(a more gleeful topic than the G.O.P.,
which my friend Joe Duffy alternatively
expands to call Gloomy Old Pussies)
“What’s so wrong about being smitten
by a person you don’t know except from
the internet?” I ask.
"Did you just sequitize my non sequitur?”
he’s pissed and questioning my ageless
query, adding “You sockmaking sock-
squirter! You smock-wrecker! You fog-
headed smokemonger. You, you, you
smack-cracker, you!!” “That’s awfully
artful and artfully upstanding of you,”
I meander, thinking (definitely a bit
starry-eyed, I’ll be the first to admit).
You start with London, a European
capital, and you end with sex (albeit
that of the the perpetuating persuasion).
And then… “That’s Mayor Sporkbreaker
to you,” crackles the one speaker on the
dais, the one directly underneath the mike
covered with a black, fuzzy, spongy, mat-
erial that all principals and politicians are
overly familiar with (or maybe not, being
on the wrong side of the microphone to
have to deal with such things). He has
spoken the obvious, the oblivious mayor.
And besides, this two-bitcoin town has
no room for such resentment, such
bittermongering, such grudges against
those who are cooked up and served
a doctoral degree (and not an M.D.,
mind you). Oh, the riff-raff amongst
us all. And we, mere fodder for the
riff and the raff. Later, settled com
fortably on my couch, with my overly
well-mannered (at least today) cat,
overlooking the sooty, foggy and det-
erminedly unromantic rooves below.
I mouthed her name (using only my
tongue and teeth). London. Breed.
I picked up my all-in-one and dialed
M (for Mayor Spotmaker, of course),
the always gifted palomine, and re-
minded him (once again) that unless
he had lost his faculties or unless he
was lost faculty (in the Albee/Virginia
Woolf sense), then…. Oops! That is
precisely the moment I remembered
that they are both vegans for health
reasons. Always the hopeful nincom-
poop, I closed out the connection with
such a terrible swiftness that my aged
mind quickly returned to normal. Longing.
