Sunday, Mar. 21, 2004 - 3:06 pm
Um... I'm sorry.
This relationship just isn't working for me.
I'm at www.dailypreciousness.org now. So change that bookmark.
I can't believe it's St. Patrick's Day again. It doesn't seem like two years ago that Andy and I swapped hats with a drunken WWII veteran and flirted with the tipsy old apple cheeked woman at the parade in Old Towne Alexandria.
I can't imagine that it's been two years since we mocked the little girls who danced lightening fast feet and stone-still arms at their sides. They were wrapped like drycleaned clothes in clear plastic bags. (The only thing missing was a hanger!)
I can't conceive that it has been two years since we stumbled back giddily to the maison deleterious in Alexandria.
Now he and I party like rock stars with Yoko Ono impersonators.
Or... we party like war widows, nursing our shared loneliness.
Or maybe it's just something in between, actually... We party like mature, independent guys who love deeply and laugh with just a shadow of sadness behind our facade.
The princess of Benin, who lives down the hall, is Andy's neighbor. She's the African diva who always clarifies that she's AFRICAN, not African American. "Oh, Jeffrey! My brother!" she exclaims in her beautifully intoned French accent. She comes over, kisses me on both cheeks and proceeds to complain about "American Clothes – that everybody loves and wants to wear... but they're not made for me. You see, my derriere is just too large for American pants, since American girls have such small trunks."
"Oh, but you have all of West Africa in your trunk, don't you," I tease her. She pretends to work some gris gris on me and I just cast her spell (which is only a mock cross look) aside.
We laugh. And so does Andy, despite it all.
Andy's other half is a consultant for a consultant. And he's taken the hazard pay so that he could experience the telecom nightmare that is Baghdad at this very moment. Meanwhile, Henry's an indentured (public) servant to "the cause," whatever that is.
On a happier note, Henry will come back home in an hour and three minutes. And this makes me smile, type and sip my Irish Red Ale with CNN flashing, crawling and sobering the mood. Who wants pics of bloodied Spanish train victims in the background to merriment? Not me.
I'm in a strange space right now. It was a pleasant day at work. Everyone who wore green got to pin themselves with a shamrock and add an "O" or "Mc" to their last name. We had O'Pajeed-Smiths and Mc-Fernandezes. Very cute.
I got bonus points at the meeting today for knowing the definition for reading fluency: accurate, expressive, appropriately phrased and well-paced reading. Go me!
It's a pity I forgot to share my Lucky Charms shirt with anyone. Maybe Henry will like it. Or at the very least, he'll like throwing it aside.
