MY NEW FOUND FAITH AND MY BROKEN HEART

Because we're all about the public service announcement here at Power Love HQ, we feel compelled to tell you that a blizzard just regurgitated on Chicago.

That means I have to defer my Implementing Legislation Days. Day. I dropped it down to one day. I'm really busy. And anyway, my beloved Chicago needs me because who would make the snow angels? You see how I'm all about the priorities, Alert Power Love Reader?

Anyhoodle, there's no crime fighting at 3am in the middle of a thunder snow, surprisingly, so I decided to help the Streets and San guys and build a labyrinthinian maze of snow tunnels throughout the city, or, I guess I should say, in between the city and the sky because really, the city is under 5,739 feet of snow, so we're kinda like in the basement looking up. Well, SOME OF US are looking up. My snow tunnels are quite like the Catacombs of Paris, except without the dead people and above ground and with snow and not in Paris. So really nothing like the Catacombs of Paris, except for the routes, which are all marked in French, which is amazing, because I can't speak French.

I drew a map of the tunnels, and I buried it in a chest with many other treasures, which I locked with a combination lock, also in French, which may create a sticky scenario later, and in case you were wondering, you're certainly not gonna find my buried treasure buried under center field at Wrigley. On my way home from burying the treasure chest, I took a tunnel and got lost and that is embarrassing to say the least.

So then I'm sitting at the head of a three-mile long dining table in the forest and obviously once again on the set of Alice in Wonderland, but not the set they used in the movie, the set they rejected because it was shoddily made and then they had to re-evaluate their requirements and found the right set, but it was elsewhere, so they moved the movie and now here I am at the abandoned table and who's at the other end? The Hollow Human.

I hate The Hollow Human. You know why, Alert Power Love Reader? Because I'm afraid of becoming The Hollow Human. Do you have any idea how easily a super hero can get her insides hole-punched right out her back? Pretty easily. As easily as blowing a dandelion in the wind. Not the yellow ones--the white ones. What are those? Are they dead? Dead dandelions? Did they suddenly succumb to dandruff? Dandelion dandruff? Maybe those aren't dandelions at all. What if they're space ships for microscopic aliens who were sent to Earth to study the mucus membranes of humans? WHAT IF?

The Hollow Human and me? Not what I'd call friends. "Not after that snafu in Sydney," I growl down the three-mile dining table. My voice is reverberating perfectly throughout the forest. I don't have to use my stage whisper, which is good because I didn't do my vocal warm-ups yet.

"Oh. That," she says, waves her fingers like she's tired of waiting for her polish to dry.
"Don't you Oh That to me, missy."
"It was ONE high-powered, military-grade weapon. You are so sensitive."
"You are so lucky I'm a super hero."
"I know. You're good at it. I kinda hate how good you are at it."
"I started a new band."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Wanna know the name?"
"Yeah."
"Back Handed Compliments and the Ass Kissers."

The Hollow Human slams her palms on the table, but they make no noise. I can see the tablecloth through the backs of her hands. I know I'm three miles down the table from her, but I have the vision of a finely honed animal/technological wonder that is known for possessing finely honed vision. The tablecloth has beautiful lacing around its edges.

I set my golden lasso on the table. The table creaks. I snap my fingers and then put the matchbook that appears in my palm under the table leg and voila! No more creaky table. "That is the stuff of super heroes," The Hollow Human says.

I step up on my chair then place a tentative step on the table. Sturdy. Because my matchbook is magic. So I jump up on the table and swagger down to The Hollow Human. There's a lot of cracked porcelain scattered about and I don't want to disturb it because my cracked porcelain may be someone else's charm bracelet but still I can't help but crunch a few pieces because I am wearing diamond encrusted cowboy boots and sometimes theses suckers have a mind of their own. My cape casts a ghoulish shadow behind me.

The Hollow Human looks up at me and I can see the gears in her brain matter start to churn. She has a huge hole where her torso should be. "Those are great boots," she says as I approach.

I do a Gene Kelly side kick because frankly, when the hell am I ever gonna be wearing diamond encrusted cowboy boots on a porcelain-strewn table? I mean, besides next Tuesday at the country club. It occurs to me that I have an uncanny sense for running into rejected sets from Tim Burton movies.

I squat down in front of The Hollow Human. "You don't really like my boots, do you?" I ask her.

She looks around. There are cobwebs dripping from the eucalyptus trees. A murder of crows. A gaggle of geese. A gallon of milk, a stick of butter, a loaf of bread. This place smells alive. The Hollow Human smells disinfected.

For my part, I smell like a bed of roses. And maybe a little bit of sweat that's aged a wee bit--I mean, what?! It's a velvet cape and I had to wear thick socks with the boots and like I should've known the wackadoodle reject forest would be 90 degrees and humid.

The Hollow Human looks through me and says, "You don't have to get all diamond encrusted about it."

I stand up. "Reframing the conversation. Love it." I unzip my chest. I reach into the gooey mass that I keep in a golden pouch right next to my heart. This is the greatest pouch ever invented. I got it during one of my special ops missions in Thailand. What you do is--you set it next to your heart and let it marinate there for 24 hours while you read a Faulkner novel while lying on the couch with the windows open and the summer breeze rolling over your outstretched legs and then the pouch is activated and no matter what's in your heart, thereafter the pouch and its contents maintain the summer breeze.

This is excellent because right now, while standing on the rejected dining table, in my diamond-encrusted cowboy boots, in front of The Hollow Human, I kinda wanna kick her teeth in. Instead, I squat back down and sink my fingers further into the goo in the golden pouch (band name: Goo in the Golden Pouch)--it feels like jelly. I hope it's grape jelly. I like grape jelly on toast. Recently, I've developed a taste for orange marmalade.

I pull my finger out and as it hits the air, my golden goo coagulates and I quickly stuff it into the hole in The Hollow Human's torso. I pack it in and squish it around so she's all connected. She takes a deep breath and exhales. She smells like dirt after a rain--by which I mean, stuffed with unapologetic aliveness.

I stand up. "How you like me now?" I say as I model my boots. The Hollow Human says, "I think they're kinda gaudy, but you can pull it off with the cape. But probably only at a party in a forest with a creaky dining table and cobweb-laced eucalyptus trees."

"Thank you," I say because I'm a lover of honesty and sometimes I'm not the quickest knife in the drawer.

Meanwhile, the Middle East explodes.