You're both sentient

Match.com (yes; quiet) has this new-ish feature in which they (it? whatever) offer for your perusal what they call the Daily 5: five profiles of people they feel you might be interested in, based on your own profile, geography, and stated preferences.

Now, I can understand the need to sort of go wide here in order to cough up five new people each and every day, even in a city like SF, where online dating is not exactly a novelty. But still, there seems to be more than a bit of reaching happening. To wit, the criteria on which today's five potential matches were presented to me:

#1:

• You both fancy felines.
• Like you, he's not a smoker.
• He's also interested in bowling.

#2:

• Like you, he's not a smoker.
• He's also interested in bowling.
• He's athletic and toned.

#3:

• Like you, he's not a smoker.
• He's also interested in bowling.
• He's athletic and toned.

#4:

• You both fancy felines.
• Like you, he's not a smoker.
• He has a graduate degree.

#5:

• Like you, he's not a smoker.
• Pretty impressive - he has a Ph.D.
• Both of you are into swimming.

My list of desirables, I'm afraid, goes far beyond being a non-smoker (though that's, like, 1000% non-negotiable) and being up for the occasional evening of bowling. If Match would tweak the algorithm they use here to include things like "Like you, he can correctly punctuate a sentence," "Pretty impressive--he doesn't use the phrases 'I work hard and I play hard' and 'I'm into exploring new things' in his profile," and "He's a tall, skinny, cute kind-of-alternaboy-but-not-one-with-an-ironic-mullet who has a thing for Canadian pop and salted caramel and understands why you snort drinks out your nose for laughing so hard when watching 'Arrested Development,'" I might put a bit more stock in this tool.

As it is, though, the Daily 5's success rate is currently on par with allowing my 6-month-old niece to select for me. (Actually, she might even do a better job; I should enlist her help.) Perhaps Match can follow the lead of Netflix and offer $1 million to whoever can improve their algorithm by the greatest number of percentage points. I'm happy to be your equivalent of "Napoleon Dynamite" and "I Heart Huckabees," guys; I might well be that baffling in my tastes.

Oh, and in closing, a note to any potential suitors: don't let Match's hackneyed attempt at alliteration convince you to add the phrase "I fancy felines" to your profile. Very much not OK.

Ring out

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

— From In Memoriam, Alfred Lord Tennyson

2008, you were both a delightful success--book published, business craziness (in a generally good way), appearance of fascinating people on the scene, arrival of World's Cutest Niece--and a heartbreaking pain in the ass. You and I, we did our time. Now Tennyson and I would like to show you the door.

2009, you and I are going to take it slow. Don't get any big ideas and, like, start calling me twice a day or putting your feet up on the furniture or anything. I'm hopeful that I'll learn to love you, but I'm smart enough to hold back until I get to know you a little better. Ask 2008 how to make me happy and how, markedly, not to. It'll tell you, especially if you buy it a drink.

In the meantime, I'm going to celebrate a decent first day of you by pouring myself a glass of wine and continuing to work my way through "Curb Your Enthusiasm" from the beginning.

Damsel

What, no boi? (From the Digg profile edit page.)

Even the Grinch Had a Heart, Haters

Try as I might, I still utterly fail to understand why any Californian--let alone 52% of the people with whom I share a state--could have voted for the bigotry, hatred, and small-mindedness that was Prop 8. This past week's ridiculousness (Ken Starr--WTF??) just makes it worse. And Rick Warren? I can't even go there.

Yes, I live in the skewed world that is San Francisco, and yes, I have the benefit of having many gay friends, some of whom are among the most important people in my life. So of course I get alternately weepy, grumpy, indignant, pissed off, and a combination of all four when I hear the hate and lies that are spewed by those who oppose marriage equality.

But the stupidly hopeful part of me has to believe that there people out there who maybe voted for Prop 8 because their religious community told them to (Mormons, I'm looking at you) or because they were pressured into it by someone else in their life or because they temporarily lost their good sense and believed the stupidity about same-sex marriage opening up the floodgates to polygamy (Mormons, I'm looking at you) and incest and men trying to marry young boys--that these people, these otherwise good people (many of whom voted for Obama, as we know) might actually be able to look at the photos of the Courage Campaign's Please Don't Divorce Us project and feel their hearts soften a bit.

