Notes on Flannery O’Connor

• As far as I can tell, she was the first user of “biddies,” in “The Displaced Person,” 1956 (to mean young BIRDS, but I’ll let that slide). The OED has not caught up with me, but I have the word circled, highlighted, and practically bedazzled in A Good Man is Hard to Find, p. 219. Flannery O’Connor, vocabulary pioneer. 

• She uses down-homey language to distance herself from her most earnest beliefs, mainly deeply intellectual Catholicism. How many times have you described yourself as ~really growing this year~ or ~finding yourself~ or the like with a groan (or, my favorite, waving your arms to the side to look like tildes) to describe genuine but cliche/vulnerable feelings? I thought this was a totally modern phenomenon until I read about Flannery writing in letters about the “Catlics,” and how she is “gawdshile,” and her “pilgrumidge” to Lourdes to cure her of lupus. Flannery O’Connnor, original Thought Catalog writer.

• “I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re: fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.” - Flannery O’Connor, truthspeaker. 

• She was good friends with Robert Fitzgerald, author/translator of my back of the book answer key to Latin II and III, “The Aeneid,” Vintage Classics Edition, 1981. Flannery O’Connor, ran with awesome folks.

• One of my favorite and saddest stories about my mother has always felt like an O’Connor story to me. Our family cat, Sarah, died of old age a few years back. My devastated mother was the only one home at the time. She tearfully buried her in one of Sarah’s favorite boxes in the backyard under my window. For the rest of the day, my mother was plagued with guilt. What if Sarah wasn’t actually dead? What if she had actually BURIED the beloved family pet ALIVE in the BACKYARD? What if she could have been SAVED? My mom didn’t call me to tell me the news until after she a) dug up Sarah to double check, b) had my father triple check once he got home, and c) convinced herself Sarah died warm in her bed, not two gravelly feet underground. Catholic guilt, a dead animal, and an overactive internal dialogue = Flannery O’Connor, always relevant.

A short story about moving from Chicago to San Francisco.

For sale: snow boots. Hardly worn.

It’s annoying to be my friend.

I spend 60% of every roller derby game leaning over to the group, listing off nerdy potential roller derby names:

Charlepain, Zelda Hitsgerald, Gory Vidal, A Fight in August, Stahitstically Significant, and my favorite, Slamdra Day O’Connor. 

bringing a knife to a gun fight

There’s a manichean arms race going down on the corner of North Ave. and Throop.

Home Depot and Lumber Liquidators are directly across the (very narrow) street from each other, and the tension seems to be getting a bit much for both parties.

and most recently:

Best part of my bus ride to Whole Foods, for sure.

totally specious excuses I’ve made to myself for taking a cab.

1. I WILL BE BLOWN AWAY BY THIS WIND UNLESS I ENTER A VEHICLE PRONTO.

2. I’m both very late and very important.

3. This club blows.

4. Just got paid. MONEY EVERYWHERE.

5. I need to get a secondhand Kitchen Aid mixer from point A to point B.

6. The Blue Line smells like wet dog today.

7. There is no north side line connecting the Red and Blue lines. I CRY INJUSTICE.

8. It’s too far late in the evening to find Taco Burrito Express #3 unaided.

9. Work said I could expense one (1) cab home from the holiday party but I shall use it to get to the after-after party.

10. I just really want a smoothie and I want it now.

new holiday meal strategy.

Napalm the jungle of the lone veg option at the Thanksgiving table (sweet potato + black bean enchiladas with tomatillo mmm) before it even leaves the oven, leaving it ALL FOR ME, WHAT UP.

I salute you, chipotle in adobo.

a vocabulary lesson for your early 20s.

guiltresolveanxiety - the feeling and experience of leaving a fun situation in medias res, likely to go home and watch Netflix streaming.  You must always apologize profusely and self-deprecatingly use any of the following words: grandma, tired, work early tomorrow, lame. Later accompanied by the twin feelings of joy at a night exactly how you want it and quiet worry that somewhere, someone is having more fun without you.

apologookies - the cookies you bring your neighbors when your partyguests have Too Much Party and vom everywhere. Try these.

macguffin - initially defined as a vital Hitchcockian object that drives the plot of the work of fiction, whose actual use has nothing to do with the ultimate outcome of the story and is therefore interchangeable (“oh shit, we have to go get that One Ring/Ark of the Covenant/suitcase full of cocaine/Mona Lisa before that other guy does!”). Yet this term aptly describes a wholesome and entirely plausible weekend activity you might engage in (e.g. going to the lake!) that you fabricate solely to answer your coworkers’ “what are you doing this weekend?” question from Wednesday onward, only because you suspect that “interneting and going to bars. like every weekend.” just won’t cut it.

things that are totally beyond my control, and yet my mother implies i am responsible:

“Why didn’t Google make a daily doodle in honor of Steve Jobs? That seems disrespectful.”