2011-08-02 9:25 p.m.

I had dinner with Meagan tonight at some little deli in Long Beach.

I don't remember what she said first, but I replied, "It warms the cockles of my heart." She didn't know what a cockle was. So, I explained that a cockle is a bivalve, like a clam. And, according to one source (the only one I happened to read when I researched it online some years ago) that it's believed that someone a long time ago thought that the chambers of the human heart looked like those disgusting little slimy ocean creatures. Or maybe it was the other way around. Whatever. "Oh, and I vaguely remember that this was some old English-language thing from back before anyone knew anything about medicine or science." I felt that summed it up.

We drove north. Another city block slid silently by.

Then she broke the quiet, "So, can something warm the cockles of your vagina?"

I wanted to have a snappy retort, but I really had no idea what to say. How do you respond to an idea so expansive? My mind spun around and around, like a little dog running in circles trying to find something that isn't there. Could I have come up with an answer that did justice to the deeper, more universal sense of seeking that she brought to the table? No, I could not. Nor could anyone else.

We sat in silence the rest of the way home.


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