LOVE AMONG THE ANGELS

How Angels Sleep
Unsoundly. They toss and turn, trying to understand the mysteries of the Living. They know so little about what it's like to fill a new prescription for glasses and suddenly see the world again, with a mixture of disappointment and gratitude. The first time a girl puts her hand just below your bottom rib: about this feeling, they only have theories, but no solid ideas. If you gave them a snow globe, they might not even know enough to shake it.
Also, they don't dream. For this reason, they have one less thing to talk about. In a backward way, when they wake up they feel as if there is something they are forgetting to tell each other. There is disagreement among the angels as to whether this is a result of something vestigial, or whether it is the result of the empathy they feel for the Living, so powerful it sometimes makes them weep. In general, they fall into these two camps on the subject of dreams. Even among the angels, there is sadness of division.

PRIVATE MATTERS
It's true that they don't have a sense of smell, but angels, in their infinite love for the Living, go around smelling everything in emulation. Like dogs, they don't feel bashful about going up and sniffing each other. Sometimes, when they are unable to sleep, they lie in bed with a nose in their armpits, wondering what they smell like.

THE ARGUMENTS BETWEEN ANGELS
Are eternal and lack hope of solution. This is because they argue about what it means to be among the Living, and because they don't know, they can only speculate, much the way the Living speculate about the nature (or lack thereof) of God.

BEING ALONE

Like the Living, angels sometimes get tired of each other and want to be alone. Because the houses they live in are crowded, and there's nowhere to go, the only thing an angel can do at such moments is shut his eyes and put his head down on his arms. When an angel does this, the others understand that he is trying to fool himself into feeling alone, and they tiptoe around him. To help things along, they might talk about him as if he weren't there. If they happen to bump into him by accident, they whisper: "It wasn't me"

FOR BETTER OR WORSE
Angels don't get married. To begin with, they are too busy, and secondly, they don't fall in love with each other. (If you don't know what it feels like to have someone you love put a hand below your bottom rib for the first time, what chance is there for a lover?)
The way they live together is not unlike a fresh litter of pups: blind and grateful and denuded. This is not to say that they don't feel love, because they do; sometimes they feel it so strongly that they think they're having a panic attack. In these moments their hearts race uncontrollably and they worry that they are going to throw up. But the love they feel is not for their own kind, but for the Living who they can neither understand, nor smell, nor touch. It is a general love for the Living (though being general doesn't make it any less potent). Only from time to time does an angel find herself in a defect that causes her to fall in love, not in general, but in the specific.

I don't have many regrets in life.
But there are moments I want back. Not to change them, but to relive them and play them out again. I don't think I'd ever do things differently. Ever. I would even live out the worst times in my life 10 times over again if it would bring me to where I am now.

If anything, maybe I would speak slower. The same words. Slower.

Today's Entertainment News

• The Office, 30 Rock, and Community picked up for the next season
• Chantal Kreviazuk to perform with Edmonton Symphony Orchesta as part of their new season
• Farrah Fawcett was left out of the "In Memoriam" montage that was played at the Oscars to honor the celebrities that passed away this past year. The Academy says it was not an accident and she will not be receiving an apology because it is impossible to include everybody. Some are disgruntled, saying that the Academy made sure Michael Jackson was included when he had a much smaller resume than Farrah.