life happens, so give lap dances.

Manu and I watched 500 Days of Summer last night. It's the story about a boy who loves a girl, a girl who doesn't believe in destiny and miracles and true love. The film simply unravels, like life.

I don't know how many true love stories are left. Youth seems everlasting, as do short skirts, free tequila shots, and cologne doused with pheremones. But before we can run to CVS to buy anti-aging cream, the short skirt works well as a bib, the shots are neither free nor do they sit well, and the cologne smells like pepper spray. In 500 Days, the girl does not end up with the boy. There is no cathartic rain scene, no traffic jam through which he must wade to get to her, no kiss in front of hundreds of tourists at the Empire State Building. They fall apart. He falls apart. And life just happens.

Love is real, but everyone always runs from it, while pretending to be running towards it. Nice guys are out, guys with good hair are in. Girls who are strung out are boring, while girls who run from you always seem to have the longest legs. Loneliness is said to be underrated, but everyone is scared to be alone. The math just doesn't seem to always work out: one girl + one boy =/= love. Instead one girl and one boy create a sense of imbalance, until this renowned "one" comes along.

In efforts to pursue this famed and destined love of my life, I give lap dances in the subway cars. En route to grab lunch at Yaffa Cafe with my cousin, I lost my balance in the L train. I couldn't help it; life just happened, and before I knew it, I landed squarely into the lap of the hobo sitting next to me. He grunted, slightly shocked at receiving this kind of attention. Love feels good. Even if it is a figment of our imagination, or the consistency we crave when we are lonely, love is good stuff. It comes in all shapes and sizes--my mother's worn hands, my father's scrambled eggs, my sister's undying loyalty. It can look like a football player, a windswept brunette, a musician, or even a random girl you meet in the L train who moves the relationship along quickly, from sitting close to you to sitting right on top of you.

Let life happen. Free lap dances may be involved.