"You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange."

The subject heading seems a shame, as that's typically how I vet my dates. There's nothing better than to talk for hours about things you might sooner forget but seem so important in the moment of the telling. To get excited and ramble and drone and trail and offer up dangling modifiers and find common interests in a mutual disdain of cheese.

Then, somehow someone references a typewriter and you swell with swell pride and talk and talk and talk about how you love the jankety old things and you can't defend yourself, but don't need to because he's been smiling the whole time and just encourages your diatribe and yes. slow. That was a lovely night.

I imagine my grandparents had a similar conversation. And walked arm in arm past one of these:


I want to go to there.

I want for everything that I've already had. It doesn't seem fair, that I'm without, and lonely and longing. But, to be fair I have known wild romance. I've had epic romance, so it only seems right that I sit these plays out. It doesn't soften the blow. It just makes it more justifiable.

I am always enamoured of Robert Penn Warren, specifically his nod to the power of a woman's smile. But, because we're flirting with Milan Kundera (see: subject heading) today, let's focus on additional savory senses.

"We all need someone to look at us. we can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. the first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. the second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. they are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. they are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. this happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. people in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. one day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. and finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. they are the dreamers."
— Milan Kundera

I, too, want to go to there.