I found that there was nothing more to say that would not spill unwilling and unwatchdogged out of my fingers, so I quit writing. I then found that I was not producing anything, and that my fingernails typed out words on my own arm, on tabletops, on newsprint, feeling unfilfilled and generally unhappy at my lack of concern for their well being. So, if they have something to say, I have decided to let them say it regardless of its benefit or irrelevance to man and motherkind. Today I believe they want to talk about _______________ (it is at this point that I relinquish control to see what they have to say and they fill in the blank with) plans for the future. I suppose this comes from Monk’s visit during which he didn’t visit but you (the thing that calls herself I) thought about several times him saying things like his plans to build the solar home or his silkscreen press or his skateboards or his tshirts that he’s selling to Norwegian ebay-ers. So, your plans for the future include writing a sermon. You feel, though, that you have a naïve at best understanding of God, one that oft lapses into blasphemy when you try to write about h(excuse me) – Him. See? That thought you just had – blasphemous (Him just a man word anyhow what care he if I capitalize it or not what show of relevance does that really give a capital letter if things such as DuPont or Exxon or even silly Tampax feel themselves important enough to capitalize). But you’ve recently learned that there is no locus of the self only a jarbled jumble of synaptic gaps and firing neurotransmitters collected into a beautifully complex junkheap called BRAIN and that there is there a seat of spirituality that can be excited by the proper experimental scientist located in the temporal lobe and how gorgeous a world we live in where we aren’t just an I but a complex series of Goldberg devices one domino knocking down the other and continuously travelling paths and (really you’ve got to learn to use periods you’re not pregnant are you and other bad jokes) so Fine. Here. Are you happy? Punctuation central. Fingers, you’re really uncoordinated this evening. Oh, it’s not our fault. Oh, it’s nobody’s. So simplified, the self-reflective study of English where any text is open to interpretation and the main lesson seems to be ANYTHING GOES if YOU READ INTO IT WELL ENOUGH and MAKE CONNECTIONS and NOTICE THEMES AND ECHOES but IF YOU CAN BACK IT UP, YOU’VE GOT A PAPER but it must be as yet un

Oh, I’ve lost interest in that train. On to something else. Oh parietal lobe. Oh temporal, my favorite. Oh hippocampus (seat of long-term memory), that doesn’t form until 3 years old and explains why we don’t remember being Baby. Let me in on your secrets. Prove to me the order of the universe and a grand design behind the chaos. Show me how you fire in succession and how we can increase your happiness and productivity. Let me peek into that thalamus (the operator), that amygdala (self-preservation/fear), those unconscious urges erupting from your mysterious limbic system that looks something quite like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Meanwhile my son sleeps arms outward, dreaming he’s a biplane or a giant tree, and my conscious self now notices that, once again, wrapping yourself around a theme is a difficult and tedious task that requires great restraint and great effort from the frontal lobe.