(7 january 2011)

i may or may not be delivering a paper at a conference.

i say may or may not because my acceptance to deliver said paper at said conference was conveyed through a forwarded email from the biography, autobiography, memoir, personal essay area chair that mentioned nothing of my paper but simply stated that i had been “approved” and that she looks forward to seeing me there. since this echoes the sentiments of all people everywhere half-heartedly welcoming visitors whom they do not want, i take it with equal parts salt and hope.

so i may or may not be delivering a paper. a state of circumstances that i am nearly entirely certain is due solely to the fact that the paper i may or may not be delivering has the unlikely phrase “sex toboggan” in its title.

much like my uneasy worldwide affiliation with michael landon’s loins, i do not know if the sex toboggan is something for which i want to be known. principly, i do not know what one wears when positioning oneself as an expert in sex toboggans. and that seems somehow monumentally more important than the fact that i’m not even entirely certain what a sex toboggan is.