maina epitome of incomprehensibility I meant to write about her weeks ago. We were on the bus together and she enthused over my brown knit jacket that Aunt Sarah gave me. "Is that knitted? Oh wow! It's knitted. Mind if I touch the sleeve?" And she sat beside me and started talking. A few other people, judging from their looks, seemed to think she was weird - too effusive - and maybe I was weird to them too for listening. Or I was taking a burden off them by focusing this loud-talking woman's attention. Who knows? She said she was Inuit, so I asked if she grew up in the north. Somehow the talk got to her mother. Did her mother knit? Did the mother grow up in northern Quebec and the daughter here? I don't remember, but now I remember the connection: I mentioned that my aunt gave me the coat, and she mentioned her mother, who had died last year. She said her name was Maina (or Myna, I'm not sure of the spelling) and that both her parents were now gone. And she only looked a little older than me. It reminded me of Bethan, a little younger than me, giving what seemed like a wavery smile with, "Now I'm an orphan." Our in-the-play father - mine and Bethan's - had pretended to be an orphan. (Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance - I_joined_a_gang_of_musical_Pirates.) Her breath - Maina's breath - smelled like alcohol when she talked about her father's neglect. "He didn't take care of us. He was always drunk." Situational irony, but more understandable than mock-able: something to cope with all the loss and confusion. In the fall...Bethan, not typically a drinker, having another. In the past few days...me retreating into time-wasting YouTube after smaller problems: fucked-up computer battery and left knee; inextricable tangle of a new job taken on where nobody seems to know who does what. (at least I am seeing someone tomorrow about the computer and someone sometime about the knee - GAP system, guichet automatique something - but this wasn't about me) (mainly) (maina) (but pronounced myna) (I was thinking of the book on Labrador Innuttut phonology and how the dipthong "ai" is spelled there, but it isn't necessarily her parent's form of the language, she could be named after the bird or birded after the name, I am parroting my tired thoughts, a pheasant against glass) 260309 ... e_o_i i_joined_a_band_of_musical_pirates, even. I punned on "band." I guess my mind banned bookings of allowed dad_jokes. 260309 ... e_o_i dad_joke, even. Pah. 260309 what's it to you? who go blather from