People don't live big picture lives. They hunker down safely in their small little world, staring at their feet as they put one in front of the other over and over again. And there's sense in that, you know, because the big picture will paralyze you. It will grab you by the balls and whisper taunts hotly into your ears. Because really, none of this makes any sense: no purpose, no meaning, no unifying essence, nadda. And then you lay down in the dirt. And the ride isn't all roses. Your friends die. Your family dies. You get sick, lose a limb maybe.

Listen: Love is not even the right word for what this thing is. It is a strange magic. A glow that alights on your features suddenly, a warm haze that transforms you entirely. One minute, you are just a girl. And the next...

At some point painful relevance springs up uninvited like weeds. A stabbing little squeeze around my heart that highlights objects, actions, music and more with a hollow memory of your presence. A gut wrenching absence of your smell, your voice, your glittering eyes.

This is not what I wanted.

Dearest Laura,

This isn't supposed to read like an apology, baby, so don't go getting any ideas. Let me say this before I go any further: There's something about your hips, and something about the small of your back that drives me wild. And maybe when it all blows over you'll think back and say that after seven years of squeezing this turnip the best I could do was some terrible line about your hips and about your back. Well, if that's the case I'd have to say you just don't understand men, or maybe even people at all.

Money machines cost money that you don't have until you build a machine to get you that money.

And well, plainly put, that's a little disconcerting.

That's one of the reasons that I figured I'd spin this dream cocoon to live in. But it's not the only one. You see, in here it's soft and silky, and the sunlight just barely worms its way in glowing with the softest golds and whites. In here, there's not too much to worry about.

I've been dreaming a lot about you recently. Well, you and this girl I went to high school with. She has a husband and a kid now, you know. Maybe two kids, even. I used to spend a lot of time with her when I was sixteen or so. She was incredibly beautiful, and I of course played the anguished fool admitted into her innermost confidence solely because of my timidity, my awkwardness, and my not even registering as a possible romantic interest.