Good morning, sweetheart! What time is it there?

Ummm… it’s… 4:15 am.

I’m shocked you weren’t up.

I am up… now

It’s a beautiful day here.
I’m supposed to tell you that
Everyone misses you

Everyone?

Yes.
Even people we’ve never met.
You going west has got us all geshvivled.

You are not geshvivled.
You are probably looking absolutely perfect,
As always

No, I’m a mess.
Okay, maybe I’m dressed a little

So what’s up?
Usually we talk at night when
One of us travels

I had some good news.
I got an offer on the 1940’s painting.

That’s good!
I mean… it’s good, right?

It wasn’t from a collector.
It’s from A MUSEUM

Really? Where?

Only a little place called
WASHINGTON, D.C.
It’s the Hirshhorn

NO WAY

Way.
Frankly, I’m too accomplished to talk to you anymore.

Will you still sleep with me?

Only when you get back.
I’m drawing a line before then.

Fair enough.
Seriously, though,
I feel bad I’m not there so
We can celebrate

I’m going to take my mom to lunch
To celebrate.
I can guarantee you,
I won’t feel all-that-accomplished
By the time the bill arrives

Surely she is proud of you

Maybe. I suspect we’ll spend lunch
Talking about my perfect sister.

Oh, well.
Artists are supposed to suffer

True

The fictional couple in the series “Sketches” started out as being vaguely similar to my wife and I, but wandered off to take on a life of their own. The Sketches are only nominally poetry, being in fact a series of dialogues. This is the only long-range continuing series I’ve ever done, being now up to more than 50 installments.

Since I write under a pseudonym, I decided “Owen Servant” could be the guy in these dialogues; “Janey [Servant]” became her name using the “that model looks like a Janey” method. I made her a painter because I wanted to use this same woman for all my photos and she did a photoshoot as a painter I’ve used. The Owen character is also an actuary, like the real me, and has a blog, like the fictional me.

Now I’m even confusing myself.

The Servants don’t have any children, let alone grandchildren, and they appear to be about the ages of our daughters (30 something).

I liked the idea of her being the more interesting character of the two; that’s not exactly fictional, as my real wife is far more interesting than I am. I’ve given her a couple items from my real-life wife’s biography, notably, having been a model at one time.

There is something magical about really good conversation. It’s improvisational, which is a high risk / high reward kind of thing. The risk is, when you improvise, stuff may just be boring. But everyone once in a while, the magic happens. We’ve all been in conversations like that, where laughter, and insight, and closeness, and even life-changing realizations take place.

But, hey, conversation. That’s what National Blog Post Month is all about, right?