Woke up this morning my mouth feeling cankerous.

D. at work yesterday had hiccups and they would not go away. He'd be over at someone's desk, talking to them, crouching, HOOP. And then he'd talk more in his deliberate, measured way, with his disconcertingly penetrating eye contact, HOOP. The hiccups sounded androgynous, animalistic, tinged by some vaguely foreign accent. And then it would be him again. HOOP. The old lesbians tittered at him. Some offered some fabled remedy or other and he'd politely – HOOP – listen and say I know, I've tried everything. It lasted all day long with virtually no interruption.