"Hi Marco. It's Sara. I thought I'd call to say hi."

There was a sort of choking noise, and I thought, Oh! He's thrown up, and I was about to put the receiver down when Marco said, "Sorry, I got a piece of apple stuck in my throat. How are you?"

I said, blurting, "I'm fine do you want to go for a drink?"

He replied, " Are you talking about me going into the kitchen for a glass of water, or do you meant going out for a drink drink?"

I said I wasn't clear what a drink drink was, but I just thought maybe we might spend a bit of time together if that wasn't too... too...

By then my voice was trailing off, and my resolve was disappearing fast. I thought I might pass out any second.

Then he said, "I was hoping that's what you meant, but I didn't want to make an idiot of myself. When do you want to meet?"

This is an excerpt from The Venetian's Wife by Nick Bantock, author of the best-selling book Griffin and Sabine. The Venetian's Wife has a lot of similarities with Griffin and Sabine: the bridging of time and place, one of the protagonists is contacted by the other, whom she does not know, but who seems to be able to read her mind, and the use of communication tools to tell a story. Anyway I just wanted to tell you that the above excerpt is one of my favorite parts in the book. I just love playing this scene in my mind over and over, silently cheering for Sara to ask Marco out and laughing out loud at their uneasiness with their situation. Somehow I admire Sara for what she did; I don't think I'll be able to do that (asking a guy out), not in a million years.

La lang.

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I have two friends who broke up with their respective gfs. One had a 3-month relationship with his gf; the other 9 years. With this in mind, I just realized that you could never guarantee the outcome of your relationship. What you can do at the moment is to love him/her with all you have because you'll never know when one or both of you falls out of love or when the situation changes and one of you has to let go of the other. Scary noh?

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Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you?

Why can't I speak whenever I talk about you?



-- Liz Phair, Why Can't I?