CAKEBEEF.

The Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy

Patsy Cline - She's Got You

This song, no matter how many times I listen to it, is guaranteed to push me from "kind of sad" to "crying for no reason."  I don't know what it is.  If I've had more than two ounces of whiskey (or if it's overcast) I will just start blubbering, or sit there with those big, fat tears swelling on my eyelids.  It's terrible when I'm biking and it comes up on shuffle.  I have to pull over and smoosh my eyeholes dry with my sleeves.  I have always loved her, ever since I heard 'Walkin' After Midnight' when I was ten or eleven, and as I have grown into this shambling man-creature that lives and loves and works in the Loop and is sometimes petty and other times fiercely loyal or giving, who knows the definition of 'consomme' and 'pulchritude' and who occasionally weighs his regrets against his progress and wishes that you could trust the math, I only grow more fond of miss Patsy Cline, and my respect for her grows accordingly.

Woman had the experiences to fill those songs with genuine understanding and emotion, and the pipes to back it up.

"What kind of magician is he?" she asked.

"He does disappearing acts," he replied.

There's this thing that happens, independent of my attempts to control or contain it.  There is a brightening of the edges of objects.  A photo filter for my retinas which may from time to time apply itself, turning everything mundane slightly magical, or at least unoppressive. 

Sometimes, I am in love.  It makes me childish, in the good way.  I become silly with love.  Stupid.  I become ten years old, only I know what sex is and it's not illegal for me to have it.  I become a man of Post-Its and piggybacking.  I sing songs about the food I cook.  I cut my hair.  I write notes a lot.

I have an entire file folder full of notes that got coffee on them, or a spot where the ink smeared.  Notes and sticky notes and love notes and grocery lists and little pictures of robots for no reason.  Some are wrinkled.  Most are stained here and there.  Imperfections that sent them to the recesses of my desk drawer.

I went looking for an old story outline and they got me like fishhooks.

There's the other kind of photo filter that happens.  The watery one, where the edges of things blur and warp.  It comes with an accompanying feeling like a strong weight on your sternum and ragged breathing.

Then it subsides, and you go make provencal chicken with olives and capers.

Or maybe that mustard chive sauce with the bourbon and shallots.

Despite falling asleep to Simon Joyner's Out Into the Snow and spending my morning omelette-time tabletop drumming to Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica, and despite the 30 minute bike ride to work (hello Latina gal at Wells and Division, I love you) where I listened to The pAper chAse at a deafening volume, I have had BeBe and CeCe Winans' 'Up Where We Belong' completely stuck in the gooey, useless coils of my brain all day.

"So the parade had to be postponed

So we could watch the balloons ascend

Though we all know that they explode

As they get closer to Him."

You have always been wrong about my intentions.  If I wanted I could fill the basic void with any number of relatively interchangeable women.  What hurts, what sits like a hot stone against my chest and makes my eyes moisten, is that I do not want a woman.  I want you, you fumbling, misguided, spoiled little girl.  Because that is who I love, better judgement notwithstanding.  I don't chase phantoms.  I don't believe in a human lottery. 

Practical possibility.  Simple gestures.  Fidelity.  Work. 

I love with my hands. 

Somehow Bon Apetit wins out over Gourmet?