Because surely these otherwise good people know that there's enough hatred in the world, and enough bigotry (Mormons--and Latinos, and African-Americans--I'm looking at you), enough lying, enough instability, enough of all of it without having to write it into the state's Constitution.

Surely these otherwise good people, many of whom would never even think of adopting the kids many same-sex couples adopt, and most of whom can chatter on about the importance of a whole, stable family, find it ludicrous and illogical to think of denying gays and lesbians the right to marry, and thus to provide their families with all of the wholeness and stability they possibly can.

(As an aside, I've never understood the right-wing Christian argument that marriage is primarily for the purpose of reproduction, as that would make illegitimate any heterosexual pairing that did not produce a child. Because, what? You're a good, upstanding, god-loving Christian who happens to be infertile and suddenly your marriage is a sham? Tell me, Christians, how that works.)

(Aside Part 2: Florida, what's your damage? A statewide ban on adoptions by gays? How short-sighted and biased can you be? Also, are there, like, thousands of opposite-sex couples lining up just waiting to adopt these children? Oh. No. There are not. Which means that apparently you think foster care is a much better option than stable, life-long adoption. At least Miami thinks you're wrong.)

So, OK, Prop 8 supporters, just do this for me: for a moment, set aside whatever you might think about gays and lesbians, or whatever ill will you might have toward them because you think they're not like you. Set aside whatever you might've heard in church, or on the news, or in the pro-8 campaign ads that claimed that your kindergartner would be forced to learn all about the ins and outs of homosexuality if marriage equality remained California law. Set aside any hate you might feel (especially if you're a Christian, given that "love thy neighbor as thyself" thing).

Is all of that off in a corner somewhere for a few minutes? Good. Now go look at these photos of same-sex couples, their families, their friends, and their neighbors, and see if you don't get at least a little teary-eyed.

Because here's the thing: in those photos, there's nothing but love. Maybe it doesn't look like the love you know and are used to, but I think you can agree that it's love nonetheless--so much love that it might make your heart as achy as it makes mine. So much that maybe, after you've spent some time looking closely at those photos (especially the wedding shots), you'll feel something in yourself start to soften. So much that maybe you'll understand where people like me are coming from--people who wonder, sadly or angrily or just plain incomprehendingly, what anyone thinks could possibly be gained by making hate and intolerance the law of the land.

It's a Generally Good Life, but Damn That Perpetually Loose Finial

From Wendell Jamieson's "Wonderful? Sorry, George, It's a Pitiful, Dreadful Life":

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife. It is also a nightmare account of an endless home renovation.

Yup. And when we're back in Connecticut next week, my sister-and-law and I will watch it (on VHS, natch), lovingly mock it, and let it make us sniffly.

Election Day 2008

I know the one thing we did right
Was the day we started to fight.
Keep your eyes on the prize--
Hold on, hold on.

Hate Is a Very Strong Word

But it doesn't quite cover what I felt when I was pulled out of sleep at 3 a.m. this morning by the idiots in the building diagonally behind my house playing Rock Band.

In those first hideous moments of consciousness, when I was trying to suss out what the hell was going on, I assumed they were just (ha--just) playing music really loudly, with no consciousness of or care for the insane hour. But then the song, with its annoying bass line, repeated over and over and over.

I assumed someone in the motley crew would gaze at a clock at some point and think, Hey, it's 3 o'clock on a Monday morning, and the few shreds of decency to which we cling suggest that perhaps we could, say, not have every single window and door in our flat open while we amplify our video game. But no.

Also incorrect was my assumption that, when I went out into our backyard and called up--politely, I might add--to a boy hanging out one of the windows and chatting on his phone, he would respond. No.

So I called the police. They may have shown up, as the din died down for a while somewhere around 4.20. But then, miraculously, I looked at my clock and managed to surmise that it was 4.49, and sound was flowing anew. Redial. Loopy plea to the police dispatcher to do something, anything, to make it stop, as I was losing my mind. She sweetly promised she'd send someone out.

At 5.30, it got quiet, and I tried to calm my racing heart by thinking about Gandhi (what would he do if the Raj blared Rock Band at him mid-sleep, hmmmm?) and Rachmaninoff's Vespers and an eye for an eye leaving the whole world blind. Sooner or later I fell asleep, half contemplating blaring "Morning Edition" out in the yard when I woke up to officially face the day.

