“You’re quiet aren’t you?”

It’s hot and it’s humid I’ve been up since 5am, at first pacing my hotel room and then getting dressed. Every email anyone has ever thought to send me (my title company can’t reach my buyer’s lender; my bill is moving in the House; my students want extra credit; my other bill is going to get a hearing; can I jump on a call to recommend someone for a board of directors role?) has found me here, trying to take in the full promise of remote office work while at the mall with your family. I am watching you, maybe 15 steps ahead, walking with your daughter when your dad asks me this. 

I want to say that there isn’t a single person I can think of who would say this about me—anyone I could call and ask at this moment would say I’m loquacious. I’m a yapper. I actually never shut the fuck up or stop making jokes, to the point that I sometimes have to be prompted not to do one of my “little bits” in moments where it might be considered in bad taste. It’s just a complete fucking tragedy that I am this meek, shy person around you. I think to say exactly this, “Actually, this is just a weird thing about me: I’m crazy talkative unless I really like someone. Then, for some reason, I can’t seem to find anything to say, ever. It’s sort of a wild thing that you, and that he, only knows this version of me.” But I feel like that might be a lot. So I scrap it. 

My mind goes to quantum physics and how observation is a relationship between the object and the viewer. An observed particle might suspend its wave function and appear still when being observed. I start to say, “have you ever heard of the Quantum Zeno Effect?” But I’m already feeling self conscious about explaining all my degrees and all my jobs and my complicated relationship to the academy and education. Would a small physics Ted Talk push me over into the red on being pretentious? 

While I’ve been thinking and stammering out something about listening and observing, the four of us have switched positions and now you and your daughter are a few paces behind your dad and I. “I wouldn’t describe myself that way,” I manage. 

& your dad says, “well, aren’t you, though?” 

So I say, “sure.”