The idea that there is a gaping hole at the center of my being derives from lavishly compensated mental health professional #2.

He was asking me about my adolescence. I was explaining that I felt unattractive as an adolescent. There was no great trauma; it was just the run-of-the-mill brutality of teenagers (certain boys who would call me a “dog” whenever they saw me, that kind of thing). There was much worse. One girl in my year was systematically ostracized. We were in the same science class and I remember one chemistry lesson in which no-one would sit near her and she was weeping at a table by herself. I didn’t know her very well, but I thought of myself, high-mindedly, as a champion of the oppressed, and so I left my friends to sit with her and put my arm around her.

This didn’t do her any favors. On the contrary, it cemented her status as a social pariah. It was kind of like Lily Bart putting a friendly arm around Jane Eyre’s shoulder and saying, “I know you’re an outcast now, but stick with me, kid, I’ve got this negotiating-of-the-social-sphere thing down pat.” I remember her confronting me later to inform me that my public display of solidarity with her had in fact made her life much worse.

So, anyway, I was discussing this period in my life with lavishly compensated mental health professional #2. His therapeutic method involves re-articulating what the patient describes so as to highlight the emotional content of the experience, almost like re-interpreting a naturalist painting in expressionist terms.

So he re-narrated my account of my adolescent insecurity, and this is how he put it:

Dr. S: It was so, so painful. Because you felt you were, you were just hideous. You were a monster. You were Frankenstein! You were the bride of Frankenstein!”

D-R: [Laughing] I’m 100% sure that I did not say I felt like Frankenstein.

Dr. S: [Concerned face] Tell me what’s funny?

D-R: [Sheepish] Oh … it’s silly, it doesn’t really matter, I understand what you’re saying. It’s just funny because I write about Frankenstein and even if I had meant that I had felt I was monstrously hideous I would not have said I felt like Frankenstein, because Frankenstein is the scientist, so I would have said I felt like Frankenstein’s monster. Sorry, I know I’m just being pedantic … [trailing off]

[Dr. S nods understandingly but repeatedly goes on to refer to my insecurity in terms of Frankenstein, at which I can’t help smirking every single time because I’m an unbearably smug English Professor]

The point, in any case, is that the cavity in my soul, Dr. S. hypothesized, first appeared in this period of adolescence. OK. That seems vaguely plausible. But what is the hole for crying out loud? What properties does it have? Well, I can’t speak for your hole, but Dr. S says that my hole is a bottomless pit of want. And, because it’s a bottomless pit, that means that no matter what I shove into it (love; work; cake; blogging etc.) in a futile attempt to fill the yawning abyss, it is all for nought.

The image that comes to mind for me is an inverse magic-porridge pot. Remember the magic porridge-pot from the Grimm’s fairy tale? No matter how much you eat from it, it remains constantly full of bubbling, delicious porridge? [1] Well, likewise, with my hole, no matter how much you fill it up, it remains empty.

Ever since Dr S. first proposed the hole hypothesis to me, I’ve been a bit despondent. I explained this to him at the end of a session recently.

“The thing is,” I said, “I’m a bit worried about this hole. Because you say that it can never be filled. So, I can’t help feeling that I’m completely fucked then, because I just have this bottomless hole and there’s nothing I can do about it. “

Dr. S looked at me quizzically as I voiced these concerns. I half expected him to say, “You know that I don’t mean a literal hole, don’t you?” But he didn’t say that. He said, “Aha! What you need to do is stop trying to fill the hole and instead focus on healing the hole.”

Huh. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Perhaps because I’d been thinking of it more as a magical porridge-negating pot, or possibly some kind of black hole, the possibility of “healing” the hole had never occurred to me.

“How do I heal it then?”

Surely, dear reader, you don’t need me to tell you the answer, do you?

Therapy, lots and lots of therapy.

At the moment I feel that the hole is temporal as well as spatial, like one of those “vacant spaces of time,” that the narrator of Tom Jones encourages the reader to fill with her own conjectures. Surely, it’s apparent from the rapid rate at which I compose these dispatches that I don’t really have enough to do at the moment. Yes, I am aware that this is a great luxury, and, no, I am not complaining, and, no, I don’t want to be on your committee. [2] I am teaching a class and advising students and so on and so forth. But there’s a vacant space where my research and writing used to be. What’s that you say, don’t I have a second book I’m supposed to be writing? Well, yes, I do, and I have thousands of words already written, but somehow I don’t have the heart at the moment to open up the files.

So here’s my new idea: maybe the hole will go away if I stop shoving stuff into it and instead start emptying it (you didn’t see that coming, did you, reverse-magic-porridge pot! Aha!). I’ve been trying, vainly, to pile stuff into said hole so I can hoist myself out of it. But perhaps what I really need to do is dig down deep and tunnel out the other side.

Because I worry that if I keep shoving the hole full of cake and tea and sympathy, and whatnot, that means that I am just one of life’s take, take, takers. You know, like, I dunno, uh, Faust? But I don’t want to be like Faust! I want to be more like, perhaps, the Dalai Llama. Do you think he has a giant existential hole? No way. That man is brimful of sweet, sweet porridge, I tell you. It’s gushing out of him.

If I were a better person, perhaps I would give up all of my worldly possessions and go and help the needy. But, since I’m not, perhaps I could give you some of my time, or some of my cake and tea and sympathy, dear readers? Do you perhaps have a draft of something you’ve been wanting someone to read? Or maybe you’d like to write or call or drop by my office and tell me about your troubles? I’m having so much therapy at the moment that I feel confident that I’ve now mastered the full range of soothing voices and faces that one may assume to offer comfort. Or maybe you just really need someone to bake you a cake: I make an excellent Victoria sponge if I do say so myself.

What d’you reck?

Notes

[1] My takeaway from that fairy tale was that porridge is incredibly delicious. I recall that no matter what version I read, it was always described as “the most delicious porridge,” and it would always put me in the mood for making porridge. It was inevitably disappointing, at least the way my Mum insisted on making it (oats; salt; water; served with milk or single cream; the addition of sugar or sweetener of any kind was regarded as an ABOMINATION perpetrated by Sassenachs). I do recall that at Girton when Liz and I would make porridge in ritualistic fashion every morning after completing our medieval translation practice, that it did taste incredibly delicious. But perhaps anything you eat after early morning Middle-English translation exercises tastes incredibly delicious?

