Metaphors to Live With, Chap 5

METAPHORS TO LIVE WITH

CHAPTER 5:  PENNY WANTS A CRACKER

            The table I am writing on is so soft that I can sometimes see my pencil marks through the paper on the table top.

            I can also see the markings of some of those who were in the room before me.

            Here. I. Am.  I am in a small room in a building built to hold people who do not do very well in the world outside of small rooms in buildings built to hold people like us.  Well, us:  me, actually.

            Naught duck, being one of the possibilities.  And but I am unclear how I came to know that the Northwest corner is referred to as the Bora.

            Just as I somehow know that it is the Southwest quadrant that is the Sirocco.

            Which would explain wild desert wind as one of the definitions of sirocco. 

            Do very well would probably be difficult to explain if I were to try.  To explain, I mean.

            And for would read might.  As in might explain wild desert wind instead of would explain etc.

            One probably led to the other.  The compass point, or the wind, I mean.

            By the way, which knowledge has not given me or left me with anything substantial.  Knowledge about the compass points, I mean.  Some knowledge you just have.  It doesn’t, or isn’t supposed to, do anything substantial for you.  Or to you.

            When I say substantial I want to be clear that I do not simply mean materialistically substantial.  But because the knowledge about the compass points might be substantially rewarding intellectually.  Or some such.

            It is, however, not.  Substantially rewarding intellectually, I mean.

            I am not clear what I would consider substantial.  I am not clear why I would expect knowledge to leave a mark.  By leave a mark I mean give or leave something substantial.  Which for, again, see before.

            One of the markings that was already on the table from when before I became here looks like this:  -i  m n ere i m.

            Which I do not pretend to comprehend. 

            There are other markings around this one.  Things like partial dates and sort-of numbers.  Things like streaks of lead that you can tell someone has tried to clean out of the gouges that the lead produced.  Things like holes. 

            Some of them are deep.

            The gouges that the lead produced, I mean.  Are deep, I mean.  Some are so deep that I am almost not able to write on those spots anymore. 

            Because it will tear my paper, is why.

            Sort-of numbers are where you can tell that a number is what was once there but now is mainly gone because the wood has softened enough around it to leave it only sort of looking like its original self.  Like maybe only the right side of a nine is still showing, so it’s a curved line with the almost definition of its hump shooting out to the left.  Or the same thing with a six, only all reversed. 

            Or maybe what might have been a three or an eight.  Or an eight turned on its side to create part of an infinity sign.  And something that looks like Pi.

            The symbol, not the number.

            Because the number would take a long time to carve on a table.  Especially the binary version.  11.00100100001111110110 and so on, kind of ad infinitum.

            Can you imagine trying to carve all of those digits on a table with a pencil?  Or trying to carve the set of Borromean rings that someone was trying to whittle into the wood?  It looks like they tired of it and gave up.

            Whittling, I mean.  I do not know if they gave up gave up.  As in, the final give up.

            But Brunnian links.  Unknots. 

            I hope they eventually did not give up give up.  Anyone with the knowledge of how to whittle Borromean rings, well, just the knowledge of how to whittle, never mind the Borromean rings, should never give up. 

            I was going to say whittle unknots should never give up because the difficulty factor of making the crosses of the links look right, like making sure the left is under the right and then the right is under the left, or at least like being able to whittle the illusion that the left is under the right and then the right is under the left, would have to be unbelievably difficult. 

            So difficult that I cannot begin to imagine. 

            I was going to say.  Well, say.

            Even attempting to carve the links of a Borremean ring, I mean.  On a table, with a pencil.

            I do not know why the carver of the unknots would not have had paper.  It would be, I would think, so much easier to draw an unknot than to carve one.  Or so I would think.  But then, there is the depth problem.

            How to render depth in two dimensions.  Because a paper drawing is going to be, no matter how hard you try, two dimensions deep.  At most, two.  Mainly, one.  Unless the drawer is very skilled, and then, maybe, two.

