A. has a new web site at work, I’ll give it to you when it’s up.  We’ll have a launch party, we’ll all wear toner. 

“Listening is an effort that ages the face, makes the neck muscles ache, and stiffens the eyelids looking fixedly at the speaker.  It is a kind of studied debauch … the elevating to its secret meaning a litany of dull words …”

Collette said that.  Curiously, A. keeps looking younger and his eyelids are remarkably lithe.  It’s paid off, his vow of abstinence from the litany of my dull words. 

Today I’m working in Garamond and eating cantaloupe and writing of monkeys.  Ellen’s lover, Reed, lives at the Sunnyside Terrace home in a “persistent vegetative state” and rooms with a monkey, a Capuchin.  Capuchins are small and affectionate and good at getting lids off of jars.  Ellen has issues with intimacy. 

Scruffy is making a sloppy, lip-sucking sound that makes it extremely difficult to work.  I bet monkeys don’t do that.  Maybe I’ll trade him for one. 

I linked to Collette, by the way, so you could read about her lovers.  Including but not limited to her stepson. 

I’m up to get coffee and move Scruffy; if you need to interrupt me, now’s the time.  (If you’d like to leave hot soup at my door, to surprise me for lunch, you may do that now, too.)

A. has requested I show this picture.  I would have earlier but for the focus – A. commits the most daring act of our lives and I screw up the shot.  It was even scarier, I promise, in person and completely clear. 

(That’s A.’s very own hand, by the way, beneath the creepy, spindly fur.)

A number of things have happened and it’s not even 9:00.  First, A. has sent me a penis.  Not a real one, just a picture, and not a photo, it was drawn, and not by him.  Also, in A.’s defense, the artist intended for the penis to be scissors.  Still.  Inappropriate for a Monday, don’t you think?  I’m going to tell his mother. 

Second, Scruffy has developed an insatiable taste for underwear.  We knew that it lurked but it used to be infrequent.  Now three pair in shreds since yesterday, I’m not telling whose.  Just please don’t bring underwear to Bills Street, it isn’t safe.

I had minestrone today for breakfast because minestrone is in abundance, I have it coming out the walls.  It was for soup club and I must’ve had it in my head there were 20 of us instead of three.  If 17 of you would like to come for soup, please do.  (But remember, no underwear.)

My thoughts are completely out of order.  Before the minestrone, for instance, I went looking for Revolutionary Road.  I have a battered paper copy and refer to it occasionally, to keep myself on track.  (I sometimes refer to The Good Wife, as you may recall, as “Revolutionary Road with sight gags.”  It’s my pitch.  Sincere apologies Mr. Yates, just trying to make a buck.) 

Anyway, before I found it, I glimpsed Dumas on Food a wonderful little book I picked up at the beach.  Dumas on Food made me think of minestrone, which led to my breakfast.  It also made me think of someone either in real life or on TV once pronouncing Dumas as ”Dumb-ass.”  I’m picturing a character on Friends or Anna though I’m sure it was neither. 

Two more things and then I’ll go.  Tony is coming around 10, to pick up a check.  Tony did the built-ins in the study but you don’t need to remember it, there won’t be a quiz.  I’m a bit peeved, though, about his coming at 10 because it will interrupt my work.  Which I don’t like to do.  Which I am sensitive about.  But that’s not the “two more things” they’re just related to it.  Here they are: 

1.  I couldn’t find the checks.  A. has moved them to his drawer in the built-in.  (We each have a drawer, there are four.)  I knew this but for so long I’ve been going to the messy drawer in the kitchen for checks that it’s automatic.  Now I had to consciously think of where the checks are and I don’t like to do that either. 

2.  I don’t ever want my laptop cord put through the little hole in the top of the desk again.  I realize the hole is made for that but I need to feel free and loose with my computer.  I need to know I can leave whenever I like and when the cord is dropped and looped through holes and cabinets and hidden away and not easy to get out, I feel trapped.  My creativity suffers and real things like kitchen ants and animal waste creep into the picture and foul my mood.

There it is.  My Monday before nine.

Here is some book copy from Rev Road:

“It’s the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner.  With heartbreaking conpasion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.” 

And he was snappish.  Curt.  I’ll need more attention if we’re going to proceed. 

For the rest of you, cocktails in the garden at 5:00.  Don’t be late.  And “The Spruce Goose” was made mostly from Birch.

 

I’m down to boring political rants and talking to A.  Writing press releases during the day doesn’t help.  If you’re clever and send me money I’ll let you blog. 

Apply here.

Oh, P.S. – A.?  Chiquita’s been scratching the new couch.  It’s already fuzzy.  (One point for Scruffy.  Yes!)

 me + A. =   

You do the laundry, all the time,
and fold it, too.  I love you.

You roll out garbage unless you forget,
you never fret.  I love you.

You get tattoos even if they will bug me,
and then you hug me.  I love you.

You dispose of horrible stuff.
(I saw the forks – eww, yuk.)  I love you.

You watch shows I like,
and ride your bike.  I love you.

You wake up all night from the dog.
Sometimes you jog.  I love you.

You burst into push-ups out of the blue.
You stick with me like glue.

I love you. 

it’s too late, that’s all.  too much / little / late.  

… and he said, “How the hell do I know?” 

I think he’s dreamy.

Seriously, though.  Scruffy wants in and I might eat a cheetoh.

Neil Strauss has a good book list today at Powell’s.

Scruffy won’t stay in the yard.

Bobby Fischer’s dead.

A. hasn’t called or acknowledged me in any way today, I could be on the floor bleeding to death for all he knows. (But I’m not.)

Also, I got licensed to serve you alcohol this morning. Did you know you can take your own bottle of liquor into any establishment that serves it? Corkage fees run steep and the bottle doesn’t go back out, the bar keeps it. Not so with wine. You can carry your unfinished, corked wine out to the car as long as it was served with a meal and the cork is flush with the top of the bottle.

That, folks. Is all.

No one in my family likes fondue, so I’ve decided to make it a tradition — New Year’s Eve fondue.  If there are other things you don’t like, family, please inform me so I can schedule them.