On fictional Central American countries

This weekend, I had just begun to read A Book of Common Prayer, which takes place in the fictional Boca Grande, when we decided to watch Woody Allen's Bananas, in which a products tester from New York ends up leading a rebellion in the fictional San Marcos. Unfortunately, the near-simultaneous introduction of two fictional Central American countries has created a huge gash in my mind, and the details of each story are leaking through to each other. I keep waiting for Howard Cosell to appear in Charlotte Douglas's living room to run commentary on her disintegrating life, or for Marin to show up at a roadside diner and order sandwiches (each in individual blue paper sacks) and coleslaw for a thousand men.

As I was reading A Book of Common Prayer in bed, under the duvet, the husband comes in the room and I tell him my feet are cold. He self-sacrificingly throws his body across my legs like he's trying to protect me from a hand grenade.

Me: Those are my ankles, not my feet. My feet are cold.

Husband: But I didn't want to hurt your feet. You're reading Joan Didion, and I know how it makes you more brittle...

(I am fully aware that by writing about Joan Didion once again, I might be falling into a Mobius strip of sorts by writing about the same five things over and over on here, but please forgive me just this once. This is certainly the year of Joan Didion for me, and you happen to have stumbled across my thoughts in the midst of it.)

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