A New Dope Part 2 of 8

CHAPTER TWO

Plucky Fluke Flyswatter marched into the shadow of the giant big-ass ponderous smurfmobile called the Sand Cow and began looking over the long line of misfit robots for sale.

Off to the side RBC was wheeling along in the sand with CIBC riding him, flopped over his big domed head like a sack of potatoes while CIBC’s detached golden feet sat in the sand some yards away.

“What can this one do?” Fluke asked the space smurf, pointing to a vacuum cleaner/marketing exec model who resembled RBC except with a red stripe instead of a blue stripe. Plucky Fluke frankly preferred blue. Also he was an ass man.

“It can count to a million backwards and mix drinks,” squeaked the little blue smurf in the hooded purple cloak.

“That sounds fun but not very helpful,” said Fluke. “What about that cute gay gold one there riding around on the vacuum cleaner?”

“Hey!” squealed the smurf, suddenly alerted to the robots’ hi-jinks. “What are you two doing!”

“Just practicing!” said CIBC.

“Practicing what?” said Fluke. “What do they do?”

“The gold one can speak up to ten thousand and seven languages all at once,” squeaked the smurf.

“And I can also plant ice cubes!” added CIBC as he climbed off of his mechanical friend and began re-inserting his feet into his ankles.

“I’ll take that one,” said Fluke. He handed over some space dollars.

“Sir, if you don’t mind me saying so,” said CIBC, “That RB unit friend of mine has a built in ice-cube maker.” He pointed at RBC.

“Okay,” said Flyswatter. “I’ll take that one too. He smells like crack though.”

RBC whistled and burped and rocked back and forth in excitement.

Flyswatter rustled the robots into his floaty sand boat and they were off to the water farm.

MEANWHILE IN THE BOWELS OF A GIANT BOWLING BALL WHICH FLOATED IN SPACE… The Princess Louise was being locked into a windowless detention pod by a pair of stormpoopers under the supervision of the Kepi-hatted Sargent Goosestep.

“You won’t get away with this, you shameless hoods,” spat the princess. “The Council of Good Guys will not look kindly upon your busting up an innocent diplomatic mission.”

“Hoods?” mouthed Sgt. Goosestep. “Why, you injure me! Nobody roughed up any diplomatic missions. They merely brought known terrorist spies into custody who did STEAL THE SACRED BOWLING BALL ARCHITECTURAL PLANS! INNOCENT DIPLOMATIC MISSION MY ARSE!” Goosestep then calmed himself down. He shook his head sadly. “Hoods, my arse.”

“Speaking of hoods, sir,” said Gus the Stormpooper, known officially as Stormpooper #10343.

“What the hell do you want, you pig-ignorant plebeian white pawn?” spat Goosestep.

“The hood sir.” Gus nodded toward the pod door. The Sargent finally turned his head and saw that indeed another pair of soldiers had arrived with the special hood. An enormous floating helmet with an array of ominous pins and needles emerging from it.

“Ah yes,” said Goosestep. “The Helm of Persuasion. Methinks princess that you will now divulge the secret location of your rebel base!”

Princess Louise shrank back in horror.

    

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RANCH… Fluke Flyswatter arrived with the new robots crammed in the back of his Skyrider Sand Boat and immediately spied the smoke and ruins which used to be his aunt and uncle’s farm. “No!” he cried. “No!”

He threw the tiny ship into hoverpark and leapt out. He raced toward the sand igloo where two humanoid shapes lay on the ground dark, twisted and smoking. “No!” he cried again. “I forgot I set them on fire when they said I couldn’t ever leave them! Oh that was so stupid of me. I thought it was all just a bad dream!”

He turned and trudged back towards the waiting robots. “You’re all I’ve got left in this world!”

The RB unit squeaked and hooted.

“Master Fluke,” said CIBC, “does this mean there will be no tea or crumpets this afternoon?”

“Guess not, Goldie,” said Flyswatter. “How the hell do you eat, anyway? Your mouth doesn’t even move.”

“I manage.”

RBC chittered, whooped and whistled.

“He says he needs to see a man about a horse,” explained CIBC.

“We don’t have any horses around here. Maybe in the City of Fools…”

“He says the man he must see is Opie Wan Toucan Sam Can.”

“I don’t know of any such man but I wonder if he might be related to old Ben Kablooey?”