Last night I did the responsible thing. But tonight, crapwad neighbors, if I so much hear one thump of bass leaking out your windows, I will not be above scrawling a polite request to keep it down onto an egg and tossing it your way.

Three hours ten minutes

Things I could have done tonight:

• Taken care of the ironing I've been putting off for weeks (literally--weeks),
  
• Worked my way beyond the first week of September New Yorker-wise,
  
• Tackled some laundry,
  
• Cracked (er, crinkled?) the cover of yesterday's Times,
  
• Dealt with the various piles lurking on/near my desk,
  
• Posted some photos to Flickr, and
  
• Written a blog post more substantial than a flimsy bulleted list.

What I did instead:

• Watched Gandhi.
  

Despite the occasionally bad (and, in a few instances, bad) swarthy pancake makeup and old-person hair (did Nehru really have a slightly botched blond dye job when he became PM?), it was 190 minutes well spent.

Notes from St. Louis

Officially, it's the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

I.
That spiffy new fall-weight jacket I bought myself yesterday? It didn't come with me to St. Louis, as a peek at weather.com last night revealed a forecast of 80-plus-degree days here through the weekend. I stepped out of the airport this afternoon and found the meteorologists to be spot-on: it was damn hot. That sunny, shimmery, smackdown kind of hot that may be sort of specific to the midwest. (Note: please do not take my word on this. Consult an actual midwesterner for a more accurate assessment.)

Carol picked me up and we drove downtown so we could visit the arch--excuse me, the JNEM--before heading west to St. Charles for our conference. In the park that surrounds the arch, the trees were fully leafed and blazingly green, the grass was perfect, there were ducks happily (presumably) paddling about in the ponds, and it seemed for all the world like mid-summer. I don't need to tell you that this pleased me.

II.
Q. Who visits the arch at 3 p.m. on a Thursday in late September?
A.

• Random clutches of foreign men (French? Israeli? Russian? Really could not tell), all of whom take photos of everything, including but not limited to the signs detailing what it costs to take the arch tram, the inside of the tram cars, and the educational video presented while you wait to be whisked to the top of the arch.
• Senior citizen tour groups, who may or may not be required by their tour operators to wear, in addition to yellow name badges, cowboy or Amish hats and suspenders.
• Floridians
• Professional Organizers

III.
On I-70 between St. Louis and St. Charles--a stretch of what I believe is roughly 15 miles--I saw at least three megachurches. One was sort of run-of-the-mill. One bore a sign that said, "Jesus Completely Saves." (Thank you, Jesus, for not doing a half-assed job.) One was very literally the size of a Wal-Mart. In fact, it looked as if it could have taken over a defunct Wal-Mart.

Christ almighty are we not in San Francisco anymore.

Postscript

"If, in this [2008 Presidential] campaign, illusion triumphs over what we must believe is reality, we will fail as a nation. There is, after all, a point of no return. If McCain wins, history is here big time, scythe, sackcloth and all four horsemen."--Robert Stone, quoted in the New York Times Book Review, Sunday, September 14, 2008

My Take on Election Coverage

It's that time again: time for me to become exquisitely adept at steering clear, as much as possible, of any and all coverage of the US Presidential election. I cheerfully skip all of the articles in the Times in any way related to the election, the candidates, or the issues. As I do whenever there's a soundbite from our current Fearless Leader, I turn the volume on the radio down all the way and whistle for a few moments whenever NPR starts to veer election-ward. And I don't own a TV, so luckily it's wildly easy for me to completely avoid the hellhole that is TV news.

This came today in an e-mail from Dana:

wilska, i've been trying to follow your media diet but it
isn't working. i'm completely obsessed with the train wreck
that is mccain/palin and the half of our electorate that
seems to want them in the driver's seat. ack. any advice?

I replied,

Love, I approach the news like this:

If I read/listen to/watch this [where "this" roughly equals anything at all having to do with the election], will it in any way make me happier? Will it change my mind? Will it make me see things from a different perspective?

To date, 100% of the time, the answers to those questions have been resounding NOs. I figure that if, heaven forbid, Americans prove by and large to be a group of people who are at best misguided, at worst serious fuckwads, there will be ample opportunity for tearing of hair, worrying about the fate of the country, and scoping out cabins on the Canadian prairie. This may be the last chance I have to believe that there's more good than bad left in this nation, and I'm too stubborn and greedy to give that up.

