Huh. "Pictures of You" is up on Peg's mp3 player.

There was a five-year period of my life where that song would break me completely. I would have had to leave the room. Today, it's just another song, and that feels really good.

Second girlfriend, basically. She hung out with a bunch of goth-pagans out in the suburbs of Cleveland. (If any of you recognize the name Michelle Balinger or House Kheperu, yes _those_ pagans...) They never liked me, but I ended up at a lot of their parties.

That was the song playing the morning after one of them, as I lay sprawled there next to my ex, who we'll just call Dreamsnake, and pondered how it was probably the last time I would ever be next to her.

It was. And that's completely and utterly okay with me. I am head over heels for the dragoness, and meanwhile Dreamsnake moved to Texas with some marine and went Full Libertarian. Like, she was quoting "sovereign citizen" bullshit at me last time we talked, and lecturing me about how the basic principle of American democracy is "winner takes all."

It feels so good to look back down that road and never want to travel it again.