16 April YTSDB
I am back on track again, finally, having spent too many days in virtually endless, tedious meetings, game face on, honesty personified, and compliant F.B.O. tax accountants because yesterday the U.S.O.U.S. taxes (1) were due to be filed via telecartridge, apropos of necessity, lest the Incandenzas be found delinquent and subsequently fined (no can do); well, it took a very long while to locate James' tax records for our joint income reports. I cannot believe how disorganized that man was. Some of his financial records were in his disorderly studio on a cartridge labeled IJ-VII- x . They were intermingled amongst explosively gorgeous and mystifying segments from what appeared to be one of his heretofore undisclosed, undocumented, unreleased fabrications of the purported 'ultimate entertainment', purely ex-officio in re: the last widely known version,which was entitled IJ-V. I deduced that James must have recorded over IJ-VII-x by mistake and/or forgot to relabel the cartridge. Once the school term has ended I shall ask Charles to help me get James' affairs (I use the term in its fiscal rather than connubial sense here) in order, so that the accountants and attorneys can settle his Estate and carry out the terms of his Will, all of which is sure to be challenging, given James' prediliction for obfuscation if not outright deception. Lord knows I myself bend over backwards to keep everything out in the open and above board, no boundaries, no secrets, ever. (2) It would not surprise me to learn that James deliberately planned his felo de se so that he would not have to waste time searching for tax documentaries.
That vented, my main reason for writing today is to recount some early memories of family and James.
I was raised on a farm in Quebec, an inauspicious heritage which vexed me greatly, because I was extremely intelligent compared to the locals and everyone else in my family. It would not surprise me much to discover that I was an adoptee, but that is now impossible to prove since my 'parents' died long before my suspicions arose. Nevertheless, I owe Charles' mother a debt of gratitude; because of her allowing my philandering father to impregnate her during one of his massive binges and then moving in with us, I would not ever have had the opportunity to attend University(3).
Ah, James....so tall and thin, taller even than I myself at 197 cm. It is not so easy to find a man taller than myself, even though I am permanently resigned to wearing flat heeled shoes. At full height (always achieved while standing in perfect posture) the top of my head was level with his ear. It would not have been fitting to wed a man shorter than myself, and so when I first laid eyes on him I knew he was a definite maybe.
That said, it is a truism, albeit a cliche, that opposites attract. James was the 'right-brained' creative type, and as is typical of his fellow auteurs he was prone to substance abuse. His substance of choice was Wild Turkey, which is why I preferred to serve salmon at Thansksgiving dinners. There was more than enough 'turkey' in the house all the rest of the year. (Permit me a chuckle here.) On the other hand, I am a perfectionist, and a teetotaler (4) - and I am as 'left-brained' as they come. Why, my undergraduate work was the definitive analysis of the use of hyphens, dashes and colons in the poems of Emily Dickenson. One does not get much more left-brained than that. I am proud to be one of the founders of the Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts. I am always grammatically correct, even when conversing with dear Mario, who on occasion requires of me to restate my sentences so that he may comprehend my meaning from his differently oriented mind.
Speaking of Mario... 'Why, come in, Love-O!'
(End of Entry)
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(1) According to IJ, fn 78, p. 999, The Bureau of Endorsement Revenue, U.S.O.U.S., Vienna, VA. Oddly enough O.N.A.N. chose to keep 15 April as the tax filing deadline, a seamless transition from pre-subsidized year tradition. We can only assume that the M.D.R. (fn 99) has followed suit.
(2) Except, of course, for the biological father's name of one Mario Incandenza.
(3) Avril received her Ed. D and Ph.D. from Brandeis University.
(4) Except, of course, at Thanksgiving, when she drinks champagne.
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