            So but not the three you really need to capture the depth required to fully portray a Brunnian link.  Which is sort of like an infinity symbol gone awry.  Or like the story of the Worm Ourobouros that the Great Man used to tell me.

            A serpent that eats its own tail.

            So much energy spent on the irrational.

            No point in asking the question:  the answer is going to be Wu. 

            True ink ate, I thought once.  Just like the worm was once thought to be a sigil.  Or is still.  Thought to be a sigil, I mean. 

            Which I know is not just like my once thinking that truncate had three syllables instead of two.  Knowing that I know that, I cannot rightly say why I said that.  Rightly instead of frankly, in this instance.  Exactly would have served the same purpose, I am aware.

            I cannot exactly say why I said that.

            Which is not, after all, the same thing as rightly.




© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas

Echolocation

Anyone can become fascinated by bats -

Their too cool for you behavior,

Their echolocation to die for,

Their not-quite feathered furry features,

Their crossover edition rat-like birdness,

Or bird-like ratness,

Their affinity for hanging in a pack -

Small feral wolves at heart,

Lounging in sympathy to gravity;

A bridge is a popular place to watch them flock

As they swarm their way to the sky.  Ooh.  Ah. 

Sweet’s a lot like nice, finishing last

In every race ever run.  He was

A sweet guy; she had a sweet

Tooth: I mean Face.  Regardless,

I went the other way.

There may be as many as 1,250 species,

Handwings divided into mega and micro suborders,

Nomenclature the beast that will divide. 

One knows what one means by Great

Personality.  Great personalities must seek

Middle ground with a separate great personality,

Another just good enough,

Another not unworthy. 

© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas

Metaphors to Live With, Chap 4

METAPHORS TO LIVE WITH

CHAPTER 4:  THE OBJECTIVE NATURE OF PARTIAL STRUCTURE

            I have heard some of the people here call my small room a safe room but I know that to not be true. 

            That, being that my small room is a safe room.

            There are, as if now it bears explanation, people here.  Not in my small room, of course, but outside.  Which is not to say that I am not a person, I suppose.  Other than myself, that is, there are no people in my small room.

            My small room is in a bigger room that is in a bigger building.  There are pencils here, and straps on the duck bedroll.

            I am given the pencils to write with or to eat or to stab myself with or to do any possible number of things with. 

            Pencils are just one instance of an unsafe item in my safe room, by the way.  I could choke on them if I tried to eat them.  And it would hurt if I stabbed myself with one of them.  They are kept very sharp. 

            This is how they are brought to me every morning:  sharp.

            Apennape, by the way, is not my actual name. 

            Neither, by the way, of course, is Apindrop.

            There are, again, by the way, an infinity of possible numbers.  More numbers, by far, than there are things which I can do with a pencil.

            The reason it would bear explanation is because people have not yet been mentioned.  Unless one considers the aforementioned people to be one and the same with the aforementioned they.

            By the way, by practically bare as way of description, I mean other than the table, the chair and the duck bedroll, the small, safe room I am in has no other furnishings, no wall cover, no window, no decorations, if you will.  Unless you count a drain in the southeast corner floor to be a drain.

            More a hole, really, rather than a drain, per se.  A drain, by itself. 

            Almost doesn’t make sense.

            I would, in case you are wondering, never stab myself with one of the pencils.  Because everything has an express purpose and stabbing is not a pencil’s express purpose.

            Nor would I stab myself with the table, the chair or the duck bedroll.  For very much the same reason as with the pencil.

            Plus the difficulty factor.  Per se, by the way, doesn’t mean what context of usage would make it seem to mean. 

            The difficulty factor, that is, of stabbing oneself with, say, a chair, or a duck bedroll, for instance, or, of course, a table.

            It would be easier to use a pencil.

            If what one wanted was ease.  When stabbing oneself, I mean.

            I have to be careful, least I begin to fixate.  I am aware that fixating can be unhealthy.  Aware here meaning that I’ve been told, repeatedly, that fixating can be unhealthy.

            So much so that the telling begins to seem like a fixation.  Which is not something that I am forward enough to point out to the tellers.

