Regina Noctis

When the woman who is now apparently my best and dearest friend’s future landlord called me as one of his references, I knew that I could sabotage things. I could give a horrible review, lie through my teeth about how horrible he and his Wolf were as sub-letters. I could have also told the truth and mentioned that they could be a rather noisy pair.

I didn’t. I gave them a glowing review. I am probably a part of the reason they have the place in Seattle, even if only a small part. Hell, I gave them a glowing review even in spite of being cranky and half-asleep, since the woman called at 10 in the morning on a workday.

And now we come down to it, and I know their reasons, and I know they’re not THAT far away, I know the whole spiel.

And in spite of all of that, I can’t stop crying.

Reminds me of last time he moved away. I didn’t mention it in detail to him or anyone, my reaction to that move. I think I told him about going outside the building during lunches when I was working for the Red Cross, and I’d find a spot by myself out there and cry. But I know I never said that it was weeks of crying in those small alone moments before I started to come to terms with it.

There are people who I call family, and with most of my closest friends, I consider them family even if I don’t say the words. Sylvan’s more than that. I’ve always loved him with an intensity normally reserved by most people for the boy or girl in their lives that is The One. It’s that intense, though in an entirely non-romantic, non-sexual way (at least, it is since my crush on him died out 9 or so years ago.)

Hell, I even get jealous. Not of his Wolfie, nor of the ex-boyfriends in his past. I get jealous of his closeness with his other faghags. How dumb is that? I realize it’s ridiculous, and I restrain it, but every once in a while it’ll surprise me and flare up.

Then today I saw his entry where he mentioned he’d be gone October 1st.

Dammit, this is stupid. HE’S NOT GOING THAT FAR AWAY.

But no matter how often I tell myself that, no matter how often I remind myself that we didn’t lose contact last time and we won’t this time, it breaks my heart that he’s going.

Hello you
Yes, it’s me
You can come back, flying free
I hope you find
Everything that you need

Yeah, I hope you do, silly Sylvan. In spite of my whining and tears and histrionics. I love you.

It’s 5:30 am. Does anyone know where my exhaustion went? I’d appreciate it if you’d send it home so I can sleep before facing what will probably be the worst day of Hell Week.

I went to Lyon’s for dinner. Sunnyvale Lyon’s, the last one from those late nights 15 years ago. It was the first of the series of Lyon’s restaurants that we would hang out in. Monday nights, after Monday Night Pizza, our little band would sit there, and we’d see the sunrise through its windows. We had Our Booth in what was then the smoking section, and we talked and played roleplaying games through the night.

It was also the first of the series of Lyon’s restaurants that got tired of us occupying a booth all night and kicked us out. It took them the longest of any to get around to it. They were always the most tolerant.

While it’s not being closed and torn down like Los Altos Lyon’s was, or San Thomas Lyon’s before that, it’s changing. Beginning next week, it will no longer be 24 hours on weeknights.

End of an era. Or at least it feels that way.

And of course, in terms of my late-night tendencies and job that encourages those tendencies, I’ve lost a place to eat. Unless I want to drive to Milpitas, where the closest still-24-hour Lyon’s is, I’ll be eating at Denny’s. Or Denny’s. Take your pick.

Your pirate name is:

Mad Anne Read

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. Even through many pirates have a reputation for not being the brightest souls on earth, you defy the sterotypes. You’ve got taste and education. Arr!

We are quite firmly in the last week of the month. Yesterday night wasn’t so bad. We even got out early. Done at 10:45. Tonight, on the other hand… when I called around, they told us they’d be sending 27 files. We actually got 33. More than half were sales. It was a long night.

Through it all, I obsessed on the writing project that occurred to me yesterday. I’m fixated on it. Which, in some ways, is a good sign. The last time I got obsessed with a writing project, and got working on it while still obsessed, I managed to finish it.

So, I’m off to grab some dinner, and then I am going to start working instead of just thinking about the thing. At least, if nothing else, I’ll write it out of my system so I can stop being so centered on it and nothing else.

