Elif Batuman wrote this great thing a while ago about the State Of The American Short Story. People love to do this, and obviously everything about it is completely the pits. It’s a pits that writers (or whoever, but it’s usually writers) feel that now is the time for yet another referendum on the novel, and Is Fiction On Life Support. It’s a further and more complicated pits that writers (or whoever, but it’s usually writers) see fit to write a Tersely Worded Rebuttal to the London Review Of Books where it is only a matter of time before they use the words “hand-wringing”, my worst, as in: “His hand-wringing inquisition into the state of the modern short story has, to my mind bewilderingly, managed to ignore what seems to be staring everyone else in the face” ETCETERA.
GROSS.
But still this Elif Batuman thing is great, and here it is:
http://nplusonemag.com/short-story
So she’s taken all these short stories and sort of scanned them for the terrible things that they have in common, and tarried especially long over the opening lines, and if I was writing a complimentary review I would say With Scalpel-Like Precision, Batuman Has Exposed The Flaw At The Heart Of The Contemporary Short Story. And it’s all pretty typical, if clever and great, but the bit about the animals’ names is the bit that is a real killer. She says that writers today can’t leave that sort of stuff alone, like there’s no way they would have not been able to name the little dog in the Chekhov story etc. Which I think is an excellent point, because the name of an animal is a way to be all quirks and revealing about your characters without actually doing anything. And obviously human names as well, but this is slightly less of an issue, because no clevs writers agonise too long over the people names because that is something you can sniff out from fucking MILES away. Like you can see straight away when a writer is just thrilled to bits over the perfect names of their characters, and it’s the worst.
The thing is though, when she was little, my mum used to have a cat called Pat Boone. Pat Boone! Never called Pat, or Boone, but only ever the whole thing. She would go out into the garden every night, she says, and shout "Pat BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE", so that it would come and eat its dinner. Once at John and Em’s house I saw a prescription from the vet written out for Tipsy Withers. Tipsy is the Witherses sheep-looking sad dog. My mum’s cat, according to that system, would be Pat Boone Van Schalkwyk. And the thing is with this is that what are you supposed to do? When a small girl in your story needs a cat for the purposes of the plot, and you could call it “the cat” or “my cat”, OR you could call it Pat Boone, what do you do? Restraint says “the cat”, but my heart says Pat Boone.

Lee is so obviously the greatest

He was just here, talking to me about how he wants to get a cat. I said he mustn't, because of Responsibility, but he says no. He says a pet will make him feel like he actually lives in Cape Town. But I said a cat is forbidden and so he must think of a more sort of low maintenance animal. The problem with this obviously is that the more low maintenance an animal is, the less likely it is to love you. Like reptiles and fish and that. Birds are probably fairly low maintenance but also they are completely terrible, and once you get a bird it is only a matter of time before you are strolling around Checkers with your terrible depressed cockatiel on your shoulder, and it probably has this weird infection on its beak, and you're walking around in a brown parachute material jacket just waiting to die.
Lee said: "If I get a bird you're going to post me an envelope full of poison hey?"
So no birds.
After he left, I saw the two tabs he had opened on my computer. This is them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090415132050AAajhSx

The wikipedia entry for "pet"! As if he is just checking to reassure himself that his idea of what a pet is conforms to the standard norm!
what a guy. What a seriously incredible person.

I got handed a Big Secret the other day

And actually it's not even very interesting or even really a secret, but anyway I was talking to someone about being sort of Trustworthy in general, and I said:
I am excellent at secrets. I am a Vault.
and THEN I said:
Vault Disney! Vault Whitman! Vaulter Sisulu!

and then I had to spend the next three days awkwardly channeling every conversation I had towards a direction where telling that "story" made sense. Naturally, I did this very badly and essentially just ended up going: "want to hear a funny thing?" like how a small kid does.

There was a thing a while ago

Where ridiculous entitled weirdos made a real Point of not asking for presents at their wedding. And then the fine print on the invitation was oh obviously we want presents, just not normal ones, we want some trees for the wood on our estate only a few starkly elegant and symbolic bajillion dollar trees we love the environment and do not care for material things.
and I always thought that was such garbage. In the same way that wedding registries are garbage. Can't just force people to buy you very specific things.
HOWEVER. now that I have MY OWN BALCONY, all I want to do is have a party where I force everyone to buy me pot plants. and of course I don't just want a million things of basil, AND NO CACTUSES PLEASE, so of course I would have to have a list of some kind, and this is obviously how it begins.

This whole 27 club thing is so boring and rubbish

I'm so TIRED OF IT.

