I have already complained about my trouble retrieving words, and about my senility, which is currently resulting in the escalating loss of jewelry and household objects. But here’s something new: Along with the loss of my vocabulary, is an increased sensitivity to word usage.

If this sounds contradictory, think again. The loss of my words makes existing words all the more potent. Or maybe it’s just an autistic sensory thing, like reacting to the seams in your socks. I’m trying to read a long essay about friendship in the Atlantic, but each misjudgement in the prose is killing me.

I can say misjudgement not out of pedantry ( is that the correct word??) but simply because my ear knows right from wrong. I can’t help it. It’s not an achievement, it’s just innate, like a sense of smell. It’s sprachgefühl.

I asked my husband, a musician, what it feels like to hear someone play the wrong note, but it turns out there are several kinds of wrong in music. Plus, he doesn’t “feel” things as acutely as I do, according to him. But he agreed that a singer who can’t follow a tune is exasperating.

I might not be able to know a wrong note from a hole in the ground, but I do know this: The following sentence is ruined by one single word.

Most of us have [Problem Friends] though we may wish we could tweeze them from our lives.

Right? The word tweeze right there is so awful. It makes you wince. Clearly the author chose that word deliberately but did she want us to wince? Why not just use expunge or expel? Even “jettison” would be better, although I hate that word and would be glad to forget it. Or if she’s trying to be funny, how about “defenestrate”?  Defenestrate is always funny, even when applied to actual defenestration!

So the essay has become a challenge, since I’m keenly interested in the subject of friendship, but the lapses in judgement are like potholes interrupting my flow. Was potholes good for you? Are you glad I said it was a challenge rather than calling it “problematic?” I could have said, “like nails on a chalkboard” but then I’d feel bad about myself.

You see how troublesome this shit is. Before I forget, I wanted to share a list of words I couldn’t retrieve in the last few weeks. My plan was to keep a comprehensive list and then try to compose haiku with them. But I keep forgetting to write them down, because senility. Here’s my list:

mariachi
linens
Napoleon Dynamite
rapport
attention
shingles
surface
hindrance
concierge
kangaroos
concierge
tsunami.

I wrote concierge twice because I keep forgetting it. I keep wanting to say “Courvoisier” even though I didn’t know what it was before googling it.

Getting back to the Atlantic essay, try this sentence:

But the lacuna in the literature is also a little odd.

God, what the fuck?? Lacuna, for fucksake? Why not just gap? I mean, I see that it’s an alliteration, but when an alliteration interrupts the idea being conveyed because it’s so stupid and uncalled for, why use it? When I used to read books and screenplays for a living, I remember having to read something by Danielle Steele. Her writing is so bad that I started screaming “editor!’ every few minutes. I guess that’s what makes a best seller.

Anyway, I plan to finish reading the essay and see if I can retrieve enough words to write my own essay on friendship, or rather the break-up of friendships, and how painful or liberating it can be. I am getting to be an expert on this. In the time of Covid, I’m finding I have no tolerance of craziness in my relations, despite being desperate for companionship. I use to quip that “I want to be the craziest person in a relationship” and this holds true more than ever. Or, if you prefer, “now more than ever.”

Last night I couldn’t think of Billy Holiday’s name when I heard one of her songs, and tonight I talked to my Keurig machine.

It won’t be long now, I’m thinking.

Observing one’s own senility as it progresses is probably a lot more fun than observing someone else’s. My trouble with names is the worst feature so far, but other words are now becoming elusive. Sometimes, in the middle of talking, I have to say “you know, the word that means the opposite of ___.” I find this pretty interesting, because it implies that words are stored along with their antonyms, or at least, in my brain they are.

I am also fascinated by my husband’s skill at retrieving names. He hates me to start a sentence with, “You know that guy in that thing whose name I can’t remember..” He has no patience with this but I keep telling him to get used to it. Soon, I will know nothing but old Dylan lyrics, as I have predicted here many times over the years. I’m great at playing music in my head, probably because there’s so little other cognitive action going on there.

I can’t follow Bosch any more. I have given up trying. I just concentrate on whatshisname’s cocked head and try to predict the dialogue. Every night when we watch TV, I can barely recall what happened in the previous episode. This might be the pot smoking or the late hour, or watching too many Netflix series at the same time, but it’s like, Didn’t that character die already? or “Do we know this guy or is he new”?

Do you believe that the more words you know, the more disturbing it will be to see them go? Maybe if you had a limited vocabulary, it wouldn’t be as frustrating to flail around in the black hole of your memory bank. Meanwhile, I am thrilled when someone uses words or phrases beyond the ones we all hear daily. My sister described walking in a sun-dappled field and I wanted to kiss her for being so descriptive. I’m still enjoying “contemporaneous,” as in “Jim Comey’s contemporaneous notes.”

What if senility lets me keep my old memories but not the words to communicate them? That will really suck. Wait. What happens to people who use sign language??? Oh my god. Do they just wiggle their fingers???

I intend to marvel at the process of losing my mind and to report my findings. If at some point I forget who I am, I’ll have my blog as a kind of dossier. I wonder what I will think of me.

Along these lines, or maybe not, today while we were out walking the dog, I asked my husband what he thinks is important in life besides hair. His answer was “manners.” I’m not sure if he was serious, but I agree that good manners are nice to see. Later, he came up with “food.” So now I have three things, or four when you add “love.”

What am I forgetting?

I’m sad to say that Pico is gone, as you might have predicted. Life seemed so miserable for him.

I will blame myself for making the call, because I don’t know how long he would have lasted, despite the chronic pain and cognitive issues.

I miss him terribly but I’m not traumatized, because it seems like I’m already stuck with permanent PTSD that time won’t budge.

However! I am still capable of being dismayed.

I fucked up my back when I had to carry Pico inside from the backyard. He was only 40 pounds but I managed to lift him improperly.

So after whimpering (i.e. screaming) about my back for two weeks, I went to the doctor. The first blow was when she measured my height. I am supposed to be 5′ 6″ but now I measured 5′ 4 1/2″ for a loss of one and a half inches of valuable height!

Fuck me! I can’t believe this, even though I know that age and shitty bones lead to shrinking. What next? A dowager’s hump? I’ll probably go bald and whatever else is available to elderly women. I had to have ex-rays of my back, which revealed a degenerating spine or something that sounded like that. All those years of weightlifting, for nothing.

I’m going to get physical  therapy for my back, but for now I have two new prescriptions plus a bottle of Pico’s narcotic pain-killers.

To further drive home the old age thing, my husband and I were talking about TV hosts and we couldn’t remember Larry King’s last name. It was a moment of shared horror as our eyes met and we silently acknowledged that our brains have turned to mush.

Trying to retrieve Larry King’s last name was like gazing into an infinite black hole where a memory bank used to be. I hate Larry King now. I would say He’s dead to me, except now I’ll probably remember him as a symbol of senility, both his and mine.

One day last week, I had the clever idea of paraphrasing Shakespeare with a post called “First we kill  all the something,”  But now I’ve forgotten what the Something was.

You’d think if I really hated it, I would remember it but you wouldn’t be factoring in my severe memory problems. I’m hoping someone can remind me what the Something is, and presumably it is a group.

Going through my brain’s rolodex of hated things, I have already ruled out:

Republicans
Christian fundamentalists
Fashion bloggers
The members of Cream
The members of Steely Dan
People who say “Everything happens for a reason”
Child molesters
Racists
TV chefs

Godammit, what am I leaving out? This is really bothering me! Please help, if you can.

~

*(My husband just responded to my question with “It’s too big a category for you.”)