Carpe Omnius

This was a handful of years back. It was about eight months before the huge, flame-out of a breakup. That day, though? That day we painted the living room? It was pretty uneventful. We painted my parents living room for $50 between us and a pizza. That was it. I think we watched Anchorman or something after that.

But it still holds as on of the most indelible memories I have. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not still in love, it happened, it was good, it ended, and we’ve both moved on. But I’ll never forget that day. Because it’s never, in the long run, about the grand gestures. You can fly across the world and show up on her doorstep with a rose in your teeth and a ring in a little velvet box but I can guarantee you that - more often than not - she’s going to remember the time you built the birdhouse in the back yard, or what have you, a whole lot more.

Life wasn’t meant to be taken in large movements. The next day will inevitably arrive, you’ll sleep, and the moment will have passed. But when you have a hundred thousand small moments, you can step back and appreciate the picture a lot more than metaphorically blowing your load on some grand moment that, in all honesty, look, you’re not Bruce Fucking Springsteen, you’re not going to be able to blow everyone’s mind every single night. You’re not Romeo and/or Juliet. There’s no reason to drink the poison together in some flame-out gesture. So that leaves us with the small stuff. It’s all about the detail.

That’s what love is. Attention to detail.

And the moment will end. And then things will get boring. And it might get a little quiet. And it might all end horribly. And you might hate eachother at the end. And you might walk away from eachother one day and never speak again. But that’s just how it goes.

But she’ll remember the time you held the door open for her on your first date. She’ll remember the time you laughed at her impression of the landlady. She’ll remember the time you stayed up all night that first time. She’ll remember the small things a lot longer than the big ones.

But everything ends. And I’ll tell you why you have to make the small things, the small moments count so much more:

One day, probably a while longer from now, when old age takes ahold of someone, she might just only remember your smile. Everything you ever did together, every second, every moment, every beat, every morning spent in bed, every evening spent together on the sofa, all of that - gone. Everything you ever did will be reduced to the head of a pin. She won’t remember your name. She’ll just remember your smile, and she’ll smile. She won’t know why. It’s a base, gut reaction. But she’ll smile, uncontrollably, and it will come from somewhere so deep as to know that you touched her on a primal, honest, and true level that no scientist, scholar, or savant could ever begin to explain. There is no more. There is nothing else. There is just this: She’ll remember your smile, and she’ll smile.

And you know what? That’s all that really matters in the end.

Dear You,

Let’s, you and I, for just one moment, be instantaneous. You know how sometimes a storm picks up, the wind rises, and our eyes are struggling to open, but we are laughing, we are smiling, because we are happy to be in this, do you know that moment? Let’s jut pick us up and go, let’s run, let’s, for a moment, slip into nothing. Forget about tomorrow, forget about yesterday, forget about today! Let us run, let us fly, until we have touched down someplace far from where we started, let us drive until we can drive no more, until we are lying on our backs looking up at the stars, and I will kiss you because the world, presently, is you and I, and I would like to make the most of this instant, this classic story we can keep even after our love slips away. Let’s jump off a bridge into the freezing water. Let’s wade into the river and meet in the middle, falling to the bottom. Let’s build ourselves a street corner to call our own, let’s wear our low top shoes and dance before the day ends, let’s forget about school and homework and work and friends and life and become an instant, a short breath lingering in our hearts for years to come.

Let’s fucking live.

Rock Apparently Factors Into Girlfriend’s Shower Routine

SEATTLE—Saying he was confused about the full extent of its purpose as well as its overall benefit, local man Jacob Ferris, 25, nonetheless surmised today that the oblong rock located in girlfriend Sarah Milstein’s shower caddy must somehow factor into her bathing routine, sources confirmed.

“I guess at some point while she’s showering, she rubs a rock on her body,” said Ferris, expressing what he claimed was “the only possible conclusion” about the light-gray rock in his girlfriend’s bathroom. “I mean, it looks sort of nice, so she could just have it there for decoration or something. But it’s usually right near all the other soaps and her loofah, so I think it’s probably something she actually uses while under the water.”

“I really don’t know how it all works,” Ferris added. “All I know is that in between Sarah getting into the shower and getting out, there’s a rock involved.”

Ferris, who said he was unable to determine exactly when in the showering process the rock first comes into play, told reporters he is equally clueless about what part of the body the rock is used on.

In addition, Ferris said he occasionally inspects the roughly 3-ounce object when he’s in Milstein’s shower, and told reporters that the rock is nearly always wet and is occasionally moved to slightly different spots within the bathtub, leading him to believe that his girlfriend uses it fairly regularly. He also noted his girlfriend’s bathing time never seems particularly longer than the average person’s considering she has added a rock into the mix.

Ferris added that all attempts to incorporate the rock into his own shower routine have ultimately been unsuccessful.

“I tried rubbing it on my skin once, and it hurt,” Ferris said, concluding that pouring soap and water directly onto the rock neither made it softer nor easier on his skin. “I could maybe see how it could get some dirt off of your body, but it seems too painful to work. Her skin usually looks nice though, so maybe I’m wrong.”

“There is a chance it could be a hair thing,” Ferris continued. “Maybe she rubs the rock in her hair? I don’t know.”

Ferris confirmed he has considered numerous reasons for why his girlfriend uses the rock in the shower, including that she has some type of skin condition, that the rock is some sort of weird tradition her family has, or that everyone uses rocks in the shower and he has been out of the loop the entire time.

“It could be for cleaning the bathtub,” said Ferris, adding he once suspected the rock was a device for making the bathroom smell nice, but then noticed it had no discernible smell whatsoever. “Like every few weekends she scrubs the tub with this rock? I guess I could see Sarah doing that.”

While Ferris said he is mostly certain that the rock was initially purchased at a home goods store of some kind, he was not able to completely rule out the possibility it was just a rock that his girlfriend found on the ground and decided to put in her shower.

“I wonder if I should put a rock in my shower for when she’s over here,” said Ferris, who said he once tried to locate a rock at a Bed Bath & Beyond, but left after not wanting to walk up to a sales clerk and ask them where they kept their “shower rocks.” “Or I could just tell her to leave a rock at my place if she wants.”

“I’m probably not going to do that,” Ferris added.