On DFW...
I didn’t even realize it, but I had started identifying so much with DFW that I had assumed part of him into my own identity. The character Hal Incandenza, in Infinite Jest, you see, is very, very much like myself. And this is what I didn’t even realize, but… I had started using hal as my login for various websites-meaning short for ‘Halsey’-but it didn’t hit me until after his passing that it was also Hal’s name. Silly me. That’s how much, I suppose, that I identified with Harold Incandenza, tennis star and English language genius of the highest caliber. So yeah, I had started calling myself ‘hal’ instead of ‘billifer’… and I had no idea it was because of DFW. But, of course, now I totally realize it.
Goodbye, DFW. Goodbye, Hallie.