That's sort of sad but also painfully true. Unless you're a liberal in this country, or a liberal elsewhere who cares deeply about the outcome of this election, it's hard to understand how awful it is to be staring down the gun of the possibility of four more years of Republican rule, especially in the wake of the multi-faceted disaster the past eight years have been. If 2004 was an unbelievably heartbreaking letdown (which it was), multiply that hurt, anger, frustration, and sadness by ten thousand and you have a fair sense of why we're so worried.

And there's nothing we can do with that worry, really. I mean, sure, we all can (and should) do things like call prospective voters and drive people to the polls on election day and donate to the Obama campaign, but beyond that, our hands are tied. It's that feeling of powerlessness, that aching fear that once again we might watch things go horribly, ridiculously wrong, and might realize anew how far the US has skewed to a right that doesn't care for logic or justice, that I can't yet handle.

So I keep myself in the dark. Let the polls heave up and down. Let the lies and hypocrisy flow. Let the pundits pontificate. I want nothing to do with it.

On November 5, I'll start paying attention again, because by then I'll know whether to believe that there is indeed a chance to turn things around here, to claw ourselves out of the hole we've been in, or whether to sigh and give up.

Americans Officially No Longer World's Most Obnoxious Tourists

"They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit."

--Konstantinos Lagoudakis, mayor of Malia, Greece, quoted in "Some Britons Too Unruly For Resorts In Europe," by Sarah Lyall, New York Times, Sunday, August 24, 2008

You Have No Idea How Much I Love You

Kate at 2 months old

OK, seriously: this niece of mine makes my heart want to explode.

Mending Wall

There's an arm draped over my hip. The room is dark, quiet, the Olympics in the living room finally turned off, the offensively loudly ticking clock in the kitchen shorn of its batteries for the night. We talk about TV chefs, books, something else I'm not really concentrating on. I wonder if I would sleep better at home.

And then it snaps into my head: Something there is that doesn't love a wall.

These lines come to me half-bidden sometimes. I'll be standing in my kitchen in mid-afternoon, watching the light seep through the window, and there it is: the end of Richard Hugo's "Degrees of Grey in Philipsburg." Plath's "fountains": anywhere, anytime, always aided by moodiness. Ditto Millay.

But "Mending Wall"? That's a fairly unusual one. I'm not expecting it.

I open my eyes to the blank wall in front of me. I'm still talking, or (half-) listening, but now I'm wondering about Robert Frost. This is the only line of the poem I really know. What random file drawer of memory did I pull it from?

The arm is a limited time offer (though it stays for longer than expected). The warmth, the chatter, the prelude: all of it is limited, asterisked, carefully delineated. That's the agreement, the understanding. That's--oh--the wall.

Got it.

A lifetime ago, back in the first year of G., I held out for a long time on falling for him (or admitting that I had), explaining that, for a panoply of reasons, I felt the need to be the Hoover Dam. But late in the year I caved, and, with a shrug, could only say that the Hoover Dam had sprung a leak. (Within a few months, it had all but completely crumbled and floated away.)

I've never been good with walls--my own or others'.

So it was that last night I found myself staring at a blank expanse of a literal one, an expanse I've fixed my eyes on before, feeling something kick around in my chest as I thought, This can only tide me over for so long. Because these current flashes of delight notwithstanding, all of this feels like an odd, murky combination of scattershot and heavy on the rules and regs.

And what I carry with me all the time, patiently waiting and hoping to find it again, is the sense memory of an early morning last fall, of opening my eyes from sleep to see a boy walking toward me, of understanding, for a little while, what it is to be utterly without walls.

'...Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'

Annual Summer Weather Complaint, 2008 Version

Last Saturday, having hit MoMA with Sean, I went to 42nd Street to catch a train to Brooklyn, where I was scheduled to meet up with Rachel, David, and Joseph. I can't possibly be the first person to compare the 42nd Street Subway station in mid-summer with the center ring of hell, but regardless, it's a comparison worth repeating. It was so hot and so unbelievably humid down there that my skin instantly glossed over with a layer of sweat and condensed humanity, all of which evaporated into a layer of grossness when I got on the air-conditioned train.

But hear me now, people: I would be back there in a second, back to that damp and steamy subterranean hole (and might even put up for long stretches with the fellow who was "playing"--with what I can charitably describe as a modicum of talent--some upturned plastic buckets), if I could be, because here in San Francisco it's 56 degrees and gray.

