Absence and What It Makes

I went to the Brendon Small Show tonight. It was great great. I can't wait to put up a sketch show I can really get excited about. Well, when I say I can't wait, I'm being somewhat extravagant. Sure I can wait. And I will. As with everything. I live my life on a train station platform, bags in hand.

This is a photo of my little one. Martín called her "Audrey-D2." Her shirt says, "Star Wars." (I had it made for her at Neighborhoodies.com. Let's be honest; I had a few things made there.) Even my dog has to subscribe to my geek chic. Poor thing. Anyway, it's the cutest thing in the world, seeing her in it. And it's soft and cuddly and keeps her from getting quite so much fur on my clothes. Plus, if she's embarrassed, it doesn't show. She's a cooperative little angel.

I was thinking about how we say we are missing something or someone. How it sounds materially as if the something or someone has been excised, amputated, cut out. That it must have been an actual part of you in order for it to be missing from you. So that explains the tenderness. The soreness. The hurt. Even when they cut your leg off, you keep feeling it ache. And it throws things off kilter when you expect there to be more people in the picture than actually show up for the shot. You can't leave room for the no-shows. The picture would be full of holes.

I say I am missing things all the time. Whether it's a pair of sunglasses or a dear friend. I'm always noticing the holes. I'm always counting the empties. I'm always taking stock of the inventory that never made it to the shelf. I wonder how huge and enormous I would be if I had everything with me that has fallen away over the years. Maybe that's why certain handbag animals molt.

I don't think absence makes the heart grow at all. I think it makes it shrink and shrivel like an unattended piece of meat. But I'm no scientist.

The world is full of phantoms.