[2] I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like my time is not in very high demand. Why, in the past twenty-four hours alone, I’ve received two emails with the subject line, “We miss you!” Obviously, neither one was from one of you, dear readers, since you hear from me with great regularity. No, the first was from my running app. “Hey There,” it said. “It’s Runkeeper. Let’s stay healthy ….” The second was from Lucky Magazine. It just said “WE MISS YOU” in big red caps and it was next to a slightly disturbing graphic of a giant pair of snake-skin-upholstered red lips, reminiscent of that Salvador Dali sofa. There was no explanation of why this image was there, e.g. if they missed me so much that they were going to send me a giant lip sofa. Anyway, the point is that corporate entities are positively gagging for my time and, given that they do miss me, after all, I’m thinking quite seriously that I should comply.

The younger flopsy-duckit has learned to skip.

“Did someone teach you?” I asked her. “No,” she replied, “I just watched other kids doing it and tried it.”

Usually, I push her in the stroller to preschool, but today she wanted to skip all the way. She has quite the jauntiest skip I ever saw. With each hop she lurches precariously from side to side, sometimes so exuberantly that she knocks herself over. A little extra hop every now and then interrupts the regular skipping rhythm.

I laughed with delight as I walked behind her. She turned around.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because I love watching you skip!”

This satisfied her and she turned back to skipping. I started to laugh again and felt like I might cry too.

I remember not being able to skip. I was about the younger flopsy-duckit’s age, a little younger, actually, and I had just started ballet classes at Antonia Dugdale’s ballet school on Florence Street in Islington. We had to skip across the room. All the other little girls knew how to skip. I didn’t. I tried. I hopped on one foot and then on the other, but I just couldn’t get the hang of it. I remember crying with frustration and humiliation. But I also remember the sudden joy when I finally got it, the buoyant feeling of skipping across a room that is quite different from running or jumping or hopping. And then, like the younger flopsy-duckit, I wanted to skip everywhere. At primary school, we would skip in groups of two or three girls, our arms linked across our backs. We’d spend the whole playtime just skipping around and around the school playground.

Every now and then, as we made our way to preschool, the younger would pause to tear off a tiny piece of a plant from one of the front yards we were passing. Then she would sniff it. The first plant was some kind of nondescript bush (can you tell I’m not a gardener?).

“Here, rub it in your hands and smell it,” she instructed me kindly. I sniffed it but couldn’t detect any fragrance.

“Doesn’t it smell good?” she enthused.

The next plant was only slightly more fragrant but then, on our third attempt, we struck gold:

“Lavender!” exclaimed the younger.

“Actually, it’s rosemary,” I said.

We crushed sprigs in our fingers and sniffed.

“Oooooh,” said the younger, “this one smells soooooo good. I’m going to give this to my teacher.”

When I was about the younger’s age, we did an activity at my playgroup (the equivalent of the younger’s preschool) in which we passed around jars of herbs and spices and compared their smells. My favorite was the jar of Nescafé. But my teacher’s favorite was the thyme so I lied and said that was my favorite too, because I wanted to be like her. I begged to sniff the jar of thyme one more time, in a bravura display of my olfactory sophistication. The jar slipped out of my hands and the dried thyme spilled all over the floor. “Oh, Duck-Rabbit!” said Susan, my teacher, in a tone that I remember feeling was unduly reproachful.

When we arrived at preschool the younger skipped back and forth in front of the entrance a few times. “Do you want to see how high I can skip?” she asked. Of course I did, and she demonstrated proudly. Then she dropped the sprig of rosemary on the sidewalk and we went inside.

A couple of weeks ago, I was telling one of my lavishly-compensated mental health professionals about this thing the younger flopsy-duckit (just turned four) does that drives me mad.

D-R: What she does is ask for two things that she knows full well are fundamentally incompatible with each other, but she just keeps on asking for them in order to mess with me.

Dr. F: [Skeptically] Uh-huh. And how do you know that she knows the two things she wants are incompatible?

D-R: [Darkly] Oh, she knows all right. [I do not say because she is an evil genius, but that is what I am thinking.]

Dr. F: Give me an example.

D-R: OK, this is a perfect example. This morning she’s lying on the kitchen floor and she’s cocooned herself in this yellow blanket. I’m making pancakes for her, and she says she wants to help. So I say, great, come and stand on the stool and you can help break the egg.

So then she announces, “I’m a snake!”

And I say, “All right, come here, snakey!”

And she says “snakes don’t have legs so I can’t come to the stool.”

So I say, “well just take a break from being a snake while you make the pancakes.”

“I can’t!” she says. “I’m a SNAKE!”

“OK, well, I’m sorry, you can’t help while you’re lying down.” She starts to cry.

“But I want to help.” She pauses and thinks.

“You have to carry me to the stool, and then I can help.”

[This is the point—and I only see this now as I write this, this is not what I said to Dr. F—where in retrospect I can see that I am just playing right into her hands, the very hands that, you’ve guessed it, she will shortly deny possessing] I protest at first but then I just cave in and agree and drag her blanket-cocooned body up and I’m about to put her on the stool when she says

“But I don’t have any legs! I can’t stand on the stool!”

“Yes you can just put your legs down.” [By this point in the story, Dr. F is cracking up.]

“No, I can’t!” she yells, “I’m a snake. SNAKES. DON’T. HAVE. LEGS.”

Somehow it is agreed that she can kneel on the stool without compromising her snakeness. But you know what comes next.

“I want to break the egg.”

“OK. Here it is.”

“But I don’t have any arms! I’m a snake!”

OK, WELL DON’T HELP THEN.

BUT I WANT. TO. HELP.

And this is where I start to get really worked up and give a ridiculous speech to my four-year old.

“Look: you just can’t be a snake and make pancakes at the same time. You can’t both have legs and not have legs. You can’t both have arms and not have arms. You can’t both lie on the floor and stand on the stool. All of those things are simply not compatible with each other. OK?”

Obviously, it’s not OK with her. And, equally obviously, it is insane that I respond to my four-year-old’s tantrum by confronting her with the illogical nature of her wants. [I trail off. Dr. F is now looking at me with a searching expression.] What is it?

Dr. F: Did you hear how you just described it?

D-R: Described what?

Dr. F: You said that she wants two things that are not compatible with each other. Does that remind you of anyone? [She pauses and raises her eyebrows meaningfully.]

D-R: [Wearily] Yeah, yeah, I get it, you’re saying that that also describes myself and maybe that’s why it gets to me so much when she does it.