For two weeks I got to wear sartorial items many of you might take for granted, but which are anathema here in the City by the Bay: shorts, tank tops, flip flops, light, breezy, summery skirts. I got my toenails painted and actually got to see them all day long. I developed a dorky but deep arm tan. I went running in the morning and came back pouring sweat, which somehow managed to seem more satisfying than straight-up disgusting (though it was that, too). I went outside in the evening without a sweater, long pants, and a jacket.

To all of that: so long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, adieu. I'm back in San Francisco, and it's August.

I'm Tired of China

So, look. The earthquake that did so much damage to China earlier this year was unquestionably a disaster, and I have unmitigated sympathy for the people whose lives were affected by it. I also hope that coverage of the relief effort does not get wholly subsumed by coverage of the Olympics, though I realize the chances of that are slim.

[Sorry, an aside: how is it that "fat chance" and "chances are slim" can mean the same thing? Curious.]

But here's the thing: earthquake notwithstanding, I'm so insanely tired of hearing about China. Really, I am--and have been for a while now. I'm tired of hearing about the Chinese government's human rights abuses du jour, tired of hearing about the (shockingly!) unsustainable breakneck development of dour, huge, soulless Chinese cities, tired of hearing about the latest health issues stemming from whatever toxins Chinese factories are using in their manufacturing processes. I'm just so totally and completely done with China.

Which means, of course, that I should be climbing into a cave for the next few weeks, stuffing my ears with cotton, and sewing my eyes shut. Or just, you know, muttering discontentedly sotto voce until this whole Olympics hoo-haa passes and, I hope, we choose another country to focus 85% of our collective attention on. (How about Bulgaria?)

Sweet Baby

Witness my adorable, darling, well-behaved little niece, Kate. She is a sweet light in my world.

We Are So Much What We've Come from: Part 1

I come east and, for a while, my world rockets backwards.

I.
Last Thursday we go to see Ian's jazz trio play at the local winery. (Not a typo--there are indeed wineries in Connecticut, and the one in question is actually quite good.) Ian is quite possibly the sweetest, kindest, happiest person I've ever had the luck to know. We were good friends in high school, and although I've seen him only sporadically in the ensuing years, every time I do, it's as if no time at all has passed. Years and miles collapse, and I'm as close to him as I ever was. We laugh, call each other E-N and M-A, say over and over, "It's so weird," referring to a Black Point night several worlds back, the full details of which have long since fallen away.

But this much about that night we remember: for a while we go along with someone's vaguely ridiculous idea and find ourselves in Old Black Point, on a road we don't know, probably searching in vain for whoever we were meant to meet out there, for whatever it is we were meant to do. We likely never meet who we're supposed to or get where we might've been going. Instead, the rest of the group goes ahead and Ian and I start talking--about my ill-advised tangles with Dave, probably, about the darkness of the road we're on, about the unfamiliarity of wherever it is we are. We deem it all weird. Our conversation is by turns profound and heartfelt, light and goofy. It's so weird, we keep saying. So weird.

There was something about that night, our walk, that discussion, those few inky hours--something that, as pat as this will sound, yanked Ian and I together in a way we hadn't been for the rest of the summer. I went home at the end of that long evening feeling like I knew him better than I ever had, and he me, despite our long years of friendship. So weird.

We were so far from that night last Thursday, and yet, as we hugged and talked after he finished his set, as he told me about his daughter and asked me about my business, as we kept up a stream of It's so weird! and It's so good to see you, it felt like there was so little separating then and now, as if, at any moment, Jeff or Jason or Chris might call to us from down the road--What's taking you guys?--and we would quicken our pace to reach them, agreeing with their claim that the night had been a wash rather than letting on--because how could we explain?--that it hadn't. Weirdly, it hadn't.

The Week That Was

I.
Last Saturday night, Jacob holds his gin and tonic out for me to take a sip and I wrinkle my nose. "Eiww, no thanks!" I say--ok, yell--over the insane din that has enveloped Luna Park. "I'm not a gin girl." My attentions go instead to the Technicolor fruitiness of whatever I've just ordered, and the boy gives up (temporarily) on attempting to share his drink.

Then comes Sunday. [It occurs to me here that this post is about to read like a chronicle of a soused week. So be it.] Boss and I meet up at the Big Four for some belated birthday cocktails and patrician-watching. On my way to the bar, I'd been thinking about what to order; at the Big Four, the Manhattan is my standard, but for some reason I felt on Sunday like going father afield.

