Metatext for Project 3

In opening documents that would be irretrievable after getting rid of my old computer, I found conversations between an x-boyfriend of mine and me that I had saved. Finding these three conversations was serendipitous for this project, because they were from three obviously different, identifiable stages of relationship, and I could see how they could be used for the project. Shannonizing the conversations would take out the personal meaning, but hopefully leave the changing attitudes and atmospheres intact.
The first is from the getting-into-it stage, getting to know each other; she's telling him about her day and dilemmas, he's showing interest and offering advice. Really normal stuff, you can hear people walking along the bike trail in this stage. She's way too into a boring story while he's adding the obvious remarks. There is uniquely shared language with our use of Shawnee words to be a little more interesting. I Shannonized this stage with the Dr. Seuss setting because this conversation is as much about setting the rhythm and using our voices as it is about communicating a point. Mixing with Dr. Seuss brings strangers into a conversation that could be their own stage one relationship mix.
The second is from very near the end of the relationship. Everyone's trying to be very clear and correct as though this time is the last time they're going to say this. Each knows only their side very clearly and correctly and starts to talk in circles waiting for the other party to get the point. Repetition during this stage is not to flaunt or impress but to beg our opposing side to surrender. We can almost hear it after each person speaks, "Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."" I gravitated toward Edgar Allen Poe, a writer consumed with thoughts of death to Shannonize this section of relationship. The product conversation comes across in defiant barks of futility, which is pretty much exactly a general description of the input.
The last document was a conversation from after the relationship failed. Mark Twain was the perfect Shannonizer for this stage, because this is the stage where pretenses are dropped. People settle into their individual comfortable languages, give up trying to sort out issues, and let each other give up. The speech becomes slow and meandering with no hidden agendas or concealed thoughts. It's all about honesty when it doesn't really matter. I like the section of text where '12' is batted back and forth as though it's the topic in some mundane debate between a couple of Twain's characters as they float down the river. They're together as their journeys have brought them but ready to be separated by any turn of events.
The titles worked out for me, though they were simply the beginnings of each conversation. Someone saying "hi" starts out the relationship. The middle is about who did what, especially if it's ending. And the post-relationship is about what has "now just" become of the relationship attempts. Taking the remnants of a tumultuous relationship and scrambling them into a series of moods actually makes me feel better about having to deal with the experience from which they come. Moods can be abandoned more easily than history and intimacy.