So, my girl waxed poetic in this entry, and it got me to thinking about exes and a conversation my mom and I recently had.

I realized I was really and truly over Lenna’s sperm donor biological father when I could hear a Carpenters’ song and collapse into giggles. Okay, maybe I’m still a shade pissed about how he’s treated Lenna, but that’s separate from how I feel about *him, if that makes sense.

I should explain a few things here. Travis is a big dude. I don’t mean big as in “heavy” or even “tall.” (He’s only 5′10″.) Dude was in prison for a long time. He had access to free weights, and he wasn’t afraid to use ‘em. So he was buff, but not in the icky, “my hands can’t touch my sides way.” It was in that “I can pick a bitch up and throw her on the bed” way. Very sexy, I tell you. But I digress.

Travis was a straight-up, down-ass homie, too. The man was very, very proud of being a black man. To the point that we’d get in fights over his racist bullshit. He told me once that he really believed blacks were better than whites. To which I responded, “Then why are you fucking a white girl?” One of my classiest moments ever.

Travis was a Jay-Z fan before anyone else really knew about Hova. Travis introduced me to the wonder that is Ludacris. Travis could sing every Luther Vandross song ever produced. (He could not, however, sing them well, but that’s a post for another day.) Travis could (and did) *dance. A guaranteed way to get him to do so was to play any Motown album we owned. (They were many, and they were much-loved.) In short, Travis was about all music he considered to be from “his” people.

Now you’re probably wondering why I’m making such a big deal out of this. Be patient. It will become very clear soon.

There was one record in our collection that embarrassed Travis endlessly. He begged and begged for me to please, please, please put it in our bedroom, instead of out with the other CDs. He would literally *run to grab it off the shelf if we were going to have company. I would promptly put it right back. Hee.

Yet, when I would play that album, he would sing along just like if it were a Luther Vandross record. (And just as badly, I must add.) He could be moved nearly to tears over the harmonies and the lyrics. He would repeatedly state how much he loved that record, as long as it was just us. He loved that record nearly as much as any Smokey Robinson record we owned, and let me tell you, the man loved him some Smokey.

What was this record, you ask? The Singles, 1969-1973 by the Carpenters. Yes, people, THE Carpenters. The kicker? *I wasn’t the one who bought that album. That was in Travis’ personal collection long before I moved in. When his friends would come over the first time, they were always drawn to our very large CD collection. And they would see the Carpenters CD and grin and trash-talk. Travis’ unfailing response? “Now y’all know that shit ain’t mines.” At which point I would grin and keep my yap shut.

So the next time you hear “Rainy Days and Mondays,” think of a very buff black dude and a very not-so-buff white girl singing their hearts out in their ‘87 two-tone Cadillac Seville, wouldja? God knows I do.