On Feb. 18, I wasn’t standing at a bus stop on Queen City Avenue. I was standing in a driveway that had been cleared of snow. Waving my arms like hell, I was hoping the bus driver would take notice of me. The bus stopped. When I got on, I thanked the driver. “Hey, I don’t expect my passengers to wait at bus stops in conditions like this,” he said. “People wave me down and I stop for them, don’t want anybody to get hurt trying to get on a bus.”
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Once there was a middle-aged woman who found herself single at fortysomething. She joined Single Parent organizations, met people before the dawn of the scanner and picture exchanges and survived the resultant trauma.

I can’t say I know this person. She’s really just an acquaintance I run into every now and then. but apparently she feels like she knows me well enough — or more likely had enough drinks in her — to send me some text messages.
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Who are you? I heard you singing. Even today, 14 years later, the strange tone of his ghostly voice still streaks across my mind. But this isn’t your everyday love letter. Come with me. Seattle. 1996. Within wet backyards, life was reckless and wild.

Walking up Sixth Street in downtown Cincinnati on a cloudy January afternoon, I saw her standing there on the sidewalk. I was rushing to the bus stop while she was talking to a man I didn't know. I wasn't sure if she had noticed me or not, but a text message on my cell phone later that night told me she did. Her message saying "I miss you" hurt a little, but the reality is I don't miss her. I'm the one who walked away from the friendship.
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My Facebook status on Jan. 8: "I drove home calmly and safely, keeping the RPMs low as I navigated the steep hills. I stepped into enormous silence, so brilliantly alone, with the snow moving, but seeming so still all around me. I opened my mouth to taste and to let out a deep laugh. A perfect moment: I am grateful for this solitude."

Jan. 6: The first major snowfall of the winter season is predicted for tomorrow, and I'm ready. I tell myself I live in the Midwest because I like the change of the seasons and snow can be beautiful. When the snow comes, I'll build a snowman. I always liked doing that when I was a kid. Jan. 8: Alright, it can stop now.
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It was a time when politics were upside down, when elites were rarely mentioned and a backlash had already occurred when Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968. It was a time when college campuses were battlegrounds, when the angriest voices were found there and on urban streets and had faces and names.
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Springfield, Ohio, is on my mind, and I don't know where Erin is. In the fall of 1993, I moved to Springfield. This was a location transfer from my employer, and in my head I thought it was going to work out fine. I was separating from my wife and looked at Springfield as a fresh start. Erin helped me start again.

Last year at this time I was madly in love with a former hippie who still liked Phish, and I made fun of his band obsession every chance I got. Damn, we'd kid and laugh. Inside jokes, 'Flight of the Conchords.' Tonight, I sit in a coffee shop alone. Unlike the movies, real love can be tricky.
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