onlymeant to throw in my two cents, but now I had everyone’s attention. “I mean, who’s to say any one of us wouldn’t do the same thing if placed in that situation?”
“I, for one, would not.” The professor again.
“You don’t know that for sure,” I said.
“I think I do.”
“Even if you were placed in the same environment—war, poverty, martyrdom the only heroism, no knowledge of another kind of life, no other options to make your mark?”
“In that case, friend, we’re not talking about me anymore.”
But others are like us.
Others are us.
They feel what we feel.
I was constructing my reply when Patty took the bottle from my hand. People stepped forward with their glasses. I watched her fill them. The prior conversations resumed in dyads and triads. And the professor? He was now engaged in golf-talk with our host.
Our hostess cleared her throat. “I hope everyone is hungry.”
We were ten total around the table. The subject, once we were seated, shifted toward what we all did for a living, and in some cases, what we all wanted to be doing for a living. I might have preferred a discussion about what we were reading, but—as I had learned at an earlier dinner—not everyone reads for pleasure, and those who don’t are ashamed of that fact, so discussions about books should occur only in the confines of a “book club”—to which I have never belonged.
The table was crowded with flowers, candles, napkins, plates, glasses (two each), and silverware. On each of our plates sat tiny sterling-silver pigs, into whose pigtails were tucked cards with our names laser-printed on them. The hostess had divided the couples, so that I found myself sitting across the table from Patty and two seats over. I tried to catch her eye now and then, give her a wink, which she indulged and admonished with a half-smile. She wanted me to act like an adult. I spoke with our hostess, mainly, about how good the food was, and listened to the other conversations around the table. A swirling conversational sinkhole. I was in a sour mood, I admit. Were I placed in that room today I might consider it paradise. But I am obliged to reproduce my attitude then, however lazy and cynical it seems to me now.
I must have been staring at my food too long because Patty called my name. “Owen, dear, I was just telling Attila here about your work and he’s interested in hearing more about it.”
Attila stared at me from across the table.
“It’s not so exciting. We do the manuals for a large software company.”
“Do you do all the layout as well, like the diagrams?”
“One of my colleagues does that. I’m mainly a text guy.”
Attila waited for more. Patty joined another conversation. She had handed me off. Perhaps it was my mood, but the promise of the early part of the evening—the simple pleasure of watching my wife interact with others, even as I interacted with her—seemed all but crushed in this brief swerve of her attention away from me.
Letters started but never sent:
Mr. Raven,
I, too, am an upstanding individual, and I am pleased that you decided to reconsider your hasty photo-based assessment of my character. You will discover soon enough that I am no mere dabbler in our correspondence.
Dear Henry,
Have you ever felt utterly, utterly alone? I have given your letter a great deal of thought, and while my mind reels at the thousands of unexpressed expectations hovering out of reach (somewhere in the future) I can safely and honestly cite what it is I want from you now. Love is a difficult thing to summarize. I am aware that romance wooing correspondence is a dance.
Sir:
It is crucial to start on honest footing here . I have never been one to stand on ceremony. I am eager to move beyond these preliminaries and get on with our correspondence in earnest. start. The story of my life could find a resting place home in your receptive warm heart.
Henry Joe,
I want someone to listen to me. I want someone with
“I, for one, would not.” The professor again.
“You don’t know that for sure,” I said.
“I think I do.”
“Even if you were placed in the same environment—war, poverty, martyrdom the only heroism, no knowledge of another kind of life, no other options to make your mark?”
“In that case, friend, we’re not talking about me anymore.”
But others are like us.
Others are us.
They feel what we feel.
I was constructing my reply when Patty took the bottle from my hand. People stepped forward with their glasses. I watched her fill them. The prior conversations resumed in dyads and triads. And the professor? He was now engaged in golf-talk with our host.
Our hostess cleared her throat. “I hope everyone is hungry.”
We were ten total around the table. The subject, once we were seated, shifted toward what we all did for a living, and in some cases, what we all wanted to be doing for a living. I might have preferred a discussion about what we were reading, but—as I had learned at an earlier dinner—not everyone reads for pleasure, and those who don’t are ashamed of that fact, so discussions about books should occur only in the confines of a “book club”—to which I have never belonged.
The table was crowded with flowers, candles, napkins, plates, glasses (two each), and silverware. On each of our plates sat tiny sterling-silver pigs, into whose pigtails were tucked cards with our names laser-printed on them. The hostess had divided the couples, so that I found myself sitting across the table from Patty and two seats over. I tried to catch her eye now and then, give her a wink, which she indulged and admonished with a half-smile. She wanted me to act like an adult. I spoke with our hostess, mainly, about how good the food was, and listened to the other conversations around the table. A swirling conversational sinkhole. I was in a sour mood, I admit. Were I placed in that room today I might consider it paradise. But I am obliged to reproduce my attitude then, however lazy and cynical it seems to me now.
I must have been staring at my food too long because Patty called my name. “Owen, dear, I was just telling Attila here about your work and he’s interested in hearing more about it.”
Attila stared at me from across the table.
“It’s not so exciting. We do the manuals for a large software company.”
“Do you do all the layout as well, like the diagrams?”
“One of my colleagues does that. I’m mainly a text guy.”
Attila waited for more. Patty joined another conversation. She had handed me off. Perhaps it was my mood, but the promise of the early part of the evening—the simple pleasure of watching my wife interact with others, even as I interacted with her—seemed all but crushed in this brief swerve of her attention away from me.
Letters started but never sent:
Mr. Raven,
I, too, am an upstanding individual, and I am pleased that you decided to reconsider your hasty photo-based assessment of my character. You will discover soon enough that I am no mere dabbler in our correspondence.
Dear Henry,
Have you ever felt utterly, utterly alone? I have given your letter a great deal of thought, and while my mind reels at the thousands of unexpressed expectations hovering out of reach (somewhere in the future) I can safely and honestly cite what it is I want from you now. Love is a difficult thing to summarize. I am aware that romance wooing correspondence is a dance.
Sir:
It is crucial to start on honest footing here . I have never been one to stand on ceremony. I am eager to move beyond these preliminaries and get on with our correspondence in earnest. start. The story of my life could find a resting place home in your receptive warm heart.
Henry Joe,
I want someone to listen to me. I want someone with
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