It's been months since my last interview with my wife Felicity. We rarely see each other these days, and when we do it's usually for a quick chat about household dust, hangnails and leftover cashew cheese. Soon I'm going to demand she spend more time with me.
Here she is, sitting in bed under a three blankets, while a small heater blows hot air into the chilly bedroom. Her feet are usually cold this time of year along with the tip of her nose. She's got the last hint of a fever blister on the bottom of her left lip. Her face looks rather waxy from the argan oil she uses to keep her skin from cracking.
FF - Hello dear wife. How are you feeling?
FF - Eager, exhausted, elated, elbowed. And you?
FF - The same I suppose, but a little more elbowed than exhausted. And definitely less eager than elated.
FF - Did you ever find the blue ball you were looking for?
FF - The plastic one the cats like to play with?
FF - Yes that one.
FF - I did. It was in the sock drawer, all the way on the bottom, hidden beneath the unpaired socks I've been keeping around for years.
FF - Why are you keeping unpaired socks?
FF - I assume one day they'll show up. Where could they possibly go anyway? They've got to be around here somewhere.
FF - Socks are supposed to go missing. It's their job. They go missing to keep us from settling into complacency, to keep us curious about their whereabouts, to keep us looking for them in places we'd never look otherwise.
FF - Your probably right. I went looking for my unpaired socks in Tunisia several years ago. I was convinced they were in a town called Tabarka. The red ones anyway.
FF - And did you find them?
FF - No. Not them, but I found another red sock that belonged to a young prince. I put it on my foot and felt its silk gently tug my toe... Then, after sitting around for too long, drinking mint tea with the (much smaller) lone sock on my foot, I decided I didn't want to wear socks anymore.
FF - At all?
FF - At all. For a while anyway. I left Tunisia and went back to NYC and I didn't wear socks for a few years.
FF - What about on the subway in January?
FF - No socks.
FF - What about at the community center gym in Williamsburg? On the treadmill?
FF - Sockless.
FF - What about when you biked on a mountainbike from NY to Vermont?
FF - Yes. That was when I started wearing socks again. It's much too hard to spin pedals sans socks.