27 is pretty old! I bet there is scientific evidence for my idea that 27 is the age when your body goes HEY NOW CUT IT OUT.
A year is a long time!
It's not that weird that like five HARDENED DRUG ADDICTS in the history of the world died at the same age!

It is sad she died though. Sad for her nice taxi driver dad.

We are moved in!

I love it I love it. We have a proper dining room table*, and a long balcony, and a washing machine, and a bathroom with an extraordinarily loud extractor fan. It goes DZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ and you only realise how loud it is when it comes to you that you have been humming along with it. I used to do that with vacuum cleaners as well when I was small.
We also have those bendy chairs with the white cushions that all up and coming moms had when I was in primary school. Those chairs that everyone who took an interest in Design thought were quite something about fifteen years ago.**

It already feels like a proper place to live, and I'm so happy.

* on the table there is a tablecloth which I bought the other day. It was sold to me by a woman who put me very badly on edge within about six seconds of clapping eyes on her, which is actually quite hard to do. Her shop sells things she bought at obviously exploitatively low prices in Madagascar. I picked up this teeny tiny little embroidered dress as I walked in, and her whole SWEATY FACE lit up and she said "YA DO YOU LIKE THAT I BOUGHT ONE FOR MY GRANDDAUGHTER BUT MY DAUGHTER IN LAW HASN'T SEEN IT FOR YONKS WE THINK THE MAID STOLE IT."

My mum was standing very close to me and I just faintly heard her go "uh oh" under her breath, in perfect time with the alarm bells just starting to go off in my head. Like oh PLEASE can we not go down this road called you saying racist things and me just standing there getting more and more irritated spit in my mouth oh pleeeeeeeeeease.

She left us alone for a bit, I think because of the very Charged way I must have been staring at her, but when she saw me pull out this tablecloth with lots of tiny little people on it, she could not hold herself back. Wild Horses could not hold her back. She said "IT'S NICE HEY DO YOU KNOW WHO MADE IT"
and I thought she was going to tell me like a small patronising story about the lovely little woman who makes them for her, but it was so much worse than that. It was so infinitely worse.
She said "CHILDREN MADE IT."
Like that was just a neutral observation, instead of a CRIME.
She said "THEY JUST COME HOME FROM SCHOOL AND THEY SEW AND SEW UNTIL THEY CAN'T SEE ANYMORE."
She was so triumphant when she said it as well. The really worst part of this story though is the bit where I am sitting smugly on the sofa and staring at my lovely new tablecloth, all covered in tiny little people.

** fifteen years ago. that's how long ago I was in primary school. I could not be older.

There is this allegedly very harrowing bit in King Lear

Where he says "The worst is not, So long as we can say 'This is the worst'."
it means that the real worst is when you are dead and can't say anything, obviously. Whenever I read it* or think about it** it ends up making me laugh a hundred times, because I go "The worst is not, so long as we can say 'This is my worst'."
I say "this is my worst" about a great many things. I say "this is my worst" approximately once every two days.
and so it's true! it is actually not the worst while you are walking around whingeing a bit and saying that this is your worst.So that's good then.

* not often
** daily

The best thing I found out today

Which is not even so great, is that the first Brian Eno album is called "Here Come The Warm Jets".

Gross.

Jason told me to listen to this show on NPR called car talk

And I thought oh please Jason, I can't even drive. I hate shows about cars. I get depressed when people talk about cars. I believe that caring about them means you have no inner life. A world without Jeremy Clarkson is the world that I want to live in.
But car talk! Car Talk is the best!

http://cartalk.com/

"hello my name is Gregory and my car makes a noise like DAHDAHDAHDAHDAHDAHDAHDAHDAH."

the hosts are amazing. The weird sort of fey men who phone in to be reassured by the hosts are amazing.

Hosts: "When was the last time you changed the spark plugs? You can't remember can you"
Gregory: "No"
Hosts: "You're giving all the right answers here Gregory"

The hosts are Tom and Ray and they are brothers from Boston. They say it like "brothah".

Joan Baez Joan Baez, weren't you supposed to bring the salad?
(low rumble and sound vacuum of water pulling back before a tsunami)

Joan Baez Joan Baez i think your shirt's on backwards!
(radio crackles to life with the King's Speech)

Joan Baez Joan Baez your hems coming undone
(Zzzzzeeeeewwwwrrrr noise of all the electricity in the city going off)

Joan Baez Joan Baez are we out of fizzy water?
(clattering of hooves)

Joan Baez Joan Baez did you put sugar in my tea?
(bugle sound)

Joan Baez Joan Baez is this your shoe lying here?
(the lonely cry of a native american)

WHAT A FUN GAME. half of these are Caitie's and half of them are mine. The good ones are Caitie's.

I hope this is exactly what I look like when I yawn

Real contemptuous. Eyes open real wide.

