Just Promise, You Will Remember. A Promise Should Last Forever...'What's your feeling about pineapple?' 'On a pizza? Unforgivable,' he said. 'How come?' 'Because, it's fruit. There's no fruit on a pizza.' 'A tomato's a fruit.' 'That doesn't count. A tomato may be a fruit, but it is a singular fruit. A savory fruit. It is a fruit that has ambitions... Far beyond all of the ambitions of other fruits.' 'Really.' 'Sure. It's a staple ingredient in Italian cooking. You put it in sauces, you put it in salad with a little mozzarella and olive oil, you make ratatouille. And, what do you do with your average fruit? Nothing. You just eat. I mean, just think about it, no one is going to found a whole cuisine on a grape.' 'What about wine?' 'Okay, okay,' he said. 'But, grapefruit? No. Or, pineapple? No. Can you imagine founding a cuisine on blueberries? Everyone would be so sick of them within a week, they'd starve to death. The blueberry has no versatility. The country with a cuisine based on the blueberry would be a country of lunatics, turned mad by the unwavering sameness of their daily meals.' 
You complete me. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story, and he asked her what it was about. 'I don't know,' she replied. 'I can't read.'   
'My theory is... If you don't like food, you don't like sex,' she continued. 'I bet that's his problem. His grades are so excellent, because he's completely repressed.' Anything after this point will be awkward, and dissapointing...
And, will break my heart. Love the art in yourself, and not yourself in the art. 
If you've ever had one of those times, when you've clutched a pen, or something else in your hand, for a long time, only to look down and be surprised that you are still holding it... Long after your need for it had passed;
You'll understand, sometimes... We get so used to holding on, that we forget to let go. 
I want warm summer nights, to lie in a hammock, staring at the stars, telling you stories. I want to dip my toes in the water, to dangle my feet off the edge of the dock and sit leaning forward, looking at you, laughing. Sometimes, I think:
I am older than this tree, older than this bench, older than the rain.
And, yet. I'm not older than the rain. It's been falling for years, and after I go, it will keep on falling. 
The counselor suggested competitive team sports as a positive outlet, and pushed her to join the girls' field hockey team. This was not a productive solution. It was the girls' team. Boys didn't even play field hockey. Boys thought nothing of field hockey. She was not interested in playing a sport that was rated as nothing by half the population. The counselor also suggested meditation. Finding a bit of time each day to focus on deep breathing and the acceptance of life, as it was presently occurring. This was not a productive solution, either. She did not accept life, as it was presently occurring. It was a fundamental element of her character. Life as it was presently occurring was not acceptable to her. Were she to mellow out, would she not become obedient? Would she not stay on the path that stretched ahead of her, nicely bricked? She did not get much out of therapy. She is an off-roader. She might, in fact, go crazy, as has happened to a lot of people who break rules. Not the people who play at rebellion, but really, only solidify their already dominant positions in society, but those who take some larger action that disrupts the social order. Who try to push through the doors that are usually closed to them. They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up, but then, one goes insane from giving up. On the brighter side, she has life easier than a lot of people with similar drives, similar minds, similar ambitions. She is nice-looking, and will be well educated. Her family has a good amount of money, though not as much as some. Many doors will open to her easily, and it may be that she can open the ones she wants to without too much pain or strife. And, so, another possibility, the possibility I hold out for, is that she will open the doors she is trying to get through. ...And, she will grow up to change the world. 
  
  
This is unrequited love, at its best. My Spanish was bad, and his English was bad... But, somehow, it seemed like just by smiling and pointing, I'd told him more about myself, than I'd ever told anyone else. 
'Maybe, she won't come,' he said. 'Entirely possible,' I agreed. He hasn't called in a week. Obviously, he caught on to the fact that I thought he was being too clingy, so, now, he's trying to show me how wrong I was, by pretending he doesn't need me, at all. Well, two can play that game. If he's trying to show me who's who by not calling me, then I'm going to show him right back, by not returning the messages he's not leaving! 
  
I want a life that sizzles, and pops, and makes me laugh out loud. And, I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings, and pop cans, and errands, and receipts, and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines, and sing out loud in the car, with the windows open, and wear pink shoes, dance in the rain, and stay up all night laughing, and paint my walls the exact color of the sky, right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets, and throw parties, and eat ripe cherry tomatoes, and read books so good, they make me jump up and down.   
  
'What a cute dog!' He was not cute. He was the mathematical opposite of cute. He was ugly. As sin. Or uglier. I began to question his taste. [So, due time for a quick analogous formula: If ugly dog is to cute as I am to dateable, than I = ____ ] Just remember... If the world didn't suck, we would all fall off. 
FIVE THINGS ONE TYPICALLY LEARNS... WHILE SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME IN THE BUSHES: 1. Dirt is cold and wet. 2. Bugs live in there, but prefer your neck. 3. When a raccoon is surprised and hisses, and then, rears back on its hind legs, it is almost never a good idea to continue forward through a bush, and say things like, 'Nice raccoon. Pretty raccoon.' 4. If you ever got lost in the woods, and were forced to live off what you could forage amongst all of the bushes, you'd try approximately one tiny nibble of mossy bark, and then, just lie down in all of the leaves, and starve. 5. Emerging from the bushes, just when that really short woman who works at the drugstore comes jogging by in her bright teal sweatsuit, and scaring her, and then watching confusedly as she screams, and tries to climb a tree, and then, brushing all of the mud off your face, so she recognizes you, and then, helping her back down the six inches she made it up the trunk of the tree, and apologizing profusely is pretty much, basically, a pretty lousy idea. 
'Are you going to be okay? Do we need to stage a prison break to get away from all these people? Maybe, we could tie some clothes together, and sneak out the window!' ...We're on the seventh floor. 'You have a lot of clothes.' 
  
Well... It's just, I might possibly feel a wee, tad bit minuscule in amount, and quantity of a small portion, of a tiny size, of an infinitesimally small fraction, that may or may not be an irrational decimal, very alone. FIVE THINGS MORE DESIRABLE THAN A HUG FROM YOU: 1. Lowered into an oatmeal vat. 2. Forced to wear a Timmy the Sock Puppet costume. 3. Hugged by a reasonably hygienic Sasquatch. 4. In the center of a week-long group sneeze. 5. Being the favorite soft thing in the pocket of Lennie, from the famous movie, 'Of Mice and Men.'   
But, isn't that how it goes? It's always almost over, unless it's just beginning.   
'You, my dear, are covered with dirt and leaves.' 'I just applied for a job as a tree,' I said. It made so little sense, he didn't even bother responding. I read once, that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand, and the Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me, while you sleep... And, there are no words for that. 
I noticed something on the roof. It sure wasn't a weather vane. 'Do you see that?' He squinted. 'You mean, that extremely fat thing on the roof?' 'Exactly.' 'Nope,' he said. 'Don't see it.' 
'So much for this year's harvest.' Well, there's always next year. That's the amazing thing about nature... Stuff just keeps on growing. The point was, she was trying. Maybe, she had always been trying, in her own way. I thought there was a chance she wouldn't cry... But, that chance came and went. 'Can't I come?' 'Sorry, Peanut.' 'Can't you not go?'
Guess what? I have flaws.
What are they?
Oh, I dunno, I sing in the shower? Sometimes, I spend too much time volunteering. Occasionally, I'll hit somebody with my car...
So, sue me. No, don't sue me. That's the opposite of the point, I'm trying to make. Her kiss was a question he wanted to spend his whole life, answering. | 
