n. — an oubliette
Ha! Fooled you! Well, come on, I can’t be using the same word over and over.
So here’s the latest definition:
4. oubliette: n. — the in-box
Or whatever pile substitutes for it. Duh. Of course. While they are supposedly simple instruments of procrastination, you know that’s a lie. And if you say you don’t have one, that’s a lie, too. I have many—I don’t even know where some of them are.
Anyway, I was looking through one neat little pile (neatness is the seal of forgetting) for info on a follow-up doctor’s appointment and found, among other things:
Info on a follow-up doctor’s appointment (2019)
A Jehovah’s Witness card (2015)
A letter from my mother’s probate lawyer appointing me administrator of her estate (2015)
A recipe for making a jello brain (2004? 2005? 2006?)
An index card with a summary (written in my former tiny, neat, terrified handwriting) of Ortega y Gasset’s observations on Modern Fiction. Part of my study for orals exam for my (abandoned) PhD (1983)
A stack of Copyeditor newsletters, which contain what might have been helpful when I was still starting out. Or not. How to name files—I ask you. (2004)
Well, that’s my whole life right there. Clearly, this stack of paper represents the (polygamous) miscegenation of several different in-boxes. I’m attracted to this list because of its historical breadth—can one have a sweeping in-box, like “a sweeping historical novel that traces three generations… “? (Aside: If the book jacket mentions a “sweeping novel that traces three generations…,” I hastily put it back before my fingers are burnt). And of course the absurd combination of brain-shaped jello molds with any of the other items. But some things I’d rather not be reminded of. On the whole, it does make a powerful argument for culling or filing as preferable to in-box oubliettes.
Again, I’m leaving further commentary on items therein for later, if ever. Individually, they’re meh. Brain jello excepted. And I’ll do the commentary on brain jello here. Not only does it inject a shining absurdity into this collection, but it’s a reminder that there is always absurdity—a (or is it the?) memento vivere. I’ve always got something to look forward to.
(OK, perhaps the Jehovah’s Witness card may eventually star in its own post.)
Bye. I promise this is the last oubliette. Promise promise.