Over lunch, I had an idea. An idea that rapidly expanded. I thought I was going to do just one, now it looks like nine. I know I got bit by the writing bug… or, to put it in terms of an earlier entry of mine, I have heard a new muse lately. But I know how terrible I am with followthrough and have not completed even one of the various book ideas that have come storming through my head. What in the hell makes me think I’m going to do nine of them, fercryingoutloud.

And I can’t wait to get started!

I never claimed I was logical. :D

I don’t wanna go to work tomorrow/today. I just wanna continue being lazy.

Vacations never last long enough.

I miss my Pete!

A lot.

A HELL of a lot.

I want no more roommate. I’m tired of roommates. I want my own place.

I want my boss at work to figure out what the hell she’s doing wrong, cause she says that our numbers are dropping, we’re getting slower, and we’re hauling ass on those files. We usually have 5 to 7 completed between the two full-time employees, from beginning to end, before the part-timers ever get to work. We’re busting our butts, and we’re getting slower? There’s something wrong with how she’s running these reports.

Most of the people I’m closest to around here have moved or will be moving within the next year. Many less than that. It makes me very sad. I don’t want them to go. I won’t stop them, and wouldn’t try even if I could succeed cause it’s their lives. But it still makes me very sad.

Okay, I think I’ve gotten the whining out of my system.

Off I go to sleep so I can process the hell out of some more files in the “morning.”

Saturday was great. Better than great, really! I got to spend the day with my honey. That always makes for a really and truly wonderful time! We ran around on Empiriana together. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do so, since my cable modem lost synch at about 4am Friday and hadn’t seen fit to connect again when I got home from work.

Fortunately, I had connectivity back around midnight, and it seemed to be fairly solid. And it stayed all day Saturday. I spent every moment I could after I woke up with Pete. It was time that I was needing. I have really missed him over the last couple months, since our work schedules conflict so badly, and weekends have been eaten up with plans. If one of us has been free, the other has been busy.

I felt rather guilty about not going to Bryan’s going away party Saturday night. I had a few reasons for that, though the biggest was that I haven’t had much chance to talk with Pete in some time. I also don’t deal well with endings and goodbyes, and that’s what this party was, a goodbye. And, while I love Bryan a great deal (in spite of my constant barrage of insults flung his direction) I don’t feel that I’m really one of his close friends. We rarely saw each other, even before this. We have the same circle of friends, but we move among them in different directions and at different times. So we are not hugely close. A friend, certainly that (anyone who could put up with my sniping that long earns respect and friendship from me, easily.) But we’re not close friends.

So, taking all that into account, I decided that Bryan would understand that, though I love him and will miss him when he moves, I needed to take this time for me. And for Pete. He’s an understanding and forgiving guy, Bryan is. He’d have to be, to take me in stride as well as he does!

So Saturday, I spent with Pete. I was feeling overly-sensitive, and I recognized that I probably was at the time. At one point, I asked Pete if something I was doing was making him uncomfortable, or if I was just being overly-sensitive as I suspected I was. And I was right, it was all in my head.

Sometimes, I just read too much into things.

I told Pete that I meant to be up early, and spend some time with him this morning as well, before going off to meet the boys from Jersey. And I was actually awake early.

The damn cable modem had other plans, however. It wasn’t synching again. By the time it was working again, and I logged in, I’d missed Pete. He’d hung out waiting for me until about 45 minutes before I was able to log in. I would have called, and probably should have, but I was expecting a call from Jason so we could finalize plans for this afternoon, so I stayed off of the phone. I hung around there until the guys did call from Berserkeley, and then I had to get going. I left a message with Seeka, a mutual friend of Pete’s and mine, to pass along to him, telling him I love him and apologizing for not being there earlier. And then smacked the cable modem to let it know how unhappy I was with it, and left.

There was a bit of traffic on the drive up to Berkeley. I got there later than I was expecting, and then turned the wrong direction on San Pablo to meet Jason, Fred, and Locke. I finally got there and picked them up, and am now the proud owner of a cooler imported from Jersey. They guys had brought it with them in the U-Haul to keep sodas in for the trip, but Locke had no room for it and the others didn’t want to deal with it on the plane ride back.

