17th
A Classic Mistake! Classically Blog-able!
I hugged my boyfriend in the street and did an awkward ear-kiss as a car slowly approached us. In the flurry of not wanting to get hit while standing in the middle of a one-way, and the fear of getting glass thrown at my eyes from the passers-by, and trying to salvage a reasonable departure out of an awkward morning, I hastily said, “Okay. So, this was good. I love you. Goodbye.” The one slightly-askew element in this outpouring was the “I love you,” a phrase he and I have yet to peddle into our discourse. Although, I’ll admit it has been pressing on me, even entering my dreams. I blushed. I also shrunk like a spider—a shoe-beaten widow—into my car’s only slightly open door, such that I was also squished, with my limbs dangling in the street. From this position of defeat I said, “Oh, I don’t know why I said that—I’m sorry. I think it’s uh, certain cultural factors, inducing me to—” He interrupted: “I appreciate the sentiment, and I certainly have very fond feelings for you, but maybe this is a conversation we can have later, at greater length?” and I agreed, breezily, “Of course, I redact it all, again I’m sorry—I was overcome.” His hair had fallen over his forehead. He glossed it back with the sweat beading down his face. We were sunburned from tramping around the park all of yesterday; he with a mellophone, me with Tom Bissel’s essays, rednecks with their Nasty Pig jockstraps, freegans with their breasts painted, and above us all the sun, with her magnifying cancers. I gathered my cephalothorax and opithosoma into the car. We both seemed to be panting and could not look each other in the eyes. He called from the sidewalk opposite, “Are you okay?” I gave a vigorous nod and even a thumbs-up. I left Columbus and all its pride.
