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2008-06-24 - 1:54 p.m.

If the Black Keys track "Strange Times" doesn't watch it, it just might get played really, really loud on my headphones later today.

Grocery store scene: At the Super Fresh the other day, on 41st Street in Hampden, we were watching the lady ring up our coffee and sharp cheddar and nectarines and when she got to the Freschetta-brand frozen pizza, she smiled.

"You like these?"

My girlfriend nodded and I said yeah, they were pretty good.

"The other day, I looked down, and the next thing I knew, my Freschetta was all gone." She kept running boxes and bags of stuff across the scanner device. "I thought to myself, damn, this is almost as good as DiGiorno."

We laughed.

"So I thought, well, I'm gonna give it the ultimate test. I got a Freschetta and a DiGiorno, and let me tell you, DiGiorno is the ultimate best. It's DiGiorno. I know, because I put them to the ultimate test."

In other, non-frozen-pizza-related news, the first girl I really loved is getting married, I just found out. She's been engaged before ("There was no ring," she said after that didn't work out) but this one seems to be the real deal. I wonder: once you fall for someone, really go for them, feet and ass and baseball cap, is it possible to stop loving somebody? How many of us are out there? We are a tribe, I suppose, all of us with layers and layers that come to light only under rare circumstances. Or maybe we're not so clever at hiding it as we think.

When I was in grad school, one night she called real late and we talked for a while. We did that a lot (for being ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend): maybe once a month. After a while, she asked me to read her something. I was lying on my back and the only book I could reach with my toes was an oversized children's book about a summer house's friendly ghost who befriends a dickhead mouse while the family is away for the winter. It was a favorite when I was a kid. I think maybe it belonged to my dad. Anyway, I read it to her and by the end, I could tell from her breathing that she was asleep. And at the end, I gently woke her up even though she was in New York and she giggled and said thanks and went back to sleep.

A friend emailed with this news about the engagement today. And I know, in my head, that it wouldn't work and all of that, of course. I know because I tried to make it all happen again, a couple of times, and she wasn't having it, though the warmth was still there. And one time, a few years ago, maybe she was the one who was trying, but I wasn't able to do it. And other secrets have revealed themselves since that time, too, painful ones, ones that sting and hurt because maybe she didn't love me as much as I loved her, or thought I did. And so she's getting married and I hope the guy's fantastic. I can't, however, say I'd like to learn about any of the details. I hope that doesn't put me on the bad list, the big one.

It's hunger that keeps us going, I suspect, and a natural thing. Natural to feel this way, maybe. A natural thing, maybe, and maybe that makes it bearable. Maybe my head can win the arm wrestling match with the other parts.

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