2006-04-25 - 2:40 p.m.

Well, Diaryland, I don't blame you for thinking that I've abandoned you. I can only claim the interference of extraordinary circumstances. My primary partition became corrupted. I have walked through the valley of multiple os re-installs, low-level formats, much physical reconfiguration of PC innards, and a new power supply, and I have made it a palace of electrons.

I was never very good at keeping up with journals. My teenage attempts never lasted beyond a single entry, penned with carefully executed strokes in a spiral-bound notebook. So, considering that I've written, um, 151 entries in nearly two years (1.9 years, to be precise), this has been a successful experiment.

So far.

I like little phrases like "so far." It is the kind of expression that makes less and less sense the more attention you pay to it. I haven't looked up the etymology yet -- I'll do that in a moment -- because I am still enjoying that little twist in the brain that I get when something doesn't seem to make sense. Call it what you like: frisson, cognitive dissonance, curiosity. It is like how a sneeze becomes a pleasurable moment to many people because there is physical pleasure in the final release of the sneeze. But soon enough, we salivate at the bell, not just the meal. That is, the irritating anticipation of a sneeze takes on an aspect of the pleasurable conclusion. And, if you are an info-junkie like myself, then the pleasure of acquiring knowledge gets bound up with the needling question of why the words "so" and "far," when placed together, mean "until this point" (or whatever a real definition is -- I'll check that out now).

Okay, well that makes perfect sense. After a couple of cross-references, I see that "so" is a synonym for the sense of "thus" that means "to this degree or extent." As in, "thus far," a phrase I use when I forget that people don't enjoy spending time with people who use phrases like "thus far" and "indeed, that would appear to be the case." Oh dear, is that really how I talk? Anyway, you can see how that clears up the matter. Class, your assignment is to respond to the next "how-are-you-doing?" with a hearty "thus far, quite nicely."

Next week we will discuss "how are you doing?"

Why don't we say "what are you feeling?"

How am I doing what? How am I standing here? How am I breathing?