Mah Suthuhn Gal Loves Her Faux Meat

My grrl gets around. She spent her childhood in Oregon, adolescence and early adulthood in the south, eight months walking across the country on a peace march, brief time in D.C. and Minneapolis, and then migrated west for twenty years spent in Zionia being a local bluesy/rock and gardening icon. Infamous, if you will.

Despite her varied geographical identities, I can't help but think of T as inherently southern, and not only due to that sexy drawl she's prone to whip out during intimate moments. No, I take her fervent love and commitment to meat - albeit faux meat - as a southern quality, especially the way she gets excited about the "bacon" and "sausage." (If so inclined, you may insert a joke here about other types of faux sausage we grrls may enjoy . . . )


Yes, indeedy, folks. Mah soy-lovin' vegetarian gal is suthuhn. (She even told me how to spell southern phonetically. Whattagal.)


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Aftermath

"The children sucked my personality out," she said limply, after babysitting for an entire three hours.

Shrinkage

For five months our love-connection has been nurtured and cultivated by daily phone calls across a couple of states, a rendezvous in Idaho, frustratingly short visits spaced four to six weeks apart, and much anticipation.

Last month when she spent twelve days in south Florida, we were separated by 2650 miles. And I felt those extra 1900 miles. In some ways it was sort of romantic, envisioning us on opposite ends of the continent, but the time difference made phone call coordination difficult.

Now the distance has shrunk from 2650 miles to 766 miles and soon to mere inches. Instead of counting the weeks or days, I'm counting the hours until she's here for good with a truck full of instruments and clothes and kitchen supplies, my decadent request for Red Iguana Mole Poblano fulfilled, a sexy (and sedated for the roadtrip) black cat in tow.

I am giddy with the prospect of holding hands and burying my face in her neck and laughing together and feeling her breath in my hair and watching her sleep and seeing her eyes gazing at me when I awake.

The phone sex has been fun, and has probably kept me from plummeting into a celibacy-induced psychosis, but getting off is so much better in person. Juggling a cell phone and saying "what?" when one of us starts mumbling somehow bleeds the eroticism from the experience. But soon the phone sex will be reserved for those public masturbatory adventures when I may need a little prompting and my grrl is on the other side of town, instead of far far away in MormoniaZionia.

Here, kitty, kitty!

. . .

Frowny Sick

I'm sick. Tired. Whiney. Headachey. My sweetheart is en route back to SLC, and I miss her fiercely already.

But I did manage to smile wryly at this.

And I also just heard from TW, the aforementioned sweetheart, about a narrowly averted tragedy in the form of an almost-lost fly rod, being transported by TW on my behalf, for J, who needs the rod to potentially snag something on his roadtrip tomorrow. Thanks, love, for seeing that project through. What a relief in the form of a white paging phone at SLC International Airport. Whew.

Good Dates

We've had nothing but good dates. We include our hang-out-at-home and stay-in-bed-until-1:00-pm encounters as good dates, too. Maybe even as especially good dates.

Today was no exception. We took Max downtown Portland, wandered around the Market, laughed a lot, talked to artists, dreamed of how we will configure our future home, and maneuvered through a Hare Krishna encounter. Then we went to the library where I headed for the law section and she the botany/science areas.

To add the utter cream to our day, we then transplanted indoor plants at my office and went home for squash soup.

Good dates, oh yes.

Anticipator

One of my grandfather's sayings, after I'd tell him about travel plans to go visit him:

"Oooh, girlie! That gets my anticipator cranking!"

That saying always makes me smile and feel fondly of that dear man.

And today, my anticipator is seriously cranked. My lover arrives in a mere twelve hours. Twelve hours!

That is all I can manage at this moment. Excitement ...

Display

Ring ring ring

voice, slightly muffled: Hello?

me: Hey, baby, how's your night?

voice, more clearly: What?

me, panic rising: Mom?!

I'll be watching the cellphone display a lot more carefully from now on. I'm just so relieved that all I did was say "baby." It could've been worse. It could've been a hot and steamy sexy-text. Yikes.

Rites... updated ... and updated again.

Before I moved away from the only state I had ever lived, I made a difficult but deliberate decision. I did not make the 12-hour trip to see my grandfather. I wanted to remember him how he was during my previous visit, about a year before. I knew I might live to regret that decision, and I didn't make it lightly.

