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11 22 2011 – LOVE DOG     For months Hamlet has been floating around Its book covers popping up everywhere Non sequitur references during my classes with Avital Ronell In other texts In my letters to Elaine and in her letters to me The other night, in my laundry room, someone left a copy on a shelf of donated books On tables at work I even stole one copy and took it home with me as a token, as proof   Ronell says, ‘In Hamlet readiness is all’ and ‘All of Hamlet happened in the ear’ A few weeks later, Žižek came to Ronell’s class and said that Hamlet is about the way the beginning of ethics is trying to decide something and decision always involves indecision and procrastination How an act always comes both too early and too late, so there is never really a ‘right’ moment for an act One begins with the wrong moment because it is always the wrong moment A few days ago, Elaine sent me a quote by John Berger: ‘In the minute that’s still left we have to do everything’ The day X came to class Ronell brought up Hamlet, again, and suddenly all the ghosts had a name, making them real I couldn’t believe my ears Yet even though we were finally in the same room together, how can you know what someone hears – (what X heard) – when we never really know this about anyone? When I asked a female acquaintance at the bar we were at if she thought X had heard what I said under my breath the night we were together, she answered: ‘He doesn’t need to hear you He knows’ The question is, how did she know? When I mumbled something cutting to him as he went outside to smoke a cigarette, taking a risk by saying anything at all, he asked me to repeat what I’d said I pretended I hadn’t said anything and he pretended he didn’t hear anything Denial is one of the ways cognition works You’re just hearing things and You’re just seeing things are