Oh sweetheart, I am missing you, and feeling between things. I'm clicking on stats, on the photo that my date took of me yesterday (one of the few images of me that I think is actually quite nice), thinking about -- oh, I don't know, I'm a little at low ebb today, my thoughts scattered. It's been chilly, damp and gray all day. I stopped in at the church and ran through the hymns once more, in advance of tomorrow. Good thing, since I'd had a nightmare last night, how I completely bombed during a service - had forgotten to turn on the organ, played the wrong hymn, and that one badly. I've been thinking of my date yesterday, he sent me a couple of beautifully written messages overnight - another Cyrano (me being one too). And I've been quite taken with his messages... funny - I don't know what to make of it. The Mysteries of Alchemy. And here comes, just now, a page hit from "Schenectady" -- only I think that maybe it's actually from NW Connecticut, a CL date that didn't go well -- and yet, here he is (I think?) still looking at my blog. If it's you - you - I'd give you a second chance, I would, but let's make it a meal already, break some bread. Come to Hudson. I've got a half-price certificate to the Swoonery. That will cover, oh, I don't know, a few olives and a small appetizer -- no, I'm kidding, it's for $25 - we can get some nice food off it, and I'll let you cover any drinks, plus tax & tip (excluded from this certificate). I would give you a second chance, I would. As I would yesterday's date - he'd like to keep in touch, meet again, and I feel myself a bit tidally pulled, or at least tempted, he's just so very nice, poetic & romantic about it -- and this is after his actually meeting me.

Oh what else today... I lay down for a nap, still wearing a bit of makeup (this was after a 'session' - marvelous, you, & no headache), and I've decided that I do look better with a touch of mascara... and after my nap I woke up, thinking I might try to rouse myself to do a workout (what with your allusion, with reference to me, to Vera Farmiga's legs) but couldn't quite, in the end, muster the energy. So I sat at my desk, trying to motivate myself, watching a documentary about Patti Smith on PBS instead. I really like her -- she reminds me of E.D., in a way -- just so resolutely her own person... fulfilled in so many ways... she's got all sorts of adoring people around her... but she'd bomb on CL, probably. So would E.D.

Next door neighbor is revving his motorbike. I've rarely seen him close up, in all the years we've lived here. We wave to each other, if I'm out on a walk and he's passing by in one of his trucks. But today I stopped by one of the supermarkets, in hope of cut flowers (anemic, perhaps because it's pre-Easter), and there he was, marching out of there. I recognized him -- kind of a gumsnapping good ole' boy type, good looking in a bland boyish way -- and I was going to say 'hi', but weirdly, he didn't seem to see or recognize me, as we crossed paths.

Other than that -- oh sweetheart, I'm so tired - you know what I would enjoy? a nice fire in the hearth, you know, after I post this, I might just go try to organize one -- I've been listening to, over & over, a netflixed David Gray concert, that I'm absolutely loving, though no Stella...

tell the repo man, and the stars above
that you're the one I love, you're the one I love...<>

Hello darling, putting my arms around you, holding you tight, giving you a great big kiss hello. Hello! I missed you today, and am glad to be back with you. I had a nice time this morning with my breakfast date. He's a very nice gentleman, going through a hard time, and it was very nice just to talk to him for a while, over the most elegant and delicious breakfast ever, at a well-known country inn, a landmark, that I've passed by numerous times over the years, had a burger there once, in their pub, with D, years ago, and always wanted to 'properly' dine there. So this morning was my chance. I was as excited as a tourist. Come to think of it, I was a tourist. I snapped a few photos, but in my haste, and perhaps vestigial anxiety (I didn't want to unnerve my discretion-seeking date by suddenly taking pictures all over the place), many of them, much to my disappointment, came out blurry. So I can't give you the best glimpses of what an atmospheric, exquisitely and comfortably appointed place this is.

I liked my date, he's a really good person, clearly, a gentleman, very human, warm, etc., etc. But. Oh darling, I haven't been with anyone but D in over 25 years. Since then, only in recent years, I fell back in love with paramour (after a 30-year hiatus), and then more recently with you.... and yet in all that time I have still been corporeally faithful. As much as I'm searching for a corporeal lover. But it - that is, he - can't be just anyone, I simply am not wired that way. I wish I could be. I mean, I think I hurt this man's feelings a bit, that I simply shook my head no when he asked me if I wanted to do something more with him that morning, after our meal. And I wish I could have said yes. Part of me really wishes that. Maybe it sounds screwed up, but I might almost have been the bigger person for it. But I just couldn't.

