All a-glitter, all aglow

Back then we went to parties. On Fridays and Saturdays there were parties to go to. Not every weekend, but often enough so there was always something on the horizon. At the parties there were couples and those looking to form one or recover from one. Just below the surface noise of the parties - the animated conversations, the laughter, the always-present, carefully chosen music, there was a hum or a buzz and for me the hum was the chords of the future.

I like to watch. I've always been a watcher. I don't recommend it as a way to live but there it is. And so at these parties I observed. At one of these parties I sat off to the side engaged in a conversation with a woman I knew and liked. I liked her because she was smart and sexy and interesting to talk to. She was always one beat ahead of me. But we weren't that way and that made the talking even easier.

What I want to say is that as we talked I watched her, though it felt more like absorption. It felt as if I was seeing everything she wasn't saying. And what she wasn't saying was this: more than anything she wanted to be married, and she had him picked out and it was only a matter of time. And it was.