Maisie Kuhl

Honestly you don't know what you did to deserve Maisie in your life. She's gorgeous, hilarious, briefly spent time as a model to pay he grad school tuition while she worked towards her Master's degree... it's in English Lit and honestly you're a little underwhelmed by it, but hey it's not like they just hand out Master's degrees even in English Lit. She's amazing to talk to, insightful, happy to nerd out about literary influences in movies. You translate the technobabble, she explains how the Hero's Journey shapes Star Wars or how the Fast and Furious movies are really the Toretto family doing the automotive version of Hercules' Labors. It's just been amazing getting to know her the last month. Even though you've only been on three dates the regular texting and calls between you feels like you've known her far longer. That fourth date it feels like something's happening, the conversation is flowing, there are little touches that haven't happened before. Small intimacies that feel like they're building. It feels like she might be about to ask you back to her place. You're making light smalltalk about dinner and she drops an intensely surprising piece of information about her. "I don't believe in umami." You blink several times. Maisie is smart, you know this, she likes good food, it seems very out of character for her to just think umami isn't real. "You mean like you don't understand it, I don't really understand it..." She shakes her head. "No, I mean like I think the boys at Kikkoman invented umami to move soy sauce and food critics enthusiastically jumped on board with it to sound fancy." It almost feels like she's daring you to challenge her... so you do. "If it was about being fancy the word they'd have invented would have been in French." Maisie laughs. "Or if it was real the French would have discovered umami or we'd have a generic name for umami instead of umami." By now you're furiously searching about umami on your phone. "Savoriness?"