Previously, I really only saw the joke of calling a coroner a crowner. Hey – these guys are dumb! Or have an exceptionally colorful dialect! Either way – funny stuff! But I have a comedy mind. So I will often see the joke before I see something else. Now – though – the sense of a crowner is much richer than just a funny way to say coroner. A king is a crowner. He crowns his heir and his wife – a long line of crowns. And with the divine right of kings – a crowner might also be God. God is your only king-maker. Your only crownmaker. And so on. With the simple (mis)pronunciation joke, the crowner’s quest is like the coroner’s inquest or question. But a King’s quest is a different law entirely. And a God’s quest even more so.

I just finished reading Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus in which the clowns fare rather badly. I’m not sure what Carter has against clowns but she pretty much killed them all off, including their dogs. I love Carter’s writing but the dark take on the clowns ruffled my feathers a bit. (So to speak – you might find that last line funny if you’ve read the book.) First, her clowns were more buffon than clown. They traveled in packs like buffon. They could be satirical. They had a real mean streak. They were grotesque.

Second, as a clown, I take a small amount of exception to the fact that a novice performer can be thrown in with the clowns and become expert immediately.

Third, what kinds of clowns never take off their make-up? Answer – magical realist ones of course. But – still.
Anyway – the sole surviving clown (who is, granted, not truly a clown) begins to speak a bit like this toward the end of the book.

There is a bit of an epidemic of this in my generation – the men, shortening their own lives like this – though I don’t see them as guilty.

There must be something that has made things impossibly hard for them – perhaps a sense of being alone, of being locked into a toxic masculinity while recognizing its toxicity- but unable to shake it off. I don’t know – but right now it’s being discussed as an epidemic of the suicides of middle aged men.

With the right special effects, it might be possible for a body of water to pull itself from its bed and into the shape of a man or animal – then walk a good distance and drown someone.

Mark is a funny name.
It is both a verb and a noun and a name. It’s funny that way.
Are there other names that are both verbs and nouns and common names?

Will he, nill he sounds a LOT like willy nilly and according to etymology on-line – willy nilly is a contraction of will, nill he. And what my brain wants to do is make will he, nill he mean the more modern sense of willy nilly. That is, for me, willy nilly doesn’t really mean with or without his will – it means a sort of here and there, an all-over-the-place, scattershot sense. But it is possible that all these years I have been using it wrong or misunderstanding.

But – phew – no – according to Merriam Webster its second definition is “in a haphazard or spontaneous manner” – which lines up with my thinking on it. The first definition, though, is this will he, nill he sense – the without his will sense.

On the Dear Sugars podcast, the hosts consulted Esther Perel about a letter they received. Because Perel has seen so many couples and counseled specifically on sex, she has a unique perspective on the relationship described in the letter.

The hosts were inclined to tell the letter writer to drop her sexless relationship – but Perel widened the dialogue. She pointed out that often in cases such as these when men weren’t sexually engaged with their partners that they tended to be really great men. They’re caring and generous. They make coffee for their partners. They empathize with their loved ones’ frustrations. They just seem to have a block about being sexually intimate with their romantic partners.
When Perel described these men, she said something like “These are good men.”
Here stands the man, good.

I like to think of water this way, as lying somewhere, lying between two banks, lying in a riverbed, lying down wherever it can find space.
There’s something rather peaceful in the notion of water just…resting anywhere it can.
It is especially nice to think about today as the 4th hurricane in a month barrels down upon Puerto Rico. That water is not lying anywhere today.
I like to think of water this way, as lying somewhere, lying between two banks, lying in a riverbed, lying down wherever it can find space.
There’s something rather peaceful in the notion of water just…resting anywhere it can.
It is especially nice to think about today as the 4th hurricane in a month barrels down upon Puerto Rico. That water is not lying anywhere today.

This is a phrase that I would very much like to bring back into common parlance. I particularly feel it would be useful for me and my fellow women. It would work like a Shakespearean “Reclaiming my time” – just, like, you’re interrupted and instead of having to say “Stop interrupting me!” You can just say, “Give me leave” and continue. Instead of the multitude of qualifiers many of us feel compelled to use before speaking, we could just say “Give me leave” and go. No more “If I could just raise a point” or “I don’t mean to refute you but – “ Just “Give me leave!”
Give me leave.
Give me leave.
Give me leave.
Not please give me leave.
Not. If it’s not too much trouble, give me leave.
Just. Give me leave. Give me leave.
I’m reclaiming my time.