RBC whirred, bleeped and twittered.

“RB says yes, he probably is.”

“Yeah, I thought so,” said Fluke. “He’s an old Hermit who lives in a cave and he’s never had any children so - I figured he must have a lot of relatives.”

RBC buzzed and warbled.

“RB says we should go to the hermit cave at once.”

“We might as well,” said Fluke. “I’ve got nothing better to do. I torched my legal guardians. I suppose the authorities will be after me soon enough.”

CHAPTER THREE

“Hello?” called Fluke. “Old Ben?”

“Hello young Fluke Flyswatter,” said old Ben as he emerged from his cave hole in his long tweed robe. “Come inside before the sand men get you. They’re always on the prowl for young blonde boys and mechanical steampunks.”

Inside Kablooey’s hobbit hole the old man mixed them drinks and whipped up a crumpet for CIBC which he placed in his space oven to bake. RBC rolled over to the man and popped open his little hatch. He whistled and burped.

“What’s this?” said Old Ben.

“It is crack cocaine,” said CIBC. “It is a gift from Princess Louise for the Opie Wan Can Man.”

“Opie Wan,” said the man. “I have not been called that name for many an age.”

“That’s you?” said Fluke.

“It is indeed. Would you like some crack?”

“Sure.”

“It looks like good shit,” said Opie Wan. “I’ll sprinkle some on your gay friend’s crumpet.”

“Thank you,” said CIBC. “There is also a message for you from the princess. Just hit the play button.”

Ben located the play button on RBC’s cylindrical body and pressed it. A holographic image of Princess Louise burst out of the robot but it went all fritzy and all that they could make out were the words “You’re our only hope. Did I say that already?”

“What happened to the rest of this message?” asked Ben.

“He’s damaged,” said CIBC. “We had a hard landing.”

“This is very disturbing,” said Old Ben. “I must go see my old associate in the Dego Blah system. You should come too, young Flyswatter. You can train to be a Jade Eye warrior just like your father.”

“You knew my father?”

“I did. He was a good man and a fine Jade Eye Knight. Until he was dispatched by the Dark Gaydar.”

“I will come with you. I wish to avenge my father.”

“Okay. Let’s have some more crack first. And then we’ll go to the City of Fools and find a fool to transport us.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“Send this idiot pin cushion back to the lab!!” cried Sgt. Goosestep. It doesn’t work!” Stormpoopers removed the beneedled helmet from Princess Louise’s head and took it away. Louise lay slumped in her cell bench, stunned. “Bring her to Governor Muffin!”

MEANWHILE IN THE CITY OF FOOLS… Fluke paused his floatie sand boat at the military check point where junior stormpoopers known as light rainpoopers looked over the vehicle taking special interest in the pair of robots in the rumble seat.

“I think these might be the robots we’re looking for,” said light rainpooper Bob.

“How do we know for sure?” asked LRP Biff.

“We check their serial numbers,” said Bob.

“I don’t think these are the robots we’re looking for,” said old Ben with a mysterious little wave of his hand.”

“No one asked you, old man,” said LRP Bob.

“These are not the robots…” said old Ben, gently waving his fingers in the air, “We’re looking for…”

“Well I guess not,” said Bob. “They’re in your damn back seat. You wouldn’t have to look very far now, would you?”

“No no no,” said Ben. “These are not the robots that YOU’RE looking for.”

“Oh yeah? What makes you think we’re looking for robots at all?”

“Oh, you’re not?”

“That’s right. We’re not. So mind your own business.”

“Okay then. Have a nice day,” said Ben.

“Now just you wait a minute old man!” barked Bob. “Maybe we are looking for robots and maybe we aren’t! We don’t have to answer to you!”

Ben waved his hand again. “These are not…”

“We ask the questions!”

“...the robots we’re looking for…”

“Where’d you get these robots anyway?”

“These are not…”

“I asked you a question!”

“...the robots we’re looking for…”

“Oh shut up!”

They stared at each other silently for a long moment.

“Repeat after me,” said Ben.

“Look, I’m going to ask you for the last time…”

“These…”

“... where did you get…”

“...are not…”

“... these robots from!”

“... the robots...”

“Answer me!”

“... we’re looking for.”

“LOOK, IF YOU DON”T ANSWER ME…!”