Since I don’t know Berkeley (it’s been something like 12 years since I was last there) we drove back down to the south bay for dinner. The place I’d wanted to take them for dinner was closed and wouldn’t open for another hour, so we went to a Chinese place that was in the same shopping complex.

The three of them were pretty tired of each other after being around each other nine days nonstop. But I enjoyed their company greatly, all three. Even the insults they flung back and forth at each other.

The slight hint of south Jersey in their speech reminded me over and over of my Pete, and it made me miss him even more. I’d be okay, and then I’d catch the slightly different pronunciation of even a single vowel sound, and I’d remember hearing the same sound in my angel’s voice. Or when they mentioned the omnipresence of Wawa in Jersey, and I’d remember Pete saying something like it. The lack of contact he and I have had over the past while hurt all over again.

I cursed a lot, inside, that I hadn’t been able to see him at all today. But I made sure not to let it show. I wanted the boys to enjoy their time here.

About the boys, well… let’s see. Fred I knew the least, not having read a journal of his the way I have with Jason and Locke. He struck me during this afternoon as the more calm and detached of the little group. Difficult to judge, of course, on a short meeting after such a long and tiring trip. It could have just been tiredness that made him seem so. But he’s a technical sort, and we had fun in the car at one point this evening when the talk turned to tech support calls. In lots of ways, Fred reminded me of my best friend Lester from Jersey, even in looks. Lester with technical skills. This is a Good Thing. Lester is a great guy, and lots of fun to talk with.

Jason also reminded me of someone. Two someones, really. Both the other gay Jasons I knew previously. He has had similar emotional ups and downs in the past, and could be similarly moody. Like them, he was also rather picky about food, but unlike them was willing to at least try something and that was refreshing. I remember all too well the times Schitzo would turn his nose up to something without every trying it, and would either announce that he was allergic to it or that it scared him too much to eat or drink it. This Jason is fairly direct when he wants to be, and can be a real sweetie when he wants to be. If he was in the area to stay, I’d add him to the Fag Collection. A good faghag needs her quality fag time, after all, and sometimes that means having multiple gay men to spend that time with! And I could tell there would definitely be quality time that could be spent there. He’s young and cute too, so I know that given half a chance away from a fairly provincial area like the town he lives in, he’d be just as booked solid as my Sylvan and Harlequin are.

There’s just a kind of bonding between a woman and a gay man that can’t be found in any other combination. Female friends and male friends are wonderful, but it’s something indefinabley more than that. Not like being in love, exactly, but something more than other friendships anyway. And it can be just as intense and passionate in its odd type of friendship as a love relationship.

Locke is the only one of the three that California gets to keep. That is a definite gain for California. I had the most fun talking with Locke, and I felt like we connected well and quickly. It was a good sign for a very close friendship to be. I certainly intend to drag him down here to the south bay on weekends when I can, show him around, and introduce him to the merry crew down here. His Katie back in Jersey is a lucky girl.

In particular, Locke has an enthusiasm about things in general and this new chapter of his life in particular that I found very appealing. It had an infectious quality too, at least for me. I could feel an echo of that kind of fire from when I was 17, just graduated from high school, and coming to the Bay Area to start college. The time when I felt like I could move mountains, practically.

For all I know, Locke will succeed in doing that, where I failed to. He’s smart. Very smart. Good looking, too, and an interesting combination of youth and maturity. I’m going to enjoy talking with him and getting to know him. And as I said, I see potential there for this to become one of the really close, special friendships of my life, like my friendships with Sylvan, Harlequin, Dreamy, Ted, Liggy, or Camille.

Locke insisted on treating for lunch, and I didn’t argue too strenuously, mostly because I’d promised in an email to him that I wouldn’t. He and I have a similar problem about letting someone else pay our way.

So anyway, after lunch/dinner (since it was somewhere in between, really) we headed over to downtown Mountain View. I’d meant to take them to Jumpin’ Java, but it was closed by the time we got there (a theme today.) Instead we went over to Printer’s Inc. and wandered there for a little while, then went up the street to Gelato Classico. I even decided to splurge on the sugar I shouldn’t have and had a small gelato, since I decided I should celebrate having gotten to meet the guys. After all, it’s not every day that you get to meet people you’ve been corresponding with for months on end.

