On my walk tonight, I was thinking about too many people to even remember who they were now. Largely, people I've kissed. And one person I long to kiss again, with this sort of Mitch Albom-style pining. (IE, cross the plot "For One More Day"-- where the lead character gets to see his dead Mother again-- with a lesbian erotica. It made more sense in my head.)

I stepped into a smell that reminded me of her, but maybe only because I was already thinking of her. I found myself wanting so badly to think of a song that reminds me only of her, and of nobody else. When I couldn't think of one, I looked through my iPod. Nothing there was quite right, nothing there was quite worthy of her. But the ensuing melancholy, and the temperature of the air around me, and odd sadness that's permeated my alone time lately, that all begged for Arcade Fire's "Crown of Love." It's a song that does not remind me of her, or of myself, or maybe of anybody. It's a parting gift from Casey, one of the last songs I ever downloaded on his recommendation, but it doesn't remind me of him. I think, perhaps, it reminds me of a reality that lives in my fears.

"I carved your name
Across my eyelids
You pray for rain,
I pray for blindness."

As the full meaning of these lines crushes into my head for the first time, I want to fall to my knees and scream at the sky.

"If you still want me,
Please forgive me.
The crown of love
Is falling from me."


And now, I am relistening to the song to recapture the feeling, to get these words down. And now, I am paralyzed by it. By the sad, driving progression of the piano. By the inevitable, pained strains of the strings. By the desperation in the singer's voice.


There is something I want to say here, about how, even as I grow to love someone new more and more, I grow to believe in love less and less. The affection that grows between us now is just a testament to the fleeting and frail powers of affection in general. I'm certain reading that will be, at best, annoying to him: more likely, it will make him acutely remorseful of the consequences of his decisions, both the painfully obvious and the bizarrely ironic.


For some reason, I'm listening to "Danny Boy" now. Great song, came into loving it pretty late. Not a big fan of this particular singer. (Daniel O'Donnell)


He said if he was ever going to give in and kiss me, it would be while we were standing. He's great at that, and he knows he is-- paying attention to things people have said, and using them again, at another time, to their absolute delight. I told him that almost all of my first kisses with people have happened while laying down (he says it's because there's some arcane aspect of my beauty that comes out while I'm lounging-- that's not an exact quote, mind you, but I have to fit his sentiment to my own sense of rhetoric. Something about the slope of my side...I don't know quite what he's talking about, but then, neither does he.) The rare ones that haven't been laying down have been sitting-- at this point, I have to make a written list of everyone I've ever kissed just to make sure I know what I'm talking about. Twelve on the list that undeniably belong there, in that I didn't just kiss them, I had a whole, like, session of kissing them. Jill, Jeremey and Bobby also on the list, as people I only kissed once or twice (Jill) or whom I kissed during a game of Truth or Dare or Spin the Bottle (Jeremey and Bobby)-- I guess Serena and, to a lesser extent, Peter, would be added to that list, if you count those.

And Kris and I used to have a policy that I was allowed to kiss him as a friend-- IE, no tongue, brief and simple and completely platonic. When I say, "we had a policy", what I mean is that I realized that Kris had a tendency to kiss me like that, so I asked Zack if that was fine in such a way that implied he had no choice.

Only one person on that list who's name I can't write at all. One person who I've chosen not to mention in too much detail on here so far. One person whose name everyone knows should be on the list, but with whom my last kiss was a secret.

When I first wrote it down, I had the sneaking suspicion I was missing someone-- I was. Greg Goulding. Breadloaf, Vermont, maybe in 2000. The dew-covered hills that we were rolling all over as we skipped out one of the readings that wasn't optional, the library with the bust of Robert Frost and the fireplace, and reading poetry to each other on that couch.

Any good man can tell you, I'm a sucker for literature.

I was coming around to something-- oh yes, why I'm sad that I've never been kissed standing up. It's not just a positional thing, it's important to point out. It's about the build up to the moment. The will-they-or-won't-they. A terribly important aspect of my fantasy kiss is that I be the person who gets kissed, rather than the one doing the kissing. It's equally important that it happen at a moment where a significant amount of movement has to happen before landing-- IE, that I not already be in that position, that it's not just a matter of parting one's lips. There has to be that moment of anticipation. Whether the movement of someone's head towards mine would happen quickly and passionately-- think someone who's eyes are fixed on you crossing the room at a New York pace, then grabbing you up, and kissing you hard-- or would happen slowly-- think of someone looking deep in your eyes as they go to hold you, then they are looking from your eyes to your lips, then touching your face with their hand before tilting their head and leaning in as they pull you in gently with their hand on the back of your neck-- well, whatever. In theory, I'd take either, so long as there was that question in the air for just a moment beforehand, like the tiny, almost indiscernible trail of a firework that disappears altogether for just a moment before it explodes.

In practice, I'll take neither. I'm married. I mean, chicks of the world, you have your instructions. But this is, by no means, an invitation for the men in the audience. Unfortunately.

I am trying to count how many of my first kisses were started by me. Six, I know for sure. Emily, Mark and Jeff, I don't honestly remember anymore. (I'll leave comments open if any of the three of you are reading this, and would like to edify the audience. Anyone who's kissed me, actually, feel free to contribute. Remember, to access comments, you have to view this post by itself.) Greg, Ben, Sam and Katie, I'm pretty sure they kissed me first.

I feel like somewhere in that list, there's more I could write about. But I probably shouldn't. I'm re-reading some old posts, I may include some links in a tweet-- I really love this damn blog, I really want people-- other than me-- to read the archives. Wanting that wouldn't be the most shameful thing I've wanted, as of late.

On with it.