As usual it's been ups and downs for me, my mind, and my body. The weekend was terrible....I don't even remember it, but I'm sure it was awful. But yesterday I felt something I don't think I've felt since I was maybe eighteen years old. I had to go return some DVDs to the local Blockbuster, and as I was standing in line to rent more videos ("X-Men 2" and "Pirates of the Carribean"), I noticed a girl working the register that I had never seen before. She looked a few years younger than I..I wasn't sure if she was in school or not. It's too early for winter break. Maybe she goes to a local community college? Maybe she studies fine arts and likes jazz and is a vegetarian for all the right reasons? I didn't find out. I just prayed that I would end up at her register. And I did. She was so stunning, so beautiful and pure, that I'm pretty sure I was blushing when she was ringing up my movies. "This movie's so much fun!" she said, smiling, cradling the box for "Pirates of the Carribean" in her soft, perfect hands. I melted inside. Oh, sweet girl. I would take such good care of you. Sweet dove, like I've never ever seen before. Why are you here? It smells awful and the televisions playing "Finding Nemo" on them emit this awful constant drone. You're too good for this. I'd take you away...we'd run away together. Spend the winter in a cabin in Vermont or New Hampshire, on a lake, with lots of firewood and a little market down the street so I could cook you fresh pasta and make you wonderful salads every night. I'd touch your face and kiss your lips and hold you and protect you and write you poetry and make nude sketches of your perfect body, lit only by the fireplace. I'd never yell at you and we'd never fight and I wouldn't have to drink or do drugs to be happy anymore. I'd stop being so angry at everything and everyone. I'd find absolute peace in you and I'd become the man I've always dreamed of being. Please let me take you away. I'm pretty sure we were talking...having a conversation at the register. Maybe about the movie? I was saying the right things...I got some giggles out of her. She was amazing. But shit. I already had a girlfriend. But I'm pretty sure I don't love her. God, that smile. Then suddenly it wasn't a smile...not a sincere one anyway. It was forced, impatient. "Um...That's eleven dollars and twenty three cents." Reality came back to me, as did the smell and the horrible electric buzzing noise. "Uh? Oh. Sorry. Um...You'd hate me if you knew me. I am the worst kind of human being," I told her. Then I left, and my world returned to shit.