For the record

I was just falling asleep to Freefallin' and felt compelled to write about loving her. I never did this with Lauren and couldn't even remember the sensation of missing her later, let alone the little moments that mattered. The women I loved before that... well. It was before blogs.

And as intense as this was, as troubled and crazy, and chaotic, I love her -- am still in love with her -- and it felt fucking great while it lasted. When I fall out of love with her, when she moves from a near-obsession to that girl I still miss sometimes and wonder about, I won't remember this stuff.

Her smell. I wish I could capture it in words. I don't remember how any girl smells. She wore Angel and some other fruity fragrance with a name I couldn't spell. There was a faint muskiness when I kissed her neck. Her shampoo was subtle and unique. She only seldom put too much on and I almost never got a mouthful of alcohol. The vague odor of her laundry detergent, mixed with perfume, shampoo, and her own pheromones... sigh.

She really liked it when I used my teeth, nibble-style, on her neck. A biting motion with lots of teeth, but no pressure.

Her right nipple was pierced. She liked it when I licked or nibbled it, but I preferred biting her left. Hard enough to make her wince.

She let me spoon her with my arm right under her head. She liked it better, actually, I think. A perfect fit, because I have shoulder problems and there are only a couple of ways I can lay that way for more than a few minutes. I don't think she ever realized it hurt the other way... it just worked.

That thing she said about Freefallin'. "He does too miss her. He's singing about her, isn't he?"

Cloudy with a Change of Meatballs. Her movie. She said "it's so us! You have to watch it." I did. We never saw it together.

"You wanna call me back when you can give me your full attention?" So bitchy. So assertive. So hot.

The way she stroked my head, running her fingers through my hair. Sometimes she'd end up adjusting how it looked, but she was only playing with it most of the time.

That smile. The I'm in love, carefree, there's nothing in the world but this man in front of me, timeless, pure smile. I've almost forgotten it already. That makes me really sad.

How she talked about silly stuff randomly when we were being serious. "My toes look great today!" huh? Weren't we talking about my house in foreclosure? But it was distracting and funny almost all of the time. I snickered just now, remembering. I wonder if it was on purpose or if she was just that self-involved. I suppose I didn't really mind either way, because she was still listening often enough.

How it felt just "being" together. It only happened a couple of times... when she stayed over, back in the early days. There was one time when I was self-conscious about focusing on my work, but I kept looking over at her, and she was engaged in whatever she was doing. Working too. Reading. Both. For a moment in time, there, we were a real couple, stress-free with each other, solace from the world outside created just by being together. I wish we'd had that experience more often. There's so little to hold on to.

Jumping into my arms. The first time at the ballpark. She did it a couple of times after that. One time was in my house, she was half dressed, and we were just lounging around, and she crawled/hopped across the bed to surprise me. I even stumbled backwards a little bit, commenting in surprise. God, that felt good. She had her magic smile on, with just a little impishness added in for flavor, and embraced me even as she feared I didn't have her for the briefest of split seconds. She was really happy that day. I think we had just gotten back together for the first time. It was a Monday.

Martinis. From that very first one at 1515 to our last at Lukas... except for that awful wet one we sent back that Friday when we reconnected for the first time in weeks... the bar by the theatre downtown. By the paramount. I don't remember the name. They were all good except that one. I remember the Hangar martinis we got at that Italian place on Solano. I remember the dirty belvies at Lukas. I remember the Ketel basics we had at 1515, the belvies in Lafayette afterwards, and the

That damn tree in Lafayette. She wanted me to shut her up about the tree by kissing her. But I didn't. I asked about Phil instead. Maybe I should have. She'd have pushed me away, then, because I just wanted in her pants. But I was a good man. And we were drunk. I had nothing to prove and a dry mouth, and I didn't know I loved her then.

Fonda. The tortilla I dropped on the floor. How she said "yes" on my behalf when the waitress asked if I needed another one of those magical margarita-tinis. How she looked at me, head cocked to one side, smiling and staring, falling more in love every minute. We were both sooo tired, yet so connected, so present. There was only us in the whole world that night... never mind the external, the crowded restaurant, the worries of the day. And she stayed. Wait... no, she didn't. She fell asleep in my arms but got up and went home at 1 or 1:30. Humph. Even the perfect memories had the scourge of reality somewhere, didn't they?

"Shut up and put your dick in me". 'nuff said, I suppose. She said it just last night. But it wasn't the first time. It varied, a little, but that assertive bitchiness that would occasionally be over the top during the day was just about the hottest thing I'd ever heard.

The coffee shop around the corner from my office on her bad days. She would come, and I'd order a medium nonfat mocha, and she'd order... a small nonfat latte. Or that really bad day when she got a hot chocolate. And we'd sit together, and she'd drift toward sitting "un-ladylike" and constantly have to adjust her skirt and position.

