Oct. 28, 2003 @ 10:42 a.m.

Continuing the conversation, she looked at me, over her cup of coffee and my half-frozen fruit smoothie, into my eyes through the sun-shielded version of hers, "You’ve never had someone make you feel beautiful. And Chris, that is NOT your fault." Taken slightly back by the force of such a statement, I didn’t know how to respond, so I asked for her to remove the sunglasses. She did, leaning forward, peering into my as if my entire soul had laid spread out on a bed, completely naked, ready for study by multiple cameras accompanied with tungsten lighting, blazing like tiny fires clinging to the ceiling of a tiny white room. I now felt more vulnerable than a fawn in the midst of a pack of ten thousand wolves. Them proclaiming me to be among friends, at least until the hunger of their insides become too much to bear and I get eaten faster than she can tell me, "I want to make you feel beautiful." My insides begin to droop like honey sliding off the comb as my lips, brain and vocal cords decide to work together in a classy collaboration comprised of one word that quite possibly could be the one to single-handedly ruin the existence of the English language and this moment. "Okay."