I don't know, it's confusing. He's a good guy. But going through a lot right now, with a lot pent up, and no one intimately close to him (which category, pointedly, includes his wife) he can -- well, just be himself, not put on a 'game face' mask. He talked about himself unceasingly throughout the meal, never once asking one question about me (until the very end, when we were standing, and I was putting on my coat). And it just made me feel -- well, I'm not his therapist, and I'm not a sex-worker -- I can't 'be there' for him, as self-effacedly as that, however sympathetic (or empathetic - because I didn't feel sorry for him, he's a very positive, energetic guy, with a lot going for him) I feel towards him.

But we did have a wonderful, warm, congenial time simply talking and sharing a delicious meal, in beautiful surroundings. It certainly was a treat for me, and I'm sure for him too. And by the way, I did contribute substantially towards my share of the bill, perhaps not quite half -- but I simply couldn't 'freeload,' not with knowing how I was feeling, what ultimately was going to happen -- that I would get back in my car, by myself, and he in his, and he would drive eastward, and me westward, and that would be that. So, absolutely, when I returned from the ladies' room, and saw after a few moments that in my brief absence the waitress had brought the bill & he had settled the check, I said oh!, and pulled out a twenty, and he said no I don't have to, and I said yes - I do, and it was all understood, quite clearly, right then.

There always is an economic angle to such transactions, however delicate. It's okay, I have no problem with that. And also - I have to thank D for that twenty, and for his topping off the gas tank, and my phone card to boot.

(This thought doesn't really fit in here, and yet I want to put it in -- that I am amazed, really, at sex workers, their ability to 'do it' even if there isn't attraction. I don't seem able to do so. Or, I don't wish to do so, I'm not even sure which. I mean... there was a part of me that wanted to be a loving comfort to this man, if even for an hour (or an hour every week), and yet I simply absolutely couldn't bring myself to. I don't understand it myself -- my own utter, turtle-like reticence, the opposite, at least from what I saw in the Cathouse series I netflixed months ago, about a legal Nevada brothel, the hookers and their johns, of how they - the hookers, that is - are always so instantly, instantly "on" - whoever.)

Anyway, darling, I didn't mean for this morning's excursion to be some weird form of torture, doomed to failure. And I am very grateful to this very gracious gentleman, who is going through a lot, that we could end our encounter, and still on very warm and cordial terms. And as I was putting on my coat, relieved really, knowing that the awkward shoals-part was over -- I will have you know, that this morning, mid-morning, in the most beautiful, elegant, delightful inn ever... I was thinking of you, and thinking --- oh thank goodness, it's you I want to be with, after all, and now, since it didn't work out, I can be with you...

good night, dearest Pablo
your Dora

a few snapshots below (I don't have the energy to format at the moment)
but the first one is - if you can believe it - of an aspect of the ladies room there!
in the receiving hall, as one entered, there was a crackling glowing fire in the black iron grate, and the air was deliciously fragrant with woodsmoke

there's a 'house' cat, venerable old soul

and I asked my date to snap a picture of me - I think it turned out pretty well -- I dressed up in a skirt, after all -- and that's my new "Doctor Zhivago" parka.
Yours, Julie Christie, without makeup, and without benefit of Hollywood

oh p.s., darling, on my way back home - well, I pretty much hightailed it, was back by one -- and so fired up & fueled up – all this pent, unspent energy
I so wanted to - I don't know -
just after all that I didn't feel like being just back home
but I only had $16 in my wallet

I went into town, in my grand new parka
marched up, then back down Warren Street (four-five blocks in either direction)

I was SO tempted to debrief myself over a glass of Spanish rioja at the Swoonery
but I peeped in the window -- empty!

