16:26 <Quaker> When he wakes up the first thing his hand does, even before he's really awake, is reach out to her side of the bed. 16:26 <Quaker> It's all her bed, but he's spent the last four days sleeping there and he's starting to think of it as their bed, and then wondering how that all happened so quickly, but she's not there. His hand moves slowly over the cool sheets. 16:26 <Quaker> Then he's awake all the way and he's looking around her room. 16:28 <Quaker> One big loft with a refrigerator and a little range wedged into a corner by the door. Posters of Syria above the oven, with tourism slogans in Arabic. One side of the room is her business, with bare metal tables covered in locks and small metal tools she hasn't explained to him yet, and filing cabinets and metal lockers and some guns taken apart with their cleaning kits. 16:29 <Quaker> The other side is filled full of handsomely carved wooden bookshelves, and shelves hung on the walls, and green plants and flowers in bloom. There's a few cases of butterflies on the walls, that he gave her. 16:30 <Quaker> When he first came upstairs to her place he stood in front of her books while she watched him and leaned from one ball of her foot to the other, like she was swinging between pride from showing off her favorite things and anxiety that he'd think she was off for having them. 16:31 <Quaker> And one little white desk, an odd thing that she said she found at a street market out in Tigre when she was just out wandering, a flat-top surface and leg carved out of wood but with a small rotating drum on the left side support that could be opened up like a cabinet or spun around to project a few more shelves. 16:32 <Quaker> And then a wooden double dutch door, painted sky-blue, leading out to a wrought-iron balcony. Her balcony was so full of ferns and flowers and a sagging bougainvillea that it was like walking into a greenhouse where the light only got in halfway. 16:32 <Quaker> He didn't know why she thought he would think she was dumb or uncultured, like she had told him. She was better read than him, that was for sure. She even read for fun, all kinds of things. 16:33 <Quaker> And their bed, put in the middle of the room like a boundary marker. 16:34 <Quaker> He blinked and saw she was sitting at the desk, writing in one of her notebooks. She kept a pile of them on her desk, and one time he had seen even more in one of her locked filing cabinets. She kept a journal, she said, smiling shyly, just to record her thoughts and impressions and every day's weather. Otherwise she felt like she couldn't remember time as well as she'd like. And she tried to write sometimes, she said. 16:35 <Quaker> She is lit up very gently by the faint light of her small desk lamp, one topped in a green glass shade that she told him she found in Montevideo, and by the even fainter light of the soft neon of the nightclub down the street. It must be more morning than night, he thinks, because he can't hear anything past her down on Defensa Street. He can't even hear the sound of people's shoes striking the old San Telmo cobbles outside. 16:35 <Quaker> She's seen him stir. 16:35 <Quaker> "Hey." 16:35 <Quaker> "Hey. How come you're up?" 16:35 <Quaker> She doesn't look over, but it's more out of concentration than a willed aloofness. "I usually wake up around now. Sometimes I just write a little before I go back to bed. Why, is the light bothering you?" 16:36 <Quaker> "No! I'm fine. Just surprised to see you up. Come back to bed." 16:36 <Quaker> "Shh. Go back to sleep, I'll be there in a moment." 16:36 <Quaker> "Then I'll stay up with you." He swings his legs over. 16:36 <Quaker> "No, really...I'm just writing..." 16:37 <Quaker> He's already getting up to make them some hot chocolate. When he brings their mugs over, he pushes a plush ottoman over with his foot and sits next to her. "What are you writing?" 16:37 <Quaker> She hesitates between shutting the notebook and showing it to him. "Just stories. Like...ideas that I have. I don't know." 16:37 <Quaker> "Stories about what?" 16:37 <Quaker> "I don't know, all kinds of things." 16:38 <Quaker> He puts his arms around her waist and leans his cheek against hers. "Can I see?" 16:38 <Quaker> "It's not so good. Don't laugh at it." 16:38 <Quaker> "Ok, but what's it about?" 16:39 <Quaker> "Um..." 16:39 <Quaker> "It's about a young girl who's like...an adventurer. An explorer. She goes around to all these exotic lost places and solves mysteries and finds magical artifacts with her friends. Like...Atlantis and Lemuria and crystal jungle temples and lost deserts and that kind of thing. I thought it could be for little girls, cause they don't have that many books like that, I don't think. It's called Anna Banana. Like, Anna Banana and the Ape-Men of Jurungus. 16:39 <Quaker> That's what I'm writing now. But she has a lot of different adventures." 16:41 <Quaker> It's a lot to take in. He blinks. 16:41 <Quaker> He really wants to spend the rest of his life with her. 16:42 <Quaker> "That's probably the coolest thing I've ever heard someone make.” 16:42 <Quaker> She frets. "I mean, it's not very good so far. I don't know. I think I'll get better. I just kind of started when I was a kid." 16:43 <Quaker> He looks over her shoulder at the page. 16:44 <Quaker> 'Anna Banana and Frolly-Olly and Tumbo crept down the stone staircase quiet as mice, pointing their lantern at all the terrible figures that loomed out of the darkness. The staircase seemed to descend forever into the lightless gloom, but far ahead they began to see a dim light, and soon they could hear the faint roars and shouts of the Ape-Men. They crept and crept forward, until they could see over the lip of the last step -- and there were the 16:44 <Quaker> white-haired and cross-eyed Ape-Men, roaring with merriment while they danced around a bonfire crackling with great green flames. 