Z turned on its side is N.
     Words and names with Z and N, off the surface of my recall without consulting a dictionary, include Zenobia, zen, Zenna, zone, Zanzibar, zonked, zany, Zephaniah, Zane (as in actor Billy), zinc, Zorn (as in former NFL quarterback Jim), Zealand (as in New), Nazi, and Anasazi.
     In one of Henry Miller's books, many years ago, I read a few pages where he makes a list of things or impressions, I can't remember about what.  It takes me longer to process this kind of writing than it does to read a more usual series of sentences.  A book I read about the 1980s Iran-Iraq War has a multi-page list of items banned in the 1990s by UN sanctions against Iraq.  Apart from the astonishing pettiness of putting numerous harmless items on that list (pencils, pencils with erasers), reading it takes far more time than going through five or six pages written in a regular prose style.  Lack of flow in lines makes the words seem like a long series of brief images in a film, accompanied by drumbeats.
     My father was an English professor, so I probably picked up a lot of my interest in words and language through osmosis.  Books have filled the houses of my life.  I own about 1,100 of my own; old paperbacks mostly--science fiction, fantasy.  I wonder about young people growing up now with little sense or appreciation of actual books, using screens to get stories into their heads.  I'm glad stories get into their minds somehow, but last week I was delighted to see a young woman working a slow night at the movie theater, a copy of the last Harry Potter novel in front of her for when there'd be nothing to do but sit and wait for the next stream of moviegoers--an honest to God book made of paper, making rustling sounds when fingertips pass along its surfaces.
     The Seattle Seahawks were, along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, an expansion team in the 1970s, and Jim Zorn, number 10, was their first quarterback.
     Sometimes I can't organize (N and Z word) an essay.  This is one of those times.

                                                                         Vic Neptune