2:44 pm | 13 November 2003 | ...later that day

AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

2:38pm

After a while you hope to whittle down your flaws to a level that's manageable. I have a habit of publicly enumerating them but, whether consciously or un-, listing the ones that could, by the right people, be interpreted as charming, laughing but nobody wants a girl who's always got paint on her elbows into my beer. I like people's flaws best, too, but it's a selection, like my elbows, or the way I do sad slow organ-accompanied covers of unlikely songs (most recently I am working on "Ms. Jackson" by Outkast). People's real flaws take some getting used to, and it's a battle between acceptance and wanting to change. Just because I am always late doesn't mean I don't love you. The way I feel spans a longer distance than twenty minutes. And so I try to keep that in mind for you, too, having to step away from self-focus and create an invisible devil's advocate for you, standing beside you, because for you defense is not an option. But it's like playing chess against yourself: an exercise in delusion, in simultaneous egotism and masochism. Even as you decapitate their queen, you know you secretly want black to win. clm.