are we more like them?
The department chair is a chair that sits on you.
"I'll never read this book! How interesting!"
Your affection for the books you won't read, don't want to read, managed to avoid reading.
"Here's a book I should have read at a different time in my life."
You've done enough. Try again tomorrow.
There is no English department.
It doesn't exist.
It's a myth.
--Doesn't Harvard have an English department?
Are you kidding? Harvard isn't even a school; it's only a library.
Only the library exists . . .
Nothing there but a library.
And we brought the adventure to a conclusion of our own choosing.
It's the only thing that keeps me from liking you (if you would just stop doing that, I'm sure I'd like you!).
This book shows no sign of having been read by anyone.
But the cover lifts slightly.
Difficulty saying certain names, such as your own name.
Difficulty beginning it. A pause at the first syllable.
Difficulty saying it loud enough for anyone to hear.
Take my advice!
--Are you advising me to take your advice?
--On what advice do I take your advice?
The novel doesn't include this.
You have to look for it somewhere else.
(Maybe the newspaper?)
--Not there either.
Loud music includes this.
It's like keeping time with something else that's going on.
It's like something extra inside you that needs to find release through your hand.
Because she doesn't speak any foreign language fluently, she ascribes a special significance to foreign words; she allows them to mean something in addition to what they actually mean.
His speech doesn't go very far (it seems to trail off but it really just ends).
"I almost didn't recognize you."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
It's not so hard to get people to say they want to die; we say it all the time.
Is that what you were trying to tell me all this time?
Is that why you kept calling?
At the start of the conversation, she produces the reason she will give at the end for ending it.
"Building new equipment to confirm your inherited prejudices!"
A woman is striking the camera.
The camera falls to the ground and she takes its wallet.
You notice I'm getting better--you don't notice, but I am getting better.
I don't notice that you don't notice.
Getting better at not noticing.
My relationship with them is that I do something wonderful which they fail to understand.
Yawning into his hand, then patting his thigh (to stamp out the yawn?).
His lips moving too quickly (when he's talking) sometimes accidentally make a kissing sound.
I'm buzzing you in.
I'm buzzing you up.
It sounds as though I'm talking but I'm actually reading.
Disappointment and relief.
Comment.
But mostly disappointment.
Active dislike and sabotage presenting itself as concern.
Coarse behavior/ refined perception.
Those who behave without apparent sensitivity are often sensitive to nuances of behavior in others.
You get credit for having the thought even if you don't carry it out. Both the part of you that has the thought and the part that represses it are admirable.
Reading as decapitation.
