Impenetrability! That's What I Say!

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master – that's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again.

"They've a temper, some of them – particularly verbs, they're the proudest – adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs – however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

-Lewis Carroll

The more I pass through life, the more relevant I find Alice's wanderings in wonderland and through the looking glass.

Exhibit A: Impenetrability & coherence.

I've fancied myself as fairly deft with language these last 20-plus years, since coming out of my own humpydumpy teenage shell and giving voice to the thoughts coursing through my head like so many ginger-bottomed greyhounds.

I've been glib enough to be a minor hit at dinner parties, piss people off at times, and even be called "insightful" on occasion. (This last is a Ha! moment for me, as I usually feel fradulent and alien on a daily, if not hourly basis.)

As fradulent or insecure as I may be feeling, I've always been able to compose my thoughts and spit out something approaching coherence. A neat stream of baccyjuice banging into the nearest spittoon with a resounding Twaack!--ayuh, 'notha zinger.

Nowadays when I open my mouth, what is likely to fall out is a lump of cold congealed spaghetti, strands fused together in an impenetrable mess. It does not Twaack! pithily. It's like, I dunno...hmmm...I think maybe what I'm doing is...ummm...aka PLOP.

I conclude it's okay not to have a conclusion handy at all times. It's passable not to know what one is feeling or why, not to dissect every nervous flutter or anxiety immediately and stick little pins into every part, naming it Thus and So and Opinion. And of course, examining the underlying pathology and discussing prognoses with emphatic certainty. Gosh, no. It sounds like a lot of work.

Comparatively, PLOP is a pretty little sound. Kind of lazy and reassuring and human. So I'll keep plopping and chugging, and maybe one day I'll just shut up for a while and smile serenely and people will think I'm wise. Yah, a plan it sounds.

Exhibit B: Impenetrability & trauma

An acquaintance has suffered a small hemorrhagic stroke. Thankfully, she continues to astound everyone with her progress. A remarkable woman, only 47 and very physically fit.

It is not comforting to think a genetic twitch may result in sloppy wiring of one tiny section of a brain, and that all the healthy living in the world can't prevent it from one day misfiring. However, perhaps the consequences would've been graver for her if she were not in otherwise supreme health.

The stroke occured in the part of the brain which governs the use of language. Think about language stored inside your skull in a pantry: here's a bin of verbs, a box of adjectives, a tasty stack of adverbs (eat those slow/ly, they say).

She has misplaced her nouns. Apparently, this is not uncommon when damage occurs in the parietal lobe. Construct a simple sentence, like "This juice is refreshing, and I like it." But you can't connect a word to the juice you hold in your hand, and have to ask someone for the name of the object. Imagine re-learning your own native tongue like you were a foreigner in your own head. This is real impenetrability.

I don't know how she and her family are dealing with this. I can only imagine they are all grateful she's doing as well as she is, and dealing with noun-loss with grace and humour. Surely it must be perplexing, frustrating at times...but surely it could be much, much worse.

Exhibit C: Impenetrability & penetration.

On a lighter note, a word or several on dating norms. I am not fluent in norms. I was never an orthodox dater even when it was what I was supposedly doing all those years ago. I either just fooled around with someone in a liquored-up state and that was that, or became (self) anointed as someone's Girlfriend very quickly.

The last 10 years (10!) have seen me in LTR mode, and more recently, scratching a long-time itch with a buckfuddy in sporadic, linen-degrading bursts of hotelling in the GTA.

However, if you've been paying attention, I have recently embarked on a series of Real Dates (when not hiding in purdah with a fever blister). It is nice (oh, making out is so nice) but a bit startling in its newness to me, especially in the many rules governing when to call and how to make plans and of course, the sexual roadmap. I'm navigating it in leaps and bounds.

There's the added complication of an urban reunion very shortly with my lover, the question mark. We recently became peevish with one another over email before declaring a truce, and have been friendly but circumspect since. I'm curious to see whether intellectual jousting, emotional recrimination or sexual confirmation (or a combination of all three) ensues when next we meet.

I don't know the etiquette of messing around with two men, albeit in different degrees and in separate cities (which surely counts for something, like allotting them each territory is a sign of respect or something, sigh). The good girl is dismayed, the real girl says why not? At this point, the Talk (you know the Talk, I don't have to explain it) has occurred with neither. Surely this lets me off the hook; as long as I remain cryptic all penetration is fair game. But I'm a little uneasy with this logic.

Luckily, I'm not left alone to stumble around like freshly unearthed mole-rat; I have friends to advise me.

"Don't give it up too soon", cautions my 24-year old friend on the sex in dating (who also tells me her perspective is changing now that she's "getting older"--yes, she is sincerely adorable).

"Go get what you want, do whatever you want as long as you play safe!" urges another gal, this one in her early 40s and fully supportive of my confused, naive, slutty longings.

"What does your heart say?" asks the dear best friend, giving me the lesbian perspective.

Hmm, did I hear a PLOP? I dunno.
Keep you posted as I fall down this hole,
Gretchen in Wonderbra