            For forward read brave or courageous.  And but because they are not the same thing.  Brave and courageous, I mean, being not the same thing.

            I might need to point out that I have never ever attempted to stab myself with a table, a chair or a duck bedroll.  In case the previously used would had left some vague or perhaps comic ambiguity about that fact.

            Would not and have never.

            Once upon a time, I would have used a pencil.  If nothing else was available.

            This once upon a time is when the things happened that encouraged the Great Man to offer us alternative choices.  His phrase.  Alternative choices. 

            And us:  his pronoun.

            This decision, he said, based on choices that I had made. 

            My given name, as if it matters, is Ancel.  It is pronounced like ankle. 

            A cut above the foot, we are, the Great Man would always say.  The Great Man would always say this when he was trying to make a point about something or other that I was never completely and forthrightly clear about. 

            But a bit below the knee, I once said back, thinking I was joining in some new sort of undetermined, unknown fun.

            The Great Man was not amused at the time.  And at the same time I had no idea why the Great Man was not amused, but now I sort of do.  Have an idea, I mean.  About why, I mean, for the idea.

            I have come to realize, lately, that many of the things that I found amusing that the Great Man did not find amusing are really very easily explainable.  As to why, I mean, they were not amusing to him.  But might have been to me.  Then, I mean.

            For lately, see many of prior comments about words that depend upon other words to make sense.

            Not that lately is always one of those words, but it is sometimes, like then, after my coming to realize.  Then being that particular instance.

            And but I realize that Ancel is not so much better than Apennape or Apindrop.  Not at all better, really.

            I do not want to leave the wrong impression:  I never actually hurt anyone.  Actually not meant to diminish the possibility of hurting anyone.  And for anyone, read someone else.  Meaning, someone other than myself.

            Which is not to say that I hurt myself.  But or at least, not often.  I don’t think.  Much of what actually (not used the same way as above, by the way) occurred has become much of a blur to me.

            Is one of the reasons I’m here, again, actually.  Or, maybe, frankly.

            Because again, if not, then where?

            The Great Man would say that he made up such words as sparrow, or necessitate, or depress, or infrastructure, or cardioid or trajectory or sorrow, but I now know these to be message words that he didn’t necessarily make up but that he did want me to take seriously and to really, really work to understand deeply.  Deeper than even etymologically, I mean.

            Not that understanding took so much work, really.

            Sparrow, for instance, because of the bible verse.  By which, I gathered, I was to take seriously and really, really work to understand the bible verse probably, not necessarily just the sparrow.

            Matthew 6:29-31.  Which are contradictory, frankly.  Because either you are or you are not worth more than a handful of sparrows.  Or but at least, maybe, the numbered hairs on your head are worth more than a handful of sparrows, but then, maybe you are not.  Just your hairs are, I mean.

            I am not sure why, earlier, I said it might assist to know that I am seated.  Duck, by the way, is a heavy woven cotton material.  It might be numbered duck or, I’m not making this up, it might be naught duck.

            It has to do with, again, not making this up, the warp and the weft.  Of the weave, I mean.  The warp and weft of the weave determine if it’s going to be naught duck.

            I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

            The previous being something I once heard a man who was being funny say.  He was laughing when he said it, and I do not remember now what it was that he could not make up, but I do remember that whatever it was he could not make up he referred to as stuff when he said that he could not make it up if he tried.  I do not know how long he tried before he realized that he was inadequate to the task of making up similar stuff to the stuff he could not make up.  When he tried.  Well, when.  Maybe he did not.  Try, that is.

            If he tried.

            Not that I am now, or would ever be, trying to be funny.

© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas

Metaphors to Live With, Chap 3

METAPHORS TO LIVE WITH

CHAPTER 3:  MY FRIEND F.

            Great, as I call him, because so he called himself. 

            Other adjectives he used were (but were not limited to):  superior, distinguished, grand, and immaculate.

