I wonder if it was the same ring.
In the middle pages of the book my father drew a floor plan of the house he and my mother were planning to rent in Santa Monica.
He has measured every wall, door, and window.
He has measured the height and horizontal placement of every light switch and electrical outlet.
He has measured the height of the kitchen counters and the height of the living room mantelpiece.
On a following page he has made a chart of all the furniture he and my mother owned, with length, depth, and height listed for each.
Three blank pages follow.
Then he wrote:
The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
Love,
Your Father
1:14 a.m., May 10, 2006
You tried to be a fox, but I worked like a dog, and I solved your cipher in approximately one minute. As for putting a peak on your ziggurat:
I do not like dense people wrongly, stupidly subbing always words thus: for “me,” “I.”
That took me another minute.
Re: multiplying by (x−y), if x = y that screws it all up, right? Is that relevant?
7:47 p.m., May 11, 2006
Dear Mette,
It does more than that, it introduces a second solution, because 0 = 0.
I do not like dense people forever stupidly employing incorrect pronouns, subbing always words thus: for “me,” “I.”
Now another peak is needed, and since you’re so good at it . . .
Love,
Your Father
7:51 p.m., May 11, 2006
Oh, yeah, duh! It introduces the solution that x = y, which is the whole trick. That’s pretty neat.
I do not like dense people forever stupidly employing farcically incorrect pronouns, subbing always words thus: for “me,” “I.”
That was too easy.
2:03 a.m., May 13, 2006
Dear Smarty-Pants,
I do not like dense people forever stupidly employing farcically, moronically (alternatives: ludicrously, retardedly) incorrect pronouns, subbing always words thus: for “me,” “I.”
Love,
Your Father
11:10 a.m., May 13, 2006
I was asleep when you sent this, otherwise I would have answered sooner.
I do not like dense people forever stupidly employing farcically, moronically, pathetically (alternatively: ridiculously, cretinously, hopelessly) incorrect pronouns, subbing always words thus: for “me,” “I.”
I’ll admit, even with the thesaurus this took me an hour, mainly because I didn’t see at first that I could change “alternatives” to “alternatively.” And by the way, “retard” is an offensive term these days, old man.
10:38 p.m., May 13, 2006
Dear Captain of the Language Rangers,
And “cretin” isn’t?
I do not like dense people forever stupidly employing farcically, moronically (alternatives overextending sesquipedalian possibilities, respectively: “ludicrously,” “retardedly”) incorrect pronouns, subbing always words thus: for “me,” “I.”
Love,
Your Offensively Superannuated Father
10:43 p.m., May 13, 2006
“cretin” isn’t offensive because most non-ancient people today are cretinously ignorant of its meaning. I’ll figure out how to add to the snowball later tonight
11:09 a.m., May 15, 2006
Dear Mysteriously Silent Snowballer,
Epimenides the Cretin said, “What I am saying now is a lie, but I’m too stupid to know it.”
Question: Is that a logically complete paradox?
Love,
Your Father
3:51 p.m., May 15, 2006
I’ve been busy doing other things. I guess I have to admit it’s a little harder to add something at this point. Don’t send any suggestions. I’ll figure it out.
Your Epimenides statement isn’t a paradox at all. Epimenides is lying.
7:19 p.m., May 15, 2006
Dear Mette,
Good for you!
While I wait for you to fire a snowball back at me, here’s another data set. (You haven’t told me to stop, so you only have yourself to blame.)
Data Set: Old Guy
Guy Williams played John Robinson on Lost in Space.
I wished he were my father.
John Robinson was handsome and wise and could swordfight.
He looked like JFK in futuristic polyester pants and black zippered booties.
My father was smart, but dismissive and irritable and less handsome.
Plus, he couldn’t swordfight.
After Lost in Space, Guy Williams wasn’t offered any television or film roles and most people forgot him.
In 1973 he visited Argentina and was mobbed by thousands of fans.
It turned out everyone in Argentina loved Zorro, which Guy Williams had starred in before Lost in Space.
In 1979, he moved to Argentina.
I felt strongly that this was too far away.
He lived alone in an apartment in Buenos Aires.
In later years he went around doing swordfighting in a circus act.
It was all choreographed ahead of time.
For some reason this made me sad.
When he was sixty-five, Guy Williams died in his apartment of a brain aneurysm.
His body wasn’t discovered for a week.
Love,
Your Father
p.s. My father died earlier this year, so I guess he’s been on my mind.
8:17 p.m., May 16, 2006
Duck!
I do not like dense people forever stupidly employing farcically, moronically (alternatives shambolically hyper-extending quasi-exhaustive sesquipedalian possibilities, respectively: “cretinously,” “hopelessly”) incorrect pronouns, subbing always words thus: for “me,” “I.”
I don’t really understand your data sets, but I don’t mind reading them, so you can keep sending them. I’m sorry to hear about your father. Who’s JFK?
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Chicago, 10:53 a.m. Twenty-three minutes late. Greyhound buses are always late and all they would have to do is change the published schedule to reflect actual travel times, yet they don’t. She has sixty-eight minutes. She washes up in the restroom, confers with the cloud, walks two blocks north toward an Indian restaurant. She packed inadequate clothing. Monday it was in the 60s, but yesterday it turned frigid again. Wild swings this month. More energy in the system, greater amplitude. Anyone who thinks for a second that humans are going to deal with climate change should consider the immovable object that is the Greyhound bus schedule.
She opens the steamed-up glass door, ducks into the warmth. (Scurries.) That cumin smell, like stale sweat. Some people don’t make the connection, probably a genetic thing, a difference in olfactory receptors.
“I’ll have the aloo saag and an order of poori.”
“Here or to go?”
“Here.”
The place is empty. Worker bees still hiving. She takes a table in a corner, pulls out her notebook, writes simple snowball sentences.
I am not good today, father dearest.
I do not feel smart, mother anxious.
I do not want other people judging anybody’s qualities, absolutely forevermore.
Wishner’s
