Ms. All or Nothing.

On some holiday last week, Louis and I were engaging one another in conversation and coffee shop fare, all but forcing pastries and caffeinated beverage down one another's gullets.

Incidentally, I have just made myself some coffee, and finally believe that the quality of any given french press of coffee is quite beyond any powers I might exert in making it. It reminds me of my former roommate Ben, may God bless him and keep him, who discovered, with no less import than Godel's discovery that there were numbers named after him, that the best anyone can do to make the internet work is to perform ceremonial motions of plug-in, pull-out, turn-off, turn-on, jazz hands, etc., in a rain dance fashion. As with internet connectivity and the rising of the Nile, so with coffee-by-french-press. This coffee is bland: the coffee equivalent to flat soda. Yet nothing in my morning coffee-making-voodoo-dance was any different from successful times before! Just when one is getting settled into a deterministic and mechanistic understanding of the universe, the gods tinker with one's coffee. I hereby give up and profess that all causation is fundamentally spooky and must be sacerdotally inveigled. (Remember blowing into Nintendo game cartridges, with all the hope and mysticism with which one blows on a dandelion? It would not surprise me if the psychological state of one so-blowing were isomorphic to that of a monk caught up in Shintoistic prayer.)

Back to them gullets. Striking upon a lull in our coffee-shop colloquy, I gazed around the place. A young (late high-school/early college) woman was looking at me. (Quelle plot twist--I agree. What do you want to bet that from amongst my readership Max is the one to have moved closest to the edge of his seat at this? Brianna, of course, takes prize for "Most Worried Gasp".) Protocol demands that I respond with an inscrutable and ineluctable smirk, during the execution of which, this young woman struck me as attractive. She seemed almost a younger, yet slightly worn, Kiera Knightly.

Incidentally, here's a picture of Kiera Knightly at what I consider her absolute best. It makes me laugh every time.


In so many words I informed Louis of my estimation of the girl in question, referring to the object of assessment as "2 o'clock". Louis burst into incredulous laughter. He was not of my opinion. Rather, on an aesthetic scale of -10 to +10, he placed her somewhere just below 0, which is to say he would sooner look at a wall or a chair than her.

Needless to say--well--if it's really needless I'll just skip it. Let's move on.

I needed more data. What could explain this drastic divergence in opinion between Louis and me? I proceeded to stand up and (more or less) to pace around and inspect her as one might broodingly and oglingly circumambulate La Victoire de Samothrace on a slow day at The Louvre. Alas, my estimation of her beauty was inversely proportional to the number of degrees of rotation from which I beheld her.

Plopping down next to Louis, confuted, I deigned a valedictory gander at "2 o'clock née Knightly". Gasp! Her beauty was restored! From that angle and from only that angle, this girl was nearly irresistible. Otherwise, she was gaining fast on the Gorgon. Clearly, she must be aware of this feature of her features, and accordingly has become accustomed to triangulate the exact position in any given coffee shop from which she will best allure her most promising future mate (in this case, me). Imagine a dance scene during which she would have to keep this angle from her partner at all times. Man, I should write romantic comedies.

I could go on, but have to go. on.