Dr. F: [Gives me a look as if to say, you said it, sister, not me]

So, sure, I’ll admit it: this is true about me, I think. I mean, duh. I have embraced the persona, in this blog, of the duck-rabbit, a creature who both has a bill and doesn’t have a bill. As I mentioned in a recent post, I’ll always plump for both … and; for not only but also; either / or is what I find very hard.

I might summarize one common way that this tendency manifests itself (at least in me) as follows: the desire to be idle but also to accomplish things. So many struggles can be filed under that heading: I want to have written a book; I don’t want to write it. I want to be fit; I don’t want to exercise. I want to see my friends; I don’t want to get off the sofa. I want to have a clean house; I don’t want to clean it. I want to be a good parent; I don’t want to read that book again. [1] Surely, we all feel like that to some degree, don’t we? Or is that just me?

Now we’re also getting back to my old frenemy, cognitive impenetrability; you remember, the idea I discussed way back on Day 4 that some feelings are impervious to belief states; so I am both scared of ghosts and disbelieve in ghosts. Now obviously, you could argue with me, you could say, Aha! No, actually the fact that you are scared of ghosts means that you do believe in them at some level. And I would retort, don’t be so bloody condescending. (Note, here, my mastery of the finer points of philosophical argumentation.) And here I’ll return to my favorite analogy for this phenomenon, the Müller-Lyer illusion. Here it is again, in case you’ve forgotten it:

Say you look at it and say, “those lines are different lengths.” I think that most people could be persuaded to believe that those lines are in fact the same length; but I can’t persuade you to perceive them as being the same length. [2] And that’s not because you’re stupid or delusional or bloody-minded. The way you experience it is just the way you experience it. And that’s why if we’re out and about and you tell me there’s this great tour of a “haunted” house that we just have to go on, I’ll probably say no thanks. Not because I believe in ghosts but because I know that my autonomic nervous system will go crazy in such a situation. My heart will pound in my chest, my mouth will be dry, I’ll start to feel dizzy. And, no, you can’t argue me out of it.

After my Dad died, I would dare him to appear to me, in ghost form. Go on, do it, I would say: I’m not scared. Just do it. Appear. See if I flinch. But then as soon as I’d said this I’d immediately lose my nerve and whisper to myself please don’t please don’t appear please don’t appear, for God’s sake, please don’t appear.

These days, mostly, my fear of ghosts is manageable. It sometimes flares up in hotel rooms, where, for some reason, I often find myself inclined to think: I wonder if anyone died in this room?

I seem to have veered into the darker territory of both … and thinking, but it doesn’t have to be dark. My fondness for both … and thinking also explains the delight I take in Denis Diderot’s meta-fictional novel, Jacques the Fatalist (written some time between 1755 and 1784), a novel that I was just discussing with a graduate student yesterday afternoon. She reminded me of this scene in which Jacques and his master quarrel. I’m quoting from my Penguin Classics edition, which is translated by Michael Henry:

“And there they were started off on an interminable quarrel about women. One claimed they were good, the other wicked, and they were both right; one said they were stupid, the other clever, and they were both right; one that they were unfaithful, the other faithful, and they were both right; one that they were mean, the other generous, and they were both right; one that they were beautiful, the other ugly, and they were both right; one talkative, the other discreet; one open, the other deceitful; one ignorant, the other enlightened; one moral, the other immoral; one foolish, the other wise; one big, the other small. And they were both right.”

Notes

[1] But, that reminds me; this is a book (given to us by Claire, I think?) that I somehow don’t mind reading over and over: and it’s about telling and re-telling stories. Think If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller for children. It’s completely delightful and I wish I had written it. I also adore hearing the younger say, as she did last night, “Can we read the story with the brigands?” http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Stormy-Night-Picture-Puffin/dp/0140545867

[2] Although a recent This American Life episode suggests that some people will dogmatically adhere to their belief that an optical illusion is not in fact an illusion even when it is unequivocally revealed as such. See the opening discussion here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/545/transcript

Readers, this one, I tell you, is a cracker. It’s got existential angst; it’s got domestic farce; it’s got inebriation and its sorry consequences: what more could you wish for? Not much, I can tell you! As Horace Walpole wrote to a friend, “if I make you laugh, for I cannot flatter myself that I shall make you cry, I shall be content.” [1]

I think this is a good place to start: what awakens me this morning is a shapeless, ill-formed thought. At first the thought strikes me as a whimsical fancy, or perhaps a half-remembered scene from a bad sitcom, but, slowly and insistently, and despite my inward groans and pleas for it not to, it shape-shifts into a real memory, albeit a blurry one. The memory is that last night I sent a LOT of emails, but I have no recollection of to whom they were sent or what they said. The second after I realize that this thought is, in fact, a memory from my own life I grab my phone. The first message I see in my inbox is from one of my lavishly compensated mental health professionals. It reads:

Too late now, but never mix Ativan with alcohol! 
They have additive sedative effects. 

At this juncture, I feel that I need to assure you, dear, kindly readers, that you should not be worried that I am about to recklessly launch into a tale of some epic bender, a tale that would unnerve my colleagues and cast serious doubt on my good judgment. No, no, no: this is not that kind of story at all. Promise.

No, really the comedy here inheres simply in the thoughts that rapidly flitted through my mind upon reading this message. They were as follows:

1. Huh, I guess I emailed my therapist last night.
2. WHY IS IT TOO LATE NOW? Does the “too late” refer simply to the act of combining Ativan (aka Lorazepam) with alcohol, i.e. does she just mean it is too late to not combine them because I already did? OR (much worse) does the “too late” refer to some other behavior precipitated by said combination that I disclosed in my message to her, a behavior that it is now “too late” to undo?
3. Really? An exclamation point? When you’re hungover an exclamation point is the typographical equivalent of a piercing car alarm.

I desperately scroll down the message to see what I wrote to her, terrified I will discover something like this:

Told joke at husband’s work party that did 
not go over well. Dimly recall telling CEO 
he was humorless wanker. How did this happen????

or

Got very sleepy at bar and accused bartender 
of spiking my drink. He got really stroppy with me
and asked me if I had taken any medication
that shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol. I said, duh, 
if I had done I would know that, wouldn’t I? 
What a wanker, right???

or

Hit old man driving back from party. Body in trunk. 
How did this happen????

But, guess what, readers?

