-
i wanted to say something about DFW but i had other things i had to say first. i wanted to talk about amanda's wedding since that was the main thing & thank god he didn't actually die on that day but the day before, & i just hadn't heard. i wanted to talk about giving the maid of honor speech, telling how one of the first times amanda & i really bonded, we went to see david foster wallace read, & met him, & asked if we could take a picture, & how he was our idol, in the sense most people reserve for crap lead singers; i didn't tell the family-less-friendly bit about how david looked at the camera nervously, asked you're not going to photoshop dicks on my face or anything, right? how i sat down for dinner after the speeches & then lorealle had something on her phone, a picture of him, & she said who is that & i said oh no oh no, how i panicked & evaded the bride, not wanting his death & her wedding linked in her mind. (how several less sensitive guests strolled right up to the sweetheart table & brayed the news.) how i went behind a dumpster & cried; how lorealle was in the bathroom forever while i went into the men's room & threw up. this isn't about me, but it is about me, i felt like some kind of lever-point of terrible import, it was too full-circle, it was death's great whomping venn diagram, the slide & whale of some planet-sized typewriter's hard return.
the bride said this way more people will want to read his books & all get to share in them, he'll be more famous. the bride has a sunny disposition. the horror was nesting in my hair, & part of it was the complete resetting of relation to the text that his death meant, & the how of his death & then the why, & part of it was the identification with him, being so close to that edge, & part of it was remembering his commencement speech, about how if you can't learn to control what you hear & think you are totally hosed, & how when i read it i thought he meant w/r/t news & media, but how maybe it was a more headcentric thing than that, that it was controlling what we hear from ourselves, from our insides, & i hoped his insides weren't full of poison like mine are but i was afraid that they were, this kind of went along with that. how it feels to be pent-totally hosed. hubris or whatever how i always felt like i understood something about him & how now horrifying it was, that he had maybe had to life with that poison, how you never want someone you love to suffer in a way you have suffered. i wanted to know him like i know my father, my papa, my brothers; i know how he laughed, but i wanted to see his dinnertime tics or know about how he chose shoes, all the little terrible beauties of living & understanding. how hard we try not to think about how he felt that day. how perfect & terrible & beautiful: hosed.
then driving home from the hotel sunday i thought about the rest of the speech, i really made it up on the fly, terribly nervous, but ended up saying something about how in our culture the wedding is seen as a sort of finish line, the happily ever after end, but how it's really another beginning, & then i somewhat hackneyishly but no less sincerely said ...it's the beginning of forever, & driving home with a complete tangle of hair & bone exhaustion i thought about how maybe that was true, too, that what i have constructed from what i allow inside, controlling how i think, & being yes i will use the word blessed with the people around me, that it is a reflex to me that his wasn't a dead end, full stop, much like how his books kind of always weren't, & i hoped that there was a forever, some kind of great footnote that doesn't have an end.
the bride said this way more people will want to read his books & all get to share in them, he'll be more famous. the bride has a sunny disposition. the horror was nesting in my hair, & part of it was the complete resetting of relation to the text that his death meant, & the how of his death & then the why, & part of it was the identification with him, being so close to that edge, & part of it was remembering his commencement speech, about how if you can't learn to control what you hear & think you are totally hosed, & how when i read it i thought he meant w/r/t news & media, but how maybe it was a more headcentric thing than that, that it was controlling what we hear from ourselves, from our insides, & i hoped his insides weren't full of poison like mine are but i was afraid that they were, this kind of went along with that. how it feels to be pent-totally hosed. hubris or whatever how i always felt like i understood something about him & how now horrifying it was, that he had maybe had to life with that poison, how you never want someone you love to suffer in a way you have suffered. i wanted to know him like i know my father, my papa, my brothers; i know how he laughed, but i wanted to see his dinnertime tics or know about how he chose shoes, all the little terrible beauties of living & understanding. how hard we try not to think about how he felt that day. how perfect & terrible & beautiful: hosed.
then driving home from the hotel sunday i thought about the rest of the speech, i really made it up on the fly, terribly nervous, but ended up saying something about how in our culture the wedding is seen as a sort of finish line, the happily ever after end, but how it's really another beginning, & then i somewhat hackneyishly but no less sincerely said ...it's the beginning of forever, & driving home with a complete tangle of hair & bone exhaustion i thought about how maybe that was true, too, that what i have constructed from what i allow inside, controlling how i think, & being yes i will use the word blessed with the people around me, that it is a reflex to me that his wasn't a dead end, full stop, much like how his books kind of always weren't, & i hoped that there was a forever, some kind of great footnote that doesn't have an end.