so after my town stroll, I got in my (perfectly parallel-parked) car
and drove to the stripmall local department store

where I bought mascara
and paid for it
and applied it on the spot
viewing myself in a makeup counter mirror

the clerk thought - I look good!
I think so too

***

***
Hi sweetheart, a few glimpses of bulbs growing about the garden, daffodils, hyacinth, scilla... I'm a little on tenterhooks at the moment, breakfast date tomorrow morning, on the early side, for me, and I'm not at my best in the morning, but I'll do my best. I'm glad to be meeting this guy without a bazillion tiresome emails. Either it will work, or it won't. But I have good vibes about this one, I'm crossing my fingers. That we'll connect, that is... I don't know, did you ever see an absolutely wonderful teleplay called, Bed Among the Lentils? I saw it years ago, and I think of it from time to time. It was written by Alan Bennett, and the teleplay I saw featured Maggie Smith, who plays (as I recall) the lonely, misunderstood, neglected wife of a busy English vicar. It's a dramatic monologue, actually, start to finish, just Dame Maggie (younger then, late middle-age) telling her story... of how she finds the most unlikely and fulfilling comforting extramarital love interest, with a lonely, gentle, kind Indian grocer...

The fellow I'm meeting isn't South-Asian, or an emigre, or whatever, that isn't my point. I just sense that he too is someone in a trying situation on many levels, desperately trying to connect -- I can relate & respond to that, I totally get it. Just on a really deep warm human level. Yes - I would say - emotional connection, if it happens - that is, that's what he is seeking - not just the gratifying hour.

Anyway, we'll see. We're both old enough to --- well, I suppose, to be kind I think. I think he's mature. This isn't about 'spankings.' Not that there's anything wrong with that. Except that for me, personally, it's not the kind or level of connection that I would like with a man. Oh, anyway, enough explainery. Though I did come across, in today's Cary Tennis, a great term that I'd never heard of before -- I'll link to his column, and to his link within it. Awesomely useful term -- and I must say, it describes the filmic productions that reel in my head when I get busy -- I am happy to know there's a word for it!

So I'm looking forward to tomorrow, though with a few butterflies & trepidations. I look alright, in a presentable country housewife sort of way. And not that I wish to transform myself into something or someone or not. Still, I wish I could wave a magic wand and suddenly have the subtlest (read, probably: expensive) makeover -- perfect cut & color, manicure & pedicure (including nail polish), makeup -- you see, I don't wear any, anymore, but am thinking that that is an area I'd like to reconsider -- though I did buy a lipstick the other week, and enjoy using it -- and yes, perhaps just the right outfit, flattering & perfect for a stylish country-inn breakfast date.

I will try my best for tomorrow, of course, but I simply fall short (sort of like those whittled down points regarding Olympic skaters... no 10.0 here, more like 8.8 (I hope), on style & presentation. No, what I have to offer isn't perfection. But I do try... within my means...

Oh I don't know. I've ironed a blouse. I won't wash my hair in the morning, I won't have time - I washed it yesterday. I have nice underwear. Perhaps not the sexiest -- but it would feel funny to wear my sexy underwear underneath the outfit I've settled on for tomorrow (that I'm not thrilled with). Most importantly, I've studied the road map, and plotted out a course for myself, so hopefully I can get there without getting lost. There is something about these Columbia County roads -- no matter how many times I've traveled them.... Route 22 connects to --- now how do I get to Route 203 from there, do I turn left or right at that road's end?

I include a short clip from the teleplay I mentioned above... I haven't watched the whole thing (the first few moments of it are quite lugubrious, it must be near the beginning of the story)... but I assure you that, even at the point if/when this particular clip ends, there is quite an uplifting joyous ending to this story as a whole, which shows on the character's face as she comes to life, and finds love...

Hello sweetheart, thank you for giving me your hand, what a wonderful way to greet the day, with that gesture. Especially since you were in my dreams last night, we managed to be together, with the usual suspects about of course, and yet we managed, without getting caught or found out (the surrounding cast, in my dream anyway, oddly oblivious), to lie together in bed for a little while, in each other's arms, savoring kisses and the feel of each other, and knowing not only that this encounter was dangerous and on-the-fly, but that it might be the only contact you and I would have for a year or more... And then the dream dissolved, my aunt was angry about something, your wife & I shared a gooey chocolate cupcake with cream, somehow the bedroom (the one nearest the front door) had turned into a convenience store.

