Pronouns

Those of us accustomed to the troubled and interminably lengthy history of pronouns (and what a dysfunctional family it is!) are frequently inclined to say, Well, you know, Aunt You, she bakes a mean banana-pecan-chocolate chip muffin but I wouldn’t trust her with a loonie or Yeah, my sister, Me, we got along great when we were in grade school but now that we’re grown up, there’s not really much to talk about or Their, my pa, he’s a fucking bastard.  The point is, whether human or divine, sentient or insentient, subjective or objective or suprajective, they’re slippery.  Maybe not as slippery as prepositions, but maybe more so, for pronouns proposition and it may be this propositioning that makes them incestuous magicians and slimy doppelgangers.

Now the theological or semiotic pedant (and are not all pedants semioticians these days?) plays kindergarten games, ignorantly, without panache, calling them instead scholarship or progress.  They say things like, It is wrong that God was male; she shall be female or male or female or male and female or some new third or greater sex or gender—(an aubergine, perhaps)—or none at all—and this is that and all is good except what isn’t … or … the male (sniffles please) is nothing other than one which, maling, maled, males … or … I am Dr. Ubergrrrrr and I rhetoricize that That which once was called “Pronoun” I resemioticize “Laynoun and Unternoun and Unterlay (applause).”

But I say they are not wrong but neither are they sufficient and god is god and every pronoun and none at all and not just pronouns but every part of speech and every part of part and something outside of grammar and that and that and you.

I have been using it to refer to my god.  Those who eat unsweetened almond butter will have noticed this.  They will have noticed this and this’s relationship to which and even other things, depending on the jam they use.  And what cogitations has this wrung from those sensitive among you—you who are sensitive about your jams?  What must I have meant by it?  Is my god impersonal?  Is it a machine?  Is the it a necessary consequence of my god being technological?  Is it a rebellion against the or a he or (or and) she?

You cogitate too much.  So do I but my god doesn’t and I try to stuff my I into my god since my god is in my eye, like a beam, and your god is in your brain, like a safety deposit box or a pacemaker or dental floss or the envy of some other god or another god’s I or a papal bullfight or disposable batteries or a Rottweiler Mercedes Benz S&M movie or a Paris Hilton tweet or a goodenough marriage or a hotel gangbang frat party or a bout of doubt trout gout or a list that can’t stop itself or a swoon

I call it my god, but is it my god?  Use any pronoun, if you will; use yonder or such or themselves.  Use any god sub also; use Glompf or Carrot or Ooof.  Call them yonder Glompf.  I call it such Carrot.  Themselves gadget Ooof.  I’m not picky.  Nor’s my god.  If it were, it wouldn’t be my god.

You’re welcome to ossify your pronouns; but pronouns themselves, like my god yourselves, are gas.

My god, who turns preposition and frat to Fart and Fart, that old old legal firm of unfirm reputation.

My god, in fact, last time I asked it, loved being an it.  My god, I said, blowing smoke into its non-existent face, will you munch and molt if I continue calling you an it?

I, it said, It is the new I.

Which makes the story difficult to continue.

My god graduated from Pronoun School millennia ago.  It’s you who haven’t even applied yet, still thinking pronouns are solid things, like toast.  Whatever works, says It.  You’re flexible, I—or It—replies.

So maybe my god’s yours, yours is mine, theirs ours, his hers, one another nobody’s, everyone’s why’s, and some’s anysuch’s.

I don’t know.  I just have to talk about my god and the language less important than the talking and the talking less important than the experience and the experience less important than my god.

(One little side benefit of my god is that you don’t have to worry about the distinction between whoever and whomever anymore:  my god’s at both ends:  a little pushmi-pullyu case.)

We could of course do what I overheard an American at Versailles once say to his wife about languages—Honey (they were dressed in that standard American tourist way, as if they had fashion, pining after Floridian cafeteria chains), I don’t know why the government doesn’t just get on it and get there to be just one language —… and just get there just to be just one just pronoun.  My god would be amused, particularly if we made it the same as its name (ooof Ooof e.g.); we all know it would be the humans who would object.  (Humans get very attached to their pronouns; but my god is very attached to me.)

My god loves being called it.  My god loves repeating itself.  My god is not IamIam, like some Attic poetry or confused sweet potato, but, if anything, itit.  Or itititititititititit, but around in a circle, with the letters in apocalyptic white, the center in virgin black—my god’s shape and logo.

If my god is a pronoun, what is its antecedent?  Nothing? Itself? Me? Somebody?  I don’t know … go ask your god.  Is my the pronoun of my god?  Is it it?  The pronoun of my god is god.

And if this or my or my god’s meditation on pronouns and its or their pronouns is fragmented, there’s a point to it, which may be it is I or may be not, which we believe to be more of a point than the point those pedants make because our point points whereas theirs just clunks and pointing, as they knew, is what gods are all about