how did this happen?

it was all that talking. we started with construction, passed though the vietnam war, turned to children and money and charity. I knew somewhere between vietnam and charity that I was in trouble. and you tell me now: you're trouble. if this is trouble, I need all the trouble I can get.



I love when you say it: you're trouble. It's all life and fun rolled into two final little syllables. tell me again and again. the diction is new to me and to you: incredible crazy amazing, and that utterly charming trouble - suddenly the ordinary discourse of life. it is hard to trust.



we wonder, together, is this a spike out of the ordinary, or is this the way it's supposed to be? you're trying to figure that out. so we joke about newtonian physics and moses and articulation, and treasure hunt $2 pints of ben & jerry's. I'll let the trouble lead where it will. I want a life of incredible crazy amazing, and I know you do too. however it ends up, it is incredible crazy amazing to learn, now, what incredible crazy amazing feels like.

Incredible

It sounds like you're apologizing for initiating a serious conversation. He looked me in the eye. I don't want you to do that again, ever.

It was 2am. I am floored. I don't want to forget that, ever.

patching the nicks

For my birthday last year, the boy I used to live with gave me a framed print from Scharffen Berger. I loved it and I loved him for giving it to me - knowing my penchant for high milkfat chocolates, he sought it out at the Scharffen Berger shop and lugged it downtown to an art store to be framed professionally. It's all print and glass and old chocolate oak frame. It feels the way Real Art should: very heavy and very huge and very beautiful.

Adding to the casualties of moving this summer, the side of the frame got nicked somewhere en route from New York to Boston. My roommate noticed the thin strip of white where there was once brown as we were hanging it in the hall this morning. Appropriate, I thought, that this should be bruised and damaged. Nothing is safe. I decided to ignore it. What's one more nick?

Thirty seconds later my roommate returned, announcing that the problem had been remedied. He had colored the white strip in brown again with a permanent marker. The nick had all but disappeared. I'm learning you feel your way back to making things whole, one little patch at a time.