Love & Flying Saucers
9.1.2008

Broadway Street is shockingly empty at 11:45 on a Friday night. The sound of a car passing on a late summer evening is reminiscent of Ogden Avenue in my home town where Michelle & I often lay on the warm pavement of my driveway, closing our eyes and pretending the rush of intermittent cars were waves. Tonight Megan's bicycle is whirring between my knees & I am following Sarah's red blinking light attached to her messenger bag. We are blipping little red lights passing under the north side of Chicago's Weiss Memorial. The summer air is perfect- has been all night- gentle breeze extending itself no more than 75 degrees.


I am riding Goldie- a bicycle Sarah and Megan attribute traits to similar to how jockeys talk about their equine. "She's an easy, dependable ride," Megan told me earlier that evening, handing me one of those helmets that is unapologetically a helmet . "The best bike I've ever ridden," Sarah adds. Sarah's big on safety so we have every safety precaution available on the market- blinker, cell phone, helmet, and lock- tucked away in our bags. In the early evening we took a short ride from Megan & Sarah's home in Edgewater to Lakeview where a few other girls & I poured red wine, delicious chicken, guacamole, and feta/tomatos into our tummies. Our common ground: Twilight , an adolescent guilty pleasure that advanced our delight in high school love & vampires. Friends: family friends, new friends, and very, very beloved old friends. It is a beautiful evening.


When I love somebody, it is phsyically hard to let them go. I imagine all my loved ones as little flying saucers out there-- some permanently stationed far far away and some just orbiting for the weekend. They are the tips of my tenticles that I stretch out across the country. When they call, they light up that part of my world. I imagine my world map of loved ones to resemble a spy tool from the seventies- each person is a little light and when my phone rings, that little light glows on my map. Friday night my map was aglow and at the end of it all, I was following a little blinking satellite of a friend I hope to love forever and forever.

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