Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere.

Today, I thought about Miss Taylor. No, not Elizabeth. Don't worry, I'll explain later.

You may have already pieced together through my vague self-pitying whines that my Pseudo-Boyfriend-Neighbor-I've-Been-Dating has just moved a few hours away to go to med school, marking an end to our "relationship" and the beginning of our "staying good friends." Whatever that means. Does anyone know what that means? I have this feeling it will be a "slightly more than friends" kind of friends.

So we spent every waking (and sleeping) minute of that last week together. It was a dramatic saga of breathless highs and miserable lows, each of us alternating between wallowing in the suckyness of the situation and trying to put on a brave face for the other. Our last night spent together involved picking up a pizza from our usual place, quietly helping him pack up his increasingly empty and cold apartment, taking a last dip in our beloved pool, and squeezing each other close all night, neither of us able to sleep.

In the darkness of my room that night, he quite suddenly pulled me closer and cupped his hand around my cheek, that gesture that makes every girl's heart flutter and stomach drop. "I'm going to miss you," he whispered earnestly. It took every drop of self control in my body not to beg him to fight for this relationship, that I loved his guts and wanted to be his girl, in a pure-as-fucking-snow kind of way. Instead, exhausted from this constant inner turmoil and lack of sleep and utterly resigned, I sighed, "I'll miss you, too," and kissed him deeply.

He left the next day. "It's not good-bye," he said. No, I thought. It's a bittersweet heartbreaking mess of suck.

It's been four days. I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing sex withdrawal. We've talked on the phone a few times and texted like it was going out of style. And God I wish it would go out of style, already - I love/hate texting. It's total shit to go from walking five feet barefoot in pajamas whenever I want to see him to waiting like a ravenous raccoon for a fucking text message that will probably say something entirely inconsequential, like "I have 100 channels!" or "Just watched the new True Blood, wtf." Texting is somehow addicting and insulting. While it's nice casually quipping throughout the day, it always leaves me utterly unsatisfied since I've been spoiled with a relationship of seeing and touching and kissing and sexing.

It's disgusting. I hope we citizens of the world someday find a reason to make texting illegal. I'm constantly looking at my phone to see if the little orb on the bottom is glowing with a pulsing white light, the signal that I have a new message. Some sick and twisted engineer cell phone designer monster at HTC decided it would be cute to make me wait NINE whole seconds between flashes, so I'm constantly looking over at my phone for nine seconds at a time. Every nine seconds I am disappointed.

Yesterday, sometime after inhaling a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream smothered in caramel sauce and my third consecutive meal of quesadillas, I realized that I could no longer wallow in my fridge. I need to take care of myself. I need groceries, goddamnit - adult person groceries. Chocolate stars dipped in peanut butter is not breakfast. Even if the peanut butter is organic.

So I put on my big girl shoes and drag my mopey and newly chubbier butt to Safeway to pick up a few healthy essentials and comfort foods: salad, tons of fresh fruit, cheese, green tea, a loaf of French bread, soup, Italian soda, and some dark chocolate. I feel a little better with each item I drop in my cart.

At the checkout, I punch in my parents' home phone number to get my club member discounts. Before my parents got this number ten years ago, it belonged to a woman named Cindy Taylor who registered it at Safeway. My parents never bothered to switch the club member account to their name, so whenever any of us uses it, we are told, "You saved eight dollars today, Miss Taylor" or "Have a good day, Miss Taylor" or "Would you like help out with that today, Miss Taylor?" Maybe not my dad, though. Maybe they call him Mr. Taylor. I don't know. That's not the point.

Anyway, today I'm told a simple "Thank you, Miss Taylor," and for just a moment, I forget my anguish and heartache. I've always been curious about this mysterious Cindy Taylor and over the years I have invented a little identity for her in my mind. She is young and blonde and chic and very American. I think she looks like a supermodel, like Cindy Crawford + Nikki Taylor. She's probably an important book editor in New York City, living a glamorous life of black-tie events and romantic weekend getaways. I imagine her jet-setting to Venice, China, Morocco, Sao Paulo, all while wearing head-to-toe white and bright red lipstick. I wonder where she is at this very moment. Is she cooking with her husband? Playing with her children? Taking a bubble bath? Brushing her teeth? Playing the cello?

For a brief moment, I'm lost in Miss Taylor's world .... and then my eye catches a glimpse of that glowing orb.