Starbucks after meeting with C21. The sensation of loving her was still new then, and the idea that she'd be around for awhile was still the stuff of naivete for me, then. I remember not knowing what to make of her forceful attraction, of her outspoken comments about Juan's looks, about the deal, about how watching me work turned her on. She was tired that day, and just stared at me. Through me. I couldn't tell if she was daydreaming or dissecting my soul. Her look was blank, but still present. She didn't smile, she just stared, commenting on tiny superficial things like the temperature of the coffee. She was still getting used to me, then, too. She used to ask "are you for real?" and "what's wrong with you? where's your fatal flaw?" in those days.

"Perfect. For me." She used to say that. I would say something semi-narcissistic in that jokingly self-aggrandizing way, and she'd deny it from me. "No, [Alfie], you're not perfect. You're cocky and arrogant and self-righteous. But you are perfect. For me." I miss that almost as much as I miss her curves.

"I am NOT petite." She said this to the Nordstrom girl that helped us find a pair of jeans for her the day we went to the ballgame. She stuck her ass out a little, in her black skirt, and pointed at it. It made me laugh.

Standing up and leaning over the table to kiss me. There was one time when I was just babbling about how much I wanted to be with her. It was the day her separation papers were signed, I think, in Dublin, at that fusion joint. We had Ketel martinis that day and she stood up, quickly, and full on leaned over to kiss me. I didn't even lean in because I didn't see it coming. It was a Friday, the same day we went to the ball game.

The first time we had sex in her car. Havana. Parking structure. She kept bumping her head on the ceiling. Lol.

Sneaking kisses when we thought no one was looking. Like at the Lake on our walk on some random weekday. Or the ballpark when we thought kk wasn't looking.

"I wish I could just go home with you tonight." When going home was an obligation pending the day of truth, not just an obligation.

"It's so easy to imagine a future with you." Bette's. That kitchen place. Cookware. Art. We met that weird art lady that day! I forgot about her. Her art was terrible! But the pastel-ish birds up front were awesome. There were four... three little ones and one big one. And the art fell of the wall for no reason.

Talking about weddings at Bette's. I remember conveying that I wanted the wedding she'd already had, that I was jealous that ours wouldn't be special. We went back and forth for awhle, with her suggesting several alternatives, like a smaller deal in a far away land (Paris). I kept going back to cigars with the boys. She finally said that we could do both. Both could work. "Worst case, we'll just do it twice." That was the only breakfast we ever had together. Real breakfast anyway... Sunday mornings with your mate after waking up next to each other.

"Our bed." That happened just a few days ago, on Friday. And referring to my city, not hers, as "where we live". She did stuff like that a lot, actually. The first time she told me she loved me was by mistake. She never did realize it, and I never told her. "Cooking is how I show love". Awww. :-( She never did cook for me.

Her laugh. She got my nerd humor, and would laugh from her belly. A real laugh, not a superficial one. Sometimes she would crack up so much at something I said I'd have to go over my words in my head to see if I missed out on some unintentionally clever pun. There usually weren't, she just adored my sense of humor.

"I'm smarter than you." The only person in the world who ever got away with saying it. It was part of her charm to face things that she felt insecure about head-on. Her way of beating them. I think by saying it, she made it true in her mind. And that made everything ok... we were equal because she asserted that. It always made me wince a little, but snicker at the same time. I held the snicker a lot... I didn't want it to be construed as "yeah right," instead of simply what it was... acknowledgement that I was appreciative of her. And her brain.

Her smell again. Already it feels far away. Already I can't remember it. Sigh.

La Note. The day we made love for the first time. We sat in the sunshine in the back, and it was a tiny bit awkward. We had made out the night before, and we almost did the deed. But she held back, stopping me, saying she was scared. Then she asked me to lunch the next day. I paid. I think it was the first lunch I paid for, too... before then she had picked it up because we work together. Or we'd gone dutch as friends. "Let's get out of here and go have great sex all afternoon." I think that's what she said. I wasn't sure until it actually happened that we were going to go there.

Watching her present to a group. BNI that day was... I dunno. I was tired, and she had ruffled my feathers about a stupid pen, and I really wanted to show affection when I saw her, and I felt uncomfortable. But when she got up to speak, time stopped. That's my girl, I remember thinking. I get her brains and her body. Mmmm. Maybe I should've appreciated her heart that day instead. I suppose I wasn't sure I actually had it that day... it was right after she had pushed me away the first time. She wasn't wearing her wedding ring.

The first night I bought her Vueve. We missed dinner and ended up eating at Coquelet after seeing Get Him to the Greek. We missed dinner because... um. 40 minutes. I'll get it when I read this a year from now. "There are three things," she said. "Vueve, chocolate, and [Alfie]."

When she called me from her church parking lot. It was early, probably the last week of May. It was really fun listening.

Her lesson on unconditional love. Her commitment to having it for me, even when she thought I didn't for her. I'm still not sure I know what it means, nor how to get it, nor if, when I find it, it will be real. But I do know that once she so believed in us that she promised to wait for me if I found someone else while she dealt with her marriage. "I'll be there, waiting for you, because I believe in us. Because that's what you do when you love somebody the way I love you."

I wonder how long I'll believe. I wonder how long I'll wait.

(can't help it)