I was thinking today how I haven't been to the city in a long while, I don't quite remember when was the last time, last fall sometime. The Brooklyn invitations seem to have dried up. I think it might be because the wife retired, and so I imagine that their travel budget has been sharply curtailed. I should think about suggesting a weekend swap with them, perhaps D could stay in an apartment in town (town - here) like last time. Only - how awkward is that? Very. But I do miss the city, the energy of it, the ability to check out a gallery or museum exhibit. Don't worry, darling, eventually a trip to the city will happen - will have to. I have two blue toys, but one is distinctly less effective than the other, and so when the "good one" goes -- well you know there will be a sudden rush to visit Soho or Park Slope. Also, let's say the 'good' blue toy lasts for quite a while longer... my tiny cut-glass bottle of Miss Dior, that I spritz on once a day - one spritz, that I rub between my wrists, apply to inner arm and behind my ears, and not even, necessarily, every day -- it's half-empty... eventually it will run out and I will simply have to stop by Saks F.A. -- F.A. meaning "Fifth Avenue" -- and also "for another."

Dinner will be grilled steak, and salad. No housecleaning today, thankfully. A trifecta - achieved, again - no headache. I continue to troll the C.L. ads. Possibly I should post my own? It's something to think about. So stupid, but the mechanics of it are a little difficult - D and I share this computer - and somehow the CL programming has his email & cell - and stubbornly doesn't want to accept some other 'user' from this computer. Yet another example of my frustration, besides slow downloads (we still have dialup!)...

Well sweetheart, perhaps I'll end this daily missive for lack of news. Do you understand why, now, I've never been able to come up with the annual, typewritten, generic newsy form letter often enclosed in Christmas cards?

Dear Friends, Well a year of trolling CL ads for a viable love interest went nowhere as I continued to harbor feelings of illicit love for someone completely inappropriate to me, and managed to shake off like Lyme disease thoughts of an ancient paramour as well -- (listen guys -- that electroshock therapy -- I'm telling you, it worked for me - call me [insert thumb & pinkie gesture here] --

Many kisses you - for real (well, sort of)
taking your hand
and giving you many kisses in return
have I ever told you -- I think you're cute?
no - I mean it - you're cute - in that sexy, delicious
I want to eat you up kind of way cute
aaaarrgghhh

gawd I could go for a chocolate cupcake with gushy spurting white-cream filled center
[see - that's me - more than a spanking]
but no, M., if I have a cup of coffee at this hour, it will only keep me up all night

xoxo
love you

P.S. lying in your arms, late at night, so happy, so cozy, wondering, what size dress do you suppose Dora Maar wore... kissing your, oh I don't know what size neck, my delicious fragrant incredible darling...

Darling, half-collapsed in my chair, up in the aerie, character in my own novel, the one that I'm writing, writing as I live it, or a few moments after. I just finished vacuuming the downstairs, so dusty - why? Dust is the terrible enemy - which has to do not so much with cosmology, I expect, as air pollution. Whatever floats over from Ohio and deposits here. Or whatever D's sanding in his enclosed front-porch workshop, that would probably flunk all sorts of OSHA standards. And so I dusted, with a wet turquoise sock, his Steinway, that 1920s elephant in the room, that is rarely played, but covered with visible gray ash. The piano, on which my well-worn cookbooks sit - I dusted them too.

Oh, just feeling exasperated, and a little between worlds. I'm so glad, the other day, that the Reverend in her sermon admonished/corrected us to understand that we aren't meant to abhor, abjure, reject, discount - the world. I thought about that, as I set about vacuuming and dusting the downstairs -- sunny rooms, but a whole lot of grot, rooms that need repainting -- there's just so much that I have to not look at so as to just bear things -- I like for my eyes to fall upon intact, clean, ordered things -- I do what I can here - it all fell apart, it's just dusting a wreck, now -- I don't know, I'm exaggerating.

I pushed the vacuum cleaner around, sipping - quaffing - from an icefilled glass of pink wine. Which sounds - oh horrors! - so decadent - but it was quarter-to-five-ish, and - it's what makes housecleaning, of the 'heavy chores' variety doable/tolerable.

