a story.

we were at a wal-mart
in formal wear
(divya and tracey were there, too).
and there were $300 sunglasses there,
there was a pair with mint-green frames that i liked.
we had to look for something! i don't know. it was a scavenger hunt or something.
and i couldn't find you. called.

"where are you?"

"i'm going somewhere where you can see me. (i walk towards the front of the store) i'm sitting next to the grand piano (made of mahogany wood; on a bench-ottoman upholstered in brown leather with buttons along diagonals on the surface; in a wal-mart?)"

and you found me

and we walked.

wal-mart plus started looking like an elementary school?

we stepped out onto the back porch (wal-mart?) and it overlooked a street. i guess we were in pittsburgh. and we were leaning on the railing, you on my right, i on your left, looking up and down the street, and you asked me where we should go for dinner. anywhere you want.

and then i can't remember now how we got to that point, we were just talking, and then maybe we hugged over something inconsequential, and then you were holding me.
you told me you loved me.

i knew it, i'd known it all along, but in that moment i couldn't believe it. i mean, who would

i said it back. maybe you didn't believe me either, or you just couldn't hear me (i'm incoherent if the situation's too tense), but you asked me to say it again. and again. "i love you, too."

i mean, i don't know,

memory? dream? confabulation . . . it was too real.

recessive trait

I was stuffing envelopes at work today (CMITES clientele, est. population 10,000), and I suddenly remembered that in elementary/middle school, I had a fixation with guys with blue eyes. I mean, I really, really, really . . . I think pretty much every boy I crushed on had blue eyes. I'm not sure which came first and which followed, my fawning delusions over their personalities or my love for their baby blues.

So then I started wondering how that even came about, because how could I, as a little girl, have gotten it into my head that blue eyes were such a desirable trait?

Maybe the movies I watched when I was little? The alpha man was the Disney prince with a soul, a build; a distaste for bad art, a rejection of vanity, a canine companion, an affinity for music, some knowledge of dance, a penchant for days on the town, a nice laugh, beautiful smile, and who, on top of that, had biceps to spare. (NOT Gaston.) Oh, that rowboat scene! Prince Eric:



Otherwise (from an even earlier time in my life), it was Daniel Truhitte, Rolf in The Sound of Music (1965). He may or may not have had blue eyes, I can't remember. I think he did. But for all his angst and bad political preferences, he was one gorgeous, smooth, talented-dancer, telegraph-deliverin' Austrian he-man. And his voice. I loved his voice. Speaking, singing . . . if it wasn't to wear that silk-organza dress Liesl wears in "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," I always wanted to be Liesl to dance and sing with Rolfe,







and at the end of the scene, after that kiss, presumably a first, squeal a delighted "Wheeeee!" into the thunder-and-lightening night.