Ahhhh, Michael. It's been a long time since I've thought about him. Him and his eyebrows.

Actually, that's not quite true: he's on my mind at least once every day. Whenever the sun sets behind the clouds over the ocean, staining the water a bright shade of whiskey brown, my thoughts turn to Michael, Michael Dukakis, the man I am only partially ashamed to call My First Love.

Our affair began in the airport lounge of LAX. I'd been bumped off a flight to Boston, and was sitting alone, consoling myself with vodka tonics and the latest issue of Sky Mall. I didn't recognize him when he sidled up beside me, wearing a crumpled poplin suit and carrying a Manhattan, but that was because his head didn't quite reach the top of the bar. I looked over the pages of my catalogue to see two beetle-black eyes boring a hole in my sweater.

He asked if he could join me, and after initial embarrassment when I set my glass atop his head, he climbed up and we sat together, just two travelers passing the time. I was naive, and at first believed that I was speaking with Peter Falk, but he laughingly cleared up my confusion, and we talked into the night about his work, his unsatisfying marriage, and the color of my brassiere.

Because my boyfriend reads this journal, I won't detail the nature of my relationship with Michael, except to say that I have never, ever seen a man consume that much honey. But outside the bedroom, disenchantment quickly set in. I enjoyed waiting backstage at political rallies and debates, knowing he'd soon climb down off the podium and into my arms. But I never fit in with the other political groupies. For one thing, I wasn't old enough to vote. For another, I had no interest in government. Michael tried to groom me so I'd fit in better, coaxing me into reading portions of the tax code to him, or select passages from a treatise he'd written in favor of instituting light rail systems nationwide, and I went along with it until one day I used the word "referendum" in a sentence and gagged, shocked at how far I'd fallen.

I finally called it off one night. We met in the Public Garden by the duck pond. He'd brought a picnic basket full of spanikopita and a transcript of Tip O'Neill's most recent speech on rental housing mediation, but it was too late. I bent down and kissed him goodbye by the swan boats, handing over the pearl earrings he'd given me--they'd been Kitty's, but she lost one of the backs, so he reclaimed them, telling her she was too irresponsible for fine jewels.

His eyes glistened with tears as I walked away--I turned several times to check--but I stayed strong and kept walking, on through the garden, softly humming the theme from "Columbo."