Tape 2, side 1

Today we talked about her father and the way her boyfriends are reoccurring nightmares that always resemble the Sylvia Plath poem Daddy. I'm unsurprised by this bit of information, seeing as her instability in intimate relationships sent her to me in the first place. I have started to condition her to resist self-destructive urges in dealing with other people. The key, I told her, was to listen closely to the things they repeat over and over again. These are the important things, the things that float around in their heads, kept aloft by adipose tissue and a chemical cocktail that even I can't replicate. Find these things, and memorize them. Repeat them over and over again. Mention them in their company as often as possible but never make the inference seem forced. It has to seem natural. Speak as frequently as possible about the time you went to a wedding and saw a clock made out of a wagon wheel, about how you laughed at the same joke once, that you both often wear jeans. It is vital to reinforce sameness, uniformity. That is how people fall in love, I told her. And once they are convinced of it, it is easy to convince yourself that this was how it was supposed to be all along. His thoughts are now your thoughts and the chemical cocktail pickling your brain is full of the same useless, repetitive material as his. This is exactly how things are supposed to be. This is what we talked about until our time was finally up.

Dancing Squid

This is one of my favorite times of day. The early morning shadows hint at the so recently breached night and the filmy, pale light of day encroaches ever closer, ever farther into their hazy territory. The fog has not yet lifted from the endless miles of farmland, its frosty murk seeming more like a pool of dreams than a congregation of water. The squirrels on the hill I know so well are startled to see me here so early. I am interrupting their morning routine, just as you are interrupting mine.

I think about you often now. Last night you told me people take life too seriously, that it is impossible to plan for everything. Though you didn't say it, I know you were talking about me. I know you're right. I look at the sharping edges of light on the sidewalk and ponder this. It is ironic that you, of all people, should comment on this to me. I wonder, do you know that I'd never planned on you? Isn't it funny that the one thing I take seriously is the thing that seems most improbable, most absurd? This makes me smile as much as it worries me.

When I told you about dancing squid, the delicacy made by decapitating a live squid and pouring scalding hot broth over its body, you were intrigued, maybe even amused. I told you I think such a practice is barbaric and cruel. You paused and then said the squid was dead and the mechanical jerking of its limbs, its frantic headless attempt to escape the scorching broth and its throne of noodles, all of it was merely electrical impulses. It could not sense the pain it felt. Inexplicably, I felt the desperate desire to ask if you believe in soulmates but as the silence blossomed between us, the words dissolved like salt on my tongue.

Online dating is for mid-thirties career women who like cats and want someone to play Scrabble with. So, me in ten years.