talk is yasui, as long as we keep it light.

I’m balancing on a tricky tightrope between providing a useful service towards Gabe’s academic success and being an annoying mother.

”Chokoretto no hou ga cohi yori suki desu ka?” I articulate carefully in his direction.

He frowns and, preceded by a sigh of sufficient length to allow what I said to sink in, replies, ”Hai, I like hot chocolate more than coffee.”

If it were up to me, I’d Skype him several times a week over the upcoming semester just to drill him on Japanese. Not because me tutoring Gabe is something that is particularly compatible with either of our temperaments, but because a) I DO want him to have a successful semester and recover from academic probation status, and b) it is mentally invigorating for me to review Japanese. Unless he proposed it though as the coolest notion he’s had all week, I think this will not come to pass. Instead, I will have to take a very Buddhist approach to the non-existent control I have over how his Spring shapes up, and allow it to be his process (with, I hope, significant helpful input from the faculty mentor he’s selected, and with whom he’s supposed to be consulting weekly.)

Because if academics do not pan out as a means of extending his maturing season I will almost certainly have to obtain a car for him to drive to the full-time job he will certainly have to find, and I’m not ready for that. The car thing. Scary. Also he’s messy, and I’m not in the mood to generalissimo anyone into maintaining adequate house-mate habits. Even though I guess it’s my job, seeing as how I birthed him and all. If this happens I will consider adoption offers, if anyone needs an almost-20 year old. Let’s root for Plan A.

Jeff, meanwhile, would like a car. This comes up every so often. This morning, as is typical, he wandered into the kitchen and said ”You know what I want? I want a used car.” Last time it was a truck. He also wanted to know how much a used Subaru would cost ($14K, I supposed,) and posited that it was worth it to him at that cost if we could swing it. I never know what to say in response to these exchanges. The impulse to get real is great. I would tell him that he is visually impaired (essentially true, and easier to swallow than cognitively impaired,) and remind him that he has no license and is uninsurable. I try not to do that though, truthful impulse notwithstanding. Today I just put it off, as usual, with ”Ok, let’s think about that one.” That has sufficed for several hours now, with no revisiting of the question.

Last night when I went to bed, Jeff was snoozing at some level considerably deeper than REMs, and I had the brand new and very strange experience of not recognizing his face. I scrutinized for quite a few minutes then came back and stared some more, wondering what kind of game was being played here...was my software glitching or was there something truly missing? You have undoubtedly seen a wax figure of a person which—no matter how morphically close it comes—does not really convey a knowable version of that person. It was like that. I pretty much had to accept the strangeness of the situation and go to bed anyway. By morning he resumed the familiar appearance of his AD-addled self.

Next up on the vocabulary list: takai and yasui, Japanese for expensive and cheap.