Another Saturday Night...

Play Careless Whispers.

When is the last time you told someone “I love you” for the first time?

Sitting in the dark is something I do often for the sake of entertainment.

I like the smell of good incense burning two rooms away. It is not so subtle as to be missed, nor so strong as to be intrusive.

I went to dinner with Carlos two nights ago. I had just worked a 12-hour day, after two 10-hr days, and I was tired! But I went. He felt like going to get pizza at this place near where he grew up—it was a long drive, and we talked of useless things, and I enjoyed our conversation greatly. Just after the fall, I thought it great we could still talk, still enjoy an hour’s worth of conversation on the way to cheap, second-rate pizza in the south bay. We ate; we talked; we drove back. I went home still thinking that when it occurred to me I never loved him—and so I started wondering when it was the last time I loved—and, more to the point, when I loved enough to say “I love you.” Because there is a threshold, a point before which we cannot get ourselves to say the words and after which we cannot hold them back.

The neighbor’s headlamps flash across my living room as he turns into his driveway and suddenly I realize the incense has ran out and my tea has gone cold. Though there are four of us living in this apartment, and I love the noise and the feel of simple human habitation, and really love the rare moments of solitude when they come.

They’ll be here soon, so now it’s time to sleep.

Soon, it’ll all change, and I will back to solitude. We must all go our own way at some time. Much like a break up, any separation entails the breaking of old ties. Daily “good morning”s turn to monthly “how have you been?”s and surprising run-ins at the bank or the store. It is never the same… but then, things never are.

When is the last time you told someone “I love you” for the last time?

Good night.