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Katherine had a few of Rik’s poems printed privately.
The volume arrived in the mail yesterday. (This must have been why I dreamed about Rik the other night. Good job, subconscious!)
“the wheelchair of old age”????
Don’t quit your day job! I might have advised.
But, of course, he never did and never would have.
At his day job as a cell biologist, he did some pretty brilliant work—the most brilliant being that he was the first scientist to measure the change in electric potential that happens at the exact moment a sperm penetrates the membrane of an egg.
Katherine picked this photo for the back of the book:
Not one of my favorites.
But I guess she never knew her father when he didn’t look like that.
When I was closest to Rik, he looked like this:
That was during the 70s when he was between marriages, and we were going to a lot of parties together.
Once he looked at me—angrily? mournfully?—and said, “You’re never going to have the slightest idea of who I really am, are you?”
What the fuck? I thought.
That was the closest we ever came to acknowledging whatever it was that was between us.
And then he remarried and we drifted back into being uncle-by-marriage and crazy, both-ends-candle-burning niece.
He even gave me away when I married my first husband in his back yard.
###
What else?
I spent yesterday in a blind rage.
That pretty much meant I had to hole myself up in the Patrizia-torium since I wouldn’t dream of inflicting myself on anyone else in that mood.
And, of course, it’s utterly ridiculous to be angry at events you can’t control. A waste of norepinephrine.
Nonetheless, I wanted to punch someone in the face.
Punching a whole bunch of faces would have been even more satisfying!
###
Marissa texted.
A kid in her son’s Poughkeepsie classroom had tested positive for IT, so he—and she!—were quarantined for the next 10 days.
I have something for you, I texted. I will text you from the battered woman’s parking lot and drop it off.
Poor Marissa! She has pride. I hadn’t calculated that my gift would throw her into a complete tizzy, but of course, it did: Gift-giving in her world is a reciprocal calculus.
She put one of her own scarves into a bag—a Victoria’s Secrets bag; hey! it’s brightly colored—and we did this bizarre little hand-off ritual that consisted of placing our respective gifts on a wall 20 feet apart from each other. (I am not getting within 10 feet of anyone who’s been within 10 feet of anyone who’s tested positive for IT since apparently, omicron is airborne, and aerosols can linger in the air for hours.)
You won’t find another scarf like that in the U.S., she texted.
I believe it.
It’s a really delicate-looking thing that appears to have been spun out of light and air and butterfly wings.
It is currently being quarantined in the basement.
Remember, kids: What doesn’t kill you mutates and tries again!!!
The volume arrived in the mail yesterday. (This must have been why I dreamed about Rik the other night. Good job, subconscious!)
“the wheelchair of old age”????
Don’t quit your day job! I might have advised.
But, of course, he never did and never would have.
At his day job as a cell biologist, he did some pretty brilliant work—the most brilliant being that he was the first scientist to measure the change in electric potential that happens at the exact moment a sperm penetrates the membrane of an egg.
Katherine picked this photo for the back of the book:
Not one of my favorites.
But I guess she never knew her father when he didn’t look like that.
When I was closest to Rik, he looked like this:
That was during the 70s when he was between marriages, and we were going to a lot of parties together.
Once he looked at me—angrily? mournfully?—and said, “You’re never going to have the slightest idea of who I really am, are you?”
What the fuck? I thought.
That was the closest we ever came to acknowledging whatever it was that was between us.
And then he remarried and we drifted back into being uncle-by-marriage and crazy, both-ends-candle-burning niece.
He even gave me away when I married my first husband in his back yard.
###
What else?
I spent yesterday in a blind rage.
That pretty much meant I had to hole myself up in the Patrizia-torium since I wouldn’t dream of inflicting myself on anyone else in that mood.
And, of course, it’s utterly ridiculous to be angry at events you can’t control. A waste of norepinephrine.
Nonetheless, I wanted to punch someone in the face.
Punching a whole bunch of faces would have been even more satisfying!
###
Marissa texted.
A kid in her son’s Poughkeepsie classroom had tested positive for IT, so he—and she!—were quarantined for the next 10 days.
I have something for you, I texted. I will text you from the battered woman’s parking lot and drop it off.
Poor Marissa! She has pride. I hadn’t calculated that my gift would throw her into a complete tizzy, but of course, it did: Gift-giving in her world is a reciprocal calculus.
She put one of her own scarves into a bag—a Victoria’s Secrets bag; hey! it’s brightly colored—and we did this bizarre little hand-off ritual that consisted of placing our respective gifts on a wall 20 feet apart from each other. (I am not getting within 10 feet of anyone who’s been within 10 feet of anyone who’s tested positive for IT since apparently, omicron is airborne, and aerosols can linger in the air for hours.)
You won’t find another scarf like that in the U.S., she texted.
I believe it.
It’s a really delicate-looking thing that appears to have been spun out of light and air and butterfly wings.
It is currently being quarantined in the basement.
Remember, kids: What doesn’t kill you mutates and tries again!!!
