His Isolation Grows Defined

It's funny how this morning, just this very morning, I was worrying about what to do with Herman, my one remaining tetra fish, whom I can no longer find the time to care properly for.

That is small change. Cheap, insignificant, dirty old pennies.

Because now? Now I have somehow acquired ink stains on my pants. (This was my attempt to make a joke, make a joke out of something that is not funny, with the ink stain crisis. I really do have ink stains on my pants, but a little hairspray will take care of that right away.)

Here is what I don't understand: relationships. How do two people with two different brains possibly come together on any level and create any sort of real understanding? It just doesn't seem possible. Two perspectives, two voices, can continually be engaged in a dialectic, can even see something in similar ways, maybe, but words are too transient and too confusing, connotation is too significant, and that just covers verbal communication. The present. This does not touch on the past in the slightest way, and heaven forbid we even consider the future.

As someone who studies relationships, who is passionately involved in the understanding and the connection of people, and cultures, and ideas, this problem seems like one I should have dealt with a long time ago, should have solved and moved on to other things; should have made my peace, at least, and not continued a hypocrite, believing that we can understand the metaphor of truth without believing we can understand anything outside our head at all.

I'm helpless and watching as things spin out of my control. As I step out of the shower and go to towel off to watch my favorite earring slip off my ear and down the drain, too far to catch it and recover it, and matter-of-factly pull the other one out and set it on the counter. As in, Well. As in, Of course. Watched, knowingly, half-cocked-smilingly, feeling like a clairvoyant. Perfect.