On Introductions

I take little initiative with introductions or, like someone considering herself elite, I deposit a perfunctory answer. I later regret that, but there is never the guarantee for anyone that an impression will be faithfully transmitted and received. I console myself with the possibility that each encounter is an re-introduction just as a photographic study of a landscape or an object at various times of the day all together make a series. Am I ready for my close-up? What this usually amounts to is referent items--the handbag, the seductive bookcover, the sequin-studded mobile phone case.

Instead, I focus on being the first to respond with "I am well" in order to avoid that defensive position of "being good." I am expert at sensing someone's lack of underwear or lack of respectable underwear. Certainly there is that air of confidence surrounding someone who has made a conscious decision about what to wear under one's clothes should they be granted visibility, as if suddenly they are the choice items of a storefront vitrine. The feeling is, "here, this is really what you get beyond my proprieties."

It is entirely possible that I will never move beyond introductions. Neither correspondent deems it that way. Any relation is an inexplicable departure on my way as I swerve in traffic, a body in noise-driven absorption by "Broken English." What could be more mundane than a woman with broad-ranging interests, the majority of which she pursues in solitude? I cannot think of any other intentioned act towards ultimate irrelevance. To be eligible to sit alone with only one's company requires that you fold away your attitude of unimportance, since it is a creased letter in an un-post-marked-envelope to be aired out on occasions such as these.