My message to her didn’t say ANY of those things or make any other lurid confessions! All my message to her said was “I’m more drunk than I’ve been for years … I feel bad.” In contra-distinction to the shrillness of the exclamation point in my therapist’s email to me, never before has a period given me such comfort as the one that nestled at the end of the words “I feel bad.” I mean, without the period, it might have been, you know, “I feel bad about the old man … etc. etc.”

After confirming that all the emails sent late last night were, in my opinion, fairly innocuous (and I issue a blanket apology here to any readers who were also email recipients and feel that they were heinously violated), I feel already that I have conquered the day. If I can just safely deliver the flopsy-duckits to their respective educational establishments, then I can spend the rest of the day in my pajamas nursing my hangover and exploring my existential angst and call the day a raging success.

As the door slams upon the elder (who walks to school himself) leaving the house, I feel that I am so close to being on the sofa. But then, two minutes later, the doorbell rings; the elder is back, sobbing and doubled over. His stomach hurts, he says; there’s no way he can even walk to school. It is swiftly ascertained that this stomachache is caused by the anxiety of having to have shots when he goes for his annual doctor’s appointment later today. I coax and reassure and cuddle; but, he insists, he just can’t walk to school. Time is ticking on … it is now a full fifteen minutes past the beginning of the school day.

“Perhaps ….” he ventures, hesitantly …. “perhaps if you were to drive me to school I could manage?”

I look at him. “Oh fine.” I say.

What follows is not anything extraordinary; it’s just the regular quotidian farce of getting two children out of the house, a farce I’m not used to experiencing on a daily basis now that the elder walks himself to school.

I am not showered or dressed; my teeth are not brushed; my hair is wild. But, although usually I would at least put a bra on under the T-shirt I slept in, for the sake of common decency, I reason that if I’m driving, common decency isn’t really a concern (so this is why people like to drive!). The elder is already dressed and ready and—what luck!—so is the younger! All she needs are socks and shoes. Done. She insists, perversely, that she put the left shoe on the right foot, and vice versa but, whatever. We’re ready. Until:

“I need to change my underwear,” announces the younger.

“Why?” I ask, redundantly.

Of course, we have to take off the shoes and the jeans in order to take off the pee-sodden underpants. And as I am taking a clean pair of underpants out of her drawer, she catches sight of a single rainbow-striped sock. “Oh!” she exclaims. “I want to change into rainbow-striped socks!” I am agreeable, but of course, the other rainbow striped-sock is nowhere to be found.

“Never mind!” I say brightly, in the vain hope that the younger will see it the same way and say, “let’s just stick with the white ones, then!”

Instead, she pouts. “Well if I can’t have rainbow socks, then I have to have rainbow pants!” she declares.

I pull out a pair of pink and white striped pants. “Here you go.” I say. “Pink and white stripes are not the same as a rainbow,” she points out, reasonably enough. “Yeah, but you don’t have any rainbow-striped pants,” I point out, also reasonably enough.

“But I need to be a rainbow girl,” she insists.

How we figure out how to achieve this goal to her satisfaction is not important, but eventually she ends up in a completely different set of clothes from what she started out in: instead of jeans and a T-shirt she is now wearing a pair of colorful stripy tights with a too-small colorful stripy dress on top.

We finally leave, the elder is dropped off and we park near the younger’s preschool.

“Here we are, rainbow girl!” I say as I undo her seat-belt.

She frowns. “I’m not a rainbow girl,” she says. “I’m just a human who is wearing colored clothes.”

“Oh. OK.” I say.

I realize that I forgot that I do actually have to walk into the school and so it might have been a nice gesture to have, you know, gotten dressed. It’s a Jewish preschool and for some reason today the Rabbi is standing at the entrance greeting all the parents and kids as they come in. I suddenly feel acutely conscious that I am wearing my pajamas. He kindly focuses his attention on the younger flopsy-duckit. “Can I tell you that I really LOVE what you’re wearing?” he says. She beams at him. He nods at me and I nod back. He does not tell me that he really LOVES what I’m wearing.

The flopsy-duckits safely delivered to their respective educational establishments, finally, now, I am where I belong, on the sofa. I am now ready to contemplate the existential “hole” that the other lavishly-compensated mental-health professional that I see regularly tells me is at the center of my being [2]. I’ve been avoiding contemplating this hole for some time, and, honestly, I’m not sure I can face it today so I can’t really tell you what it’s like: whether it’s more of a donut hole or a bagel hole; whether it’s a wormhole or just, you know, an ordinary sort of black hole. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, I leave you with a picture, not of a hole, but of a name, the younger flopsy-duckit’s name, written by herself this morning. She was very proud of it, and rightly so:

What I love is the way the two As look like dancers boogieing around the D, which looks like, I dunno, a slug? A turd? A tuber of some kind? Or perhaps it is a hole and the As are dancing around it, which I think is what I’m doing too … I’m dancing around it … biding my time … not quite ready to peer into the darkness just yet.

Notes

[1] From a letter to Monsieur Elie de Beaumont, March 18, 1765.

[2] No, I do not believe he took the metaphor of the “hole” from this blog, although it is an interesting coincidence.

It is 8:30 am on a weekday morning. The younger flopsy-duckit has just come out of the shower. I envelop her in a towel and vigorously rub her sopping hair. She giggles at the ferocity with which I am drying her hair.

D-R: This is just how my Mum would dry my hair when I was a little girl!

Y-F-D: When you were a little girl you lived in London.

D-R: That’s right!

Y-F-D: And also when you were a little girl you lived in the eighteenth century.

D-R: [Amused] No! I did live in London when I was a little girl, but I did not live in the eighteenth century. [Pause, in which D-R decides that further clarification may be required] Because no-one who lived in the eighteenth century is alive any more.

Y-F-D: Because of all the battles?

D-R: No … it’s not because of the battles … I mean, all those people would be dead now anyway.

Y-F-D: But they did have a lot of battles in the eighteenth century!

D-R: [Feeling that the Y-F-D is missing the point]: Uh, yeah …

Y-F-D: So where were the battles?

D-R [Warming to the theme] Well, there were an awful lot of battles … I don’t know where to start …. let’s see, there was the Seven Years’ war … that was in, uh,  lots of different countries, and it went on for, uh, seven years …  and, oh, and there was also a war between the British and the Americans – that’s an important one! … You see, the Americans didn’t want—

Y-F-D: [Interrupting, interest in battles now exhausted] So you didn’t live in the eighteenth century, you were just born in the eighteenth century.

