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Re "Me and Lillian" a fellow prof told me once that she explains breaking grammatical rules to her students via the analogy of crossing at the light. When you're a kid, you cross with the light. When you're an adult, you have enough knowledge to know when you can cross against the light. Yes, you might get 'in trouble' but that doesn't mean you were wrong in your assessment!

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this reminds me a bit of Columbo.

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Finger slip. Meant to say “aw-shucks, folksy it shall be,”

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It hurt my senses . . . . "Me and Lillian?" An "author" wrote that?

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Oh for goodness sake!!!!

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Dang! She put you in scare quotes, dawg!

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My senses! O my senses!

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"Me and Lillian?"

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I understand Substack to be a conversational, or at least non-structured format and when I'm being conversational I am loose with grammar like most people. If I had a problem with it, its maybe too folksy and folksy isn't usually my mode. But every now and then it is! Plus the conversation is fairly intimate and on an intimate subject so, it seemed appropriate.

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I feel so sad for WINNEGANS' WAKE for this same set of reasons.

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And even if you were retarded, what if that's the only way you can get your head around the language?

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Intrigued by the discussion surrounding queer identity and a certain contemporary ambivalence around its political valence. Not sure that (or why) Mary would be aware of this, but as a straight male millennial on dating apps in an urban area, a huge percentage of left-leaning women identity as “queer” aside and apart from actual sexual preference (that is, when given the low-stakes opportunity to check a box). It seems to stand in for a range of ideological commitments, while also probably discouraging a certain type of man that other identity markers didn’t take care of.

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No I wasn't aware of that, but it makes sense esp. as the definition of 'queer' has become pretty generous. Thanks for commenting...

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Have you heard of the term WAIF?

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No. I mean yes, but not in all caps.

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PLEASE clarify this. Urban dictionary has failed me.

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I'm more interested in what you FEEL like it means. The shape and sound sense of it. What does it conjure? Does it have any associations that link to anything else?

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Fascinating conversation. I hope you do more podcasts!

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While I listened in the summer heat, petals of Brooklyn narcissus fluttering, the cloud shadows suggested the form of strong man who fiercely dedicated himself to an insistence of Women's Pleasure, I used my feet to push away the sour thought: why aren't more women in STEM? I learned to weld above my head in a shipyard, starting at a spark brighter than the sun. Machines roaring, toxic fumes seeping through my mask, I stood on one leg and held my breath in the perfect momentum as I choreographed the slow, fickle movement of the molten steel above me. Finally, I couldn't hold my breath any longer and stopped. My weld was incomplete, and therefore a failure. I took off my helmet and noticed that my sleeve was on fire. As I patted it out, I realized my problem. I hadn't been looking in a mirror enough. I hadn't been admiring my own beauty enough, and wondering what it is for, and plunging my human potential deep into the foliage of psychosexual conundrums.

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insert laughing emoji here!

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Wonderful interview ... and interviewee ...

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good interview

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