Caitie has been making me laugh a lot

I have always had a lot of time for Joan Baez. Partially because I think she and my mum looked exactly the same when they were younger, and partly because I am not a robot. Anyone who has watched don't look back or no direction home or ANY of those must feel exactly the same. your heart just BLEEDS for her. When she is sitting in that cowboy hat with the thick chin strap, eating a banana, and trying to get him to look at her, you can scarcely hear what is going on, so loud is the drumming of the blood in your ears.

or this bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV-Ohx8TOro

fuck.

me and caitie were talking about the own chosen speed thing, and she said that she often thinks of the VERY THREATENING scene in I'm Not There where where "they are sitting in a sort of park place and he is being a mega dickface, and says to i think joan baez that she is not capable of coming up with ann insult as cutting as he can, and tells her to write down the worst thing she could think of to say to someone, as a sort of challenge, and she refuses because you can see she knows that to see his submission would probably ruin everybody's lives."

and then she figured out that he wasn't talking to Joan, he was talking to the woman who is like the opposite of Joan, the pathologically self-contained Sarah. And even Sarah couldn't handle it. caitie said: "(i think it's actually with sarah not joan baez. he could have written anything to ruin joan baez's life.)"

and I said yes you are RIGHT.

So i went to sleep last night thinking of these kinds of things:

"your hair today is looking a bit fluffs Joan Baez"
(sound of plane crashing)

"Joan Baez you forgot to turn off the stove"
(sound of hounds being released)

"Joan Baez Joan Baez that painting is hanging a bit crooked"
(hissing noise of gas being released)

Today a hadeda walked into the kitchen

Casual As You Please.
I was sitting at the dining room table, and I heard this sort of tchk tchk tchk long toenails noise, and something bumping against the many hundreds of wine bottles lined up in their serried ranks by the bin, and in walks this giant bird.
it looked at me and kind of carefully lifted up its claws all delicate on the tiles and tchked towards the fridge. I said "hey" reaaal soft. Not like hey get out. More like hey look I don't mind, but I want you to know that I see what you are doing there. Like how you say it when a person is eating a lot of food off your plate. It looked at me some more and then tchked back outside at its own chosen speed.*

On the whole it was an extremely satisfying experience. I went for a run just now and thought about Man's Affinity With Beast all the way there and back.


* the other day we were listening to It Ain't Me Babe in the kitchen, and my dad said "ooooh, that's so brutal. 'Leave at your own chosen speed.' Like I don't care how long it takes, as long as you fuck off." I had never really thought about it, but he is right.

a thing my mum once said

"If you ever want to hear someone wee in accordance with their character, you should listen to (I can't say the name in case someone reads this EVEN THOUGH NO ONE DOES). It's so brisk and loud and efficient."

i thought:
I have never wanted to hear someone do that.

yesterday mae sent me a message that said "Ziggy ate a bath bomb, do you think he'll be all right?"

And I just added it to my list of reasons I am scared to ever have a baby. The list goes:
1. Swimming pools
2. Plastic packets
3. edges of any description
4. unfriendly dogs
5. solid food
6. what is wrong with me that my wild imagination can find no rest and must ceaselessly search for ways a small baby can hurt itself?*
7. bath bombs now

* Last weekend in the berg, all the people you would expect went for a Punishing Hike up Bamboo (my dad, felix, jason, philip) and failed to return at the time everyone thought they would. Also they failed to make themselves visible at ANY point. At no point could anyone see them at all. So my mum started going "Okay now I am worried. Now my imagination is galloping away with me." And Lesley said, "Can't you just slow it down to a walk?", and my mum said, "a walk? It's never going any slower than a trot." and I thought yes that is just about the size of it.

I thought one of them had maybe been bitten by a snake, and that felix had convinced them to let him perform emergency snake medicine on top of the mountain.** Or else that one of them had been gored by an Eland, and that felix had convinced them to let him perform emergency Eland medicine using a rocky outcrop as an operating table.

another time in the berg a whole lot of people went up Bamboo, and everyone came back when they should except my parents. I stood on the verandah on my tiptoes for like two hours anxiously sort of scanning the mountain, failed to see them even once and convinced myself that they had fallen into a big hole. My first sighting of them was when I saw a faraway person throw a red thing over a fence, and I thought oh my god there's dad throwing mum's exhausted form over the fence. Maybe she broke her legs.

It was not her exhausted form it was only her puffy jacket. She was extremely tired and pissed off though.

** I asked Felix about this later.
me: how do you perform emergency snake medicine?
felix: you get in your car and you go to the hospital
me: what no making a cross over the wound and sucking out the poison
felix: you do that in your car on the way to the hospital