D-R: [Exasperated]: No no no, I was neither born nor ever lived in the eighteenth century! How old do you think I am?!

Y-F-D: 86?

D-R: No, that’s wrong, but even if that were right, I still wouldn’t have been born in the eighteenth century …. [Emphatically] Every single person who was alive in the eighteenth century is now dead.

Y-F-D: So why are you always talking about it then?

D-R: That’s a very good question.

Dear Readers,

This afternoon we all went to see the new Paddington bear movie. [1] I quite enjoyed it (I use “quite” in the American sense): as anyone who’s seen my book cover knows, I like bears. And, as regular readers of this blog will also be aware, I share Paddington’s fondness for marmalade sandwiches, and the sandwiches feature quite prominently in the film; indeed, a marmalade sandwich functions as a deus ex machina of sorts, saving the day when it looks as though all is lost. [2] I also rather envied the Brown family house, at the center of which was a wooden spiral staircase with a mural of a tree (a cherry tree, I believe), which curved around on the wall behind it.

That wall mural evoked a memory of a somewhat less charmingly rendered tree that I once helped paint on a wall of the house I grew up in.

This was back in 1989, which was a momentous year, I’m sure you’ll agree: the fall of the Berlin wall; the summit at which Bush the elder and Gorbachev declared the end of the Cold War; the birth of Taylor Swift. What you may not know is that it was also the year of a significant artistic dispute. I refer not to the Satanic Verses controversy, but to a less well-publicized mêlée that, happily, was ultimately resolved without bloodshed.

The site of the fracas: the uppermost landing of 25, Dalmeny Road, Tufnell Park, London.

The parties concerned: the duck-rabbit, aged fifteen, on one side; on the other side, two eleven year-olds, one of whom was the duck-rabbit’s younger brother, the other their beloved friend.

The context: The duck-rabbit’s parents had granted the three of us permission to paint a mural on the wall of the uppermost stairway landing, a landing that, my parents justly reasoned, no casual visitor to the house would ever have occasion to see.

The dispute: idealism versus mimesis.

The project started amicably enough: the three of us agreed that our subject should be pastoral: the mural would include a tree, possibly an oak; long grasses, bluebells and foxgloves; and butterflies would flit above the flowers.

Now, at the risk of prematurely revealing my own loyalties in this dispute, I will note here that our choice of subject matter, given that we lived in inner London, clearly indicated that we were not beholden to any principle of naturalism. We were, the three of us, urchins, born and raised on the streets of the grimy metropolis. Had we ever gazed up at an oak or smelled a bluebell? Of course we hadn’t!

It was on the vexed question of the size of the aforementioned butterflies that the controversy turned. I’ll put it as neutrally and diplomatically as I can: the eleven-year olds clung doggedly to what I can only describe as a naïve realism. It was important, they maintained, that the butterflies be sized in proportion to the plants as they would be in nature. It was, they argued, crucial, above all, that the butterflies not be larger than life, for in being oversized, they would risk the appearance of being—and this was the precise adjective used—“babyish,” which is to say, suitable for the walls of a nursery, but unbefitting of the uppermost landing of a house inhabited by mature persons over the age of ten. [3]

The duck-rabbit was resolutely opposed to this view. Clearly, the butterflies should be large, very large. They should be outsize; abstracted; radically simplified, stripped down to their essential form. Our touchstones should be Matisse; Marimekko; Mondrian. It was difficult for the duck-rabbit to keep from chuckling to itself (and, in fact, some snickers may have escaped from its lips) as it gently explained to the eleven-year olds that their stubborn insistence on adhering to a supposedly mature principle of verisimilitude was in fact evidence of their own extreme babyishness. Although the duck-rabbit used only the most soothing of tones as it patiently explained to the eleven-year olds why their artistic vision was infantile, they remained stubbornly wed to their ridiculous tiny butterflies. The duck-rabbit realized too late that the eleven-year olds had failed to understand that their role in this artistic project was to help bring the duck-rabbit’s vision to fruition, in the manner of Michelangelo’s assistants. [4] And so we arrived at an impasse.

At this juncture, you might wonder why the duck-rabbit’s fifteen-year old self was spending its weekends arguing about butterflies with eleven-year olds instead of going to raves and taking E, or whatever it was that other fifteen-year olds in London were doing in 1989. Sadly, that is beyond the scope of this dispatch, but it is certainly a good question.

You will also, in all likelihood, be eager to know how this controversy was ultimately resolved. So far as I can recall, so bitter was the dispute and so impassable the impasse, that we simply left the mural unfinished, bare and butterfly-less, for several months. But, eventually, I believe that we painted at least one butterfly and what I recall is that, curiously, both parties believed they had won, the butterfly striking the duck-rabbit as unmistakably oversized and abstracted, while the eleven-year-olds insisted that it was obviously realistic and proportionate to the surrounding vegetation.

What is the point of this story? That’s another excellent question, dear reader, one which, unfortunately, I am also unable to answer. I’ll mull it over, and in the meantime you should go make yourself a marmalade sandwich.

Notes

[1] Our family went with one of the elder flopsy-duckit’s best friends, whose first remark as the credits rolled was to observe that I resembled Mrs. Brown; I took this as a compliment since she was played by the lovely Sally Hawkins, whom I don’t resemble in the least; I do, however, share Mrs. Brown’s messy updo.

[2] Paddington’s species is also identified at one point in the film as Ursa marmalada.

[3] I don’t believe that this expression is used in the U.S. It means “characteristic of or suitable for a baby or young child; infantile, excessively childish; unsophisticated, silly” (OED).

[4] The beloved younger friend is now an extraordinarily talented professional artist. But this detail should not be given undue weight in considering whether she may, as a mere eleven-year-old, have had a better eye than the duck-rabbit. The duck-rabbit is not an acclaimed artist, but is competent at applying lipstick and hopes, eventually, to master eye-shadow.

“For many, the key may turn out to be some self-reflection, but not too much.”

This was the take-away point of a recent NYTimes article summarizing research on the benefits of writing (or, rather, “journaling,” ugh) for soothing hurt feelings.

If that is true, then I am in big trouble, as the younger flopsy-duckit would say. I started writing this blog to relieve anxiety, but I imagine it’s as obvious to you as it is to me that I don’t understand how to do “some self-reflection, but not too much.” Some is tricky for me; muchness is really my forte. I’d go so far as to say that muchness is my signature. Sympathetic readers of my work have described my style as “expansive” (that was you, Jayne! Your exact words were “clearly you are just an expansive girl”); less sympathetic readers have used the phrase “fatally repetitive” (I don’t know who that was but I’ve thought often about just how repetitiveness might prove fatal: death by a thousand adjectives?). [1]

The point is that the way I write is dilatory, circumlatory, roundabout, call it what you will (or don’t bother; because I have already used three adjectives when one would suffice.)