“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FUCKING REPEAT AFTER ME!”

“I swear to god I will shoot you in the balls, old man!”

“THESE ARE NOT…!”

“Right,” said light rainpooper Bob. “I warned you.” Bob raised his blaster and pointed it at old Ben’s crotch.

“...THE ROBOTS WE’RE LOOKING FOR!”

“I SWEAR TO GOD I AM GOING TO SHOOT YOU!”

“REPEAT AFTER ME GODDAMMIT!”

(To be continued tomorrow… if you can stand it…)

A New Dope Part 1 of 8

PROLOGUE

Episode IV: A NEW DOPE

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…

It is a period of civil war. Rebels, championing pot legalization, striking with their space ships from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the stodgy conservative evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the GREAT BOWLING BALL IN THE SKY, an armoured space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet, and storage for more than six billion pairs of rental shoes.

Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Louise races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her homies and restore freedom to the pot smokers of the galaxy…

CHAPTER ONE

Once upon a time there was an orphan named Fluke Flyswatter who lived with his Auntie Jane and Uncle Billium on a water farm in the middle of a sandy desert on a sandy planet called Tooneyland.

One day Fluke and his uncle were sweating under the hot twin suns of their star system, planting ice cubes which would grow into water plants, completely unaware of specific goings on in the astral plains beyond the bright Tooneyland atmosphere.

“Uncle Billium,” said Fluke, “I was thinking that after this season’s crop is planted I will move on and get a gig saving the pot rebellion from the evil clutches of Lord Gaydar and his imperial cohorts; you know what I mean?”

“Give me a damn break, Fluke. Who do you think you are?”

“Um…. the son of a Jade Eye warrior? A famous one?”

“Get your head out of the stars, sand baby. Of course not.”

“But-”

“No butts.”

“But you told me yourself!”

“No I didn’t.”

“Um. Yeah you did!”

“Okay maybe I did.”

“Yeah so I want to go to Jade Eye School.”

“I need you here. Nice try.”

“I’ll find you some nice robots to take my place. You won’t miss me.”

“Well, we could use some good robots. But regardless you’re not going anywhere. EVER! Now pass me some ice cubes.”

MEANWHILE… up in the astral fields of the Tooneyland dual star system a little diplomatic entourage was flying by in their Mach One Seven Blade Aeroship called the Peekin’ Pecan. On board a princess by the name of Princess Louise reclined on her space divan nibbling from a bag of Digibles brand candied spleens, the very best candied spleens in the galaxy.

WHEN SUDDENLY… she ate another candied spleen.

THEN SUDDENLY… there came a knock on her space door.

“Enter,” she said commandingly.

A man in a funny hat entered as commanded and said to her, “Princess, I have bad news. The imperial patrol ship Rebel Destroyer has issued a final warning that we shall be boarded at once, whether willingly or against our will and they will probably shoot a few people in the process and-”

“No thanks.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t want any bad news. Thanks anyway.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want a candied spleen?”

“Uh - no thanks,” said the man in the funny hat. “I like my spleen the way it is.”

“Well take a hike then,” said the princess.

“Yes, Your Sweetness,” said the man, and he departed.

“Bozo,” muttered Louise. She popped another candy into her mouth as the explosion sounded down the hall and her space divan shuddered.

MEANWHILE DOWN THE HALL…

A hatch exploded inward and The Men in White poured in. The first imperial stormpooper through the hatch got blasted by a dozen rebel fighters and collapsed to the floor. “I hate being the first stormpooper through the wall. I always get blasted to death,” he muttered and promptly died. The next stormpoopers stomped all over his white hardshell poop suit shooting back at the rebels, some of whom died at once, their funny hats falling off and rolling around the hallway like spinning tops.

A few more stormpoopers were injured and more rebels died before surrendering. The men were stripped of their guns and handcuffed by the imperial invaders as a new presence appeared in the blown hatch. The man was tall and dark but not very handsome. He wore a black chihuahua mask, a black Nazi helmet, black gloves, black boots, a black cape and a black body suit with flashing chest-mounted control panel and a flashy pink belt with white fanny pack. Lord Gaydar breathed heavily through the dog mask as he approached a terrified handcuffed rebel. “Where… are… the stolen plans?” he asked huffingly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” gurgled the rebel as the dark man grabbed him by the neck.

