April 2, 2008

A respite

It's been so nice to have my friend Tony here that I'm sorry to see tomorrow come. We always fall into a cozy pattern together with our weird little habits that probably ensure we'll be single forever, such as flossing while watching the news.

He washes the dishes and I wash his clothes. He makes me breakfast and I make him hot tea. He makes my bed and I read funny articles out loud to him. He falls asleep on the bus and I watch for the stops. I don't make fun of him for practicing his martial arts moves in the elevator, at the bus stop, and while waiting in lines, and he doesn't make fun of me for talking and singing in funny voices to my birds.

Today while sitting in a coffee shop on Fillmore and people-watching, we somehow got to talking about typing. Tony confessed that sometimes when he can't sleep at night he imagines how he would type out the things he is thinking, or how sometimes while bored on the bus instead of drumming his fingers randomly he'll press them into patterns of typing letters to make words. This shocked me, and I cried, "I do that, too! I thought I was the only one!"

While shopping for a gift for Alexis and Ilsa and their new baby Theo, he picked up a book of baby names. He said, "Let's see what our baby's name will be..." and flipped to a random page and poked his finger at a name. "Aya," he announced. "Aya is what you say in Chinese when you've messed something up."

"I thought that's what you say when you break a block," I said.

He frowned. "Huh?"

"You know, like in karate: 'aaaaaaYA!!!'"

He rolled his eyes at my lame attempt at a joke.

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