The tiny dog erupts in triplets of barks just as I’m beginning to believe he’s stopped. But no sooner did I type ’stopped’, than he finally did. So now it’s merely the sound of the furnace, this keyboard, the clock, and a few thoughts of JCO hovering over a somewhat weary, post-casino (craps!) mental landscape.

I’ve read a few Joyce Carol Oates books in my days, and lately have been enjoying her journal when Nordic Tracking.

Oddly, she was born the same year as my dad, and in my birth year attended my eventual alma mater. Her occasional waxing on matters of “self” in her journal remind me of my own.

I experience a kindred sort of feeling thinking about these things, nudged along by the seemingly anxious tone of the recurring introspection in her journal. Familiar inner terrain. My surprise it exists isn’t unsettling – rather, just above-average warmly fuzzy in the context of my tendency to have nothing in common with the famous (or the imfamous, for that matter).

I think it’s been a year or two since I last read one of her novels. Precise details have since evaporated. What I’m mostly remembering is how they seemed just right: smooth language that picked me up and carried me in. Authors lose me if I have to do too much of the work. But JCO does the heavy lifting so we don’t have to. We’re free to simply dissolve into her verbal soup, and feel mmm mmm good.

Thank you, JCO, even though you’re not “JCO”. Whoever you are, you’ve dimensioned the universe a few additional, orthogonal notches.