            Immaculate being the adjective there that was the most woefully misused.  There meaning in the list of other adjectives the man used to describe himself, the list that is herewith truncated for the sake of time.

            I will come back to the small room with the table and the chair.  There is also a bedroll, but it almost hardly worth mentioning.

            Well, by come back to I mean that I am sure that I will further mention the small room with the table and the chair at some later point in my scribbling.

            For the sake, however, of mentioning, I will mention that the small room also contains a bedroll.

            The Great Man used his adjectives to describe specifically, he said, the things that he was and that I would never be, he said.  Which is why immaculate is funny: 

            I am. 

            Immaculate, I mean.  He could never be.  And with that type of glaringly obvious vocabulary mistake, could he, in all honestly, be said to be superior?

            Superior is one of those words, like new and like late, that depend upon something else, much as new depends upon old or used, to actually obtain its full understood meaning. 

            I do not approve, by the way, of the use of rhetorical questions as a furtherance of the communication herewith offered.

            Understood, by the way, does not actually mean that one (see previous note) stands under something.  Under, in this case, actually meaning between. 

            So its full understood meaning is actually something’s full betweenstood meaning.  Which is also not as clear as one (see previous) might hope or imagine.  It to be, I mean.

            The bedroll, if one (see previous) must know, is currently in its place in the Northwest corner, forty-three and a half inches away from the corner of the table that is closest to the Northwest corner.  One (again, see previous) would not be incorrect in presuming that if one corner of the table is closest to the Northwest corner of the room then the opposite corner of the table is closest to the Southeast corner of the room.  One (ibid) could leap to the presumption that the small room has four corners, each one of them facing one of the traditional wind mid-points on the compass.

            Ibid for all the one’s to come, by the way.  Well, not all, as some of the one’s will most likely actually stand for the numeral, as in one, two, three.  Even if some will obviously stand in place of the third person singular pronoun used in the present simple tense.  Conditionally, I mean.  Used conditionally, I mean.  The use of the gender neutral one as a third person singular pronoun in the present simple tense will be conditional, I mean.

            Well, for conditional, read occasional.

            One’s presumptive leap would be a safe one.  Leap, that is. 

            A safe leap.

            If one chose to make such a presumptive leap, that is, regarding the four corners of the small room.

            The Northwest corner is the Bora corner, for instance. 

            Or would be if my small room were a compass, or a wind-measuring station.

            Of which it is assuredly not either.  A compass, or a wind-measuring station, I mean.

            The Great Man, like the capital N Now, understood himself to exist worthy of capitalizations.  Hence, the G and the M, when referring to him, by the way.

            If it is helpful, the bedroll is constructed out a material known as duck.

            I could not begin to guess why this might be helpful, or to whom this might be helpful.  To the same degree with which I could not begin to guess, please disregard the note regarding the material construction of the bedroll. 

            Disregarding to the same degree would be easier, I understand, if the original degree in question, that is, mine, regarding the usefulness of the information, or even, as its basest quality, my guessing, were a known quantity.

            I said usefulness, but meant, as you are not doubt aware, helpfulness. 

            Not the same thing.

            I do not know how I came to know the word truncate.

            The Great Man would make up many words, before, when the right word would not come to mind.  I do not know what before designates here, nor am I clear on what might be meant by right. 

            Words are just words, after all.  Unless, or until, they accidentally become something else.

            Some of the words he would make up:  apindrop, bewheezered, slothrop, cocksure, Deuteronomy, fusner, graxioms, erdedy, fuzzicals, phi, dollbounce, bast, apennape…it seems to be an interminable list, now that I consider the sum of its total.

            The few words given here represent but a small portion of the list.

            I do now know that Deuteronomy is probably not a Great-Man-made-up word, just as apparently cocksure is also not original.  Nor phi, for that matter.

            I do know that I believed erroneously that truncate was pronounced with three syllables, thusly:  tru*nk*ate. 

            I do remember being confused as to what exactly (see above) it might be that true inks ate.  Most likely, at the time that this confused me, I could not have, with any confidence, explained exactly what an ink might be, or certainly what an ink might eat, and even more certainly why apparently only some inks were deemed true.

