It happened so fast.

A friend had asked me to come out, so I did. I saw her, said hello, but she was sitting by the stage, and the band was loud and terrible. I walked away, said hello to others. I don’t fully remember. But when I come to again, I'm already speaking to her.

I have no idea what I'm saying (I never do), but she’s laughing. Cacophonous. Cack-ah-fo-nuss. She laughs, “Why do you even know that word?” (I have no idea.) In between laughs she says things—they’re funny and amusing; she's funny and amusing. I can’t stop looking at her face, absorbing it. She has freckles. I don't have a good record with freckles. Freckles mean trouble; I always fall for girls with freckles. Her hair is dyed jet-black. I'll spend the rest of the night looking at her lips—which is strange. I never notice lips. But there's something about hers.

"I may marry you in two to four years," I say.
She laughs, "Really?"
"Yes, really.” (She laughs again.) “You can laugh, but we need to start making arrangements."
"Already? What's there to do?"
"Get to know one another; for which I will need your number. And probably coffee. I've decided we're going to be great friends."

Now we're sitting on some couches away from the band. The conversation hasn't stopped once. We're talking about Africa or quantum physics or electronic music. I'm still obsessed with her lips. I'd go to war for those lips. She shows me her pink nail polish. She has tiny hands. I put mine up against hers to compare—mostly I'm just looking for excuses to touch her. I can't let go of her, so I start talking about all the uncomfortable hand-holding positions I've encountered. I demonstrate them for her, so I can keep holding her hand.

Her friend stands over us. "Come have coffee with us," she says to me. (We're still sitting on the couch.)
"Honestly, I'd love to. If you don't mind me tagging along, I'm keen fo' sho'."
She smiles. Her friend smiles, too.

Two days later, I'm driving home alone. That's when it hits me—not that the interaction was unusual but that, for me, it was unique. I call a friend and we talk it over at the sushi-train.

"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying, my therapist would just include this as yet another example of my being addicted to connection… to connectedness... to connectivity… something like that."
"Aren't they all the same?"
"Dunno."
"Is it a problem?"
"That's what I said! What's the big deal? Why can't I be addicted to connection? I mean, why bother being alive if you don't want to saturate yourself in humanity?"
"Exactly."
"Beyond that, it makes me feel human. And...”
"Yeah… I know." [She does know… she knows everything.]
"Yeah."

What she knows is that I don't always feel human. Sometimes, I feel like I don't really exist. But then, from time to time, you have a random conversation with someone, and it's different. It's not two people exchanging words and ideas, opinions, and stories; it doesn't feel like two people formulating things to say in response to one another. The conversation just is, like the precipitation reactions we did in high school chemistry. Start with this, add a couple of drops of that other thing, and you get the colored pigment. What fun.

I can't help but think certain conversations always existed, as potential-energy or a statistical likelihood. Like discovering a natural phenomenon. Like putting your note into the Wailing Wall. Or stepping into a river, just like God-knows-who did before you. This conversation existed. Always has. Every pair of best-friends, husbands-and-wives, boyfriends-and-girlfriends, lovers, just-met-tonight-first-kissers belonged to this conversation. Sometimes it's spoken aloud, but it can be conducted in silence too. Sometimes smiling at a random stranger will qualify. A few jokes with the girl behind the gas station counter. Strangers on a bus. Whatever, wherever. You know it when it happens because you feel spoken to (not at). And you hear. 

I am driving, and I start to contemplate her lips again. There's a particular kiss I'm looking for. Essentially, it's just another version of that awesome conversation—it can exist as kisses, too—as any form of physical contact. So I'm looking for this kiss. It's been eluding me lately. I've been kissing a bit, but they're all slightly off the mark. There's one in particular I'm after.

I could text her. The phone's right there. I said I would. So I could. I'm terrified the whole thing will collapse into a cat-and-mouse game. Me waiting three days before I text. Her getting back to me four hours later with some aloof response. Back-and-forth. Cat-and-mouse. (Mostly I’m terrified I was wrong and misread the whole thing.)

My homework: Call, dammit.

Your homework: Remember a part of that conversation, the continuous one. Relive it here.

:: a penny for the old guy