tonight i heard one of the most beautiful and generous lectures of my life when aliza explained performative language and our investment in magical thinking via barbara browning’s fetish class and a comprehensive 15-minute-gloss of excitable speech.

her cousin suzy was like “you want your boyfriend to lie to you.” i was like “i want it to never be like this carly simon song i heard when my father and i were driving around looking at christmas lights this past winter.” which it isn’t, i was just making a small point i’m always trying to fit in, if at all plausible, about how baby boomers killed romance. 

suzy was a great sport, even when i got really sidetracked by enthusiasm and was like “excitable speech is such a beautiful book!” and aliza was like “it’s so good! it’s her best book! it’s better than gender trouble!”

which is: think about it. 

then i was like “did you present on excitable speech? or was that me?” and she was like “we both did,” which was a thrilling memory, and we agreed that that was a really great day.