Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts Read Online Free PDF Page A

smoothly one after another in such a way as to spare either you or me, the joint partners of the Marriage, the sort of surprise or shock that can be occasioned by abrupt and unannounced changes. Health is a function of diet and regularity, and that is why I have made a point of marking down not only the hours at which I wish all meals to be served over the course of the year, but also a detailed menu for each meal, each day of the year—the menu and meal hours schedule I keep posted on the inside of the pantry door. You will note slight seasonal variations in both hour and menu content which are keyed—you might also notice—to slight variations in the hours I have set for going to bed and getting up in the morning, which are in turn reflected in the time and length of the afternoon nap. There are also minor variations tied to the phases of the moon. What is unpredictable here is the weather—yet I have attempted to make allowances, particularly for those days and weeks it is most likely to be extreme or abnormal. And the eating and sleeping schedules are also reflected in the dressing schedule to be found posted inside the clothes closet and on which I have indicated what articles of clothing I will wear for each day of the year, in turn mirrored in the seasonal bath and shower schedule, the whole indicating—if you read between the lines—those nights I have scheduled in advance for going out to be entertained or for other extraordinary activities, as listed on the schedule pasted to the inside of the glove-box door of the car. The utility of this system should by now be obvious to you, for should we find ourselves fully dressed up at five in the afternoon—having dutifully followed the bathing and dressing calendars—then it should be clear that this is a night to go out and that we should then proceed to do so, following as closely as possible the itinerary suggested inside the glove-box door, to Chinese or Italian restaurant, foreign or domestic comedy, chamber music or symphonic concert, and so on, whenever the facilities and activities in the neighboring towns permit, as usually they will.
                 The whole, of course, composes what I often refer to as our Marriage Almanac, on the composition of whose various calendars and schedules I spent at least three whole evenings each year, that is, the year preceding its actual issuance. For I have often observed that a Marriage will most often founder on the little matters of when and what to eat, what to wear and when to wash or clean it, when to go out and where to go and when to stay home, when to invite someone in and who it should be, and so on, and thus to follow the Almanac of our Marriage is to avoid making these decisions on the spur of the moment—since I have already made them months in advance, from an objective distance in time when I am neither hungry nor thirsty nor affected by the weather, hot or cold, nor can have any idea of what films or plays or concerts might be scheduled for the neighboring towns, and am thus best able to determine the shape and form, as it were, of the upcoming year, down to its most seemingly insignificant details. And further, by publishing my little Almanac—as I intend to do someday, in the distant future—and mailing copies to our friends, we will not only be able to inform them in advance of our schedule for each day of the year, thus sparing us unwanted or inconvenient visits, but provide as well a model of sorts upon which they may wish to reconstruct their own Marriages in order to reinforce and strengthen them.
    The House. The house is the Marriage, and thus to maintain and keep in good repair the house, tidy and well cleaned, is to keep the Marriage too in good repair, tidy, well cleaned. The house, with its four walls, roof, floors, windows and doors, resembles the Marriage in other respects as well, so that if you focus your attention on the house you are focusing your attention on the Marriage