Biblical Metaphors
Nov. 23rd, 2003 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraFeel almost as though I’m living a double life – garrulous extrovert by day, but in the wee hours of the night (in which I invariably awaken) suffering from a kind of spiritual isolationism. Dover Beach breaches the Sea of Faith, yes? See, I did too benefit from my 12th grade English class even though I was zonked on 1000 micrograms of Osley Orange each and every fourth period.
Last night at two o’ clock in the morning, I amused myself by reading through Abe’s collected online San Diego Reader pieces. Boy, that man can write. We’d chattered away for an hour and a half on the phone earlier that day, first time in several months. Things are going very well for him – New York editors love him, Gourmet is sending him to Italy for a week on a story, he is upbeat and vibrant. When I hung up the phone, I went for a twenty mile bike ride and tried to ponder why though I’ve been 49% in love with Abe for years, I’d never let myself slip over that five or ten percent that would give the emotion a firm margin.
On the last night I was there last summer, we went out drinking. After several rounds of Manhattans, he turned to me and said, "You know the problem with me? I’m always falling in love with women like you."
Tricky moment.
"Oh, you don’t want to do that," I said. "I’m shopworn. I’m emotionally dysfunctional. You want a nice young woman who’s a blank slate, maybe a Phillipino catalog bride or an editorial assistant at Writers House, fresh from Wellsley."
If I’d gone dewy-eyed and trembling, mumbled the right incantory response, we would have staggered back to his house, fucked like bunnies, woken the next morning with scratches on our backs. And I would be writing this morning from an apartment in Sheepshead Bay. Because Abe would never be content with an affair, no, no, it would have to be a marriage, a deep emotional and spiritual communion, and frankly that kind of intimacy with someone who’s so physically charismatic – think Gerard Depardieu in Le Retour de Martin Guerre – scares the shit out of me. Where do you find room for your own thoughts when you’re around someone who’s determined to take up that much space?
The best mates are the ones who’re invisible until you want to see them.
Came back from the bike ride, collected the kids and drove to the karate studio. Robin’s green belt test. Sidney testing too. Jeannie and I sat next to each other, gossiping like school girls. "We got two long letters from Jeff in jail," said Jeannie. "I should ask Tony to show them to you. He mentions you and Lucius."
"He mentions me? What mean things did he say?"
"Oh, nothing mean –"
"You know, we were email buddies for a while. But the thing is that he expected me to write his book for him. I told him that while I’d be very happy to help edit his book and do the agent poke, if he wanted me to ghost it for him, he’d have to pay me vast sums of money. That shut him right up."
Robin looked amazing during the test. Really, his improvement has been exponential this past year. He’s kicking over his head, his punches and blocks are clean and strong. Still a little wobbly on his stances. I suppose we will have to put his overactive imagination to the task: You are rooted like a tree. You are immovable as a mountain range. His forms looked beautiful to me, and when Matt awarded the green belts, Robin got a handshake. (Nobody else did.) "I came down extra hard on you," said Matt. "I wanted to see if you could work around that, overcome that obstacle. And you did. Beautifully."
After the test, Robin morphed back from an apprentice warrior into a nine year old, and I took the boys to Ghiradelli’s for a celebratory sundae. They ordered something called an Earthquake which was eight separate flavors of ice cream and eight individual toppings. Robin ordered chocolate mint to forestall the Mommie Tax, so there was nothing left to do but wander next door to the shop and take over the cash register from Ben.
Ben looked testy.
"What’s wrong?" I said.
"Nothing’s wrong," he said but it turned out he was in a funk because sales were only nibbling at the $200 mark.
"Lots of people have been coming into the store," he said. "And everybody’s saying how cute the store is. But nobody’s buying. Oh – early this morning, we got two firemen from Fresno who drove all the way up here for two things – to buy French fried artichokes in Castroville and to buy hot sauce here. They were here the first week the store opened. They love the store."
"Repeat visitors," I said. "That’s what retail is all about."
"They’re not carrying bags," said Ben. "The people milling around out there on Cannery Row. That’s a bad sign. That means they’re not here to buy."
"It goes in cycles," I said, but indeed, our material fortunes are very tied up in the store even though I know it won’t turn a profit until the end of its first summer. There will be a peak at Xmas and then will come the three lean months, January, February, March, the three lean kine. I need to get that web site up. And I may need to get a real job to tide us over financially.
Last night at two o’ clock in the morning, I amused myself by reading through Abe’s collected online San Diego Reader pieces. Boy, that man can write. We’d chattered away for an hour and a half on the phone earlier that day, first time in several months. Things are going very well for him – New York editors love him, Gourmet is sending him to Italy for a week on a story, he is upbeat and vibrant. When I hung up the phone, I went for a twenty mile bike ride and tried to ponder why though I’ve been 49% in love with Abe for years, I’d never let myself slip over that five or ten percent that would give the emotion a firm margin.
On the last night I was there last summer, we went out drinking. After several rounds of Manhattans, he turned to me and said, "You know the problem with me? I’m always falling in love with women like you."
Tricky moment.
"Oh, you don’t want to do that," I said. "I’m shopworn. I’m emotionally dysfunctional. You want a nice young woman who’s a blank slate, maybe a Phillipino catalog bride or an editorial assistant at Writers House, fresh from Wellsley."
If I’d gone dewy-eyed and trembling, mumbled the right incantory response, we would have staggered back to his house, fucked like bunnies, woken the next morning with scratches on our backs. And I would be writing this morning from an apartment in Sheepshead Bay. Because Abe would never be content with an affair, no, no, it would have to be a marriage, a deep emotional and spiritual communion, and frankly that kind of intimacy with someone who’s so physically charismatic – think Gerard Depardieu in Le Retour de Martin Guerre – scares the shit out of me. Where do you find room for your own thoughts when you’re around someone who’s determined to take up that much space?
The best mates are the ones who’re invisible until you want to see them.
Came back from the bike ride, collected the kids and drove to the karate studio. Robin’s green belt test. Sidney testing too. Jeannie and I sat next to each other, gossiping like school girls. "We got two long letters from Jeff in jail," said Jeannie. "I should ask Tony to show them to you. He mentions you and Lucius."
"He mentions me? What mean things did he say?"
"Oh, nothing mean –"
"You know, we were email buddies for a while. But the thing is that he expected me to write his book for him. I told him that while I’d be very happy to help edit his book and do the agent poke, if he wanted me to ghost it for him, he’d have to pay me vast sums of money. That shut him right up."
Robin looked amazing during the test. Really, his improvement has been exponential this past year. He’s kicking over his head, his punches and blocks are clean and strong. Still a little wobbly on his stances. I suppose we will have to put his overactive imagination to the task: You are rooted like a tree. You are immovable as a mountain range. His forms looked beautiful to me, and when Matt awarded the green belts, Robin got a handshake. (Nobody else did.) "I came down extra hard on you," said Matt. "I wanted to see if you could work around that, overcome that obstacle. And you did. Beautifully."After the test, Robin morphed back from an apprentice warrior into a nine year old, and I took the boys to Ghiradelli’s for a celebratory sundae. They ordered something called an Earthquake which was eight separate flavors of ice cream and eight individual toppings. Robin ordered chocolate mint to forestall the Mommie Tax, so there was nothing left to do but wander next door to the shop and take over the cash register from Ben.
Ben looked testy.
"What’s wrong?" I said.
"Nothing’s wrong," he said but it turned out he was in a funk because sales were only nibbling at the $200 mark.
"Lots of people have been coming into the store," he said. "And everybody’s saying how cute the store is. But nobody’s buying. Oh – early this morning, we got two firemen from Fresno who drove all the way up here for two things – to buy French fried artichokes in Castroville and to buy hot sauce here. They were here the first week the store opened. They love the store."
"Repeat visitors," I said. "That’s what retail is all about."
"They’re not carrying bags," said Ben. "The people milling around out there on Cannery Row. That’s a bad sign. That means they’re not here to buy."
"It goes in cycles," I said, but indeed, our material fortunes are very tied up in the store even though I know it won’t turn a profit until the end of its first summer. There will be a peak at Xmas and then will come the three lean months, January, February, March, the three lean kine. I need to get that web site up. And I may need to get a real job to tide us over financially.
