5.5.01 - 1:26

she's got that pretty blond hair and big blue eyes, oh, she's just beautiful, let me tell you. this is where the other boy turned around and said, her eyes are brown, you idiot. some people see things the way they want to see them. she traveled a lot. to strange destinations. she would bring him back strange things. dirt and bones and feather. magical amulets. small bottles filled with murky liquids, usually some obscure animal's equally obscure internal organs, blended into some sort of invigorating elixir. sometimes the dog got into them. or she would hand him a pencil and say, i picked this pencil up in the airport in singapore. he'd smile and nod and all that, but he'd really be thinking, yeah, ok, it's just a pencil. he held onto these things, though. his intuition was normally right about these things. she brought back lou reed on vinyl and he went out and bought a record player, cheap, from the thrift store next door. the sound was a little scratchy, but decent. it's such an icy feeling...it's so cold in alaska...it's so cold in alaska. brenda kahn says she could love you like a violin. could is not quite the same as would, but you never know. once she brought back a shell. she'd been someplace in africa. he didn't remember the name of the country, but you know, one of those that used to be a colony of some imperialist-type nation. she was staring at him. there was a funny look on her face, half amused, half annoyed, right eyebrow cocked. did you pick this up on the beach in...(and here he could have guessed, he had two or three names in mind, but decided to play it safe)...africa? he held it up to his ear to listen to the ocean sounds inside it. he went somewhere far away for a minute, maybe two. she called him back, asking about the sound, the ocean, the feeling of it all. i know it's not really the ocean, he said, i'm not stupid. i didn't say you were, she said. it's something far away, though, i know that. they agreed. i had a two day layover in miami...i picked that up on the beach there.

there are streets that go right up to the beach. eateries. places that sell swimsuits. places that sell beer. guys wearing white who let you park in their driveway -- for a price, of course. nothing's free there. there was this one sign, we speak english. ha. the people didn't look real, either. like someone dragged all the mannequins out for a little sun.

in miami, he said. it didn't change things, except it did, but they were going to let it go and they both knew it. it's still a shell, he thought. there wasn't anything for me to hold on to, except for that one shell, she said.

now he's understanding the way she cradled it in her hands, the way she sighed before handing it over. and now he's understanding why she ran her fingers across the roughness of its broken lip and didn't say a thing about imperfections though normally she didn't deal in damaged goods. not at all.

'in the haze, in the stormy haze, i'll be round, i'll be loving you always...always....here i am and i'll take my time, here i am and i'll wait in line always...always...'

confidence in you is confidence in me is confidence in high speed.

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