Sweep action

At my new job, I’ve claimed the corner desk and a related reputation as the quiet girl. I’m inept at office banter and often say mildly insulting, ironic things that end up inside jokes - inside of me, only. Today I failed at my self-enforced soundless role when I drove a coworker home in a blizzard and after turning on the Christmas lights in my Mercedes dashboard, proceeded to tell him about taking my toddler-sized cat on a flight as an emotional support animal and how my father once got a second mortgage on the house - without telling my mother - to start a greeting card line. After next week, my boss will work almost exclusively from his Arizona home. I’m in charge of his agenda and increasingly, my own.

Arguing isn’t a sport or a game for me. I think that mentality is insulting. Life is hard enough.

We are lucky to have friends in cities everywhere. In New York last weekend, there was delicious food, conversation about video/art, technological innovation, and affordable parking. In Baltimore, there was visionary, low-culture art; communism and grey skies of hope. At a market under an overpass, we were given seeds for potential social energy. We ate dinner in a candlelit room of African masks and let large black cats crawl on us in our sleep. A forcibly stray kitten found a new home after a worrisome night in the cold. Being called an animal isn’t an insult, but acting in barbaric ways against them is a crime of morality.

A college friend found me and wrote. Of all the people I enjoy avoiding, I loved hearing from him even more. I’m fortunate to have wisps of a life that meant something in my wake, and our synchronicity is perhaps even stronger years later, a continent apart.

Love makes the supermarket feel sexy and alive. Suddenly, everything means the future is ours. When close friends ask, when it comes up, I confirm seriousness and intent. Being snowed in has always been exciting. Now it feels like comfortable electricity.

Coming up: manatees, beaches, armadillos, golf carts, alligators, The Olive Garden, and adult tricycles. Presents arrived from Denmark - dark chocolates for me, salty liquorice for him - and one gift tag on an unopened parcel thanks me for the happiness I provide. A quarter of a century, lived, approaches. If the family is un/lucky, my maternal grandmother will spend the holidays in a psych ward. Functional psychosis is real. May we live to tell or not at all.