Dear Robbi [an excerpt]

You may admire this trait of mine, this ability to love -to drown in it as quick as Jack drowned in the icy waters of the Titanic's Atlantic. My brain shuts down, like so, and my heart and it's veins and vessels do the thinking. It's a dangerous way to live, this, but I cannot and will not attempt to control it. How can one resist the flowery goodness, the lavender and lilac of love? Especially, as you noted, the beginnings of it - when the seed has been planted and the young, wet, sinewy stem reaches the surface of the dirt and it's form is in plain view? And I don't blame you for fearing the wilty side, the other side of love, where you have to work hard to hold tightly to the fading pink petals - to keep it lively, to keep it lovely. When there is a fertilizer made for this, find me, bring it to me, tell me! Because the first years of love can be the best years of our lives - but the rest won't be so bad - not for people like you and I. We'll color it with those lavender purples and rosy pinks - no matter what - we'll smear our petals on the walls of our lives and never ever let them be eggshell or beige.