Essay for My Girlfriend

I shall now write something soft and heartfelt. (This one’s for you, lovey dove — you know who you are.) It feels like the right time to take a break from the heavier subject matter that I normally cover and, instead, to compose an essay for my girlfriend. She’s always asking me why I’ve never written a speech or lecture specially for her; something romantic that we can read at night and make love to. So, here it is, baby:

You and I, my dear, are now defeating outer space in our whirlwind, smashing the lens on the telescope’s mainframe. We are eating some ice cream together and spilling it on the control board, which causes spacetime’s carnival to short circuit. 

You’ve never known my real name, because I changed it when I got into showbiz; and I vowed to reveal it only to my true love — so now I disclose, to you alone, that I was christened Rupert Van Winkle. (The man known as Robert Matthew Van Winkle, who calls himself Vanilla Ice on his rap albums, is my biological mother.)

Speaking of naming and necessity, I called the science hotline that lets you rename stars, and I paid a vast sum to have them brand a supernova in our favorite constellation with my pet name for you. So now, instead of “SN 1987A”, the star is listed in the official record books as “Cream-filled Twinkie that Twinkles”. And it was almost like God was paying attention to this and desiring to signify his approval, because, right after I hung up the phone, the supernova exploded and became a black hole. I know this because I was on my cordless phone looking up at the sky while talking to the astrophysicist who processed my request.

Now you and I take the stage in our platonic forms: I am the idea shaped like Fender and you are the idea shaped like Stratocaster. Together we merge into a single, eternal instrument — it’s the guitar of which all other guitars are but shadows — and we lower ourselves down into a rock-&-roll blender, while jamming on our own strings. Once liquified, we pour ourselves out into the crowd and purify our raging fans, just like lamb’s blood.

I still know what you did last summer. You took my plush stuffed dog doll for a walk in the woods and accidentally lost him there. Then, when I asked you where Fairchild AT-21 Bomber went, you pretended not to know which toy animal I was talking about; so I had to describe his features in detail to you (“He’s the one with floppy ears and droopy eyes!”) — but you feigned ignorance, for you were afraid to admit that you had committed the tragic blunder of misplacing my loved one. — But now that Fairchild AT-21 Bomber is out of the way, I only have eyes for you. Therefore I forgive you: I do not even ask that you acknowledge your crime or apologize for it, since you have usurped the position of my sole monogamous love-interest. And I hope that we remain boyfriend and girlfriend forever. I blow you a kiss now. Amen.