Everytime I think I'm through, it's because of you
I tried different ways, but it's all the same
At the end of the day, I have myself to blame.

TLC, "Unpretty"
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This is getting to be pretty easy for me. This. Writing to you, and telling you about it. It's kind of fun, I treat it like a sport. I'd ask, though, if you could respond and critique it, not for content, but rather for literary style and technique. Here we go:

I took the opporunity this weekend to visit the incomparable Kim at her place of work on Coronado "Island". From my parents house, I would take my 4-cylinder down the 5 (from Highway 78) so that I could arrive at 6 dress to the 9's. I was going to have dinner at a restaurant named the Prince of Wales with the Queen of Diamonds. And if I drink the King of Beers, I'll be the Jack of Asses.

The devilish Kim, naturally, has brought me to the most romantic restaurant in San Diego. So I start with a Ketel Tonic. And by the time the she walks into the lobby of the Hotel Del, I was already working on a flute of Chandon. The elegant Kim wore a long caerulean dress, strapless, and a periwinkle wrap that was falling off her shoulders all evening long. Catching glimpses as I sat next to her over dinner, I wondered how many hunters have sinned for that ivory skin.

Of course, her sheer blue-ness only accentuated her fiery hair. Kim has a habit of turning her head such that just the right amount of curls dance across her face, hesitate, and then return to back to the side. She knows how to fire them guns. I used to compare her to an inferno; tonight I will compare her to an earthquake. My destruction was thorough and complete. Kim, the sniper, was armed and dangerous. But I was ready. Again, personal upheaval has replaced my hopelessly romanticized skin with an arrogant layer of Kevlar. Me, the machine gun, was armed and reckless. And I was in a good mood anyway.

Earlier that day, I was out with my mother and her creative accountant. I'm not going to get into the shady details, but let's just say that I'm very happy and wouldn't I look good in a new Lexus?

Dinner with Kim, lately, has become this beautiful balance of food and flirting. It's a sense of zen that has been carefully crafted and tuned over years of toeing the line between that first kiss and that first slap. We begin with a little shit-chat about this and that, work, doctors, drugs, and so on. I press a little about a guy she's was trying (and eventually succeeded) to brush off. He's way too nice, annoyingly so, and puts her up on a pedestal. It forces the pedestalee to walk on eggshells, and eventually grow irritated with the pedestalor. It happened with Kim (over Me, and now That Guy), but I didn't see it until it happened with Me (over Lauren).

That was the folly I've made over the almost a decade of staring into her grey, Athenian eyes. I consider Kim to be my complete equal (I tell her this; she says it's the best and most sincere complement I've ever given her) and therefore if she's on a pedastal, I'm right there with her. I feel like she and I are adept at sparring with each other verbally and flirtatiously, not necessarily trying to beat the other, but constantly testing the other's ability to parry.

You can buy your hair if it won't grow.
You can fix your nose if he says so
You can buy all the makeup that man can make
But if you can't look inside you
Find out who am I to
Be in the position to make me feel so damn unpretty.

I love talking with her about boys from high school who, like me, would take a walk through the dirty rain to the place where the wind calls her name. Over the years, I've always tried to keep tabs on them because I feel as though their lives are a parallel universe of mine, with regards to the unforgettable Kim. I feel as though had I made the wrong decision somewhere, then someone else would be sitting here, eating these appetizers of venison and tagliatelle duck confit, with a $100 bottle of Cornas separating him from the woman who would be the vertex of his life. I would be someone else's story. I would be someone else's email. Your coworkers would be telling you about me.

For Myfanwy, I learned how to tango.
For Emilie, I learned how to cook.
For Kim, I learned how to seamlessly weave sexual innuendo into my conversations.

I've found over time, after listening to the failed advances of many warriors before me, was that finesse is what has separated me from the pack. Invariably, the ease and comfort with which I can tap into the inner spirals of her libido got me invited to dinner tonight, succeeding where others lack the quickness to compete. You may keep letting that wrap trickle off your shoulders: I know how to raise the temperature of the room. The winning approach, if I may give away a part of myself, was that Kim herself exudes a certain sexual energy at all times, and the appropriate response, rather than radiate on one's own, was to capture her energy (cold, dry, witty, sarcastic, and could decimate an ill-prepared man), and then defrost it, season it, and serve it back to her on a plate. Ron, the chef-assassin, is adept in cooking up trouble, and murdering with it.

In fact, just the other day, on some idle Thursday at Crown and Anchor, I was sitting at the bar when this woman pulls up next to me. She seems nice, orders a soup and a half-pint of Tetleys. By the end of the evening, Lydia, a nephrologist from Westlake Village in her mid-fifties, married, was very very drunk and honestly should have taken a cab home.

A nephrologist is a kidney doctor. I had a few drinks before and a few drinks after she eventually meandered out. In a few years, I might be visiting her, so I guess it's good to establish rapport.

Kim is the Queen of Diamonds. I'm the Jack of All-Spades. I take great joy in this flirt fight. It's always worth the trip. Oh yeah, and having Kobe beef for dinner certainly helps. Did I mention that I didn't pay? I'm thanking you for knowing exactly what a boy wants, what a boy needs. We spoke lovingly about the ease with which we got each other's synapses to fire. We even disagree a bit on our marriage plans.

"When is our cutoff? Thirty?"

"I don't know, Ron. Thirty? Thirty-five?"

"I don't remember Thirty-Five."

"Might have been Forty."

"I don't think so. I'd be completely unfuckable by then."

I tell her about the Tier Structure of Friends, and how she used to be a Tier One Friend, but now she's more of a Tier 4+ friend, given that from Coronado, it's easier to go to Tijuana than it is to even get back to my parent's house.

Tier One friends are women into whose pants I'm trying to get.
Tier Two friends are friends who live nearby, namely Carroll and David.
Tier Three friends are all my other friends who live farther away.

So anyway, I tell her she's no longer Tier One, and she expresses her mock disappointment. I'm flustered a bit, and I realize, at that moment, it's because it surprises me as well. Self discovery is a giddy thing, yet it's embarassing when you're in the middle of telling a story. I'll be honest: I think she quickly sensed my sincerity and it helped her to relax. This layer of easiness between us, we then saw, was not synthetic at all, and in that epiphanous moment, it felt as if we were watching destiny unfasten.

She lamented about a future in which she and I are no longer each other's vertex, the point at which our lives changed direction. Kim, the oceanic Kim, the deep and tidal Kimberley Anne, the fulcrum, wondered aloud about our lives to come. She said she's going to miss moments like this once one of us becomes seriously involved in a relationship. My response? "Not unless I propose to you first."