Ferment.

Scotch ale and truffled cheese, grilled crust of bread. 8.5% and some kind of baguette, with char, and truly rotten cheese. 

Re-thinking rotten things said to me, tonight. Someone new appeared in some facet of my life, it doesn't really matter which. It happens to have been at work, but that's this job, this week, this year. It'll be someone else soon enough. It may as well have been someone else. 

And this person with whom I've been acquainted, through work, less than a month, was going on about fucking some rando, and expecting me to join in the conversation. But when I said I can't get into that cuz Joe ruined me for anyone else, and I can't do that, she said, in effect, that I'll be "back on the horse" soon, i.e. back to meaningless fucking, and not to bond too deeply with my own trauma. I think she called it 'Future faking.' Whatever. Bitch better have my money!

So I told her, with too much kindness and respect, and in light of the fact that Joe's parents were sitting at the bar, at that very moment, making me smile and act like a child by their very presence, knowing how well they know me and love me, in the closest to the same way that Joe did of anyone on the planet, and so I'm the happiest I can ever get with them nearby, anymore. I told her that I couldn't think about "getting with" anyone. That Joe was my person, and I was fine, and it wasn't something I was thinking about. That I was ruined for anyone else, because he was perfect for me. 

Did she ask me more about Joe? Of course not. She said "Well, he wasn't PERFECT." The clear implication being that, since he died of an overdose, he wasn't PERFECT. And I just put my hand up in the direction of her face and said "Yeah, no. Don't. We're not doing that." 

When people say things like that, I can hardly believe it, in the moment, much less come up with a proper retort. Joe would be really useful in an instant like this. He always was. I wish I'd been more harsh. I wish I'd said "NO, bitch, you listen to ME! He was and is still fucking PERFECT for me. Full stop. You've 'known' me a scant few weeks, you REALLY think you know Joe better than me, huh? That you can reduce him and our relationship to a less-than-two-dimensional quip? Something that takes no scientific or psychological acumen to come up with? You say things because you think you know something, generally. Yet you have no curiosity! You are a boor!" 

I know it's not worth my time or energy to get upset. At least, that's what they all tell me. But when people say things like this, I just feel so put down. So belittled. So humiliated and small, unable to prove why they're so wrong. And so, so fucking angry at the universe for taking Joe from me, who would defend me and make them feel insignificant. Who would make them wish they were born without a mouth! A mouth to suck on some putridness like that which they've just served me.

 This cheese is blue, and salty.