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punched) communing with roots and worms, I stretch out on our blanket and gaze upwards to observe the pattern the tree grows in: a seemingly chaotic but absolutely geometric spiral. Each time a branch springs out from a larger one, it curves clockwise to avoid collisions. And the squirrels that skitter around and around these branches are doing the same thing, navigating clockwise as they carry their stashes from ground to hole. The wood is shiny and smooth against the squirrels’ brushed coats. I’d always thought squirrels had a superb sheen until I compare them to the gloss of this tree.
    The point is: squirrels are doing everything in their power to make decent homes for themselves, and since their world is so screwy, this reminds me of how hard it is to exist. Is it really worth it? I wonder. But the squirrels inspire me. They don’t sit around trying to decide if life’s worth it. For them, nothing beats eating acorns in a warm, dry bed.
    “I really want to get a comfortable bed,” I say. “Squirrels have comfortable beds.”
    “Then why shouldn’t we?” Matt asks.
    III. Delectable Food
    On special occasions, we drink flutes of champagne and Matt fixes roast pork. He slathers the flesh with mint and garlic, and ties string around it to make it juicier. We associate pork with luxury because it makes the house smell rich. The dog perks up at the chance that this may be the day he scores big time. Pork makes me feel like I’m living large.
    We’re celebrating the success of Matt’s newest painting. It’s as long as a Honda, and as tall as our ceiling. Red-barked trees, squirrels, and naked women cover the canvas.
    We discuss how great the painting is while chewing meat.
    “I love these crusty bits,” I say.
    “I saved them for you.”
    He’s a master chef. I’d be bony if he didn’t feed me so well. Before I met Matt, I survived on lima beans, fruit leathers, and cream of wheat.
    I tell him about the time my brother and I tried to scrape together a couple of bucks to buy ice cream. It was like the Great Depression.
    “Those days are over,” Matt says. I look down at my plate of pork accompanied by mustard greens, saffron-and-turmeric rice, and tomato salad. There will be tons of leftovers. Tomorrow it’ll be easy for me to make myself lunch.
    The next day I come home from work and find Matt doubled over on the couch (again as if he’s been punched). He blames it on the pork, but I feel fine. I run out to get him ginger ale and saltines. When I get back he confesses that after I’d gone to work, he’d eaten pork for breakfast.
    “There’s nothing wrong with pork for breakfast,” I say. “People eat bacon.”
    “But I finished the whole thing,” he says. “I ate it straight out of the baking dish. It was like ten servings.”
    “I know,” I say. “It tasted so good.”
    “I barfed hard,” he says.
    I had assumed as much.
    “Pork fat chunks were floating in the toilet,” he says. “It looked like boba.”
    Boba are translucent tapioca balls that come in Vietnamese drinks.
    “Shut up ,” I say.
    “I just ate a huge pile of lard, basically.”
    He’s like decadent old King Louis, I think , cooking up his maid’s canary and making her watch him eat it. I love feeling like the maid.
    IV. Equal Union
    I’ve been reading passages from the Kama Sutra before bed every night so I can mentally prepare myself for stress the next day. (I’ll admit I read it for sexual advice too.) The section called Ratavasthapana Prakarana applies not only to the male/female union but also to unions of all sorts, both human and animal. Its animalistic mix-and-match metaphors apply to sex as well as attitude adjustment for dealing with weirdos. Sometimes as I’m waiting in line or sitting in traffic I see a guy bossing his girlfriend around and think, Horse and deer, not the best.
    When I first read it, I used to dream about jungle orgies: lions humping wildebeests and boa constrictors riding