1. How can you love someone and be absolutely furious with them at the same time? And want what's best for them - and know what's best for them - but also want to hit them in the face until they stop talking?
2. I'm indulging myself in the glory of a job offer.
3. I've acquired a new reader. Well, more like I've gotten off my cyber-ass and taken the time to correspond with someone with whom I'd fallen out of touch for too long. Someone who has, over the past 16 years - can it be so long? - meant varying things to me. Classmate, thorn in my side, coworker, topic of conversation, vision of pent-up lust and desire, mutual partygoer, friend, bizarre telephone conversation partner, tormentor with peeled grapes, drinking buddy (ad nauseam), ill-fated boyfriend, could have been lover but..., argument partner, scorn victim, topic of conversation, and then (for the last 10 years, I guess), email correspondent, off and on. More off than on. Through several living arrangements, email addresses, and jobs. When I first met him he was pretty cynical. Maybe even more than I am now. By the time we were pretty much done spending time together, he was a heart attack waiting to happen. Really high stress, important job, eating himself up about everything. So a few days ago I emailed him and apologized for not having written in so long. (It was me who'd gone too long without writing; he's completely innocent on this charge.) Rather than telling me I'm a jerk but he'll forgive me, or something along that line, he said that there's nothing really to apologize for. We live our lives, and we come and go. Then we come back to each other as friends. And for a few moments I looked at the screen wondering, "Who stole his email?" But it came to me that he's been creeping in this direction, gradually, for a while now. He's becoming - not to put too fine a point on it - Zen about things. Whether by design or by accident, it's a good thing. He's not "mellowed". He's the same R, in the sense of being witty and astute and more insightful than maybe I'd prefer sometimes. But he seems more comfortable in his own skin now. What an amazing thing, to see someone on the other end of that transition.
4. Taxes are done. Owe x to the feds, but getting back 2x from the state. Enough to buy another bookcase with the difference.
5. I started reading Book Lust (by Nancy Pearl) the other night after I'd finished editing for the evening. I'm only about 10 pages into it but I already love it. Some people just get the soul of a reader, and she obviously does.
Back to work.
