Last week, a woman I know asked if I could put her in touch with E!, a girl I dated for a few months late last year. I hadn't talked to E! since the breakup, but I still had her email address, so I sent this brief message: Hello E!, So-and-so wants to get in touch with you so here's her email address, hope all is well, take it easy, Kilgore.

On Friday I got this reply: Hi Kilgore, I'll drop So-and-so a line, blah blah blah, things here are good, I'm moving in with my boyfriend in June, blah blah, take good care, E!

"Well, that's nice," I said to my Run Lola Run poster. Then I checked my other email and found a message from Wild Side, an ex-girlfriend I hadn't spoken to since she moved to Washington, DC three years ago. She wrote: Hey Kilgore, blah blah blah, I am in Seattle and have been living here now a little more than a year, I met a great guy out here 3 years ago while I was visiting from DC for a meeting, we did the long distance thing for a year and then I made the move, we are happy and life is good, blah blah, cheers, Wild Side.

I'm not complaining here. My relationships with E! and Wild Side ended amicably, and they are both good women who deserve to be happy and/or impregnated. I just found it strange to get two life-is-wonderful-sans-Kilgore emails on the same day. To celebrate this cosmic coincidence, I now declare a new annual holiday: National Day for Ex-Girlfriends of Kilgore to Email Him With News of How Great They're Doing Without Him.

National Day for Ex-Girlfriends of Kilgore to Email Him With News of How Great They're Doing Without Him will be observed three days before the fifth full moon of each year. So, Joanna, Holli Jo, Heidi, Jill, Margaret, Carrie, and Tara, you're going to have to wait until Wednesday, May 18, 2005 to tell me all about your boyfriend who plays hockey for the New York Rangers, or who just had a brain-surgery technique named after him, or who doesn't pick wax out of his ears and wipe it on his pants. Mark your calendars!

In other news: I've been working for several months to increase my tolerance for spicy food, and I'm proud to announce that tonight I ate a Burrito Ultimo from Baja Fresh and slathered it with the hottest salsa they could muster. I'm starting to like the burn.

Please, no cutting comments from you fire-breathers out there who eat habañero peppers like M&M's. I grew up in Iowa, where people consider cream of mushroom soup "a bit spicy," and cayenne pepper is a controlled substance. For most of my life, I used ketchup sparingly and ordered everything mild. After leaving Iowa five years ago, I started eating Vietnamese food and Thai barbecue and Mexican food not made by Taco Bell and increased my tolerance to medium. Now I'm ordering the hot stuff. Give me credit for moving from coed slo-pitch to A ball, at least.

I don't know why I feel the need to crank the Scovilles. I could say that eating spicier food enables me to experience a wider range of flavors from a greater number of ethnic cuisines, but really I think I'm competing with myself for no good reason. Again.

+posted by Lawrence @ 5/04/2004 10:24:00 PM