“I will ask you one more time -” but the rebel’s body went limp as his life drained out of him. “Pussy,” said Lord Gaydar, flinging the corpse aside. He slowly turned and pondered the cosmos. “Take me to the netherquarters,” he huffed menacingly.

MEANWHILE BACK IN THE SHIP’S NETHERQUARTERS…

Princess Louise pulled the little banking robot RBC by it’s hose down the corridor to the dispatchery hatch #2 and bent down before it. She pushed the record button and spoke: “Opie Wan Can, you are my only hope. I have stuffed this little vacuum cleaner-slash-banking robot full of crack and the imperial Bowling Ball plans. I have fallen into the clutches of imperial authorities. You need to get this data to Admiral Fish Sticks so he can plan an attack. Please Mr. Can Can. You are our only hope. Did I say that already?”

“Yes you did, princess,” came the deep menacing voice of the Dark Gaydar. She turned to see him standing at the end of the short hallway, feet askance, black gloved hands on his hips where his pink belt gleamed. Stormpoopers stood at his sides leveling blasters at the princess. “Now hand over the robots.”

“I’m sorry,” said Louise. They have urgent financial business to attend.” She punched the red Easy button on the wall and the dispatchery hatch flew open generating an immediate whirlwind. The machine RBC was instantly sucked out the hatch along with a gleaming gold robot named CIBC who muttered, “Oh my stars! I was expecting tea and biscuits, not getting dispatched into the void of space! Oh dear me!”

The hatched slammed shut again.

“Dammit,” wheezed Gaydar.


(To be continued tomorrow... if you can stand it...)

Hi. How are you?

Hi. How are you?

This has long been a strange question to hear. Not that I criticize. I use it myself all the time.

But how to possibly generalize? At every moment there is always so much good and so much bad.

How are you, according to whatever peculiar perspective you are currently inclined toward? ...is perhaps the long form of this question.

Lately, as I frequently hear this question, I have often found myself responding with some loose variation of the following: Well I’m alive, I’m human and living on a paradise called Earth. I’ve won three of the best lotteries in the known universe. Other then that there’s a lot of room for improvement. I heard myself tell one dear associate recently: But I haven’t won the lottery where I remain permanently enlightened at every waking moment.

Dog Whisperer gently consoled me, indicating that perhaps no one is, or few at least. That is well said but of no comfort.

The knowledge that I am logistically at rock bottom in my life - or at least my post-twenties life - is surprisingly of no alarm to me. It remains a curiosity. And curious it is that this disinterest may be a good sign; a form of selective mindfulness, or that conversely it may be some symptom of disaster perhaps! A function akin to depression? I haven’t been feeling depressed. Do depressed people know that they are such? I would think I would know.

There are good signs of late, in the last week; chiefly small improvements in personal relationships which overall have declined in 2018.

One good yard stick as to the state of my mind is the reaction to selfish drivers on the road: to observe that I am disinterested, or that I feel pity for them; for the freedom they are forbidding themselves, or that I am annoyed, or downright yelling in their direction. The clues have not been promising.

In my memory it seems like it was not that difficult to get to that gateway where I lingered a long time. Looking in; looking back. In and back… and back I eventually went.

The path to return to that gateway does not present itself eagerly. Why?

I won’t find it out of desire. It would not be the right path.

And I won’t find it out of egoistic pursuit. Again it would not be the right path.

I found it before out of new curiosities. Because for a time I had literally lost all interest in anything at all except truth.

Perhaps some other way will emerge, or perhaps the right brand of curiosity will re-emerge.

Perhaps rock-bottom’s rebound will provide that curiosity. We’ll see. Something is going to change. That I feel sure of. Still though, I am not inclined toward the driver’s seat.

I can smell the leaves

I left the house this cool grey wet afternoon and was promptly aroused by the seeming freshness of the air. I breathed deep, buoyed by it, and by the lingering afterglow of another (almost bi-weekly) fine dinner at the home of the Eloquent Potter. We ate well of course, and drank the passable wines I scrounged, and explored his very exciting 12-book series which tackles deep existential questions, and more importantly we bared ourselves; our most pertinent personal issues and were then of great comfort to one another, and through no perfunctory sympathy but through genuine sensitivity and honest logical insight. He was thrilled with the fresh flowers and I’m happy that he was, and happy for the inspiration he reliably imparts on me.

