She rubbed her hand through his hair.
I don’t know, he said, we had some real differences. She would always choose what we listened to from a list of songs.
What’s wrong with that? she asked, picking up the scissors.
How someone chooses music to listen to in a given moment says a lot, he said. Choosing from a list of songs is like picking a snack. Whatever you pick might taste great for a second, but it’s fleeting. Shallow. Shortsighted.
And you choose from a list of artists, she said, trimming his ear hair.
No, he said. That’s oversimplifying things. Those people say ‘how about Italian tonight?’ But Beef Carpaccio is an entirely different universe from Gnocchi Caprese. They’re insensitive to nuance. It’s like referring to the entirety of Bob Dylan’s body of work as Chinese, he said.
Bob Dylan isn’t Chinese, she chuckled.
I choose albums, he said. They’re the full meal, everything fits together. You might not like every part, but that’s OK, it makes other parts even better. And when you’re done, you’ve had something of substance.
I like playlists, she said, cutting two hairs protruding from a mole on his neck.
Yeah, I know that about you, he said. But that’s like a bunch of snacks pushed together. You don’t have the artist’s statement. A playlist might fit a mood, but in the end it’s not the complete course.
I don’t know, she said, I think you’re too attached to your metaphor. When an artist makes an album, she makes a playlist of her recent songs. She arranges her snacks. Anyhow, I thought you two were cute together.
He sat in silence then, looking at his reflection in the mirror, and she moved on to trimming his eyebrows.
