Anyhow, a week ago I told B that I had a surprise for her, because I accidentally let slip that my thesis got passed, and I was meaning to hold off till person to say that. Consequently, she spent the week trying to figure it out, and as we said down, said, "Well, are you going to tell me?"
"Have you been thinking about this all week?"
"You should see the theories I have."
"It's not going to be as good as those."
"Just tell me."
"I dunno, its--"
"Tell me!"
I pulled out my copy of Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, and passed it to her, and she said the appropriate ohmygod-this-is-so-cool! thing that your friends say when you show them something you've created (or you're giving them a gift--occasionally it's the same moment). But I could tell, really, that this was not what she had been expecting, and indeed, it had not been.
"I thought you were getting married," she explained.
(Earlier in the day I read a really fantastic short story by Brian Evenson called 'Muller', which was in volume 37 of Conjunctions. At just under two pages in length, it was about a man and teeth and is, really, so utterly creepy that I forced it on a girl at work the moment I finished. A lot of people say a lot of good things about Evenson, but the one other piece I read I didn't really get much out of one way or the other, but this was great. Time to try some more, I think. When I came home, however, I tried reading George Saunders' 'CommComm', but found it immediately irritating. Maybe I'm just not in the mood. The link is here, so I might give it a go again in the morning.)