Thanks to a birthday gift certificate from Val, Ciro is once again wearing cologne and I have a green Fiestaware spoon rest so that when I am cooking I no longer spatter the entire surface of the range. We are feeling awfully fancy.
Yesterday, I had a long phone call with REL, who is preparing for a Halloween excursion to Alcatraz. She spent about an hour telling me how brilliant an artist she thinks I am, apropos of nothing, and how devastated she will be if I ever break up with Ciro, who is also brilliant and beloved. It's very nice to hear, and I'm pretty deeply touched. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to the compliment, because I think she is being truthful and kind, but I also think it indicates that she is worried that (1) I am going to develop schizophrenia like my grandfather as a consequence of my brilliance and not enough people respecting it, and (2) Ciro and I are about to split up.
I can't exactly say that these are irrational worries, because I can see where she's drawing her conclusions. If I say, "seriously, don't worry about it," it sounds like I maybe haven't seen what she's seen, when the truth is that I saw those things too - and also other things that make them less significant. Not because I am smarter or because she is being silly, but because I look for these signs every day and every second. In any case, it was sweet, and I guess I should just let her worry about things because that is perhaps her way of loving people. It only happens to be difficult because it interacts poorly with my own great love of rants as comedy and/or stress relief.
REL also observes that her favorite feature of horror stories by me is the way that fairly horrifying things happen and the narrator or narrator character just rolls with it and tells the audience that everything is going to be fine. And then something seemingly ordinary happens, and the narrator freaks out, and you know that the world is a very scary place.
It's been damp out for weeks. I don't feel cooped up so much as relentlessly climate controlled. I'm beginning to understand why people like fireplaces.
Yesterday, I had a long phone call with REL, who is preparing for a Halloween excursion to Alcatraz. She spent about an hour telling me how brilliant an artist she thinks I am, apropos of nothing, and how devastated she will be if I ever break up with Ciro, who is also brilliant and beloved. It's very nice to hear, and I'm pretty deeply touched. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to the compliment, because I think she is being truthful and kind, but I also think it indicates that she is worried that (1) I am going to develop schizophrenia like my grandfather as a consequence of my brilliance and not enough people respecting it, and (2) Ciro and I are about to split up.
I can't exactly say that these are irrational worries, because I can see where she's drawing her conclusions. If I say, "seriously, don't worry about it," it sounds like I maybe haven't seen what she's seen, when the truth is that I saw those things too - and also other things that make them less significant. Not because I am smarter or because she is being silly, but because I look for these signs every day and every second. In any case, it was sweet, and I guess I should just let her worry about things because that is perhaps her way of loving people. It only happens to be difficult because it interacts poorly with my own great love of rants as comedy and/or stress relief.
REL also observes that her favorite feature of horror stories by me is the way that fairly horrifying things happen and the narrator or narrator character just rolls with it and tells the audience that everything is going to be fine. And then something seemingly ordinary happens, and the narrator freaks out, and you know that the world is a very scary place.
It's been damp out for weeks. I don't feel cooped up so much as relentlessly climate controlled. I'm beginning to understand why people like fireplaces.