He bought her salad

"How many, ma'am?"
"We're just one."
"Alright, right this way please."

Among other things, I'm going to tell you about that woman and how she's changed me.

Of the hundreds of people that I have seated in my past month at Something Differerent, the number of couples that have opted to sit side-by-side rather than across from one another I can count on one hand. Only four couples have done so. Which begs the question, for me at least, why? I asked my boss: he admitted he'd never wondered and deferred my wondering mind to a waitress. She suggested that people prefer to look at one another, that only the really touchy-feely types (the kind that are likely to do bedroom things with their hands and ankles under the shade of the burgundy tablecloths) that only they want to sit so near. What she said, essentially, is that the more emotionally and intellectually near a couple is, the less they feel the need to be physically near, to be at one another's fingertips- a breath away.
I do not understand.
Why is this?
I don't see why a deterioration of the desire to be near physically should be required in order for two people to grow closer in other, less tangible (or is it more tangible?), ways, but that's just me. I already hold my truth to be self-evident. As for others, I guess I'll just have to start setting menus side-by-side and see how many more loves are like to stay where I put them, or shy away.

But that's not what you expected to read. Oh dear. Disappointment. Do I dare appologize? No, I do not. I haven't lied to you. There was indeed a man who bought a woman a salad, which constituted the entirity of her meal, and I will tell you about them- just not today. I have pressing matters to attend to.

Britney Spears

Most creepy crawly things prefer life in the muck to life in a test tube, but every so often one slithers out and becomes a national pop star.

Not how the Magi intended it to be..

I gave a precious gift
as candid as a child
Although I wanted it for myself
I gave it with a smile
But oh! The shock and sadness-
I thought my gift was good-
I bid you, sweetly "Take it"
You said you never would

He who shoots at nothing is sure of never missing.

Yesterday

A bread and milk day.
You know, like when the stock that your meteorologist has in Food Lion falls, so he says that there is a minute chance of snow and everyone goes out and buys five loaves of bread and three gallons of milk.
The kind of day that empties the kerosene pumps and drenches the masses in panic.
In other words, it was sunny.

The hypochondriac

My nose is dry, my eyes are wet
When I run I break a sweat
My head is round, my feet are flat
I cannot scratch my middle back
It's tough to swallow before I chew
My teeth are white, my eyes are blue
My hair gets longer every week
People listen when I speak
I bend my knees when I take stairs
and also when I sit in chairs
I cannot look two ways at once
I get hungry when I skip lunch
My throat gets sore when'ere I shout
My belly button's inside-out
My feet won't fit in doll-sized shoes
When I don't win I tend to lose
I've got ten fingers AND ten toes
My lips grew in below my nose
My fingernails just won't stop growing
My epidermis won't stop showing
I get wet each time I shower
I'm getting older every hour
I cannot digest cellulose
or fix the planet's many woes
I cannot see in dark of night

Oh, tell me, doctor, will I die?
Is it mumps or worts or plague?
Lock jaw? Pink eye? Clubfoot? AIDS?
Strep throat? Cancer? Dengue fever?
Phobia of rabid beavers?
Is it hopeless? Can I be cured?
I want the truth; I am not scared.

You can't be right! You must be wrong!
I've been this way all along?
You say that my diagnosis is
merely that I, human, live?

When I settle,

I'm building my house of cards solely from hearts. There'll be no room for war or diamonds in my home.