Love & Permanence

"Terri and I have been together five years, been married for four. And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us-excuse me for saying this-but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for awhile, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough. All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I"m the first one to admit it."

"Mel, for God's sake," Terri said. She reached out and took hold of his wrist." "are you getting drunk? Honey? Are you drunk?"

Raymond Carver - "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love"

This passage is the story of my life. I just finished the book. Some really great stories in this collection, like, really subtle and heartfelt and overwhelming kinds. He has this way of telling at least 3 stories in one story. He generally begins with one incredible story, then one of the characters tells a story to the other, distracting the reader with another incredible story, then ends the incredible story incredibly, then ties it back together with the beginning story with an even more incredible ending. My favorites would have to be what we talk about when we talk about love (where the passage is from, and the title of the collection,) Everything Stuck To Him, Tell the Women We're Going and Sacks.

 I've been reading a lot because I have so much time on my hands and haven't been feeling like hanging out with my fob friends. They're all really nice people, it's just hard because we don't have much in common, so I spend all my time reading. I did meet this one girl though that I had an excellent conversation about a lecture she went to in Soho on S&M and how she's reading the "Feminine Mystique." Awesome. She totally doesn't seem like the kind of girl to be into/talking about that sort of thing, but don't judge a book by it's cover I suppose. Everyone thinks I'm a huge nerd. Whatever. Reading is cool. It's kind of nice having no friends because I'm much more productive. I'm already 50 pages in on Moveable Feast.