You say either / or? I say both and!

You say, will it be the duck, madam, or will it be the rabbit? I say, ooh, YES PLEASE!

I aspire to be spare, epigrammatic, even terse. I am co-teaching a lecture course this quarter, and my co-teacher is admirably economic with his language. I, on the other hand, start a sentence and various subordinate clauses multiply therein until the sentence becomes so unwieldy that I simply can’t remember how or where or why I began it. Also, it makes it difficult to breathe.

This morning I discovered conclusive proof that, like Robinson Crusoe, I have always been filled with rambling thoughts. Recently I had the occasion to write a short essay in which I reflected upon my undergraduate education. I wrote the essay based on my memories of being at Cambridge in the early 90s. But then I remembered that I actually have all of my undergraduate essays in a file cabinet in my office. So today I started looking at them in order to verify if my memories about the way I was taught literature were in fact accurate. I ended up being distracted and thoroughly amused by the exasperation repeatedly expressed by my professors in their marginal comments on my essays.

Take my Shakespeare supervisor. At the time I thought he was mean, but now I realize that the poor guy just wanted me to come to the bloody point.

For example:

“ … very densely put … you should make a tapestry sampler out of that last sentence (callow jest).”

“I nag at points, and sometimes feel you’re saying the same viable thing in various ways …”

Or here’s a gem from one of my prac crit instructors. This one, I admit, I’m perversely proud of, although it was not intended as a compliment:

There are some interesting points in your essay. However it is more of a treatise on aesthetics than a piece of practical criticism … Try not to be distracted by the philosophy …

At this point in this dispatch, I’ve probably already reflected too much. So, I’ll just say one more thing before I become fatally repetitive and distracted by philosophy; did I ever tell you about the time I said

Notes

[1] I like the idea of a superhero called Expansivgirl; not to be confused with Elastigirl, Expansivgirl’s superpower is not flexibility but rather expandability, in the telescopic sense described in Alice (“now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!”) and also, copiousness, which is to say, the ability to dilate on a single theme to an extent that beggars belief.

NOTE: I know that I am outpacing you at the moment, dear readers, which is to say that I am writing these dispatches more frequently than you will care to read them. But, so be it—for the moment at least—because I find writing this blog to be an oddly effective anti-depressant, and so I will continue to write as much as I please, with very little regard at all for your proclivities.

***

“Please,” implored the elder flopsy-duckit, for the third time.

“Oh, fine,” grudgingly consented the duck-rabbit, who felt irritated at the prospect of having to stand up and walk anywhere.

“What do you want to look at in there anyway?” asked the duck-rabbit, as they walked towards Wilshire Boulevard.

The elder-flopsy duckit paused before answering.

“There’s something they might have that’s really cool that I want to show you, but they might not have it … anyway, you have to wait and see … it’s a surprise.”

Our destination was a shop called Light Bulbs Unlimited. Although I had walked past it many times, I had never been inside. When I Googled it to check the address, I noticed that it was described by Google as an “emporium,” which made it sound rather grand and exotic, although this had not been my impression on the countless occasions that I had walked past the slightly shabby storefront.

“What kind of person do you think owns the store?” the elder flopsy-duckit asked excitedly as we turned onto Wilshire.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Like, do you think it’s a man or a woman … is it someone old or young?”

“Ummm … I don’t know. I guess I’ve never thought about it. Until now.”

He continued eagerly, “For some reason I have always thought that it’s an old man who owns it …. Can’t you imagine it?”

It was Sunday, and as we neared the store I realized that although I had looked up the address, I hadn’t thought to check if it was open today.

It was not.

“Dang!” exclaimed the elder flospy-duckit in frustration. “Man, that’s so unfair!”

I assured him we would come back at the earliest opportunity.

“Anyway, since we’re here, let’s look in the window,” I suggested.

We peered through the windows. Now that we couldn’t go in, it suddenly seemed rather intriguing. There were chandeliers, and a display of “antique & Edison style” light bulbs that did seem emporium-worthy. Maybe it was owned by a mysterious old man.

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” I promised.

I returned the next day—which is to say, today—with both flopsy-duckits in tow. As we walked in, I felt a twinge of disappointment. There was no old man, just a bunch of youngish friendly employees in red T-shirts. Inside there were shelves with rows upon rows of different sorts of light bulbs. I was unimpressed. But then I heard the elder flopsy-duckit call “Mom!” and beckon me towards a darkened back recess.

All three of us gazed up and around with pleasure: here, in the back, were the lava lamps, plasma globes, spinning siren lights, and, hanging over our heads, glittering disco balls. This was an emporium, or, no, that wasn’t quite right … not so much an emporium as a, a: the word that popped into my mind, possibly because I am teaching The Rape of the Lock tomorrow, was grotto:

“Pale Spectres, gaping Tombs, and Purple Fires:

The back of the shop at Lightbulbs Unlimited

Now Lakes of liquid Gold, Elysian Scenes,

And Crystal Domes, and Angels in Machines.”

Standing there, I was reminded of a place that I hadn’t thought of for a long time: the lighting department in Jones Brothers. Jones Brothers was a department store on Holloway Road that my family frequented with great regularity when I was a child. It was founded by William Jones in 1867, and closed in 1990, to the shock and disbelief of Islingtonians everywhere. [1] Really; I’m not exaggerating. That store was truly beloved.

It may not have been the case that we went there every weekend, but it felt as though we did. Not that I minded: like everyone else, I loved Jones Brothers. It had everything: household appliances, clothes, knick-knacks. It was a true emporium. And my favorite department was lighting (haberdashery came a close second). When my parents were off in some more boring department making necessary household purchases, I would linger in lighting, which always seemed to be darker than strictly necessary to show off the lamps and light fixtures, rendering it a gorgeously romantic, dusky wonderland. Just being in there had a calming and restorative effect on me.

It may have been at this moment that the elder-flopsy duckit, sensing that I was lost in reverie and thus perhaps vulnerable to persuasion, made his move.

“Mom, I think Dad really wants a disco ball,” he said.

“Does he?” I asked, skeptically.