16:45 <Quaker> "Look!" said Frolly-Olly, and he pointed at the Great King of Jurungus, who sat in the midst of the crowd of hooting Ape-Men, holding court in the midst of all that savagery and abandon. "It's the awful Ape-Man we saw behind the mirror." Above the Great King they saw even more Ape-Men holding clubs of stone, which they swung at great stone gongs to make a chorus of mournful clanging and clunking. To this music danced the merry mob -- and Anna and her 16:45 <Quaker> friends saw that they were engaged in a terrible sport, throwing a man up into the air like a ball, and catching him as he fell wailing! It was poor old Uncle Drunkel! As he fell up and down, they could hear his pitiful yelps: "Why me? Why me?" 16:45 <Quaker> "Serves him right," said Frolly-Olly. "He tried to sell us to the Ape-Men!" 16:45 <Quaker> "That might be," said Tumbo, "but he's still my Uncle." The portly fellow was sweating with fear, and snorted a pinch of snuff to calm himself. 16:45 <Quaker> "Then we've got to come up with a plan," said Anna. "Frolly-Olly, do you still have your firecrackers?" 16:46 <Quaker> "I do." 16:46 <Quaker> "And Tumbo, do you still have your ball of string?" 16:46 <Quaker> "Oh, I do," said Tumbo. "But what's the use? No more of your plans, Anna Banana - it's how we got into this mess. You take care of this, for I can't bear another moment in this terrible darkness! Ohhhhh!" And with his last nerve failing, the portly fellow turned on his heel and began running up the stone staircase, wailing all the while! "Ohhhhh!" 16:46 <Quaker> At that moment, the terrible granite gongs fell silent...' 16:49 <Quaker> Holy shit. 16:50 <Quaker> He looks at her with a new feeling of embarrassment. “Wow. That’s…I think you’re officially out of my league.” 16:51 <Quaker> She laughs. “Shut up. You’re the smart one. You’re pretty much a doctor.” 16:52 <Quaker> “I’m like one-sixth of the way to being a doctor. And this is way more creative than that. I feel kind of boring, now.” 16:52 <Quaker> “You can still play the guitar. You’re really good at music. And you’re gonna teach me how to shoot. 16:53 <Quaker> “Hmm…yeah, but…” He digs deep for a while, for something of comparable value. 16:54 <Quaker> “Ok, I can do this…” 16:55 <Quaker> He stands up in front of her. “Okay, so I got really into hip-hop when I was back in Mexico City…” 16:55 <Quaker> He’s psyching himself up. “Okay, you clap. Keep the beat.” 16:55 <Quaker> She starts clapping at a steady rhythm. 17:01 <Quaker> “I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip hip hop-a you don’t stop the rock it to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie the beat. Now what you hear is not a test, I’m rappin to the beat, and me the groove and my friends are gonna try to move your feet. See I. Am. Wonder Mike and I’d like to say hello, to the black, the white, the red and the brown, the purple and yellow, but first I gotta bang 17:01 <Quaker> bang the boogie to the boogie, say up jump the boogie to the bang bang boogie to the bang bang boogie, let’s rock, you don’t stop, rock the riddle that will make your body rock — 17:02 <Quaker> ‘Well, so far you’ve heard my voice, but I brought two friends along 17:02 <Quaker> And next on the mic is my man Hank: come on, Hank, sing that song 17:02 <Quaker> Check it out: I'm the C A S AN the O V A, and the rest is F L Y 17:02 <Quaker> You see I go by the code of the doctor of the mix and these reasons, I'll tell you why:’ 17:02 <Quaker> You see I'm six-foot-one [he’s six-three] and I'm tons of fun, and I dress to a tee 17:02 <Quaker> You see I got more clothes than Muhammad Ali and I dress so viciously 17:02 <Quaker> I got bodyguards, I got two big cars that definitely ain't the wack 17:02 <Quaker> I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac 17:02 <Quaker> So after school, I take a dip in the pool which is really on the wall 17:02 <Quaker> I got a color TV, so I can see the Knicks play basketball 17:02 <Quaker> Hear me talkin' 'bout checkbooks, credit cards, more money than a sucker could ever spend 17:02 <Quaker> But I wouldn't give a sucker or a bum from the rucker, not a dime till I made it again 17:04 <Quaker> You go hotel, motel, whatcha gonna do today? 17:04 <Quaker> Y'say I'm gonna get a fly girl gonna get some spankin', drive off in a def OJ 17:04 <Quaker> Everybody go hotel, motel, Holiday Inn 17:04 <Quaker> Say if your girl starts actin' up, then you take her friend 17:04 <Quaker> Master Gee, am I mellow? 17:04 <Quaker> It's on you, so what you gonna do? 17:04 <Quaker> Well, it's on-n-on-n-on-on-n-on 17:04 <Quaker> The beat don't stop until the break of dawn 17:04 <Quaker> I said M A S, T E R , a G with a double E 17:04 <Quaker> I said I go by the unforgettable name of the man they call the Master Gee 17:04 <Quaker> Well, my name is known all over the world 17:04 <Quaker> By all the foxy ladies and the pretty girls 17:04 <Quaker> I'm goin down in history 17:04 <Quaker> As the baddest rapper there ever could be 17:04 <Quaker> He goes on for the full fifteen minutes. 17:05 <Quaker> She’s laughing very hard the entire time. 17:05 <Quaker> But she still keeps the rhythm. 17:07 <Quaker> Later, they’re back in bed as the sun comes up. 17:07 <Quaker> “So how many Anna B. books have you written? Like in total.” 17:08 <Quaker> “…I’ve finished nine.” 17:08 <Quaker> “There’s still a couple I’m still working on.” 17:08 <Quaker> “It’s just something I do in my free time.” 17:08 <Quaker> “Can I read them all?” 17:09 <Quaker> “Of course. Do you want to?” 17:09 <Quaker> “I really want to.” He really does. 17:09 <Quaker> So he ends up reading them all.