Unfortunately, there was a student orientation that Locke had to be at by 8. When we finished our gelato, that was about an hour away. That wasn’t enough time for him to take the train and BART to get there, even though the CalTrain station was right there up the street. So, I drove him back to Berserkeley, and managed to make him only a little late. Not that those things generally start on time anyway.

After we dropped Locke off, we headed back down toward the south bay. Jason hadn’t liked the kung pao chicken he’d tried at lunch. Since he hadn’t set off one of my kneejerk prejudices by acting like Schitzo and deciding without trying that he wouldn’t like anything, I felt bad that he’d not had much to eat. So, I planned to take him to Flames. That way, he could find something he liked and not have to go hungry since he wasn’t about to eat the airplane food. Of course, along with the general theme of the day, Flames was closed when we got there. So we drove the block to Denny’s and got Jason fed. Fred tried to pay, but I wouldn’t let him.

In retaliation, Fred insisted he pump and pay for my gas when I stopped to fill the car for the second time today. I argued a little, but not much.

Then it was off on 101 up to SFO so Fred and Jason could catch their flight back. 10:30 at night on a Sunday is apparently the time to drop passengers off at SFO, there was hardly any traffic. Though one of the big green SFO/hotel shuttles caused us some problems. I was in the lane I needed to be in to get to passenger drop off. It had been in a lane going elsewhere. It moved over to my lane, so I had to slow down. Then, after that lane divided from the others, the driver realized that he’d been in the correct lane in the first place, and slammed on the breaks. I had to slam on mine, prompting Jason to ask me not to kill us. But the shuttle got out of our way and back to where it was supposed to be, and there was no dented metal, just a worried Jason and an irritated Olivia. Fred didn’t say anything about it one way or the other, and was in back so I didn’t see if there was a particular expression on his face. I have no clue whether our near accident mattered to him at all.

Of course, he may have taken it in stride, since apparently there were several near misses on the long drive from New Jersey. For all I know, he might be used to them now.

I got home and checked on Empiriana, not expecting Pete to be there, but hoping anyway. He, of course, wasn’t. After all, it was about 2am his time when I finally made it back. I did get a short email from him, telling me he’d waited for me until after 11am my time… just about 45 minutes before I was able to get online. Dammit. *sighs*

Hopefully, when he gets back from his plans for next weekend on that Sunday, I’ll be able to see him then.

Somehow, I WILL get more quality time with my angel! I miss him soooooooooooo much!

The boys from Jersey just called. They’re in Sacramento, and they’ll be in the Bay Area tomorrow.

Thus far, I’ve talked with Jason twice and Fred once. Locke apparently wants to be surprised when we meet, so he has avoided the phone.

They’ll be calling tomorrow sometime after ten so we can make arrangements to meet for lunch. We’ll get all the where and when ironed out then.

I’m really looking forward to meeting them, especially Locke and Jason. Between email and journals, I feel like they’re friends already.

Hmmmm… wonder if I’ll be able to convince anyone else to come along and welcome the three of them to California. It’s pretty last-minute for most of my friends, but a welcoming committee could be fun. I’ll have to call around and see how many people are available and not too hung-over from tonight’s party for Bryan.

I figure, since I’m vehicled and they won’t be once they get rid of the truck, I’ll give Jason and Fred a lift to the airport for their flight home Sunday evening. Pity they couldn’t have stayed longer. I’d have made some attempt to show them around, rather than heading off to LA Monday afternoon.

Well, maybe they’ll come out for a longer visit sometime.

Well, MY afternoon, anyway.

Sounds like the roomie has a girlie over. Or else he likes sitting in his room moaning in falsetto.

Good thing this is a time I’m normally awake, otherwise I’d be annoyed. And considering that I’m not exactly a quiet little thing myself, and have kept people awake before, (Hi, sis and ex-roommates!) I would feel weird telling them to quiet down. Kinda hypocritical of me, really.

Hell, she’s relatively quiet, anyway. Not like a neighbor of mine anyway, whose bed AND girlfriend both squeaked loudly, almost every night. Usually at about 2 or 3 in the morning, when I was attempting to sleep so I could be up in time for classes at college.

