My mood (“spirits” as they are sometimes called) is a bit subdued.  If you saw the previous post about Mother’s Day, pretty sure it seems reasonable.  But add to that the lingering bedamned cold and the fact I have a gall-bladder removal scheduled (after about ten years of mysterious double-me-over pain striking at random intervals), then yeah, I could be excused for feeling less gleeful than usual.

On the other hand, my lovely wife has been planning a new office for me at the historic home we are renovating, and it was finally revealed in all of its Coast Guard-themed glory this week.

 

Above, I’m standing beside a “Quilt of Valor” made by a dear friend in California.  In front of me, barely seen, is a Texas star rug.  Over the work bench that will fittingly be my desk is a photo of me in all my Rescue Swimmer finery, back when I was a yute.

It was a pretty great thing to come home to after a sobering weekend.

Then I happened to hear this from a writer friend, Jamie Wilson, one part of the currently hibernating “Right-Wing Riot,” and curator of the conservativefiction website.  She wrote on Twitter:

I’m autistic, and I don’t see faces when I meet people – I see energies. A troubled friend, for instance, was a dark butterfly whirlwind. My husband was sunlight and laughter. Places are the same sometimes – an old barn sucks light away, a new mall smells of plastic.

So, naturally I wrote her back “Do you recall my energy?”  Longtime correspondents, we met in person for the first and only time in New York City.  It was the publication party for my first book “The Big Bang,” and we had great fun with our other amiga “Ms. Always Right.”  It was in 2014, and I doubted she’d recall, but Scary Smart Jamie Wilson replied:

Sunrise over the hills. A peculiar innocence, incongruous with what one expects of a man your age. Righteous anger, aligned with Old Testament prophets, and a sort of spiritual hurt that evil exists in the heart of man. That last is the one thing that makes you a little callous.  Also, you are totally Don Quixote superimposed over Galahad. Like a coin, one never knows which side one is going to get. Your wife is immensely more practical than you are.

On the advice of counsel, I can neither confirm nor deny any of her impressions (although I have to admit she is spot-on about the Rib, Alisa).  But “Righteous anger, aligned with Old Testament prophets” just made me smile.