            Because if some are true, some must, diametrically speaking, be false.

            Apennape was one of the names the Great Man would call me.  As was apindrop.  Apennape, he would call, come here. 

            Or some such. 

            Or, Apindrop, if you do not want to get fusnered, bast it all, you’ll get over here right now, he would explain.  For instance.

© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas

Punctuation

Look, you don’t want

To talk about a love anymore

Than they want you to.

You start with horrible,

(By which you mean object)

If it’s not true that a body resolves,

Embedded in a transitive goo.

If it’s not true that a love involves

Affection as a touchstone,

(By which you mean predicate)

If it’s not true that a love is a stone,

A verb can stand as a noun.

If it’s not true that you were ever loved,

(By which you mean parsable)

A love is an abstract perfect tense.

If it’s not true that touch is a stone,

(By which you mean redundant)

You end with horrible.

(By which you mean subject)

© 2012 – Mark A Douglas

Metaphors to Live With, Chap 2

METAPHORS TO LIVE WITH

CHAPTER 2:  THE IEAA THAT THERE IS ABSOLUTE OBJECTIVE TRUTH IS NOT ONLY MISTAKEN BUT SOCIALLY AND POLITICALLY, NOT TO MENTION CULTURALLY, DANGEROUS

            It would be understandable, at this juncture, if you prefer to re-read what has gone before to catch the missed elements of plot.  Not that it’s irrevocably understandable:  that would not make sense in the least.  I have yet to encounter an it that is understood to its fullest, irrevocable terminus.

            Which may, as will most likely be determined or not, only speak to my lack of either.  That is, a) encounters, or b) irrevocabilities.  Or, even, c) terminus.  Said earlier spoken- of determination to come from any number of sources.

            This number of sources could be either outside of my influence, or but and directly within my current influence.  However, I would be amiss to lead astray:  my current influence is very small.  How?  Miniscule, that’s how.

            You might have guessed by now that much of this is a set-up for the story to come.  By this, I mean the what is seemingly interminable worrying over the slightest twist in a phrase.

            It’s as painful for me to write it as it must be for you to read it.  The writing, I mean.  The interminable worrying, I mean.

            Not, frankly, that I originally intended – which is awkward – to speak of either sources or influence.  Much less, irrevocable and its offspring.  Is why the move to frankly.

            Which, again, frankly, serves no better than irrevocably.  But so to return, again.

            Here I am.  With, again, despite my preferences otherwise, an issue unnecessarily complicated.  Something, that, by the way, always happens. 

            Or seems to. 

            This might be the beginning of the story I earlier said was to come.

            Meaning, of course, at some later point.  The coming, I mean.  The story coming, I mean.

            But seems.  Seeming pretty much normally becoming the actuality eventually unless you are guarded against such occurrences.  As I have, pretty obviously even to the untrained eye, not been.  Guarded, that is, against et cetera.

            It is not too late, I hope, to mention that the here where I am is a small room, practically bare. 

            Much of this I will feel the need to return to.  Much, like the just prior late.  Which promotes some of the same problems as the earlier new. 

            Because as opposed to what, precisely?  Or, as measured against what, precisely?  Or beside, even, if not against. 

            It is not late, I hope, to mention et cetera not carrying the same heft, if you will, of the prior it not being too late, I hope(d), to mention et cetera. 

            I am not clear that the previous statement is as clear as I might wish it to be.

            The second late, though, here begging the too.

            One could rightly ask, what’s not too late?  What’s the it that might or might not be too late, one would say if one were asking. 

            If we can, we being I and you, accept, for the moment, that one serves in this instance of use as an us until something else is established.  The something else meaning a better term for the us the one is currently standing for.  Which is to say, the something else not meaning that something new is being or will be introduced. 

            Which is not to say that something new will never be introduced.  Because, obviously, there will have to be something new.  Which simply might, yes, appear without introduction. 

            But it is here the appearance that will be of import and not the whither of introduction or immediacy.

