this is a love letter.

sometimes, a mountain goats song will come on shuffle that i've either never actually heard before, or have just glossed over in the past, and it feels like it's not only the first time i've ever heard the mountain goats, but the first time i've ever heard music and certainly the first time i've ever heard someone say something meaningful and pretty and honest.

the songs are usually b-sides, though i guess that goes without saying. it revives all these "b-side" moments in my life, these tiny details that go unnoticed and forgotten, that hollywood exaggerates for people just a little bit prettier and a little but more naieve: listening to 'tallahassee' in my underwear and jumping on my bed when my roommate went home for the weekend and i opened the windows for the first time all year, watching almost invisible dust dance around the room. drinking naranja jarritos out of the bottle with a paper straw that glued itself shut, holding it with one hand and a cute boy grabbing the other one for the first time while walking down hamilton street in unseasonable november weather. thirty small children in an artists' colony in delhi swarming around you, screaming hello through broad mouthed smiles, white teeth against dark skin against dirty hands trying to shake yours as professionally as small naked businessman, but more organically excited. small temples where small men hand out crysanthmum flowers and tie red string around your wrists in cool twilight. watching 'the life aquatic' and falling asleep on someone's shoulder, waking up mad that the jaguar shark wasn't a dream but maybe more mad that it was a dream, just not one that i had ever had, and finding solace when we stood outside the theater in lincoln center on opening day, mitten to mitten, and kissed with our eyes open for the first time, collapse in giggles on the subway, and back to sleep on each others' shoulders when we finally make it home, together, for the first time or at least what felt like it.

things can just be so visual sometimes, or aural, or just numbingly real. i think i'm going to move somewhere cold for the winter and learn to appreciate something new everyday.