And thank you so much for joining us again.

It is the Nightly Pleasures podcast episode number 61.

I'm the great night. Hello.

Yeah, I don't know how to make these intros any less stilted,

so I've decided to just one-take them and not be as weird about it.

Hopefully that works out for you.

Today we have just one piece and two questions after, so I hope you do enjoy it. Fair warning for the audiences. It's got a little bit of

a misnomer. The name of the piece is taking it easy, but there's quite a bit of degradation in it.

You've been warned.

You know, I think maybe I've been taking it easy on you.

Oh.

In fact, I know it.

I know it because that little smile right there. Why, yes, that smile says,

yes, you have. And it knows why. It's not a foolish smile. It knows that I've been sick.

It knows that things have been rather difficult lately between us.

Things have been stressful, and with all the anger and the zeitgeist anyway,

it's not like romance has been much on the mind.

But it is.

Romance is on my mind.

The heat, the boiling up anger, the frustrations, the anxieties in the world.

I just want to take them all out on you. Because I love you. Because I love you so much. You do that for me,

wouldn't you? Be a human stress ball. Be a pincushion. Be some kind of device for my amusement, for my stress relief.

...