Hypothetical Pull, fortissimo

But woman in God's hands is not only this blade, this burn; the riches of this world are not meant to be always refused.-- Simone de Beauvoir

Dear Jayne Anne,

I gave myself a bit of a turn there, posting about your voice in summary fashion, even in hyperbolic relapse to my memory of my former potential. I have visited your web site off and on between computer crashes and crises and upgrades, always intent on purchasing my own edition of "Black Tickets". I am over-extended with my reading for the time being, and I need to begin taking extensive notes on Giuseppe Tomasi if I am going to cajole any remaining ambition I have left to be respected. I exaggerate when I say idiomatically that the State is going to kill me, but on the basis of what I have lived and experienced, I believe it deep down. (A psychiatrist with cue cards once quipped at me, "You believe the world is against you." And I queried back, "Have you a chronic condition like cerebral palsy?" He reminded me of Bram Stoker's Renfield, or a centurion with jaundice. Wards of the state should be so lucky.) I had a major depressive episode at the turn of the century. I am ashamed, not so much of the episode, but of my own weakness, giving this woman so many weapons to utilize in her humiliation of me-- a punishment for elevating her. I needed rescue financially and overplayed my hand. A political aide told me to stop feeling guilty that I talked to her, but this is difficult. I should have been stronger, less panicked.

When I browsed through Fast Lanes in 1987 I was merely despondent, doing research. My heart wasn't in it due to infantilism over my professor, but your voice was important to me because it reached me like a living connection with its own vibrancy, and this is rare with me, regardless of particular weaknesses, strengths, thus my ode to you which had absolutely nothing to so with your work (giggles at our egos). It was about sexual envy mostly, as opposed to vocational. You deserve your acclaim. I want the validation without the sacrifice of discipline to get there, and it may be too late now, in my race against subsistence. The crack in my bibelot is an obsessive emotional investment, and by the time we wise up, we're dead. I had a few difficult hours this week, wondering if I was going to ask you to help me break my public housing paradigm, but that would not be fair. I was never your student, and in terms of using your influence to ask a writing residency to grant me a length of stay exemption would take more than an online dialogue. Even if you were willing to have that, my psyche is a bit tremulous, and if fans who have that state of mind about my work annoy me, I do not want to inflict the same fallen on my ass impact onto you. I have every single credit listed, no matter how small, but I have yet to complete something to break ranks. Perhaps I can't, and hubris feeds a certain degree of delusion; maybe I fritter and procrastinate.

But your voice held me up in those insular years when I moped because I couldn't be the graduate student who caught her big fish. I am grateful your talent held that degree of consolation. For this reason, it is an honor to follow you.