tuckova

The paper I'm working on today is about "The Circle of Willis" which is a
real name for a real part of the brain. I keep muttering at the paper
"Whatchoooo talking 'bout?" but it does not answer me. Perhaps neurology
was not the field to pursue as a medical editor. Although, really, not
like I could do gynecology or anything else with greater ease, because I
am always able to find something that will make me laugh too hard to do
anything reasonable, like work. I mean, GONADS. You keep a straight face.

I find that I am taking my friend's recent death rather harder than I expected. I'm
taking it personally. I don't remember feeling that way before; most
people I loved who died were in pain, and so my selfish wishes to have
them around forever and ever were somewhat contained by the knowledge
that I did not want them to suffer anymore. This may be the first one
that doesn't feel that way. Maybe it's intimations of mortality, though I
really think it's not about my own death so much as the honest and absolute amount of loss I
feel with this one.

I really, really, really do not want to hear "Hallelujah" ever again. I
loved the song to pieces (the Cale version, as all discerning people
agree), and I'm not sure why it bothers me so particularly (I'm still
pretty happy to hear ABBA, and goodness knows that's overplayed to
bits), but it does. It makes me feel like when people play "Wrapped
Around Your Finger" at weddings. The song means something to me, and it
is not romantic or sweet, and every time it comes swooping onto a
soundtrack I think, "Oh, a complicated emotional scene, let's have that
complicated emotional song do the work for us" and yet I don't think
anybody's listening to the same words I am. And I am so fed up that I
would fast forward through movies, I would walk out of a store that played it, just to not have to hear it
again.

I haven't been to the cottage in WEEKS. Friar's been every weekend, so I know it's
still standing, but I feel like some of the joy has been punched out of
it by my annoyance with the neighbors. Well, I'm just going to get a
sour stomach thinking about that. NEXT!

I'm working for a new guy, a chemist, who advised me to take a valium before I edit his paper. That bodes well, doesn't it?

Squire seems to be doing well in school so far. He's so tall, it would
blow you away. We almost see eye to eye now. HA. He is honestly just a kick
to live with, so funny and so honest and so goofy. And the
self-awareness that has come with being older is also nice, like now he
can talk for five minutes about starships and weapons, but after five
minutes he says, "I'm kind of boring you, right?" YES YOU ARE. But he
knows he is adorable even when he's boring, and also doesn't hesitate to
tell me when I'm boring him, so there's that. Every year I think: This
is so much better than I ever expected having a kid to be, this is a
large as my heart has ever been, and it is okay if it is all downhill
from here because right now I am already happier and more loving than I
thought I could be. And then the next year I am blown away by how much
MORE love I feel, how much more I like him as a person. But really, if
he descends into the sassiest, most unpleasant adolescence after this, I
will not care, because he is just a goddamn delight right now. I am a
better person, and perceive the world as a better place, because he's in
it. True story.