Olivia writes an essay about her father. “The most important person in my life,” it’s titled. “Actually,” she writes, “he wasn’t the most important person in my life. My mother was. But I didn’t want to write about her. I wanted to find out what I was feeling about him. I know what I feel about her. I love and respect her tremendously. I loved my father a lot too but I had some major grievances against him. Major, by the way, was one of my father’s favorite words, my mother’s said, as it is one of mine, though she told me this only after I started using it a lot. Since I seem to take after him in many other ways, like my walk and ear for music and having trouble getting to the point I want to make, besides most of my physical traits, she thinks maybe my use of words was inherited from him too. And I had to look up the word ‘grievance’ before. I’m saying all this because I want the readers of this essay, which will probably only be my teacher Mrs. Zimkin (should I have put a comma after ‘teacher’? I think so) and maybe my classmates, if she thinks it’s good enough to read parts of in class or really that good to read the whole of (or bad enough to show where the unnamed student, in this case, went wrong, as an example for the entire class. I used ‘entire’ then because I didn’t want to use ‘whole’ twice in one sentence. Maybe I’m wrong in doing that). But Mrs. Zimkin will probably still be the only reader, since my classmates, if they get to hear any of it, will just be listeners. (Did I really need all that space to make such a small point? And why I used ‘just’ when I felt like using ‘only’ then, I already said. But it’s so unnatural that I think I’ll change that policy.) Anyway, I want the reader and listeners, if there are any, to know just how honest this essay is. In both its ideas and aims and so on, as well as its conception, or just realization or execution, three more words I just looked up for their spelling. But: grievances against him. (If this essay is among the best she’s ever read of a student’s, Mrs. Zimkin’s said, or better put, which I’m sure she’ll appreciate: ‘among the best student essays she’s ever read,’ then not only do the classmates hear all of it, if it’s not too long, but she asks Mr. Zimkin, who’s chairman of the English Department of a major university in the city, to read it. That would mean it would have at least two readers, but one very distinguished one. Another word I just looked up, and sorry, Mrs. Z. You’re great, but he’s got the prestige.) (I’m not sure the comma was necessary after ‘great.’ And when I looked up the rule for it, I couldn’t understand it.) But: grievances. That my father wouldn’t just let me eat, for starters. (I had a better example to start with but lost it in all the other stuff I put in.) That he did most of the cooking and feeding for my sister and me didn’t help matters either. (Notice the proper word usage there with ‘my sister and me.’ Elementary ((word looked up)) for some, but I had to look up the rule for maybe the tenth time this term.) But because of that or something else — some compulsion (looked-up word, and put that way—’looked-up’—just to change things around a bit; but this time ((also notice the punctuation just then (((I mean with the semicolon))) and also now’s and right after ‘elementary’ before, since I don’t have brackets on this machine; not used by most kids my age, I’d think)) I didn’t have to change the spelling I originally had, though ‘originally,’ also looked up, I did, since I was origginaly going to write it that way. I think that was too tricky of me. I also didn’t have to look up the punctuation I so self-admiringly pointed out, though I did have to look up ‘punctuation’ and the adverb of admiring or admiration or ‘to admire’ or however one would put that ((I looked up a way to put it but couldn’t find anything in the English usage book the school gives out to help me define what I meant — mean? — to say))). And now I forget what I was going to say about my father’s compulsion and also where I was with all those parentheses. (‘Parentheses’ I definitely had to look up. I never know if it’s ‘-is’ or ‘-es’ for the plural.) Maybe I was going to say ‘just some compulsion of his.’ Or ‘need.’ Why don’t I stick with the simplest words instead of going fancy and also the simplest punctuation? But either will do. Meaning: either ‘compulsion’ or ‘need.’ Because I want to get on and done with this essay. Mrs. Zimkin said it shouldn’t be longer than a thousand words. I know I’m fast approaching that. I tend to be verbose (looked up) in speaking and prolix in writing. I bet the reader and/or readers and/or listeners (I don’t think that’s right) think I had to look up ‘prolix’ but omitted (1.up for the one or two t’s) saying so for some reason. I didn’t have to look it up. It’s a short word and easy to spell once you know what it means. And since I know what it means, I didn’t have to look up the meaning either, which is the second reason for looking up a word. The third reason — but I’m really being incorrigible. Telling myself to get on with the essay and then running all over the place. (Bye-bye 1,000 words.) And ‘incorrigible’ is my newest big word, I only got it yesterday from a book of the only writer I’m reading these days, other than for those in the school books I have to read: Dostoyevski, though some of his books have his name with a ‘y’ rather than an ‘i’ and also nothing between the ‘o’ and ‘e’ where I have a ‘y’ I prefer the way I wrote it. Looks more Russian. But where was I? The ‘third reason’ for looking up a word. I know there are a lot more than three reasons (just going through the dictionary randomly ((LU)) to build a better vocabulary, for instance). But the third reason I was going to write here was… not punctuation. That’s the word that immediately came to me though. It’s probably close in spelling or sound or length — something — to the word I wanted. That one — tip-of-the-tongue-type stuff — means to break up a word into syllabules so you’ll know, for one thing, where to break it off if the whole word (this usually happens when it’s a long one like syllibication) doesn’t fit at the end of the line. (I didn’t mean to be tricky there. Sometimes things like that happen naturally.) Syllibication could be the word I wanted, but it just doesn’t feel right. And I didn’t look it up. (I probably should have, as I’m not sure of its spelling — two l’s or one; and if syllabule has an ‘a’ after its l’s or 1, shouldn’t ‘syllibication’?) I’m obviously not sure of ‘syllabule’ either. Nor which of those letters and words deserve quotes and which sentences deserve parentheses. But I’m tired of looking up words and rules for this essay, just as the reader and listeners, etcetera, must be tired of reading about it. (‘Etcetera’ should be two words, and no hyphen, but I like it as one. Dash? Hyphen?) That’s my problem probably, thinking I can have my way with words so early, and no doubt one of the reasons this essay will get a bad mark and won’t be read by Mr. Zimkin or to my classmates. That’s okay. I’m not proud of the essay. Nor am I interested in that sort of thing: praise, great grades, wider distribution. (I won’t say, just as I won’t with any word or rule from now on, if that one was l.u.) But enough of all that. I’m going to see where I left off before. I realize that this type of honesty — telling what my every move is in writing this essay — well, not ‘every move.’ I didn’t tell when I got up to make weewee. Probably because that had nothing to do in the writing of this. But when the typewriter jammed — that did, and I didn’t mention it. After I unjammed it a new idea came to me about the sentence I was writing before the typewriter jammed. So I wrote it right after I unstuck the jammed keys. Then I had to wash my fingers because of the typewriter ink smudges on them. I didn’t want to smudge the paper or the typewriter keys any more than I already did when I quickly typed out the new idea. Not smudge the typewriter keys that got stuck but the ones you press down on to type. The keyboard keys. And no new idea came while I was washing or until I got back to the typewriter and continued writing this thing. Anyway, all of that will be chucked now. It’ll just be a straight essay, I mean. Except for finishing that line before. That I realize that this type of honesty has little to do with the honesty of what I want to say in the essay. And now I’ve looked back. My father and food. Not my first choice for starters but I forgot the first. As part of my grievances against him. That he forced me to eat. He didn’t hold me down or shove it into my mouth. But he’d get upset if I didn’t eat or not much and of course this upset me, scared me a few times too when he really got upset about it, and probably affected me after. Sure it did. It made me hate food for a long time. Made me intentionally throw up a lot of my food for about two years, I remember. And that he joked so much. That was the grievance I was going to write for starters. Funny it should come now. When after I gave up ever remembering it. And I’m not saying he joked about food. But he probably did that too, when I