            This, of course, might not be the beginning of the story I earlier said was to come.

            But it is here the appearance is not as clear as I would, perhaps, imagine.  It to be, I mean.

            I have to learn how to un-ask the questions I ask, by the way.

            I could mention, by way of instance, that there is a chair in the small room.  A straight-back, pine, un-cushioned.  And a table, plain, four-legged, as though that matters.  The amount of legs, I mean.  As though the amount of legs matter. 

            By way of instance of what, exactly, I am not clear. 

            Although, it does occur that to rightly be a functioning table, it would of some necessity need more than, say, two. 

            Legs, that is. 

            Even if the two were extremely well-positioned.  Because, still: would, inevitably, not work, and would be, again inevitably, termed as something other than a table. 

            Maybe termed, for lack of a better designation, as a broken table, as with only two legs it would appear to never actually function as it should.

            Hence the term broken.

            We are now, as one (see previous note for explanation of what constitutes one) would say, getting somewhere. 

            So much to discuss. 

            Because, now:  here I am in a small room, practically bare, with a pine, straight-backed, un-cushioned chair, and a plain, four-legged table.  Also, by the way, most likely, pine.

            Which still does not, I am aware, do complete justice to what is the here where I am.

            I am not unaware that too much attention could be said to have been paid to too many details.  I am also not unaware that this awareness presents plenty of problems in and of itself.

            And but not that it will or should make a difference but the Great Man himself would have and has already stopped paying attention.  So, if you should also stop, you will not be the first to, or alone in your decision.  To stop paying attention, that is. 

            The it that will or should make a difference being the knowledge that the Great Man has or would have already stopped. 

            Paying attention, that is.


© 2012 – Mark A Douglas

Metaphors to Live With, Chap 1

METAPHORS TO LIVE WITH

Chapter 1:  MALONE DOES NOT DIE

            Here I am.

            Because what else am I supposed to say?  Because what else is there?  The three little words of Here and I and Am just about say it all.

            I would prefer to not complicate the issue.

            It would be easier and preferable to state simply that I am not here and be done with it.  I am not at all sure how to define the it referenced in the previous statement.

            However, in spite of my stated preference regarding complication and something that is stated as being or becoming the issue, and something left undefined that might or might not contain elements of it, and certainly despite the concurrent knowledge that the apparent I speaking in this instance has the ability to prefer, the three little words of Here and I and Am also obviously or perhaps not so bring about their own troubles. 

            Am.  Here.  I.  Word is one of those words, isn’t it, that if you’re not careful you can mispronounce or mis-mean:  wood, say, or would, or wound.

            I.  Am.  Here.  It begs only the addition of the adposition:  here I am upon, say, or here I am beyond, or here I am between, maybe, or here I am in, or out, or behind.  Or but perhaps you get the idea.

            Here I am of, which doesn’t really work, but is another example, nonetheless.  Here I am to, being another example of the non-working variety.  Because the simple adposition would here be designed to designate my relation to the am-ness of here. 

            As in, I am of here. 

            Or, I am to here. 

            Even if I use a complex adposition, I am in spite of here, say, or, I am next to here, which almost by the way works, if you know the here and the I, or even if I replace the preposition for a circumposition – I am by here dint of – the difference, except in the repetition of the nonsensical, isn’t easily grasped.

            I. Am. Here.  It pretty obviously doesn’t necessarily beg the adposition, as I may have previously stated; it might instead pretty obviously beg something else, say, for instance, an adjective:  here I am sequestered, or here I am onomatopoetic, or here I am shattered, or here I am broken, or here I am mythic, or here I am tragic, or here I am compulsive or and this could go on and on until the I and the am come to agreement with the what if not the where.

            None, by the way, of which I would imagine to be very interesting.

            But I want to, want not really being the right word, exactly, get at least this part right.  I want, see previous comment, to begin with the basics of what is happening before I attempt the various others:  happened, happens, or will happen.

            Because if not here, then where?

