Intervals
In he swept today, his black cap full of doffery.
"Hallo!" I said happily. "How much time do you have today? You have to work this afternoon, right?"
"Right. But I have more minutes than fingers on a hand," he said, "even if it's a mutant hand."
Five to seven minutes, then, I thought, but it turned out to be more like a half an hour, which gave us time to exchange New Year's party tales (at one point I had to drag him into the depths of the bookstore to whisper, since a customer came in), and the usual flurry of what-we're-reading:
He sighed, "I am currently mired in Pillars of Earth."
"Really?" I asked. "Mired? Is that really the word? Or are you just in the middle of it?"
"No, mired is correct."
Poor soul! He'll finish it too, if I know him, reluctantly but doggedly.
"I'm reading McCaffrey's Dragonsdawn for fun, and Rabe and Greenberg's Steampunk'd, and Zola's Germinal, and am listening to Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett on Audio Book. Have you read Germinal? You've probably read Germinal."
"No, I haven't, actually."
I nearly bounced. "I am reading a grown-up book you haven't read yet!!!"
This was very exciting.
(I told him about the line in Germinal's first chapter about bread. It had me staring out the window for a good ten minutes on the train this morning, struck by the necessity of bread, our basic need for it, how I take it all so for granted.)
It followed, however, after he told me the story of Leander-who-drowned (apropos of a brief tangent about curiously paired pet names: Leander and Ophelia. Certes and Tatches. And about 16 cats named after mythological and historical queens who've committed suicide. "To me, Cleopatra! To me, Dido!"), and how they named a lake Leander in Minnesota, that he has read Mallory's Tristan and Isolde (which I have not), as well as Mort d'Arthur (which I have not), which he liked better than The Once and Future King, which was, he said, "Twee."
"I think I might like twee better than you like twee," I told him.
"But not grand Arthurian epics, surely!"
He admitted he hadn't been able to finish Once and Future King. So perhaps I'll not pity him the Follett. He can stop anytime. (I've not read that one either.)
I told him my idea about the mining story (now in my head as "The People's Steampunk" story), and he told me what music projects he's working on.
As he had to leave, we played the book-titles game, wherein we tried to keep up a conversation entirely by book titles alone, with a few fillers. He was in the Vintage Children's section. I was near the Women-in-Horror-month display.
This resulted in Donald Duck meeting Frankenstein, and other such perversions of nature.
We bumped knuckles in farewell (I'd already hugged him once in greeting; knuckle bumping seems a saner way of parting), and then there was an exchange of knuckle-bumps-to-palm-explosion hand gesture thing which he said was called, "The Turkey," and after several attempts, many of them severely mangled, I half-hugged him anyway, called him a dork, and then he was gone.
The day is brighter for his appearance.
It was very grey outside all afternoon, but now as I look out it is cloudless, though cusping on twilight.
"Hallo!" I said happily. "How much time do you have today? You have to work this afternoon, right?"
"Right. But I have more minutes than fingers on a hand," he said, "even if it's a mutant hand."
Five to seven minutes, then, I thought, but it turned out to be more like a half an hour, which gave us time to exchange New Year's party tales (at one point I had to drag him into the depths of the bookstore to whisper, since a customer came in), and the usual flurry of what-we're-reading:
He sighed, "I am currently mired in Pillars of Earth."
"Really?" I asked. "Mired? Is that really the word? Or are you just in the middle of it?"
"No, mired is correct."
Poor soul! He'll finish it too, if I know him, reluctantly but doggedly.
"I'm reading McCaffrey's Dragonsdawn for fun, and Rabe and Greenberg's Steampunk'd, and Zola's Germinal, and am listening to Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett on Audio Book. Have you read Germinal? You've probably read Germinal."
"No, I haven't, actually."
I nearly bounced. "I am reading a grown-up book you haven't read yet!!!"
This was very exciting.
(I told him about the line in Germinal's first chapter about bread. It had me staring out the window for a good ten minutes on the train this morning, struck by the necessity of bread, our basic need for it, how I take it all so for granted.)
It followed, however, after he told me the story of Leander-who-drowned (apropos of a brief tangent about curiously paired pet names: Leander and Ophelia. Certes and Tatches. And about 16 cats named after mythological and historical queens who've committed suicide. "To me, Cleopatra! To me, Dido!"), and how they named a lake Leander in Minnesota, that he has read Mallory's Tristan and Isolde (which I have not), as well as Mort d'Arthur (which I have not), which he liked better than The Once and Future King, which was, he said, "Twee."
"I think I might like twee better than you like twee," I told him.
"But not grand Arthurian epics, surely!"
He admitted he hadn't been able to finish Once and Future King. So perhaps I'll not pity him the Follett. He can stop anytime. (I've not read that one either.)
I told him my idea about the mining story (now in my head as "The People's Steampunk" story), and he told me what music projects he's working on.
As he had to leave, we played the book-titles game, wherein we tried to keep up a conversation entirely by book titles alone, with a few fillers. He was in the Vintage Children's section. I was near the Women-in-Horror-month display.
This resulted in Donald Duck meeting Frankenstein, and other such perversions of nature.
We bumped knuckles in farewell (I'd already hugged him once in greeting; knuckle bumping seems a saner way of parting), and then there was an exchange of knuckle-bumps-to-palm-explosion hand gesture thing which he said was called, "The Turkey," and after several attempts, many of them severely mangled, I half-hugged him anyway, called him a dork, and then he was gone.
The day is brighter for his appearance.
It was very grey outside all afternoon, but now as I look out it is cloudless, though cusping on twilight.