“Yeah, we talked about it; we could put it in the living room. Can we get one?”

“No. I think they’re really expensive.”

“Can you just ask how much it is?”

“Fine.”

I approached one of the friendly red-shirted fellows. “Excuse me, how much is your cheapest disco ball?”

He went to check in the back and returned with a basket-ball sized globe. The tiny silver mosaic pieces glittered as he held it up.

“This one’s forty dollars,” he said.

“Really?” I said, surprised that something so beautiful could be so cheap.

I felt a little giddy. “Let’s get it!” I said to the elder flopsy-duckit, who looked astonished and delighted.

Although it turned out, when we got home, to no-one’s surprise, that He-Who-Must-Be-Preserved had not in fact especially wanted a disco ball, our enthusiasm was contagious, and he was soon intent on the task of hanging the disco ball with fishing line from the basement ceiling. Then, the moment of truth: the lights were turned off, the disco ball was spun, and He-Who-Must-Be-Preserved shone bike lights on the ball so that the patterns of light would reflect around the room.

The effect was pretty, in a subtle kind of way.

“Hmmm. It doesn’t work very well,” said the elder-flopsy duckit.

“Oh well,” he said, and, his interest entirely exhausted, he went back upstairs with He-Who-Must-Be-Preserved, flicking the basement light back on as he did so.

“HEY!” yelled the younger flopsy-duckit. “Don’t turn the LIGHTS on, turn the MUSIC on!

I laughed, flipped the lights back off, and conjured Madonna from my phone. Then the younger flopsy-duckit and I held hands and whirled around and around in the half-light until we were dizzy.

Notes

[1] See http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp69-76

The younger flopsy-duckit, who just turned four, has a friend called Phineas, which is not his real name, but which conveys something of the flavor of his actual name. Phineas has cascading blond hair, a mischievous grin, and often wears an AC/DC T-shirt.

For months I have been hearing about Phineas: the younger flopsy-duckit can’t wait to get to preschool because she wants to see Phineas; Phineas is her best friend; she loves Phineas. I’ve witnessed the joy with which they bashfully greet each other when we arrive at preschool.

On one of these occasions, as the younger flopsy-duckit and Phineas settled down to play, another little girl marched up to the teacher and pointed accusingly at the happy twosome:

“They’re sitting together! That’s not allowed!” she announced, in a tone that, I must say, I found to be rather priggish.

I expected the teacher to laughingly reply, “of course they can sit together!” but she said, instead,

“Oh, it’s all right at the moment, Addison, it’s only at circle time that they have to be separated.”

Something about the word “separated” got my hackles up.

“Why do they have to be separated at circle time?” I enquired, with just the slightest of edges in my voice.

“Oh, they won’t listen to anything if they are sitting together,” the teacher explained. “All they do is talk to each other, so we have to separate them.”

Yesterday, at a birthday party in our local park for another classmate, I finally met Phineas’s mother. She was Australian (of course she was! That AC/DC T-shirt!) with a warm grin, and her face lit up when I introduced myself as the younger flopsy-duckit’s mother.

She explained that Phineas talks about the younger flopsy-duckit all the time:

“He says he has a crush on her and that he’s going to marry her, and that at their wedding she will wear make-up…” She paused. “Because, obviously,” she added, mischievously, “that’s just what you do at weddings.”

Soon it was time for lunch in the clubhouse. But our two charges had no appetite for food. No sooner had they sat down and nibbled indifferently at their pizza, then the two of them ducked out of the party room. Phineas’s Mum and I reluctantly followed them out to chaperone (there was a pond right outside you see, a pond that was being drained and thus was filled with mud, making it all the more alluring to intrepid four-year-olds) I, for one, feeling distinctly grumpy that I had barely had a chance to have a mouthful of the Chinese chicken salad that our hosts had kindly provided for the grown-ups. [1]

Phineas and the younger-flopsy-duckit ran, giggling, across a little bridge past the pond and into the reeds. Phineas’s Mum and I stood on the other side of the pond. We couldn’t really see them but could hear muffled giggles emanating from the reeds. We vainly called to them to come back and join the party, but to no avail until the balloon man arrived, and we lured them back with the promise of marvelous inflatable creations.

“What kind of thing would you like?” asked the balloon man. The younger flopsy-duckit was silent.

“Would you like a flower … or a bracelet …. I can make a fairy bracelet … a princess bracelet?”

The younger flopsy duckit glanced at Phineas, who already had a blue balloon sword.

“I want a blue sword,” she said.

The younger flopsy-duckit, it turned out, was considerably more adept than Phineas at handling a sword, no doubt due to the tutelage of her elder brother (Phineas also had an older sibling, a sister, which perhaps explained his own precocious fluency in the language of romantic love).

“Do you know the difference between whacking and charging?” she enquired.

Phineas did not.

He was suitably impressed as she demonstrated, using a trash-can as her opponent; Phineas’s own attempts to imitate her thrusting and parrying resulted, unfortunately, in a burst sword.

When we were walking home from the party, I informed the younger flopsy-duckit that Phineas wanted to marry her. She scrunched up her face and crossed her eyes.

“No woman-kissing,” she declared emphatically.

“No woman-dancing,” she added, shaking her head.

“That’s womanish,” she stated firmly, in the most disgusted of tones, as if those would be her final words on the subject.

A couple of minutes later, though …

“I suppose I could marry him,” she mused. “I could decide when I’m a grown-up.”

Right, I said. There’s no rush.

Notes

[1] Chinese chicken salad is such an LA thing. I feel like it’s on almost every menu. According to Wikipedia, it’s a Santa Monica invention: quoting from Akasha Richmond’s book, Hollywood Dish, the entry on the dish’s history states that in the 1960s it “was made popular at Madame Wu’s in Santa Monica. Cary Grant asked her to put it on the menu after eating it at another restaurant.”

I dedicate this post to my dear friend, KJ Rabbit, whose last name is spelled with one T.

Last weekend, the duck-rabbit went to Vancouver for the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association. [1] I have not attended this meeting since the last time I applied for an academic job, which was in 2007. I was going now, not because I was delivering a paper, or serving on a committee. No, I was going for one reason and one reason alone: to attend the party that my awesome friend, the aforementioned KJ, was throwing me to celebrate the publication of my book.

Nothing could dampen my mood.

Except for one thing.