So when we sit down at the bar and there in my eyeline is a bottle of Hendrick's gin, I don't hesitate, asking the bartender for a Hendrick's gimlet. I'm wary--too many sips of undrinkable G&Ts have made me gin-phobic--but, upon sip #1, am delighted to discover what may be the best drink ever. Several more of same follow. (Thanks, Boss, for picking up that tab.)

Equally delightful was waking up on Monday morning without the slightest bit of a hangover. Praise be to the clear alcohol! I praised it again on Tuesday, when Erfert, Boss, and I went to Bourbon and Branch and I once again went the gimlet route (with a brief detour through a bourbon-based drink; when in Rome, etc.).

People, I have seen the light! I will probably continue to brook no gin that isn't Hendrick's or otherwise foofy (e.g., cucumber-infused), but give me the good stuff and a masterful bartender and I'm totally Gin Girl 3000. I'm sure there's a lesson here for all of us; I leave it to you to figure out what that might be.

II.
Katie, my editor, e-mailed me on Tuesday evening to let me know that the proof of my book was ready for review. She directed me to the PDF and offered to overnight a hard copy; I took her up on that offer because, as otherwise perfect as my little MacBook is, it does not have a screen that lends itself to easy review of landscape format PDFs.

The proof went out on Wednesday and was due to reach me on Thursday, which it did, though indirectly. I came home from my client meeting that afternoon to find a FedEx box addressed to me on the sidewalk in front of my steps, roughly torn open and emptied of its contents. I was approximately 75 different kinds of baffled when I picked up the box: had the FedEx guy left it on the steps? Had someone taken it from under the front gate? Would not any normal thief, upon discovering the contents of such a box, immediately jettison them? And if so, why couldn't I find a chunk of pages anywhere in the vicinity of my house?

It was while stumbling around, box in hand, that I noticed someone sitting on my neighbor Jody's steps, chatting with another guy who stood on the sidewalk in front of him. I walked toward them and felt my heart threaten to jump clear out of my chest when I saw, on the step next to the sitter--a semi-homeless guy I've seen around the neighborhood, and have previously caught stealing my Sunday paper--the folded-over, rubber-banded pages of my proof.

This will sound pat, but as my brain wrapped around what was happening, my entire body tensed up in what was the largest, strongest, most utterly overwhelming burst of anger I can ever recall feeling. I screamed so long and so loud that, by the time I got back to my house (proof in hand), I was utterly spent. That level of anger? Scary, scary stuff.

Fast forward several hours. My doorbell rang. I opened the door cautiously, and there on the steps was Sandy, a neighbor from down the street. He told me the thief was his brother, Gary, who had severe mental issues. He apologized profusely. I said I knew he couldn't be his brother's keeper, told him in detail what had happened, listened as he told me about how he and Gary's doctor try to monitor him as closely as they can, listened as he vowed to me that he would direct Gary to stay away from the neighborhood.

It was probably the stress of the afternoon and the stress of working under a tight deadline to finish the review and any number of other flavors of stress, but as Sandy and I talked, it was all I could do not to dissolve into tears. Because, yes, it was maddening beyond words to have had my proof stolen, and creepy in the extreme to think that Gary is disturbed and adept enough to pull things from under our gate. In the end, though, I got my proof back, and all I could really focus on as Sandy apologized again and again was what it might be like to bear the responsibility for a family member gone wrong, to know that there's so very little you can do.

That, by a mile, is the harder row to hoe.

III.
The eyelashes. I had forgotten, or maybe hadn't noticed before. The hazel eyes, those I remembered, but those long, stunning, dark eyelashes--those were new.

So a temporary goodbye, defenses, and nice try, though we both knew we were sort of doomed from the start, and that (for today, at least) was sort of the point. Blame the eyelashes, the eyes, the impish grin, the tap of a finger on my bottom lip, our matching pearline shirt buttons, the completed Saturday Times crossword (we missed just one square), a dozen other things that feel like not-unpleasant little kicks to the gut.

But don't make yourself too scarce; there will all too likely be work for you in the weeks ahead, given what This is and isn't and might and might not be. Next time, though, we'll try to be better prepared, you and I. Remember the eyelashes.

Officially the Least of My Concerns