Jessica: What are you doing? Me: Getting a ream of paper out of the closet. Jessica: What is a ream of paper? Me: A package of 500 sheets of paper. Although at one time a ream was 480 pages. You see— Jessica (trying to distract me): What’s for dinner? Me: And you know what else?…
Category: Conversations with Jessica
On most-wanted lists
Jess and I are going to see Muppets: Most Wanted, and she wants to know what “most wanted” means. Me: If the police know you’ve done something criminal, but they don’t know where to find you, they might put you on the most-wanted list. Then if you’re spotted, the police will arrest you. Jessica: Well,…
On how I shine
“Your hair sparkles in the sun,” Jessica says as we walk along Massachusetts Street on a bright winter afternoon. I would like to believe this is because of how bouncy and shiny my hair is but I know she’s noticing all the silver in it. “It is like you sprinkled it with glitter.” Considering the…
On things you’d think I would know by now
Jessica is opening her Christmas presents. Some of them are things she picked out for herself that I’ve wrapped and put under the tree. She pulls the paper back from a book and asks, perplexed, “Am I supposed to be surprised by this?” She can’t remember what she has picked out and what she hasn’t.…
On the appointed one
Jessica and I are snowed in, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix, sitting on the lime-green sofa and laying bets on whether there really will be six more weeks of winter, when she says, “Remind me who the acquainted one is.” “The who?” I ask. She points to the laptop and Buffy, and I…
On This Swiftly Tilting Planet
I have a little vertigo sometimes, and a while ago, I said to Jessica, “The world is spinning like mad!” She stood for a moment, I guess checking out the world, and then she asked, “Is it the world, or is it you?” And of course it was me, not the world; the problem, or…