I never bought too deeply into the hearts-and-flowers aspect of the holiday- that seemed too easy if you really meant it- but commemoration is always nice, I guess.

It’s always funny watching Superbowl shopping. I usually go out on Saturdays to replenish stock around here, and the demographic on the day before an important game changes. You get the usual shoppers; you see the college guys buying what they usually do, only supersizing their order; then you see the lost boys in two classes- men who maybe never do the shopping, and have to for this party, and newly divorced guys who are learning or relearning how to shop.

The NDs- you see them standing in front of the chips trying to figure out how many servings are really in each bag, regardless of settling. They don’t have a list, or the lifeline of a cellphone- what are the two ingredients that go into that dip, and who would tell me without laughing?- and don’t know how to keep their carts off to the side.

I went out today: I hadn’t brushed my hair, I wasn’t wearing a bra; I don’t think I frightened any small children, but it was just a regular day, looks-wise. You can tell that these guys are mortally lonely, although I couldn’t determine if they were checking me out, or if they just noticed that I had the ingredients for Seven Layer Dip in my cart.

You meet people who are surprising; one fellow who bumped into me a couple of times in the store was, in a word, courtly. Maybe there’s hope after all.

I suppose Lost Boys bring out the Wendy in women. Or maybe it’s that we all know what it’s like to be alone when it seems like the rest of the people in the world are painting themselves up for a party, whether it’s with hearts or the colors of their favorite team.

I’m not happy with how I look in this shot, but I can live with how I look in real life. I think I have gained a focus in my face as I have gotten older; I look at my yearbook pictures, and I look kind of goofy. Or maybe I just can’t see as well now; at any rate, there’s something to be said for a certain level of satisfaction. Sometimes I’m walking down the street and am surprised by my reflection; I don’t always recognize the reflection of the woman pacing next to me.

The next license is Thursday; hopefully I will pass the Real Estate test. This test, the next rung in the ladder.

You get the license, you get the job, you have no reason to take the next flurry of steps in quick succession. You are forced to, and these changes aren’t my biggest fear. My biggest fear isn’t alienating my children; that’s apparently a done deal.

Probably it was driven home by those Match.com-type ads on T.V. I can’t imagine filling out 50 questions- or 500 questions- and trying to relate to the person who popped up. I can’t imagine dating in the adult world when I am really a very physically conservative person on principle, and this does not seem to be anywhere near the status quo. I can’t imagine adjusting my habits and my standards in accommodation of another human being. I can’t imagine trying attachment on like a pair of GAP jeans, until you find the right fit. I don’t have it in me anymore, and maybe I never did.

My biggest fear is that I am living according to a reality that doesn’t exist for any other human being, and is going to inevitably doom me to a loneliness everyone else can sidestep.

He really didn’t want to have anything to do with this topic, nor with my answers. He handed me the paper and asked me to fill it out, returning it to me when I was finished. I was sensitive to his discomfort, and wrote something sanitary, yet interesting. I briefly wrote about Steve, and mentioned that he had written a song for me, which is kind of Partridge-Familyish; bearable for a fifteen year old boy.

But how do you squeak open the lid on memories to sneak just one out? I remember sitting next to him in Chemistry class; we were constantly passing notes. He drew a stick figure of himself and passed it; I drew myself holding his hand and passed it back. We passed the note back and forth filling it up with stick people. When we couldn’t fit any more in, he wrote on the back, “I guess we’ll have to be alone in a crowd.”

Death by love. I think I was fifteen or sixteen before I was kissed for the first time- every kiss should be a first kiss. Your lips meet; each tastes the salty-sweet of the other for the brief instant before there is that beautiful melding, when you understand the true purpose of biology, which is really to prove an impossibility of cohesion, and you tremble fiercely and can’t help it, and your heart is beating, beating in some mad rhythm against his heart.

If your heart is pure, every kiss is a first kiss.