and, also

"There are times I start to panic and think you're going to wake up tomorrow and decide you want nothing to do with me," she confessed.

"All of a sudden?" he asked. "Like out of the blue I'd just change into a different person?"

"Yeah."

"Really? Because I think about being old with you and retired somewhere, and you bring me sandwiches and lemonade on a tray while I'm outside working in the yard and I spray you with a garden hose and we get just as silly and kissy as we do now."

"I like your version of the future better."

"Me, too."

And then kissing ensues.

passive-aggressive neighbors suck

I came home today to find:

• the 30-Day Shred DVD I ordered;
• the Benefit lipgloss I bought online;
• a hospital bill from my trip to the ER last month;
• a "namaste" decal for my van; and
• a note from my downstairs neighbor.

The note, which was clipped to a Walgreens register coupon for Lysol disinfectant, read, in its entirety:

Ms. H**, Here is a coupon to buy something to take care of the foul smell coming from your apartment. Keep your filth to yourself -- don't spread it around!

OK. I want to make it clear. I have no foul smells in my apartment. I have the world's most sensitive nose, and if there were ANY smells -- foul or otherwise -- I'd be the first to know. And I'm having a bad enough day already -- not even including the fact that I said I'd start the 30-day shred when the DVD came in the mail and the minute I saw it I was already making excuses (well, it's really too late to start TODAY...) -- that I didn't need a shitty untrue note from my neighbor in which she accuses me of being a smelly filthy person. But still. I figured it was best to do the right thing rather than start a war with a little old lady whom I sometimes have to push up the stairs from behind. So I wrote back (attaching her initial note and the coupon):

Thank you for your concern, but I assure you that there are no foul smells emanating from my apartment. You are welcome to visit to confirm this, if you would like (I am usually home during the day). I suggest you ask your other neighbors, if you haven't already, and contact the landlord, as perhaps there is something amiss with your plumbing. I wish you the best of luck in figuring out this problem, as I imagine it's quite frustrating. Best, Ms. H***

And now? I just hope she doesn't take me up on my offer. It might mean that I have to put away my laundry (which, I should note for the record, smells quite lovely). Namaste.

what i dislike

Feeling good, wonderful even, and then my neck starts hurting and the back soon follows, and then I realize my period's begun and this might explain why I've felt so weepy and irritable all afternoon. And J.S. is coming over, and I worry I'll ruin everything, saying or doing something stupid or just madly professing my love for him too soon or something equally scare-inducing, and by the time he leaves I haven't done anything except continue on the course we're going -- which is good! all good! nothing bad there! (and only a very tiny mini-profession of love) -- but I spend the next hour worrying he won't ever call me again and I've destroyed any chance I've ever had of a functioning relationship and when I wake up in the morning there's going to be an email or a text message or voicemail saying it's over, and all because I mentioned the L-word (love, silly, not lesbian) in passing (well more in a "I think this is what it feels like to be falling in love" sense). But then? Then I realize that this is fear and anxiety and a reluctance to fully accept the future as an unknown talking to me, trying to drive me back into Dysfunctional Relationship Land, and it is most definitely time to go to bed before the men in the little white coats are called. But first? First I'm going to have a huge piece of chocolate cake. Namaste.

and so it begins

Somewhere between the first kiss and the first time you say goodbye to someone whose taste lingers on your tongue, you fall in love, or at least start falling without the capacity to stop (even if you wanted to). And you wonder if this time it will be different, this will be the one love affair that -- finally! -- justifies your fanciful belief in fairy tales and romance novels and being swept off of your feet, or if it will be the latest in a string of missed opportunities, dashed hopes, and hurt feelings (or worse).

Meanwhile, you linger on snippets of conversations -- "we kiss like people in a novel," he says, accurately -- and remember the vast pleasure of being held closely and wonder at the deep comfort of opening yourself up to someone so completely that fears float away like a whisper. You know there is a tendency to minimize problems for the sake of momentary good, allow yourself to be whisked into a life neither planned nor particularly wanted. This time seems different, though saying so feels like dangerous, a harbinger so many times of a lie, because everything was exactly the same after all.

And so it remains an exercise in sitting softly in the moment, resting carefully in a space filled with promise and possibility and comfort and joy, a place where hope is expected and not scorned, intimacy blossoms without a hitch, and two lovers, still new to each other, kiss as though they are situated, quite perfectly, in a romance novel.

conversation (with JS)

"So what's the difference between dating and just hanging out?" he asks, midway through our 90-minute phone conversation.

"Heck if I know," I say, reminding him that the last two relationships I've been have started with me asking, "Do you like me or are you just bored and that's why we're hanging out so much?" with the response being, "I guess I like you enough to see where this goes" -- which, in my (now vast) experience means, "I'm just bored."

So, yeah.

[We decide that "adults" -- whoever THEY are -- do things such as go out to dinner and see live theatre and then have conversations over dessert about their feelings on the matter and decide whether to move forward in a romantic direction. As it so happens, we're going out to dinner and seeing Into the Woods and then going out for dessert tomorrow night.]

***

Later, he says, "you're a sweet person. And kind. And warm -- yes, very warm and pleasant and nice. Very different from my first impression of you -- with that metal in your mouth and the tattoos and your strong personality."

"Yes," I say. "I am acutely aware that, upon seeing me, people have an impression that's entirely inaccurate."

***

Even later, just before we say good night, he says, "I have a feeling tomorrow night's going to be fabulous."

And after we part aural ways and as I eat my pizza and prepare to catch up on my backlog of Gossip Girl episodes, it occurs to me that any man who refers to any part of my life (or the experience contained therein) as "fabulous" without mimicking, teasing, or otherwise copying me is someone who just might be worth dating. Obvs.

springtime bliss

The only thing better than taking a nap on a blanket in the park with the sun shining down is curling up naked under a fluffy blanket with a good book, my cat, and the prospect of a fine long siesta. Namaste.

at a crossroads

I've been dyeing my hair for a long time -- for a couple of decades, actually -- and definitely since after my 2005 brain surgery. I was dyeing it blue again as soon as it was long enough to do so... and then it was a host of other colors after that. Since mid-summer of last year, I've been in the more "normal" realm of colors, and the last time I dyed my hair I changed it to a color that's quite close to my natural one (dark brown). Now, though, I have a couple inches of roots and one thing is obvious: I have a LOT of grey hair. And so I'm pondering my options: permanent color that's my natural color? temporary color that will blend away the greys but then wash out gradually? highlights that disguise the grey? funky streaks of color that overpower the grey? just letting it grow out and coming into my own as a thirtysomething woman? Comments and advice, please. [I should note that my inclination is to do nothing...]