SHUTTLECOCK

While watching CSPAN Book TV an empty mind is recommended, free to enjoy surprises. This seventy-nine-year-old girl watcher (if memory does not deceive) spots a young one on a folding chair sitting demurely sort of in front of a sea of books. In the current Me Too climate of revelations, a contrast of images, judgments, opinions and other lurking ghosts is privately amusing, as we shall see.

Her skirt is above the knee, showing off well shaped legs. What lies beyond? as I focus on the knee.

Immediately she tugs her hem down a bit.

Haven't you seen this before, fellow girl watchers? Women sense this, almost without looking, or sometimes even when not, and are demure, righteous and flattered. It's complex. More so than you might imagine.

Like a hermit crab that has outgrown its borrowed habitus, my old shell is empty. No one is home.

I imagine the warmth of that knee . . . and she recrosses her legs! My hermit's shell is bouncing up and down, uproariously!

In this timeless world, the book review was earlier. We know this, don't we? The DVR is a time machine. So the ghost of my vacated leering is the future of her Christmas eve. It was or is a case of precognitive harassment, no doubt.

The court of public opinion will have a real time, so to speak, dealing with this.