Phil Parisi

But we talked about that a bit.

I'd been through it some in my day.

She was thinking maybe some ADD medication might be something worth exploring.

She just wasn't getting anything done.

We were there in her kitchen talking about that.

She was making us some tea.

Then we went into the living room, and in there were about eight chairs, chairs of all kinds, standing on sheets or laid on their sides on sheets, being worked on to various degrees, I supposed, though I didn't see any cans of paint or varnish or hand tools, just damp rags.

She'd even moved the sofa off into one corner to create a bigger workspace for herself.

And I said to her, well, something's sure getting worked on here.

She told me that she was getting a little consumed by her new hobby.

She was working all hours on it.

Her sleep was even getting screwed up.

And I thought for the first time, this really is not like her.

And it's not normal.

The thing was, some of the stuff in there was not even remotely cute or special or vintage.

She'd been cruising around looking for freebies or thrift store stuff, and one or two of the chairs she'd found were kind of trashy and cheaply made, even for my awful taste.

I reminded her of our Zoom pact.

where if she got off track from work too much, we were supposed to force her right back into it.

And she nodded again and again and said, yeah.

She was losing interest, finally.