had an early lunch today with bob at martha's cafe. much gratified by the crabcake salad, and had a slice of chocolate cake after that. it felt good to sit indoors lazily and watch the rain and drink our hot mugs of coffee. i had wept copiously saying goodbye to nohrnberg when we last had lunch together, but today i was solemn but dry-eyed, even though we said all the sentimental things.

"i want my tears, dammit!" complained bob.
"i'm working on it!"

after two more bear hugs and a mixture of jibes and soppiness ("you'll always be my brother!" "send me an autographed copy of your dissertation when you're done!" "i want weekly updates on your life!" "wait where are my tears?") bob gets in his car and drives away.

three hours later i sally into alderman cafe.

"robert w. reeder! you just can't seem to get rid of me, can you?"

wrote my address and a lengthy but facetious autograph on a sheet of paper from bob's folder. ("you're giving me a whole sheet?" "yes, so remember that!") and drew my signature leafy vines around it, and because it doesn't seem fair that i wept buckets for nohrnberg and can't produce any tears for bob, i drew in showers of tears on the stick figure representing me.

"hey, why's it got a smiling face?"
"oops."

wrote that bob was my shi1 xiong1. he loved the concept when i had explained it, and i taught him how to write it, stroke by stroke. (i also wrote "frog", "torment", "sweet", "dance", "pineapple" and "singapore" for him. he requested "porcupine" as well, but i couldn't think what that was in chinese) i also told him the secret of the inscription i'd written for nohrnberg. second goodbye:

"be sure you miss me!"
"i miss you already!"