Comrade: 
"Imagine being an actor and saying 'I was on TV once.' 

'Oh really?' a friend asks. 'What did you play?"

'Ummm. I was on Angel once.'

'Ooooh. Were you a vampire? A werewolf? A luchadore mailman?"

'No. I was...a...' the actor scratches at his arm, 'twink slave demon.'

'Oh. Um. Did you have any lines?'

'Two lines, actually.'

'Fun! What were they'

​Loud sigh. 'Peepee, and icky.'"

For the last couple of years, Comrade collects things he enjoys from Imgur, and I collect things I enjoy from TikTok and we show them to each other a bit before we fall asleep.

The other night, he was showing me some video of how some scientific somethingscope used an illumination technique to highlight musculature and skeleton ... things ... that technology couldn't differentiate before. It also showed how your skin thickens as you age.

"So much terrible skin." I said.

"What?" said Comrade.

I had fallen asleep at some point. There was no such thing as a somethingscope or that illumination technique, or people's skin thickening as they aged. It had been a dream. I had been completely silent while he was doing something non-Imgur related on his phone, and out of nowhere I had said "So much terrible skin." with Zero Context.

We laughed about it, and talked about something else for a while. I decided to go to sleep for real but he tapped me on the shoulder and said "Oh, wait. It's not exactly what you thought but I think I found what you were talking about."

It was the same weird photo he'd shown me before but it wasn't a human body they were studying, it was a hornet's.

"Gross." I said.

"Yea," he replied, "the skin doesn't thicken as it ages, though. I don't know where you got that from."

"Me, neither."

"It's one of those yellow legged hornets they've found in Georgia. The cousin of the Murder Hornet or something. They haven't found a nest yet but scientists are worried they could completely destroy the honeybee population in Georgia, which is enormous."

I remembered reading about those. "That's awful."

"I hope they find the nests." Comrade said.

"I hope they all fucken die." I said. Having just woken up. Because the previous conversation hadn't at all happened.

It's all true. I had read about the yellow legged hornets, and they are a threat to the honeybee population in Georgia, and they are "cousins" of the "murder hornets" but we hadn't been talking about them. There was no technology enhanced photo of them.

I had, after being silent for several minutes, said "So much terrible skin." laughed about it, listened to Comrade telling me about something completely unrelated to technology or hornets, gone completely silent, and then said "I hope they all die."
​
I'm a keeper.

I was reading off one of my posts about canvassers to Comrade this morning, and I saw a comment from a friend that read: once, on a fifteen-minute break from work, i walked past a greenpeace girl while looking down at my phone. she asked me if i was 'texting about the whales.' i'm still annoyed about it.

We laughed, and a few minutes later, I received this text from Comrade:

​"Is your child texting about whales?
brb = belugas are beautiful
lol = living off land
smh = smooch more humpbacks
tbh = tight blowholes
stfu = shamu the flirty ungulate
tfw = totally fuckable whales
rofl = rub on flippers lovingly
idc = I dig cetaceans
btw = bang the whales"

I'm always glad when there aren't just witnesses to when ignorance or absurdity surrounds me but there is someone there who can rightfully mock the experience with me.
On our way to gayme night yesterday, we were walking around Porter Square when a bunch of mid-thirty somethings were paced up just behind us.

Rando 1: "It was wild. I swear he was speaking Portuguese but it turned out to be Italian. I didn't even know they let Italians in there."

Uh-oh.

Rando 2: "I know, right? I was in Orlando and I went into a Chinese restaurant, and all the chefs were Mexican. It was Cuh-ray-zee!"

They were probably Cuban and/or South/Central American.

Rando 1: "I was in a Scwharma place, and I started speaking Arabic, and the cook just looked at me, and was like 'I'm from Minnesota.' Like, why would someone from Minnesota be cooking Middle Eastern food?"

Rando 2: "It doesn't even make sense to me. Mexican Chinese food?"

And then they walked into a building that I can only hope is an abattoir.

Comrade: "Oh my god. I went into a comic book store, and the guy behind the counter didn't even speak Klingon! It didn't even make sense."

