Don’t you love self-imposed rules that no one else gives a rat’s ass about? For instance, my blog resolution was to post every day this year. And I usually cheat and post weekend stuff late, then change the timestamp. And I make a big deal about it, as if you care.

So anyway. Not that it is important, but I am actually writing this on Sunday. Unlike most weekend posts.

This week I read Julian Barnes’s Talking It Over. I thought it was sort of fluffy and had a conceit that made it look easy to write: there are three characters, and they take turns telling the story. One of them (Oliver) is obviously a student of Nabokov and drops phrases in other languages in pretty much every other sentence. I bet that was fun to write. And Oliver loves the word “crepuscular,” which was fun to come across. I read along thinking, ok, ok, this is all right and all, and quite amusing and all that, and then I got to the very end and was awed. I recommend this book for two reasons:
1. recurring use of “crepuscular”
2. the last two pages, in which one of the three characters does something amazing out of love and pity for one of the other characters

Speaking of words, I have recently learned the word “mephitic,” and must pass along the goods to you as well. It means stinky. While mephitis is the odor itself, mephitic is what the odor is. Awesome! Mephite* it up!

*While there is no verb form of this word, I find that this alternative works well.