About an hour ago, I was told that Grandpa is en route to Salt Lake City to undergo surgery after taking a fall. More details as they become available. **Update: he broke his hip, had surgery, developed pneumonia, is now doing better, and I've talked to him on the phone.**

He's worked so bloody hard his whole life. First as a miner, then as his town's garbage collector, then as a thoughtful and supportive grandfather to his fifteen living grandchildren, many of whom had no other grandparents except for him. He would say to me fondly, "You were the first one to call me grandpa."

During my tearful call to TW, she offered to take him flowers at the hospital tomorrow. Her angelic presence and willingness to be at his bedside in my stead deepens my devotion to her. That's what's so wondrously surprising - that my devotion could grow any deeper than it already was.

**SECOND UPDATE: Just heard that he's suffered a stroke. As of yesterday he was doing much much better, was actually sitting up, eating solid food, coherent, and was being transferred to a rehab facility sooner than initially expected. Sometime during the night he had a stroke, his pneumonia is back with a vengeance, and his body is full of infection. If the antibiotics are going to work, we're told, they will do so within the first 24 hours. And so we wait. And I fight back tears at work while coping by writing this update.**

Luvy Wuvy

In honor of its twentieth anniversary, a quote from the indomitable A Princess Bride:

Westley: This is true love - you think this happens every day?

Instead of being 766 miles away from me, my love is within a couple hundred miles. Right now she is on the coast and as I'm now working to pay off that mortgage-size student loan debt, I had to stay in Stumptown.

When she leaves Monday the 8th, I'll start counting the days until Thanksgiving.

Rendezvous

TW and I rendezvoused at Owyhee Hot Springs last weekend. It was wonderful. We are both so much in love with each other that it's endearing and (by all accounts) not quite yet sickening.

When we met up in Nampa, Idaho, I realized how much fear and watchful looking over my shoulder I'd shed since moving to Portland six weeks ago. She had to remind me that we had an audience at times; that the rednecks might not appreciate watching me suck face with my girlfriend, that I wasn't in my safe haven of a liberal city.

Likey

Last night someone told me that if I'm blogging about produce, I have too much time on my hands. I cheerfully agreed.

However, having a lot of time on my hands does not mean I'm going to discuss anything like the long overdue resignation of US Attorney BossMan (aka Posterboy for the double feature: 'Merican Dream/Gitmo Nightmare). I will, however, link you to a chimp site. Yee-haw.

Tonight's post is going to focus on Likey.

Likey. Verb. As in, I likey that S continually inspires and endears me.

I first heard the term years ago from S, with whom I share a 12+ year friendship, and it always makes me smile. So in addition to the example provided above for the usage of the term, here's my likey list for today:

1. I likey that my Authentic Audubon Society Singing Bird Clock sounds so realistic that it produces the same reaction in at least two badass cats. B's cat Smokey used to do it, and I just watched Kitty do it too. They get That Look. They open their mouth, squint their eyes, and breathe all lustily. Roar. Feline instinct.

2. I likey that I found out about this Peace-Making site.

3. I really likey that I am envisioning a way to use my JD for good and not for evil, enabling me to meet my own gaze in the mirror hanging above my kitchen sink.

4. I likey making intention boards with an intuitive 5-year-old, who helped me collage carefully chosen images and words in an ongoing project to manifest my reality. (Oh, and if you're rolling your eyes at the mention of manifesting reality, I do have a sense of humor about Da Seeeekret. And/but I also make intention boards.)

5. I likey having my Anticipator all revved up, looking forward to rendezvous and trips and visits in the next month.

6. I likey the varied correspondence TW and I share through psychic, written, technological, postal, auditory, and astral means.

6. I likey being in love. (Awww, she's in love!)

Relief >>> Anticipation

I survived the bar, but won't know if I have to re-take it until the results are posted 9/14. What an awful ordeal that was; I'm very glad it's behind me. And I didn't even have a seizure from the terrible carpet in the hotel ballroom. Two days of wearing earplugs did make me rather self-conscious and self-absorbed, as every swallow rang in my ears and my footfalls sounded elephantine.

Now I am frantically packing up twelve years of life in Salt Lake City. Tomorrow's farewell potluck party starts in the afternoon, so I have much to do in anticipation, plus the actual packing part. I load the truck and move Monday the 30th.

Slightly bittersweet, as I have recently connected with someone truly extraordinary, and naturally, living in SLC. But this feeling of liking someone a whole lot, and being liked back in turn, is incredible. Thank goodness my leaving prompted boldness on my part (what did I have to lose if she wasn't interested?), else I may have slid out of Mormonia without meeting its rocknroll-angel-goddess. But. That tragedy was averted, and I do have the distinct pleasure of Miss W's affection, and she mine. Yes, my friends, I am indeed grinning.

back to the boxes and packing tape