I mentioned something about a review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, didn't I?

Well, tough titty, kids. The movie didn't inspire me to come home and write about it. It inspired me to come home, drop Wilco into Fritz the Amazing Monophonic Stereo, pour myself a glass of port that's been breathing since the 16th, and write about the kind of stuff that really matters. So, in lieu of a proper review, I give you three (3) facts about Eternal Sunshine:

1) You ought to go see it. If you don't, fuck you where you breathe;
2) When the house came down I was weeping. Not just crying, mind you, but riding my way through wretched, throat-clutching sobs as silently as I could while tears streamed down through the fingers I had clamped over my nose in an attempt to keep the snot from pouring down my lip and onto my chin;
3) Damn it! I forget...but it was something important. It wasn't just "Passion of the Fucking Who?" or "Charlie Kaufman is a genius," or "Kate Winslet is really fucking hot!" or "Christ on a unicycle, Jim Carrey really can act!" No.... No, it was something much less tangible. Something about memory, maybe. Or identity, and the way it can simultaneously imply difference and similarity.

Anyway, enough about movies. There's real life out there, folks. And it simply must be lived.

I fell in love today. Serious, breathtaking, worldchanging love. I have no idea what her name is, but she's way too young for me and has the most lovely long and glossy dishwater blonde hair, bright and liquid blue eyes, flawless skin, no upper lip to speak of topped by the faintest feathery fuzz of a blonde fem-mustache. Her mouth was small and her cheekbones were high and her neck was long and her body was compact and curvy and looked like it was soft and generous in all the right places. She was direct and wellspoken and looked me in the eyes unselfconsciously while we spoke and she smiled but didn't giggle or fidget and she had a British accent--my god!--a melodious and lilting British accent that made my heart fly against my ribcage like a moth against a lamp and during our whole conversation of three minutes--and for 20 minutes after! Twenty-three brilliant and coolly glacial minutes!--I could think of nothing but how I loved her more and more purely than any woman or person I'd ever met in the entire world. Twenty-three minutes of sheer, wondrous bliss at her beauty, and at the thought that my heart could still react to that beauty. Twenty-three minutes of a perfection that, for all that it's gone now, continues to make me grin like a fool when I remember it.

Will I ever see her again? No. Will I ever feel that exuberant in her presence again? Most assuredly not. Do I love her, right now? Hard to say; it's impossible to separate my current emotions regarding this absent woman from the memory of the 23 minutes of joy I felt this afternoon.

And, truth be told, I don't care to.