            As a side-note, I would propose that want is, apropos of nothing, not a word like word that can easily be mispronounced or mis-meant into something similar:  it is rare, I would presume, that, say, wand or wane is confused for want.

            The adverb exactly definitely causes a problem.  Is it want exactly, or exactly get or exactly begin.  Placement, or so it turns out, means something to meaning, or so it turns out, exactly.

            When I say I would imagine to be very interesting I recognize that I am ascribing my feelings to an unnamed but obviously hoped-for other, hoping, I mean, that there exists an unnamed other that I imagine to maybe find this preamble to not be very interesting. 

            Which is, of course, I know, preposterous of me:  if it’s my unnamed imagined other, it would find whatever interesting that I so deem necessary for the sake of interest’s sake.  When I say et cetera (see above), I recognize, without the helpful comments, that I am again doing the very thing that placed me here where I am before this now began. 

            That might be now with a capital N, as in Now.

            I am aware that the previous statements present a problem.  Before implies, and more than implies, designates a pre-time to what I am accidentally terming Now. 

            Not really.  Accidentally, I mean.

            And but I am aware, too, that Here I Am most likely begins to at least read Here I Am Now, as if, in the before, I Was Not Here, unless, I Have Always Been Here. 

            I, by the way, have not.  Always been here, I mean. 

            Always been, probably yes; always been here, no.

            Which complicates the issue mightily.  Perhaps, irrevocably.

            Which, for complication, see previous.  Which for why the previous, I choose (see previous) to want an unnamed other to like me.

            Which but again, the all sorts of complications and issues and questions, even more now with this than prior with the suddenly-in-the-face-of-everything-that-has-followed-simple Here I Am.

            Because always been somewhere, yes, when not here.  Always being sort of awkward in that, obviously, not always always.

            It might assist to know that I am seated.  What this might assist, or why this might assist, and hopefully obviously who this might assist I do not know. 

            Whom, instead of who.  Aid, probably, instead of assist. 

            Which is practically, by which I mean practical-ly, painful to hear, or worse, to read:  it might aid to know that I am et cetera the whole way through.

            Obviously, whom.

            And I have not yet even broached the subject – as such a subject, by the way, does physically exist – of they.

            There is a they.  A they bigger than an unnamed other, imagined or no.

            Not that this is intended as a provocation.

            Nor, of course, as should be understood, should this in any way be interpreted as a provocative intention.  I am not clear on how a they could be interpreted as an intention, but I’ve, of late, seen stranger things happen.

            I am not always clear, as may be clear by now, what I intend to mean by what I say.  As in now, where for by, please read with.  The by before the what I say, not the by before the now.  As may be clear with now not actually being a very clear statement.

            Here. I. Am.  Everything, here, is not new.  Here, everything is not new.  Everything here is not new. 

            No matter how I say it.

            New, as you will no doubt note, implies that there is or could be an old.

            An old.  And a they.  Here has, to the best of knowledge, still not been adequately, if at all, defined.

            If not old, then, at the least, the possibility of used.  As a possible definition of what everything might here be, if it is not new.  Old, or used.  Not the same thing.

            I certainly know that if the here has not been adequately, if at all, defined, then the everything that here has been declared not new is a complete indefinite. 

            And but oh, the possibilities that indefinite allow are multitudinous.  In-definite.  In-de-finite.  Other than finite.  Outside the finite.  The finite of everything that has been declared.  Not new.  Maybe old, maybe used. 

            The possibility, all too real, of both.  Not or, but and.  Old and used.

            I almost accidentally used irrevocably again.  After both.  I almost accidentally used irrevocably again after the use prior of both.  I was discerning the use of multiple irrevocably’s in such a short period of time, short in the grander scheme of things, naturally, when the thought occurred that I had strayed far away from the use of complete sentences, and that I had strayed, with a measurable equidistance, from the plot.

            Oh, as hopefully understood to be a shortened version of Oh my.  Which itself is also hopefully understood to be a shortened version of Oh my stars and garters. 

            Or some such similar exclamatory comment.

© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas