der erste

The search to have something worth putting here. To have something to say that is worth saying.

My ego is such that I remain persistent in my conviction that I am greater than this.

I always come back to Prufrock, but news about an old friend brings to mind another of Eliot's, instead:

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty green iron table, saying: “If the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden…” I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end. - "Hysteria" T.S. Eliot

She never laughed quite like that, but I think her personality had that effect.