Dear Noodlehead,

As you may have noticed, I was cranky this afternoon. Pouting, cuz I hadn't eaten anything other than oatmeal, and oatmeal, I offhandedly remarked to you, is for horses.

Ok. Maybe it isn't. At the time, I wanted something substantial travelin' towards my stomach but I was fuming over yer Blue Heeler, who was lunging for the kittens hissing bushytailed atop the sofa, and the fact that even the one task I was hoping to accomplish (visiting Happy Donuts on Church) seemed really ambitious for us lazy and lovers.

And Jose didn't look too happy as he slowly and surely paced the lit length of his glass menagerie. No lettuce for him, not til his caretaker excavates the spare (fingers crossed) change in her denim backpocket.

Aw geez. He kinda reminded me of this black bear I saw in a zoo in Paris, standing in a corner of his pit, shaking his head at nothing, nothing in particular, it seemed. Or compelled, maybe, by a hunger I could only imagine.

Anyways, now I'm not cranky. Thanks to three cuppsa coffee, Hershey kisses, half a vanilla ice cream sandwich and bites purloined from greasy Thai dishes on 18th and Mission, courtesy of David and Fernanda. Hmm, and to my skin; it borrows light, remembering the nearness that dazzles, the startling proximity of many other bodies.

Basement heads bobbing to the sounds that tightly gripped sticks make when thundering across drumskin.

The self-conscious shuffle of limbs when sprawled awkwardly across a pillow-tossed floor as lanky projections hazily dance across a screen.

On the floor above our heads, unseen feet roused racket. I thought of the other bodies, the bodies I couldn't see. Wouldn't it be neat to hold a performance in a very old hotel room? A fury of sounds issuing forth from the surrounding rooms as projections glazed cream walls. Raise the dead, indeed.

Oh, and one more: then there was one carefully cast gaze that I caught - it wasn't for me, but for another, lissome lass in the corner, whose cheekbones flamed scarlet, blood riled suddenly.

I thought of you, only hours earlier. Fernanda commented, You two look like you are definitely having fun. I only smiled.

Tomorrow, donuts.

Always,
Phil

p.s. At Build, I looked behind me and saw you, with your eyes closed, darkness nesting below the lashes. Beautiful, I thought, marveling at how easily you surrendered, while I - even surrounded by the dazzlingness of bodies - still withheld. Detached, even then. . . . Perhaps a clue, for both of us, to why I love you.

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