Subject: secret language
Date:  1995/11/30 

He stared at me, intently, and it took a while before I figured out he
was looking at my earrings.

"Yeah, they're new.  Decided I needed a change."  Oops, that was probably
a little too close to the truth.  "I mean, I felt like getting something
different."

He gave me an odd look and sipped his coffee thoughtfully.  "Are you
starting a new hobby?"

"Huh?"  Married for 8 years and sometimes I haven't got a clue what he's
talking about. "Buying new earrings is a hobby?"

"Never mind."  We finished our breakfast in companiable silence, but
every so often he'd look at me with that quizzical, searching look, like
he was trying to figure me out.  Well, it was too late for that.  But
why this morning?

"Do you have any unusual plans for the day?" he finally asked.  He 
seemed a bit embarrassed, even though it was my face that was turning
red.  Dammit, how did he know?

"What brings this on?"

He deliberated a moment before speaking again.  "Your earrings.  You 
always talk with your earrings, you know."

Now I was really confused.  "Talk to my earrings!  Are you nuts?"

"Not to them, with them.  You always wear the dangly snakes when you've
got a meeting at work with someone you don't like.  The gold flowers 
when you're in a good mood.  The lizards when you're mad at me."

"Newts," I said automatically, "they're supposed to be newts."  Was I
that transparent?  Did I really always wear them when I was mad at him?
I tried to remember the earrings I'd worn over the last week.  The newts,
the snakes, the newts again, the silver hoops.  "So what does it mean
when I wear the hoops?"

"You're feeling fat."

"The malachite spheres?"

"Are those the green balls?  You wear them when you're worried about
money."

A strange feeling of fear and relief.  He understood me, even the things
about me that I didn't yet understand.  Comforting but scary.  

"Well," I said finally, "I hate to disappoint you, but I just bought
these because I liked the way they looked."

He smiled, kissed me on the cheek.  "I'll figure these out eventually,"
he said, and headed out to work.

Comforting but scary.  David will be disappointed when I cancel our lunch
date, which we both knew and expected would turn into, well, another kind 
of date.  "My husband doesn't understand me, " I'd said, the old cliche,
the old excuse for an affair.  I was wrong.