Summary

The speaker explains that the "severed web" (✂︎ 🕸) is what he calls a "Barely Tolerable Substitute," which roughly translates to "I love you" (83). There are other barely tolerable substitutes, and the speaker lists them. All barely tolerable substitutes are used in place of "I love you." He says, "I don't know how many Barely Tolerable Substitutes there are, but often it feels as if they were everywhere, as if everything is spoke and done...was just Barely Tolerable" (84).

Next, the speaker describes the "reversible colon" (::), a sign that denotes when two sides of the sentence explain each other. The speaker provides the following examples of the reversible colon: "Mother::Me," "Father::Death," "My eyes water when I speak about my family::I don't like to speak about my family," "1938 to 1945::◻︎," "My grandmother's sadness::my mother's sadness::my sadness: the sadness that will come after me...