Yeah, there actually was a time I tried to get to morning classes, instead of hanging out in the student center all day and ignoring my classes. Scary, huh?

OOHHH
    H
    H
    H
    H
    H
    h
    h
    h
     h
      h
       hh
         hh
           hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shit!

Up until Monday, I thought I’d be heading to Greece today. Though likely much LATER than this today.

Since Monday, I’ve been plotting revenge.

I will say this… at least I wasn’t “invited” from the beginning. I feel sorry for some of the others. They got strung along for a year and a half. Lee and I only got strung along for a few months. Not even a year.

And oh, is the deceitful little shit going to pay.

Okay, so not everything go boom. *grinning*

Everything go boom. :(

Was it something I said
Or something I did
Did my words not come out right

Yeah, I’ll say they didn’t.

I had it all figured out. Then the rules changed. Now I’m back at square one. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Funny
How’d I fail to see this little bedtime tale was funny
I could cry to think of all the irony I’ve missed
What an unusual twist
Right at the end of it
Funny
Who could see that this pathetic scene would be so funny
Once you strain to find the grain of humor underneath
Life doublecrosses with style
Forcing you into a smile
So it can kick you in the teeth
Just desserts
We can all laugh till it hurts
At my expense
I’m accustomed to working on spec
I always pick up the check
I think it’s funny
Who could top or make this comic opera more compelling
You could weave in some deceit to even up the score
You’d have us all on the floor
That would be roaringly funny
Sad enough my life’s a joke that suffers in the telling
Just another hoary chestnut from the bottom drawer
I’ve heard so often before
That I can’t laugh anymore

It’s official! You were PJ Harvey in a past life!
You were PJ Harvey in a past life! You’re can
be somewhat reserved, but when there’s an
issue you feel strongly about you’re not afraid
to share your opinion. You’re the walking
definition of sophistication and people admire
you for your strength and composure. You are
highly artistic and enjoy creating masterpieces
any way you can!

I was reading through the weblog of one of my online adopted sisters, and found this poem she wrote. I thought it was beautiful and wanted to share it with everyone here, so I “borrowed” it to post here. I’ll ask her, when she gets back from youth camp, if she’d rather I not have it up, and if she says she’d rather not, it’s easily deleted.

I don’t think she’ll mind though… after all, she posted it someplace where it’s open to the public already.

On the wings of a dream
I flew to Enchantment
Otherwise known as England, or Oz, or France . . .
But what matters about the name
When what’s important
Is what waits for you upon the shore :
Memories, my sweet, adventure,
And friends and sights, old and new

- SMN

There was a time when artwork of some variety was all I wanted to do. A time when, as it were, I responded to the call of the Muse. Over the years, I fined it down to the specific type of artwork that I wanted to spend my life doing… animation. Not the computer generated stuff. I have not and may well never appreciate computer generated animation. No matter how technically skilled it is, to me it feels utterly soulless. It is entirely a personal prejudice, and not one that most people share or even understand. But nonetheless it’s there, and does not go away. The only time I find computer generated animation acceptable is when it’s part of some game I’m playing… since all of that is computer generated to begin with. I don’t know why that suddenly makes it okay, when I can’t accept it in a movie or show on television.

But I’m wandering off on a tangent.

Yes, animation was what I wanted to do. I toyed with the idea of Disney, I toyed with the idea of anime. I loved the detail that went into each individual frame of anime, but disliked the shortcuts in animating those frames that sometimes resulted in jerky rather than smooth motion.

Do frame-by-frame advance of a figure in most anime running. The drawings that compose the running sequence may not quite be “legs apart, legs together, legs apart, legs together” as a friend of mine once said, but it’s damn close.

I loved the smoothness of Disney animation, but disliked the tendency of American animation to assume animation is only for kids.

What I wanted to do was apprentice for a time with one of the two, and really get that style down… then apprentice with the other, and learn its style as well. And, in the end, create a synthesis. The smoothness of Disney, with the detail and storylines inspired by anime.

It might have even flown, with the way anime has gathered such a following outside of Japan in the years since this plan first came to me.

