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(24-26 December 1993) after William Watson

Angry at you for what your daughter said, she neither cooperating or deferring, and you unwilling to defend your desires or mine, and you angry at me for my blunt impatience, anger would have spoiled our anniversary. Another meaningful unpleasantness finding other reasons for ill feeling— I sat glumly reading The Wandering Jew circling the question marks and exclamation points, realizing I had caught your daughter’s cold, angry further that you let her rub it in, and you in the kitchen further angry at me for not helping you with dinner, impossible to talk about it, until, lying in the dark at the end of the day, in absence of further excuses, we could tell each other why we were upset, our mood turning only in apology, apology. Neither opportunity nor deprivation is responsible for our misery; grasping, as we do, it is difficult to conjure, from outside the blessed circle, the promises