I breathed deep and wondered at this freshness as I trod over mats of wet tattered leaves; wondered at all this decay and the seeming incongruence between decay and freshness. But all impressions are relative I suppose, and I suppose that if decay were indeed a notable component of this invigorating aroma, that perhaps it is because it masks things of a worse nature... Whimsical thoughts these, but as I head out to the the write-in; a pre-NaNoWriMo prep-in to be more precise, I am okay with that.

Hello Blog. I’m sorry to have been such a stranger. I have better intentions but promises would be foolish. 

Dispatches from the Social Assistance Office

Mom:  Stop fighting. We love each other in this family.

First Kid:  No we don’t.

Mom:  Yes we do. We love each other.

Second Kid:  No we don’t.

------------------------------

Mature Woman:  I’m supposed to meet my grandson here but I don’t see him.

Me:  Can you describe him for me?

Mature Woman:  Yes. He’s young and thinks he knows everything.

acrogen [ak-ruh-juhn]

the lobed osmunda, a fern native to the Andes region, is prescribed by the indigenous peoples of Tawinguala as an effective laxative. Explains the chief of one tribe: "With fronds like this, who needs enemas?"

Wow. What a horrible way to unearth FWG versus the Dictionary after a 29-month lull! Oh well. 94  words down, 170,955 to go!

Mindcrack Diaries

I barely made it home to Castle Minerva with my tail between my legs, having depended on the compass and failing to mark a sufficient trail. At least on this return my two unforseen castle companions - I shall call them Thing One and Thing Two though they are undecipherable by sight alone - had not left the front door wide open on this occasion. I have resigned that the day will come they leave my doors open and some monster will wander in and kill them or turn them back into zombies or blow up a room or two. Oh well. All things can be replaced.

I regrouped, restocked and headed back out, with no potions or valuables, intending to track a proper trail between Castle Minerva and Fortress Mountain, but was too impatient. I travelled at night and wandered too far from established landmarks and got terribly lost again. Eventually I used the compass and marched all the way back home.

Zack and Noah

It was nearly four in the morning when young electrician’s apprentice ‘Zack’ barked at young security guard escort ‘Noah’, “Are you done yet!” Meaning in essence: Are you done conversing with the old fat guy so you can take me where I need to go! I need you now!

“Hey I won't be spoken to like that!” roared the skinny runt, practically swimming in his billowy blue uniform. He then went off with Zack at once on their errand but reaming him out all the while about respect and how he was going to immediately launch an official complaint.

A short time later Noah was still simmering and Zack was petulant and ‘Vanessa’ the Very Young Head Contractor Coordinator Lady was practically drooling at the opportunity to put her nascent management training to some facsimile of use: “Noah, do you want me to write him up! Do you!”

“Noah, slow down,” I said calmly. Someone needed to stay calm.

“You need to stay out of it,” gurgled the little boss girl at me.

I gave her worldly advice a more-than-warranted half-second of consideration and said, “Noah, don’t react out of emotion. Take some time to cool down before you make this decision.” We’d only just met that night but he was my co-worker officially; not theirs, and we’d just had a long discussion about his managing his new peers in his first year of University and the problems with their political clash. He seemed to have developed swift trust in me and in this moment he deflated.

As the end-of-shift clean-up neared completion Vanessa suddenly said, “Oh no! Are Zack and Noah alone together in the mechanical room? They are, aren’t they!”

Sometimes I have a good idea when my advice will not be heeded and so I refrain. I have  become good at that. I did not say aloud that this was exactly what we wanted.

They are young and full of ego and backing down from their stances is next to impossible in a crowd of witnesses. I think you know where I’m going with this: Once alone together they would of course become embarrassed and thus conciliatory.

No paperwork was done, and the boys were quickly friends again.

Demented

All but $150 of Grampa Munster’s monthly allowances (at least 90%) go directly to the group home to pay for his rent, food and the illusion of care.

I convinced him to print off all his chequing and savings bank statements for the year and I plugged them all into a spreadsheet. Regular Trillium Fund subsidies and tax refunds just cover his phone and cable bills. His clothes are charitably acquired. Of the $150 per month remaining, he has been spending… $270 - almost entirely, per my careful investigations, on Tims coffee, junk food and coke. As in Coca-Cola I mean. Oh, plus an extra $16 per month average on totally unnecessary ATM charges. His savings, once $3000, are now depleted.