But then… ahhhh then, one of my boyfriends happened. The one who decided I needed to be punished if I didn’t jump and obey his every word. The one who felt I was being disobedient if I did something playful, and so I needed to be punished.

The one whose favorite way of punishing me was to dislocate the first and second fingers of my right hand.

In the nine months that relationship ran, and the three months after when there was abuse even though I was with someone else (and the someone else also being abusive… boy did I know how to pick ‘em!) all my plans were gone. Destroyed along with some of the use of those fingers. The joints are too damaged and I have lost the kind of fine control that I needed for the artwork I used to be able to do. What I can do now is what I once considered minor doodles, suitable only for passing some idle time and then going in the trash. Those doodles are what most of my friends have known of my artwork, and some of them have praised it.

But I know what I was capable of. I know what I lost. And these pictures are nothing. They’re the work of a hack.

When fighting against the damage did nothing but give me pain without breaking past the terrible loss of mobility, I quit.

For years, I let my skills atrophy, and I mourned.

In the years that I had been working toward the thing I had always wanted, it had not been just “I like to draw” or something that inspired it. There was a need in me to express myself that way. It was a fire I couldn’t put out, and there were times when it drove me so hard that I felt like a passenger in my own body. I was possessed, until the creative need left me, spent and breathless. It may seem like a cliche to someone who’s never experienced it, but it’s very real. Those were moments of transcendence, fire, passion, even divinity. In those moments, I was Goddess in a way that can only make sense to someone else who has been taken by the Muse.

It is a vital thing. You need to do it in order to continue, to be sane, to live a healthy life. There are moments when you don’t have a choice, the image is searing your mind and you must make it real.

The first time the Muse called me after my boyfriend happened to me, I tried. Having that drive, and not being able to keep up with this cold burning thing inside you, is agony. I don’t even think I can describe what hurt, and why. But it did. It never showed on the outside, but inside a part of me was writhing in pain so intense it seemed it would die.

And eventually, it did.

There was a gaping hole where that passion had once burned. As with the way it hurt to no longer be able to respond, I can’t describe this well, either. It is a terrible emptiness when you have known the Muse, and the day comes when you don’t even hear the echo of her call. It’s an emptiness that I have had for years. I have tried to fill it with other things, taken other paths of creativity. I have sung, and acted, and written, and cooked. I have taken pictures and tried to learn instruments and attempted various creative outlets available with a computer. I have searched and searched to hear the voice of my Muse again, or of another of her kind.

The Muse that led me to art has remained a stranger.

I had moments in pursuing other things that I thought I might have felt those feelings again in a distant, pale way. But it was once, and it faded quickly, for each of the paths that brought the echo.

In the last two weeks or so, the fire has returned. I have felt the burning need to DO again. This mingled agony and ecstasy doesn’t come to me with the paints and pens in hand that once were my media. It is a different Muse.

But oh, to feel this passion again!

Snippet from email from my friend Simone in Australia… she and I have never met, but hit it off so well, we’ve decided that we must have been twins in a past life or something…

Besides Ive been told by some people who have seen your pic that you are nothing less than amazingly stunning. NO-ONE has ever said that about me so relax dude. Your very beautiful I believe.

I sat there for a long time staring at that. I’m not used to this compliments outta the blue thing.

And I want to know who she’s been talking to… cause as far as I knew, there were only two people that she and I have in common who’ve seen any pics of me… and those were when I was more firmly in my blimp days than I am now!

I have been saying for a while now that I’m going to post, at least a little bit, about my trip to New Jersey to see my honey.

And yet I keep putting it off… At least, I put off the things that I can say publically. There have been a couple private entries, of course.

The flight out to New Jersey must have been smooth, cause I slept through almost the whole damn thing. I woke up long enough to eat the little quarter of a ham sandwich and two Oreo cookies that they gave us to eat, and then was out again before they even came by to collect the trash.

I woke again when we were still fairly far out from Newark, but just beginning our descent. We had lost enough altitude that there was a very slight pressure change in my ears. It was enough to wake me. I forced my ears to pop, opened up the window’s shutter, and looked out.

