BORE-ring!

Woo, Bo, Pook, Mackenzie, and I were in the kitchen this afternoon.

Woo-dee killed the last of the pasta salad - leaving one marinated tortellino! Grace scarfed an ear of just-steamed sweet corn. The girls inhaled the pricey olive spread I laid out. (Only I ate any of the Raspberry Chipotle Spread. It is not inedible.) Ike was a tortilla chips-and-Dr. Pepper guy - at least until I started peeling the steamed shrimp. Mackenzie voiced no preference, so Butter Bean fed her formula.

"I read the whole blog today", Grace offered. I asked her what she thought, but before she answered, Dr. Woo piped up with some reference to one of the pieces, and said she laughed when "you told the friendly stranger that you were 'Holden' " - not choosing to be identified as father or grandfather of the historic baby. Both girls said they like "Historic Children".

Woo and Gracelli each said they could not read all the way through "Oh . . ., So You Think You're Perfect?".

"Boring."

"Waaaaaaaayyyyyy too long."

"Who cares about Jimmy Carter?"

Gracious asked, "Is the woman you gave a bath Janis Adams?" (In "Two-and-a-Half Baths".) Janis is a family friend who babysat the girls. She had a cerebral hemorrhage about fifteen years ago.

"Sarah read it and thought the woman was Helinka", I said.

"That's what I thought", Woo chimed. "But I couldn't figure out how she was stuck in traffic."

I clarified. "She's none of them. She's a composite and a fabrication. She might be stuck in traffic, or terminally ill, or rich and miserable. The point is . . . that the woman lacks the . . . capacity - or opportunity, or ability - to find in the innocence of a child all that's necessary to make . . . sense of life.

"What I'd like to understand is 'do you think that there's an . . . erotic component to the bath? Or is Older Holden . . . innocent? Maybe he's being intentionally ambiguous about his interaction with this . . . friend of his?' I want to know how you 'hear' O.H.'s voice.

"Also, we have to consider if Alf V. TerZane is playing games with us, keeping secret the behaviors and intentions of Older Holden. Alf may be trying to 'reel us in', like so many fiction-reading fishes."

Laura returned us to the boring entry, asking, "Why'd yuh go off on a tangent about Jimmy Carter?"

("Hello, pot? This is the kettle. You're black.")

Pook Doggie Dogg asked, "What's a tangent?"

I got a pad and pen, brought it to the kitchen table, drew a circle in the center of the paper, and then a line that touched the circle's side barely.

I pointed into the circle with the pen, and swirled around within the boundary. "Everything in there is the core of the story.

"There's one point on the side of the circle where the line touches it. That's the tangent." I held the pen at the point, then moved it down the line to its end.

"This part of the story's related to the main story in the circle by just that one point."

"Good explanation of 'tangent', . . . Holden", Doctor said.

When Older Holden was a young prep school student, he hated English teachers who didn't "allow" digression. Now, Older Holden has kucking fids who are nippin' at his 'nads because he digresses.

When Mackenzie is 14, or 17, or 20 - as are her uncle, mother, and aunt today, it is my hope that she will be able to read the intent of a piece like "Oh . . ., So You Think You're Perfect?". Should this piece make its way into "The Unauthorized Biography of Mackenzie Lakyn (Harmony) Ainsworth", by Alf V. TerZane, and should she not be able to read the intent, here is a crib note:

The protagonist (Older Holden) has reached an age where he can regard a failed - but potentially wonderful - relationship as a very good thing, but one which had issues associated with the timing or the comparative evolutions of its participants. O.H. regards the failed - but potentially wonderful - presidency of Jimmy Carter as a model for his learning to cope with the loss of "the perfect woman".

Mackenzie will have responsibilities when she is encountered as the perfect woman. She will also be responsible for bringing her expectations of "the perfect man" into line with reality. (I am projecting heterosexuality upon the child as a statistical likelihood. Same-gender relationships are not excluded by the model, nor is lifelong celibacy.)

Alf V. TerZane is working out a small problem: there are several sorts of prospective readers of "Older Holden". One is an infant who will likely not see the work until she is in her teens. Others include Mackenzie's familial and social relatives - whose interests in literature (and even reading!) vary widely. Alf his ownself has a circle of acquaintance that is accustomed to his writing style(s) and sensibilities - "mature" stuff, stylistically and thematically.

Sometimes pieces are long because they must be. To those who find them boring, apologies. To those who find some merit in them, a pledge to work to write more concisely, clearly, directly.

But, as I review the first ten pieces, what I notice is not the length. (This is, however, certainly one of those times when size does matter.) As my Terre Haute roommate Goldberg always said, "Man, can you write ducking fialogue!" Check it out: the less conversation, the less readable. Without dialogue, these pieces read like essays. Most people want to receive an accredited grade or a paycheck for reading essays . . ..