The Monograph That Never Was.

The Lady B passed me in her car again this morning and waved to me as usual. It led me to thinking about the hand wave as a universal human gesture, and I decided I should write a monograph on the subject since it’s a matter of slightly uncommon interest to me. I think it even speaks volumes about the nature of the individual performing the wave. (Well, not quite volumes as such, but a little bit at least.)

So where should I start on this scholarly exercise? Why, with the Lady B’s wave of course. Where else?

Said lady invariably uses what I will term the ‘Metronome Wave’. (One has to coin terms if one wishes to be accepted as the scholarly type, you understand.) This sort of wave is used almost exclusively by women and consists of raising the hand to shoulder level and moving it right and left with reasonable rapidity (in the case of the Lady B I would estimate its rate to be approximately 200bps, just so you know this really is a scholarly exercise and I’m not just being silly.) It’s used by women of all ages from 1-101, although the rate does tend to diminish with advancing age because arthritis has that effect. As for what it says about the waver, that’s simple. Introverts are usually inclined to keep the angle formed at the elbow rather economical, use slightly slower movements, and restrict those movements to two or three per exercise. Extroverts, on the other hand, will continue to perform the operation until they’re out of sight and even beyond, and will do so with such extravagance that they will sometimes knock things over and even hit themselves repeatedly on the chin.

So that’s one type of wave taken care of. Where should I go from here to establish my credentials as an author of scholarly works?

Well, nowhere actually. I considered the matter at some length and could only think of two other types, at least one of which is notably unremarkable so I don’t think I’ll bother. I’ll read some more of my Japanese novel instead.

I’m coming to the suspicion that Oshima, the male librarian, is going to turn out to be a bit of a bad egg, and that Kafka is going to have his first sexual experience at the hands of either Cherry Blossom (aka Sakura, or the young woman receptionist at the hotel who wears a green blazer. Not a bad read so far.