two perfectly fried eggs are an exquisite thing; or, breakfast nostalgia

I'm careful now to follow all the steps you showed me before. Only a little fat in the pan, low flame (you in your rigid cooking philosophies refuse anything higher, get that obstinate look when I tell you you wouldn't like anything fried done over anything less than a hellfire-hot flame). Eggs cracked in such a way as to evenly fill both halves of the pan. Ying-and-yangs. A lid to nestle them, their whites spitting and hitting the top. The heat turned off just as their great yellow eyes begin to grow cloudy. I must admit that in some things I am too impatient -- I'd rather risk scorching the egg bottoms to have the yolks done faster -- but you tell me this is wrong with a solemnity and offended air generally reserved for priests describing mortal sins. You have to turn off the flame and let them sit you tell me, let the heat that has collected in the pan cook the yolks a little longer because (and this might be the most important part of your egg philosophy) there exists only one correct yolk texture, and that is thick-runny. Thin-runny looks like bile and if you wanted a hard yolk you might as well have boiled it. After two, three minutes you lift the lid and I always had to admit, still do admit when I do it myself, that the eggs are perfect. My pride forces me to say that it's not that I couldn't fry an egg myself before I met you -- of course  I could fry an egg, but they weren't perhaps very visually pleasing specimens or of consistent quality. And so when you tell me you can't cook I always think of the eggs, the unwavering attention you pay them, your engineer's love of process. How you go in every time so sure that following each step to the letter will lead to a perfect egg, and how each time it does. Your kind of structural, analytical vision turns a humble egg into its best self. How could I not love you for that? How could I not miss you terribly when I sit in a cold DC kitchen to eat two perfectly fried eggs by myself.