Me: "I was having dinner at Disney World, and I went into the back to compliment the Chef and he wasn't even a mouse, he was human! I was like squeak, squeak, squeaaaaak, you know? It was cuh-ray-zee. Like, why would someone human be making mouse theme park food?"

Comrade: "I hate people."

​Me: "Me, too!"

The owner of the orgy house says "I mean, Everyone has sex dungeons these days. Has anyone renovated their basement in the last thirty years and not installed at least a sex swing and some chain link cages? But a sex foyer? I feel like I'm at the vanguard of the next big sex architecture movement. Just wait until these start popping up in the suburbs."
                                                                                                             
He gestures towards the walls, which are covered in photographs of penises and extremely hairy buttcheeks: "What do you think?"

Me: "Who's your interior dickerator?"

​Comrade kicks me in the shins.

One of Comrade's friends is a high school drama teacher who is constantly trying to get us to do coupley things with him and his husband. I don't think I'd be fond of either of them, though I like most of Comrade's friends. So any time I've been invited to something, I come up with something better to do, even if that's sleeping, or being strapped in a chair Clockwork Orange style to watch a marathon of "The King Of Queens".

Last night, Comrade was texting when he laughed at his phone.

Me: "What?"

Comrade: "Michael and his husband have started doing couples improv."

Me: "So they're getting a divorce?"

Comrade: "Not yet. I guess tonight was supposed to be the first night but nobody else showed up so it had to be cancelled."

Me: "Because everybody else came to their senses?"

Comrade: "You don't like improv?"

Me: "Improv is an art form. Not a therapy. I've known enough people who've tried to turn performance poetry into therapy who've ruined their relationships, I wouldn't dare try and use improv that way."

Comrade: "So you don't want to go next week?"

Me: "NO. No, definitely not. Not at all."

Comrade: "Oh good, because Michael invited us, but I told him we couldn't make it because we're not dweebs."

In other news, Comrade and I have joined a local Couples' Russian Roulette group that has an impressively small divorce rate.

Looking at a fancy menu.

Comrade: Did that say "crop dusted French fries"?

Me: Crab dusted.

​Comrade: Ok, that's not as gross but it is just as weird.

And now, a short poem, which is also a flash fiction piece based on a real news event:

​Green Comet will Appear in the Night Sky
for the First Time since the Stone Age

Today I woke up
and my fiancé had washed the dishes.

I am often pessimistic in imagining how my friendships are going (I was that way with relationships, but I long since passed that threshold with Comrade. I'm not sure why I was able to be comfortable with a relationship within a year, and yet I still worry that I've misjudged a friendship I've had for over twenty years if the other person doesn't return a text or an email because...you know...life happens.).

When Comrade and I were scouting for a new cat last fall, I instantly fell in love with Polly (though she wasn't the first cat we'd met that I loved), and so did he. He was the one who went and brought her home and spent the first day with her. She adores him. She also adores me. But we've joked about how much more she loves him than me.
This is not true. Like most affectionate cats, she loves whoever is the most recent addition to the room. I know this.

But the other day, as I was working on editing, and Comrade was at work, she sat on the floor, stared intently at a picture of Comrade with his dog, Luna, and began meowing pitifully. I tried calling her over, but she just stood there crying at his picture.
I guess she really does love Comrade more than--

​And then she leapt up and caught the tiny moth she'd been patiently stalking, and brought it over to me.

On our third date, we were discussing ice cream flavors. Preferable, acceptable, and forbidden. We're both fans of cookies and cream ice cream because neither of us are soulless monsters.

Comrade: I could eat cookies and cream flavored anything. Ice cream, cake, fish sticks, glue.

Me: Same with one exception. Cookies and cream flavored Oreos make no sense. It's like lemon flavored lemons.

Comrade: I love you.

Hence, I've spent the last several months searching for a metaphorical cookies and creme engagement band. Nothing tacky, like a big old Oreo on the finger. I finally found one that looked just right last month.

Of course, to be sneaky, I didn't measure Comrade's finger, I just compared it to mine and thought We Both Have Small Hands. What fits me will .... Not so much. Soon we'll have matching bands but for now we'll keep this aside.
​
I also bought this cookies and cream candle which looks and smells Way Too Edible.