Subtle visual metaphor

"What do you think about fostering?" asks Amber. "Are you still interested in that?"

I freeze. "Cats?"

"No, children."

I blink at them, baffled. "What are you talking about?"

"I am assessing priorities. If we start fostering children, I would have to get a more flexible work schedule. We'd have to move into the studio, so we'd have to clean it up. Did you know they reimburse you for club fees and prom dresses?"

I am no less frozen. "I don't think about fostering."

"It would mean changing my work schedule around so I could be around for the kid more."

"We do not have the room, and I've liked maybe five children--other than family members--in my life. Agencies don't let you foster college students and your friends' kids.

It is forty-five minutes of my mounting anxiety before Amber unravels to me that they are trying to figure out what they want to do with their life now that Cornell is, at best, a year away. They are filling their existential crisis with possibilities. A few days ago, they mentioned a former yard store (formerly a taqueria) was now off the market. They had considered opening a cat-specific pet store there to compete with the dog-centric one a block away, which they mention might have gone out of business. When they initially brought it up, I thought this was an intellectual curiosity, but no. They were weighing the possibility enough that they had named the store Catnip--which I concede is a cute name. (It would not be a cat cafe, as this town had one of those that went out of business because they only served vegetarian food at a premium. That storefront is now a bodega-tier chicken place run by a Middle Eastern guy. It is accordingly both greasy and amazing.)

"It's my ADD," they say. "I want to do everything."

Their further possibilities involve being a vet tech at a lab, taking care of the mice and rats; moving to a research lab to get experience; applying to the vet school at Cornell, but also getting a PhD at the same time and never being a vet; doing a research program in the Bronx for a year and commuting; foster parenting while doing at least one of the above. They do not want to continue to be a vet tech at their hospital long term. They note that most vet techs have an expiration date. I extrapolate theirs is coming close or has already passed. I doubt a dog biting them in the face improved their love of the work.

They joke they could quit everything and spend their days working on my books. I had broached the subject of Amber's redesign of We Shadows being at least one year late as their computer died without them having backed anything up, and that I found around thirty small mistakes (delete a word, add a word; nothing substantial) that should be corrected in The Curious Case of the Talking Mongoose. Planning for a coming event, I asked whether I should buy a few to sell. They asked if I meant the hardcover or paperback. I pointed out that they refused to approve the paperback, first wanting to see how the hardcover did (not great) and then wanting me to wait until they made the corrections. When I found them all, appending flags to each page, Amber told me to put the book somewhere safe, then mentioned they had found some flags a month later. I changed and posted the ebook version in fifteen minutes, so there is some record of the corrections. If they let me onto their computer, I assume I could understand the program well enough to make the changes, but this may be hubris.

These books are beautiful--far better than they would have been had I done them without Amber's help--and I am grateful. I am also aware that my series has been out of print for years, which frustrates me because I feel done with them. I tell them I am aware publishing my books is not their priority but that they would be devastated if I decided to try to republish (or, for one of the books, publish) without them. (They agree. It would be unforgivable.)

I forget that Amber doesn't work the most straightforward path, and their thought process doesn't follow objective logic. I know that I am mentally ill and that, occasionally, my craziness makes me want or think unwise things. It slips my mind that their neurodivergence compels them as well.

I tell them I am lucky I have a singular focus. I am a writer. I write. What I do outside of writing is in service to my writing.

"I went through school until I had my master's degree, then said I was done. I've bristled at every suggestion I go back for any reason." I would take another job ("with comparable pay and benefits," I add) so long as it did not impinge on my writing or ability to support Amber.

"Thank you for that," Amber says as though they had forgotten that I did and do support them. It is more emotional than financial now, though they teased a few times, "What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine." They could lead an independent life without me, though with markedly less comfort.

"It has infuriated me since I met you that the world is so unaccommodating for you," I say. "You are brilliant. I am saying this as impartially as possible, not as your husband, but I do not know how many people I've met who are your equal. Until a few years ago, I didn't know how keen your scientific mind was."

"I always liked science," they say. "I'm just brilliant at a thing for a few years before I get bored. I need to be stimulated intellectually."

Their work history attests to this. Since beginning college as a freshman, they have been a security guard, artist, political canvasser, pop-up art shop organizer, gardener, garden shop employee, landscaper, student again, vet tech, and now they are a tutor (though honestly, they are a professor's TA being paid minimum wage; once you are making lesson plans and have office hours, you are no longer a tutor). I suspect I am missing a few. One of their application letters mentions having edited and formatted books, which is fair. I am justified in saying they could do this job.

"When you started college again," I say. "I had no idea your plan was to seek your Ph.D."

"It wasn't really," they say. "I didn't have a plan like that."

"I only knew once you started talking about Cornell. At first, I thought you were returning to school to become a vet tech. Then you got into Marist for a bachelor's, and I didn't know what that was for."

"I've always liked learning," Amber says. "I would stay in school forever if I could."

Intellectually, it makes sense that Amber is not arrow-focused on some target. Emotionally, that's how I've always seen them. Not that the target stays in place--which is a design flaw in these targets--but that they were not scattered. It's not quite borderline, but it is the hyperbolic focus on doing everything. But, of course, no one can, which Amber finds unsatisfying. One needs to pick an avenue and accept other things will have to fall by the wayside.

They want to be everyone and be good at everything. Their ideal work-life balance has the former in all caps. The idea they could get anything other than a 4.0 horrifies them. In contrast, I was content to do well in my classes and not succumb to my anxiety.

I would have preferred they had gotten into Cornell because that would have been the Task Before Them for several years. Then, in a just world, they would have been welcomed into a lab or began teaching. Given their track record (and through little fault of their own), they might have found themselves adrift again, wondering why a career didn't embrace them.

Given external validation that intellectually challenges them--a lab or professorship (though I would prefer the former, having a sour taste for how faculty is treated)--they might be tamed. They might finally be satisfied by their lot.

What they want to achieve is not--and never has been--experiences like backpacking Europe, a devotion to something that doesn't involve a letter grade or paycheck. They want to have a taxing career and cats at home for relaxation. They want me forever in their corner and bed. They want the world to finally give them a pat on the head and tell them they did enough and--oh, look here--there is always more to do.

last watched: Resident Alien
reading: The World Outside Your Head