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41 Happy-Go-Lucky You know that dream where you sit in your car and the seat automatically moves forward to the perfect position? The car starts itself driving you places you’ve never been and talks to you about your worries with that calm, yet commanding OnStar voice? You confide that people don’t love you as much as you’d like them to, and if they did, you wouldn’t, couldn’t possibly, return that much love anyway. This reminds you of a movie line, “Love itself is what’s left over after being in love is burned away.” Then the voice says, “Love can be a confusing state of mind.” And a map full of states appears on the GPS screen—not Utah, or Michigan, but a New-York-state-of-mind which you’ve acquired even though you’re from Detroit. Because you identify with people who wear a lot of black and who enjoy a frenetic, somewhat impersonal subway, graffiti, melting pot sensibility—along with those delicious ethnic dishes. And you think maybe, just maybe, the car will stop at a good Provençal restaurant or mahogany paneled steakhouse where they serve bone marrow, now that you’re no longer embarrassed to say you like it. Especially since Anthony Bourdain posed naked holding a huge soup bone over his “meatballs,” saying he loves the high cholesterol stuff. “But,” the voice cautions,” “he drinks too much, and eats things that could change your nature.” Change your nature? What does that mean? I can’t go there. Though I sense the need for turn-by-turn navigation when the melodic OnStar voice says, “Love isn’t really all that complicated— it’s the fear of love that snookers us.”Reminds me of the time it took me days to untangle an impossible wad of necklaces, knotted chains of my own doing. And the fortune cookie I once got that said, “you are about to eat a fortune cookie—” how once in a while even destiny takes a shortcut. ...

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