It was just dark enough still that streetlights were on in every town that we passed over. I remembered that Annandale was a fairly straight shot west of Newark, and I wondered if we’d pass over it. I began to play a game with myself, trying to see if I could recognize anything simply from the pattern of lights that I could see.

I think that I spotted the condo complex we lived in, just outside Annandale. The layout of lights showing good-sized parking lots was about right.

In that moment, I got hit by an intense longing. I wanted to move back. I wanted to live in the east again. The Silicon Valley has always been home, and it is the place I always have pined for and come back to, every time I’ve moved.

Somewhere along the way, New Jersey became a second home. The memories of it, the yearning to live there again, it was all very nearly as intense as anything I’ve felt about California on my various moves.

I wanted to move there so badly, I nearly cried as the lights I thought might be Beaverbrook Estates drifted behind me.

And then I’d had enough looking out at something I suddenly missed so sharply, and I closed the shutter on the window. I kept it closed until we landed.

The connection in Newark was late leaving, due to six lagging passengers who held the flight up. But we finally made the hop to Philly.

When deplaning in Philly, I got stuck behind a pair of old women. They moved up the jetway at a snails pace, and insisted on walking side by side, inner arms linked, and outer arms held out against the walls of the jetway. They blocked the entire thing. Every once in a while, the one on the left would move ahead of the other and curve inward, like she realized how she was holding up nearly everyone trying to leave the plane, and was going to give us room to pass on one side. And every time I started to step around to squeeze past, she would step back in front of me. I was going nuts with the slow pace.

Step. Wait wait wait waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait.
Step. Wait wait wait waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait.
Step. Wait wait wait waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitAAAAAARGGGGGHHHHH!

Finally, I exited the jetway, doing the pedestrian equivalent of tailgating these two. I saw Pete, and watched a beautiful smile make his face light up. And I decided then that I was passing those women if I had to pick them up and bodily move them out of my way. I was not going to delay one second longer in making my way to the man with that gorgeous smile.

About this time, the lefthand little old biddy started her drift toward the right again, as if she was going to let me pass. And I decided that I was going to damn well pass as soon as there was any room to do it, rather than be polite and wait for her to get all the way over, as I’d done before.

So, she drifted right, and I made my move. She must have realized I was going to go for it, because she moved even further over this time than any of the other times before… And then came back to the left fast, rather than just drifting back. I nearly tripped over her and wound up hugging the wall to slip past her, but I did it. She got back to blocking the way, and I was just in front of her. Free at last!

After all the anticipation, and all the delay, it was too much to ask of me that I walk from there. Once I was in the clear, I ran to Pete as fast as I could dodge past other people milling around the gate.

And finally I was there, and threw my arms around him, and felt his around me. It was the best feeling. It was exactly where I wanted to be… in Pete’s arms. Any other where didn’t matter. Only that one did.

The much-anticipated first kiss… *sighs and grins at the memory* I can’t describe it, and I won’t try. Not beyond this, anyway… a part of my reaction to it.

I was so giddy, and my legs had gone weak, so I was swaying and had to depend on him to for enough support to keep me standing. I haven’t been so thoroughly overwhelmed by a kiss in a decade or more, since a particular night, a trip to the Peppermill, a whole bunch of Long Island Iced Tea, and a friend I’d had a crush on for about four years. A friend with very talented lips. That kiss has been my standard, and every other since (and before, as I recall) has lacked.

Until now.

WOW! was about the best description I could give it for days. That should tell you something, everyone who puts up with my lengthy rambling. ME unable to find words.

Even that comparison took a week and a half to come to me. It wasn’t until tonight that I suddenly realized all of that. A week and a half. That man managed to scramble something in my head for quite some time.

I usually don’t take a week and a half to recover from anything, and never that long to recover from being kissed.

Okay, I need to stop right here for the time being. Typing all of that made me remember in intense detail… and I just spent the last thirty minutes staring blankly at the screen. Speechless all over again, until I forced myself to write this.

I’ll try to talk a little more about this some other time… but, well, it’s pretty likely that most of my trip to NJ will never make it into my journal. I’ll just have to rely on memories later, rather than anything I wrote.