jinxesYes, so the engineer with the lethal smile. How do you write about being almost and quasi smitten without desparately jinxing yourself. All the inevitable sweetness of a good first date and an even better second, without reeling off the details that are of no consequence to any one but me, the girl in the car, the bonfire of christmas trees, the cold wind, the kites flying like the ghosts of bats, the pair of german children who gawked at us like marionettes pinned on the pacific, and how we whiled away two solid hours navigating the topography of mouths and the emergency brake, and how you giggle because the radio is singing the perfect sound track and as you finally quit the sea, cheeks scorched by the engineer's beard, the moon has risen contrite and ripe in the eastern sky.

There it shines in the sky, ripe for the plucking. Just like me. Dangling from that virgin branch, all chrysalis and all wet, unfurled wings with the promise of all tomorrow's parties and the starshine memories of all of yesterday's parties, and all I kinda really want is too collide with the engineer half way between here and dreamland to shift limbs towards quasi parity.

just like driving determinedly towards exactly nowhere, which is driving everywhere nowhere fast. And internets my engines are revving, yes they rev and are wont to purr. I am already to be heartbroken again, just like Lloyd Cole says, so I shall spread my arms and lay back. The heart is a lonely hunter. Mine is a quiet shoplifter. And I am holding it out on the sly, for the stealth gentleman with the killer smile and quick wit who might, who just might might catch me and the ring.