Last night I went to a going away party for Darren and Julie, the only Vancouverites moving to Malta this year.
It’s a strange thing to be celebrating, someone’s going away, like a wake with the departed still there. Even a vast array of shrimp, cold cuts and scotch can’t fully soften that blow.
Maybe if it was your going away party, it would make more sense to invite all your enemies and every jerk you dislike to your going away party. Then the crowd would be much happier, and you’d be happy to be leaving them all behind.
Of course, this going away party’s gloom was mitigated by the fact that they’re moving to Malta, not, like, Bakersfield or something. (Bakersfield is my default armpit nowhere destination, ever since my old editor Mike Carlson went there for an early journalism job.)
And Susie and I now have a good reason to go to Malta, and a nice place to stay while we’re there.
Of course, when we leave Malta, we’ll have to have a going away party.
“The most common human act that writing a novel resembles is lying. We lie daily, very complexly, and at great length. If not for our excessive vanity and our over-active imaginations, we would be quite difficult to deceive.”
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