We had a long talk. I am keeping a much closer eye on him now with regular phone calls between visits. I also convinced him to show me his Medic Alert bracelet which verifies my suspicions. He has dementia. I have some research to do now, and new strategies to develop, I imagine.

A new chapter for Long Time Companion, and for me.

His rare condition has now been confidently diagnosed following a biopsy which was expected to verify the presence of cancer and which did not! His actual disease which they have finally isolated is one that affects one in 35 million people. They don’t get a lot rarer than that.

Furthermore there is confidence in the treatment plan and he is expected to fully get his life back after well over a year of deeply-resented solitude, incontinence, extraordinary pain and many thousands of wasted dollars.

And it came perhaps in the nick of time. Expectations of checking out, deliberately or otherwise, seem to have aroused an interest in “proper” utilization of his sizeable pension; as in - having someone to share it with after he’s gone; as in a companion - at least on paper. Neither of us have taken a traditional interest in romantic relations since splitting up some eighteen years ago.

Personally I have no interest in out-living him but having gone far too long without seeing an optometrist or dentist and struggling at times to pay for my meds, I do covet his rather amazing medical benefits which I once shared - and will soon again.

For financial reasons; strictly financial, and with some due respect to an unbreakable bond, whether we wanted it or not… we shall soon be married.

And on that note, after eighteen years, we can each finally take the matter of updating our wills off of our to-do lists. Apparently procrastination sometimes pays off.

The Lonely Lumberjack is perhaps a little less lonely

I saw him wheeling past me; leaning into his walker, barely an arm’s length away, on the other side of the cafe window where I sipped a fine coffee and nibbled an outrageously large and delicious donut following the collapse of far more humble plans. I downed the last morsels and set out to catch up to him but the old man is deceivingly quick.

It had probably been two years since I last spent any moment alone with him one on one. I’d left his apartment moments after a pair of snarling bigoted tirades aimed at two different minorities. Well, maybe not tirades. Let’s say… tiradettes.

For two years we’ve politely nodded, waved or smiled at group functions, and sometimes even briefly chatted. but given I was probably his second-closest male friend, and officially the executor of his will, there was always the elephant in the gymnasium. He does not make friends easily and maintains perhaps a trio at best. Often, in my more wakeful moments I have told myself I should at least explain the reasons for my aloofness and try to give him one more chance. I don’t need him to change his mind necessarily, but only to keep out of my face the product of his albeit-honest misperceptions which he gleaned in prison; viewing the worst possible behaviour from certain associations while succumbing to tribal illusions. I understand his view, and why it is natural and why certain logic escapes him. In ways he is very wise and in other ways very unwise, but I want no part of his prejudice. It is offensive to people I love more than he, and I don’t wish to feel unfaithful.

So I lingered in the neighbourhood, sitting on a bench, writing on an adorable onion-skin air-mail writing pad surely manufactured a half-century ago which I found in a dusty variety store across the street. Sure enough he eventually came rolling back and I called out to him.

He brought me up to his apartment. I was in financial decrepitude at the time and eagerly accepted a hearty pasta meal with plenty of meat in the sauce. I declined seconds but while washing up in the bathroom he slipped another bowl out undetected and I much enjoyed it again.

“Watch out for that [Theatre Guy],” he suddenly warned me. He’d no doubt seen us sitting together. “Never trust that ___ hole.”

So here it comes again. ‘Well, I’m on his circle.” I said. Well we’re already good friends, is what I wanted to say. Better friends than you and I. And furthermore, Theatre Guy is straight. And you’re a dumbass. Sometimes.

I don’t know why Mr. Lumberjack respects me so much. No man alive meets the rigid standards by which he judges men. Me especially I would think. Women meanwhile are sacred.

We met up again recently without incident and soon I will take him shopping for clothes again.

I don’t know if he understands why I cooled off with him. I’d previously warned him a couple times about bigoted conversation but he assumes I’m simply naive about it, and too generous in my appraisals. I wasn’t bothered by his words at the surprise pasta dinner; only disappointed. Perhaps we’ll be able to maintain an understanding going forward and remain friends.