Blame it on the bassa nova.

It was about a year ago, that the emails between Nick and I started to heat up, and we started including favorite songs, or whatever it was we were listening to at the time.

I sent him one of my favorite songs, and told him how it made me think of beaches and dancing very close and very slow in a very large crowd. And how no matter how I was feeling, Patria by Ruben Blades always made me take a deep breath and think about beaches and dancing close and slow, i.e. all that is good and healthy in life, and no matter what was bothering me, it couldn't take away beaches and dancing.

Nick's response was to ask if it was alright that he had a crush on me, just a little one.

So if you think I liked that song before .........

Last night I was pretty frustrated with life. I had lots of laundry to do, insurance forms to fill out, a LOT of birds to feed, bunny veggies to pick up and a payment to wire because I'd waited until the last minute and couldn't find my account number. And we were out of Q-Tips.

Also, if you're paying attention, you will know I was PMSing. (But I think mostly it was the Q-Tip thing.)

And when I'm PMSing, I'm not so much grouchy or bitchy, per se, it's just that my ability to deal with life diminishes. And I will freely admit that it's not an attractive emotion on me. I want to hold whoever is in front of me responsible for how I'm feeling, and the fact that it's completely irrational just makes me feel guilty and then I hold them responsible for THAT because if they weren't standing in front of me I would be feeling angry at just a wall or something, so it really is all their fault anyway. It spirals. And the moment I most need a hug, I'm really the least likely to inspire someone to hug me.

But that's just what my Knickers did.

He's way better medicine than any song. Better than beaches and dancing, too.