Earlier in the day, the duck-rabbit had proprietorially strolled into the book exhibit and sidled up to the exhibition booth for the press (let’s call it Bullockbridge University Press) that published its book. All of the latest titles were prominently displayed, but the duck-rabbit’s book wasn’t among them. Now, you might think, knowing the duck-rabbit as well as you do, that it would have experienced a momentary twinge of panic at this discovery; but if you did think this, you would be entirely mistaken. No, so confident was the duck-rabbit that its book must be stocked at this booth that it thought to itself, “My book has already sold out! And it’s only the first day of the convention! My book is so popular!” Puffed up with pride, the duck-rabbit confidently approached the very young man running Bullockbridge’s booth.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m just here to see if you have my book!” announced the duck-rabbit cheerfully, still quite sure that the only plausible reason it could not be there would be due to overwhelming popular demand.

After the duck-rabbit provided the title, the very young man scanned his list of the books that the Bullockbridge marketing team had sent to the conference. There was a long silence. The duck-rabbit now did feel a little twinge of panic.

“Err … I’m afraid we don’t have it,” he said.

“What, none at all?” asked the duck-rabbit, aghast.

The very young man looked at the list again, and he looked almost as sad as the duck-rabbit when he looked up again.

“Sorry … they must not have sent it to this conference,” he said.

“Oh,” said the duck-rabbit, in its most crestfallen voice.

As it walked away, the duck-rabbit was besieged by questions. Can one even have a book party if there is no book? Why did Bullockbridge bother to publish my book if wasn’t going to bother to sell it to the one demographic that might plausibly be interested in its subject matter, that is, other literature professors? Could my book already be in the remainder bin? But it’s only been out in this country for seventeen days. Surely it can’t be past its sell-by date. I mean, it’s a book about the eighteenth century. It’s already four hundred years behind the times.

The duck-rabbit stomped around in a black mood for the rest of the day, grumbling to itself and anyone else it encountered about its book’s palpable absence from the convention.

Soon enough, though, the duck-rabbit’s ruffled feathers were smoothed. After all, there was still its party to look forward to! And dear, thoughtful KJ had in fact brought along a copy of the duck-rabbit’s book for the express purpose of displaying it at the party on a conveniently placed illuminated shelf. It was like a little shrine: a shrine to the duck-rabbit’s book. The duck-rabbit’s sense of amour-propre was swiftly restored.

Nothing could dampen my mood. Soon the gin and tonics would be flowing and I would be dancing to “London Queen,” while wearing my cracking party dress at my very own book party! Holloway to Hollywood! Huzzah! [2]

There was just one hitch. The hotel’s elevator only worked if you had a room key with you. While our more enterprising invitees just snuck into the elevator with a gaggle of legit hotel guests, other more obedient types thought to ask at the front desk. As a result, the front desk quickly sussed out that a party was being held in a guest’s room, which they were not happy about.

The guy from security who soon appeared at our room’s door was doing his best this-velvet-glove-conceals-an-iron-fist TV-cop impression. He didn’t actually say, “We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,” but he might have done.

KJ and I stood in the doorway as he explained that the hotel had a “zero-tolerance party policy.”

“We’re just celebrating my friend’s book,” explained JK.

“Yes, I heard that,” said the security guy.

“That’s me!” the duck-rabbit piped up, rather pleased to hear that at least someone had heard of its book, “it’s my book!”

The security guy turned his gaze to me.

“Congratulations,” he said in a flat, affectless tone.

“Thanks!!!” exclaimed the duck-rabbit happily, fairly bobbing up and down with excitement.

The security guy conceded, in response to KJ’s enquiry, that there had “not yet” been any complaints about noise.

But he left us with a classic velvet-glove-iron-fist closing speech and I must say that his delivery was impeccable. It went something like this.

“Look … we want to work with you … so just consider this a friendly warning … but you just need to know that my manager [face grows grave], if she has to come up here …. I mean [shaking head while chuckling wryly], she is very serious about the zero-tolerance party policy, she will [abruptly stops chuckling] shut. this. thing. down. [Note: “this thing,” to be clear, was about ten professors standing around sipping gin-and-tonics and talking sedately]

Because KJ and the duck-rabbit both are extremely obedient, well-disciplined subjects, this speech had a fairly hypnotic effect on us. The music was turned down; people were shushed; and we agreed that no more revelers would be allowed in. The duck-rabbit regretted that it had not seized the opportunity to dance to “London Queen” before the music had been turned off, but that aside, it was a quite delightful party.

Soon enough, we were down to four guests, which was, in fact, the Velvet Glove had informed us, the maximum number of people allowed in a room at one time. As we sat, KJ and I finally relaxed in the knowledge that our very small party was now perfectly in accordance with hotel rules, KJ leafed through my book, and I gazed at her fondly, musing upon how it’s those little acts of thoughtfulness, like thinking to bring a copy of one’s friend’s book to one’s friend’s book party, that are really the mark of true friendship.

KJ looked up from the book, frowning.

“You spelled my name wrong!” she blurted out.

“What?” murmured the duck-rabbit.

“You spelled my last name wrong … in your Acknowledgements. You spelled it with two Ts but it only has one T.”

It was truly mortifying to discover, at one’s book party, not only one’s first typo, but also that the one misspelled name in my book’s Acknowledgements was the name of the one person who was, uh, throwing me a book party. And, of course, the duck-rabbit apologized profusely and covered its face with its wings in shame, and was quite thoroughly abashed.

But then, after a moment’s reflection, and possibly due to the number of gin-and-tonics that it had consumed, it took a different tack.

“I will say,” the duck-rabbit began, “that I have always thought, whenever I read your last name, that it really should be spelled with another T. It just looks more natural with another T in it.”

KJ nearly spat out her vodka-tonic.

“Wait,” she said slowly, in a tone of disbelief, “your defense is that your mistaken way of spelling my name is better than the way it is actually spelt?”

The duck-rabbit paused for a moment and thought about it.

“Yes,” it said. “Yes it is.”

Notes

[1] The duck-rabbit must report, with regret, that this time there was no banter whatsoever with the Canadian Immigration officer. Montreal: 1, Vancouver: 0.

[2] Do you know this song? I know that Jonny does. If you don’t know it, you really must listen to it on your way to work tomorrow. I’m pretty confident that you’ll like it although, possibly, you won’t like it quite as much as I do because my special pleasure in it derives from the fact that I regard it as having been written especially for me (you’ll understand when you hear the lyrics, especially if you know that I grew up just down the street from Holloway road) for the express purpose of playing loudly at my book party.