"Love," as defined by the MMC. Also, parts two and three.

I.
Tony's been back in town for two weeks, in an amazing streak of comeback specials, and Shannon and I have taken advantage. Last night, Thursday night, was one of those that "brought us back;" one of those that made me feel like I'd pressed my red heel down on the gas from Mankato speeding up the slick, unlit curves of 169 and thinking that it'd all be worth it.

It wasn't just the music, or the casual energy that comes with slower Thursday nights at the MMC. It was two very incredible people, a married, drunk couple so much in love that neither the fashion of the times nor the embarassment of falling over on the dance floor could stop them. The woman wore a red velvet dress that hit her mid-thigh and that had a sweetheart neckline. The dress was one piece, as though it'd been cut from one swatch of fabric, no definition. The shoulder pads, were, well shoulder pads. She could've been a linebacker if she'd wanted, but instead she wanted to be the spitting image of 1985, wearing pumps that might as well have been worn by the female love interest in Teen Wolf. Her hair a dishwater blonde, maybe permed two years ago, a bit of frazzled, loopy curls remaining.

And she could drink. She slammed her drinks on the rail while standing on the dance floor, and when she wasn't on the dance floor, she was dragging her husband onto the dance floor. When he wouldn't come, sweaty and exhausted from the dance, she'd stand behind his chair, rub her hands on his pudgy chest, and kiss his wet sweat-hair.

The husband, you could tell, danced for her. He was a round ball of a man, looking not like Danny DeVito, but the main character from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? who I always mistook for DeVito when I was younger. Yes, he looked like Bob Hoskins but about 100 pounds heavier. And when he danced, he kicked his short little legs and swung his short arms back and forth. This was comic to watch, really. His limbs like 4 properly placed toothpicks in an orange.

They drew attention to themselves because of her shoulder pads, and his suspenders. As she slammed more shots and he sweat more, the dancing became more intense. At the beginning of the night, she'd noticed that one of his suspenders in the back had come undone. She fixed it, sweetly. By the end of the night, she was snapping them with a sexy, masochistic look in her eye. She'd, by the end of the night, been extending her arm to push herself away from him, all the while keeping the pads of her fingers on his chest, as though she couldn't bear to not touch him. She was moving all over the floor, lifting her hands over her head, which in a short, one-piece dress causes much thigh to be revealed. By the end of the night I was watching her mouth I'm drunk, and watching a sly, short smile form between his chubby cheeks.

And so, I imagined them going home together, however they managed to get home. Walking into their house, with the wood paneled walls, still smelling of stale cigarettes even though he quit a year ago when the doctor told him he didn't have much of a choice. I imagined her pulling her long nightgown out the closet, the nightgown made of cotton, with the capped sleeves, that dragged along the floor and sometimes got caught in her slippers. I imagined them laying down in the bed at exactly the same time, he burping puke burps, craving a sandwich with fresh salami from the fridge, her telling him to just wait for breakfast the next morning. I imagine their bedroom a dark yellow color, thick curtains stained from the same sun they prevent from coming in, lace doilies on the nightstands, under the rectangle black clock radio. They don't have to set it tonight, because it was their night. They took Friday off, and they're sleeping in, which for her is getting up at 8:30 to clean some things up. They fall asleep holding each other, but he snores and she moves her head away, still just keeping one part of her leg near his to physically feel that he is still there.

II.
Dear TSB:

If you didn't play "Purple Rain" anymore, I have to honestly say that I'd be pretty cool with that. While it is a classic cover, and while it is a stand-up song, and while I love listening to Tony's voice echo for that last note of the song, and while the guitar solos are stunning--you don't know what it does to us on the rail. You don't understand that while you're up there, playing that song made so famous by your, um, cousin, that we have to endure what the song does to people.

What does that song do to people, you want to know? Well let me tell you. It gives them license to be disgusting. It's like some sexy version of the "Brown Note" made famous by South Park. But instead of making people all shit themselves at exactly the same time, "Purple Rain" makes people all start making out at the same time. It makes women who wear very, very tight yoga pants with silk see-through dress shirts and dark roots think they are sexy, when in fact they couldn't "sexy" themselves out of a paper bag. It makes their boyfriends and husbands and dance partners think they can run their dirt-caked workman's hands over those women's tiny waists and backsides, slowly and then quickly as they become clearly more aroused.

Yeah, I know. Pretty gross, huh? Watching people grind and gyrate their hips, watching them conveniently place crotch to other person's thigh.

I know this is a pretty ridiculous time to make this request. But I just think you should know that there is a chance your band has caused a lot of men to ruin perfectly good pairs of underwear while out on that dance floor. I mean, if it was me, I'd want to know.

I. Love you guys.

Love,
Jean

III.
I had a dragging, nostalgic day at work today, for absolutely no reason. I was craving the past--and all of it at once. I wanted to swim in pools of Winona; step out into the humid air and sandy shorelines of Mankato to breathe the soybean air. I wanted to go home, exhausted from physical activity, only to lay in bed with pillows of former class syllabi, overtime forensics speeches, those car rides alone down 169 in March, when the spring is like Oh, I'm back and better than ever! Turn up the CCR!

All this from looking over transcripts from my alma maters today while at work, all of it just from glancing down at my ipod to see that a track from a homemade CD Ryan gave me was playing--the CD called, simply March 2005. I saw that and felt as though I'd forgotten that year, somewhere. As though it was my turn to pick 2005 up from soccer practice, and I left it there to watch the sunset and feel the chill of dark move in, while it wondered when I would finally arrive. And what happened to 2002? What was I even doing then? What about those cross-country flights with the speech team, memorizing intros from cramped plane seats? And sure, summer 2004 is a blur as is that weekend I'd spent in Columbia with David and Ryan, walking into patchouli-stinking shops and eating cheese pizza with that weird gay man with the bad teeth, who smelled as though last week he'd smoked weed in the clothes he was wearing. Yes, that's a cloudy memory from, I think, someone else's life. But--what about the summer of 1986? What about the fall of '83? What about 5 years ago, when Ryan and I were sitting on the carpet at King Street, playing cards at 2:00 in the morning trying to get over the awkwardly hot summer, trying to make June pass by? And, eight months ago. What about then, when David and I weren't fighting, weren't metaphorically throwing sharp objects hard at each other's faces from across the room?

What about those years before me that aren't mine but I want to claim anyway? Why am I longing for the long winter of '72? Why am I trying to remember, as though they are there, the warm days of '67 that turned into slow-approaching evenings, those days I spent doing things that I can't remember?

Somehow I got all this life under my belt, all the while thinking: I need to get some life under my belt. (All of this thinking, done to Simon and Garfunkel's "America." It is essential to have a soundtrack.)

It has been a lonely, cold day. Much like what always happens when I'm alone in this house, planes fly low and loud overhead and make everything on these walls rattle.

That should set the scene.