Had dinner with Andrea at a new Italian restaurant around the corner from her. The slate sign on the sidewalk read, "Now open Tuesdays." We were there alone and the place had the forlorn, eager air of a long-neglected inn along an obscure road, where stagecoach passengers in a Russian novel must spend an unexpected stormy night. Each of about twenty empty tables glowed with candlelight.

I had the orechiette and it wasn't bad.

As I drifted off to sleep early last night I remembered years ago when I came back from band practice to find our apartment thick with smoke. It was erupting out of the soup pot in a dreadful plume, like something funneled out of hell. I turned off the burner and took a towel and grabbed the handle and stiffly walked the thing downstairs, smoke still pouring. I threw it in the snow where it sank to the ground with a sinister hiss. I ran back up and found Aimee passed out on the couch. I grabbed her and called her name and as she came to she looked around in dazed wonder. "Baby, I fucked up," she said. We held each other. "I fucked up, baby, I fucked up."