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SHE: Paint is pretty unbeatable.
You know, sometimes when you walk too close to a wall, some paint comes
off and sticks on your shirt. Do you have that experience?
HE: My friend Sandra swears that red wine can be defeated only
by white wine. One night she spilled her glass of red wine down my pale
pink shirt front. She ordered a glass of white wine, pinot grigio, and
tossed that on my
shirt as well.
SHE: My laundry-man who speaks good English has a secret formula to un-do
paint marks. I had one which shaped at a time like Africa on a map. Sadly,
there are marks that are really non-erasable. Do you have those?
HE: Wash it long enough. What starts as stains becomes texture. You
can grow proud of every mistake, every flaw, every fuck-up, when you learn
to call it texture.
SHE: One of those non-erasable marks which I spoke of was given to me by
my mother who accidentally kicked me with her big toe when she was talking
on the phone. She kicked the corner of my mouth so hard that there is now
a permanent red triangle there. People who dine with me used to tell me I
have some tomato sauce on my mouth, even though I wasn't having anything
red.
HE: Even things planted in your soul, even the things that make
you you, can be erased. If for a few seconds, blood interrupts its flow to
your brain, your
mother, your father, your last bitter love, can be disappeared. The
rags that
no longer cover your nakedness but accent it instead can be grabbed out of
your fists, tossed into the boiler, and burnt.
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