Jennifer Finney Boylan

And now, a few words on yesterday, 2/13/20.

I awoke early in order to get out the door to have an X-ray of the knee I damaged in a bike wipe-out some loyal readers might remember from last July. Like the wound from the morgul-blade Frodo sustained on Weathertop, "It has never really healed." Arrived at the hospital to be told I was too early.

I decamped to Tom's Diner (aka "The Seinfeld Restaurant") for eggs over easy.

Returned to the hospital to learn that the paperwork was not in order, and after some unpleasantness was told to return the next day.

Went to Barnard and graded a paper. Yes, my students are just amazing.

Then down to lower Manhattan for a conversation with an arts foundation that confirmed that YES I have won an artists' fellowship that will place me in a castle in Umbria, Italy, for a month in 2021, where I shall write all day long and emerge late in the day for pasta and Chianti.

From there, my spirits raised, I went to my fancy midtown club where I sat in a very fancy chamber indeed and ate a half dozen oysters, Prosecco, and a "lobster cobb salad." And did the Thursday crossword.

ON TO THE MORGAN LIBRARY, where i am attempting to solve a literary mystery for my sister, who has found evidence among Charles Dickens' papers of a novel not written by CD, but by whom? The suspect is one Charles Collins, brother of Wilkie, who wrote THE MOONSTONE. The Morgan contains his papers-- I arrived with the call letters in high hopes of learning more. Alas the receptionist had never heard of anyone ever actually wanting to see the holdings of the collection before-- had I not called ahead? You have to talk to Mrs. X! I asked, is Mrs. X in the building? They said yes. I said, might I see her? They responded like, No one sees Mrs. X! But here's her phone number. Which I dialed, and which Mrs. X did not answer. In defeat I wandered among the exhibits looking upon the special show on Alfred Jarry, whom I know through the work of Bill Griffith, author of ZIPPY THE PINHEAD. An Absurdist from the 1880s. Who wrote things like "Existence is only possible if we do not live." I love me some absurdists, but after my day, and in this age, all I could think was, Fuck you, Alfred. I was not amused. (Mrs. X contacted me later and I'm going back in 2 weeks.)

I left there and got in a cab to go back uptown: my cabbie explaned that he was "new." What does "new" mean? It means he attempted to go from midtown to the upper west side by means of the QUEENSBORO BRIDGE. I talked him out of this, but it was touch and go there for a while. As we rode north I thought about how my experience at the x-ray place and the Morgan were not dissimilar: I could not do the thing I had come to do and was told to come back in order to do the thing.

Arrived at Barnard and graded more papers, did I mention that my students are amazing?

At 5:30 I attended a lecture by Prof. Elizabeth Pryor of Smith College, who is also RICHARD PRYOR'S DAUGHTER, who talked about 'the N-word in the classroom." She did a deep dive into the complications of that word-- what happens in a classroom when a white person uses it, what happens when a black person uses it, what happens when we ask students to read it out loud in a text we are reading. It was an intense lecture and the conversation afterwards was amazing too. She ended her talk by showing a clip of her father in 1973 saying that, after visiting Kenya, he had realized he would never say that word again.

It made me think about the T word, the one that rhymes with "uncanny" which I find a mortifying slur but many people (including my sisthren on I AM CAIT) consider a "family word," in the same way that variants on the N word are said to be "reclaimed." But then, race and gender are not equivalencies; and there is really no equivalent to black people's experience in this country. With this in mind, I held my tongue during the Q & A, although I did want to ask about it. Prof. Pryor did get high marks from me also for coming up to me beforehand and saying, OMG Jenny Boylan I love your writing. Squee! Just after that I sat down and a young woman in the row ahead of me turned and said, Weren't you on that TV Show?

I went home exhausted to find that in my long absence my apartment mate, Tim Kreider had MADE BOUILLABAISSE, Which we ate with aplomb and drank a tender rose. I also listened to the 2/13/70 Dark Star, 50 years to the day, an epic version.

I collapsed into bed so tired I could hardly think straight.

Awoke this morning, went to the X-Ray place where my knee has now been examined. Then I swam 50 laps in the Columbia pool, and afterwards went to the taco truck and got a bean burrito which I have just finished. Now I must write next week's NYT column, and grade more papers. Tomorrow: Cosi fan tutti, by Mozart, at the Met.

What is the point of this story? What information pertains? The hope that life could be better is woven into our hearts and our brains.

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance, everybody knows that's true.

- (published with permission from) Jennifer Finney Boylan