lampposts and Aeroplanes

When you're drunk and you encounter a lamppost, and you touch your face to it and start kissing it, and you gently stroke the back of the pole as if you're touching the back of her neck, who do you imagine that it is?

Don't actually answer that question in the comments or anything. The point is, that's who you're in love with. And since it's just a lamppost and not her, she probably doesn't know. Which, given the circumstances, is how it has to be.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, by Neutral Milk Hotel, is probably my favorite album of all time. So much of the album seems to be expressing a need for closeness with other people -- most strikingly, a little Jewish girl who died in the Holocaust and whom we all read about in 7th grade, but when Jeff Mangum read about her he was overwhelmed by grief. When I want to be closer than possible to people, it's all I want to listen to.

And here's where your mother sleeps
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore
And it's so sad to see the world agree
That they'd rather see their faces filled with flies
All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes