Another casual breakfast, then the two families disappear at different times to different churches. The kids will probably ask why I don’t go, but they don’t in front of me. I know Jeanette will be late, so I just enjoy the quiet morning in my own form of worship, awareness and amazement.

Dan comes home, then Joan and Jenny, and finally I spot Jeanette outside. She swoops me away, long cigarette in her mouth, wiggling hula girl on her dashboard. She’s beautiful as always in her dark, stunning, willful way, spiteful of convention. I get strong coffee, which she must forego due to an ulcer. I join her afterward for a German beer. Then we go to her place where we find her husband Dan rushing around getting ready to fly to Pheonix for a project. I swallow a beer and check out the house, which has just been cleaned and thereby looks like Jeanette but with something wrong, too much order.

We take off together again, Jeanette driving like a banshee to the Museum of Jurassic Technology where we laugh together and explore the dark rooms. It’s a wonderful mix of science and mysterious bullshit. I’m especially intrigued by the explanation of George Sonnenfeld’s model of the illusion of memory.

Proximity is what I like best about seeing Jeanette. Our conversation can be stunted, stupid, or just senseless, but it doesn’t matter. There’s something basic about the combination of the two of us that’s a heavy liquid comfort to me, along with an energetic fascination and something like unconditional love. After all the trauma and crap we’ve been through together, it feels good to have discovered this core of our relationship that doesn’t seem to change.

We have dinner. Dan has left. We hit the local bars, first the Smog Cutter, then Good Luck, then she takes me back up the hill to Pasadena. I creep in the back door of my cousins’ place, past Brooke on the sofa, and into bed.