I don't mind housekeeping, homekeeping, I thought, as I folded towels from the drier. I could easily imagine a scenario, in an office where afternoon hours got whiled away, while I toiled - pointlessly, it seems to me in retrospect - at a cubicle - under the sharp watchful supervision of an Alpha.

No, so it was preferable for me to carry an icefilled glass in one hand, and push vacuum cleaner in the other, and not feel like some retro-stuck woman. No, I sort of like these types of chores, actually, to a point (as long as they're not overly taxing, to the point of joint/muscle pain). This was in lieu of a home-pilates workout. What made it hard for me, was my own head. I actually enjoyed going about the house, doing what needed to be attended to -- cooking so much this morning -- making croutons, sauteeing a kale pasta sauce, setting up chicken and a pan of root vegetables for tonight's dinner, whose aroma I inhale now, set in the oven --

No - I love all those things, those activities
but even as I do them, go through the motions
I feel so horribly lonely, and alone
it's this terribly bifurcated existence - at each & every moment
sunshine - just now, in the golden moments up in the aerie - and
well, not misery, I don't wish to overstate it

I like keeping house - so long as it's not too much, and my eyes have pleasant surfaces to fall on [okay tweak that grammar later]

also I had an orgasm today - that headache issue I had some weeks ago - somehow resolved, gone - oh thank goodness - oh I so didn't need that
so things went well - and I know now, much better than I ever did, what an orgasm is

and - where was I - or so, are novels necessary? I used to think so, back when I was very very young, and trying to find life lessons elsewhere - because I was so clueless - and utterly guideless -
I used to read novels, eagerly, for guidance

now I don't read them at all, hardly, though I'd like to re-read Middlemarch

instead, I'm trying to figure out my own life
and I write about it, as it happens

and as I came this morning
I thought about deceased ancestors who might be observing me
perhaps censoriously
and I ignored those thoughts
because I figured that
if they're up in heaven
they have better things to do
- or - might even be - in a way - happy for me -

Hi darling, very windy out today, the house has been rattling & shaking, the chimes clanging ferociously. All sunny and mild and still up in the aerie though, as I sit down to muse and type. It was spooky at the church today - I stopped in briefly to run through next Sunday's hymns - phew, they're all doable, quite easy, I won't have to practice quite as much as I did (with one) last week. It was so windy and the old wooden church is so creaky and permeable, that I got a little spooked, as if the place were a bit haunted, or someone was coming in, an intruder -- but no, not at all, it was just the wind swirling around the ancient place.

***
I responded to a CL ad this morning. The poster, from Amherst, had written in the form of a poem. I haven't heard back, and maybe I don't expect to, so I'll just include it here - in the spirit of 'found art', and my response...

I seek a fellow thinker,
For humor and discussion,
For showing things we've never seen,
For sensual percussion,
For sharing thoughts and dancing spots.
Or having fun, connecting dots. . .
I offer out a counterpart.
On solid grounds with open heart.
With needs refined and ample time,
I humbly do submit,
forever to the end
A solid friend,
A broken trend,
Two lives about to mend

my response....

When a verse such as yours holds such power to charm
A Belle, though not of Amherst, figures – what’s the harm
To respond with lines she hopes will be pleasing
For she too seeks a fellow thinker – her true love - without ceasing.
Alas, distance will prove a formidable barrier
To disjoin us corporeally – so let these words be the carrier
Of warm wishes across Valleys, not just Pioneer - but two
With Berkshires between – beloved mountains! – though in this context - to rue.
So this Belle, of Hudson, lifts pen, and wishes
That Amherst were closer, or gas less dear, rail more expeditious….

***
Sweet love, here is another bit of miscellany, recollections of my walk Saturday morning, on the capacious grounds of the magical Persian-inspired estate. It was such an interesting nature walk, mostly focused on wild edibles -- very very healthy, and unprocessed, so long as they're picked at the right time (each plant has its 'moment'), and of course hasn't been doused with chemicals, such as pesticides. I eat quite well, I think -- but I realize -- not well enough - I don't eat any seeds at all, hardly (e.g., pumpkin, sunflower), not so many nuts... I'm realizing what a legacy of incredibly healthy foodstuffs are our birthright in this God-given world... those plants, as food & sustenance, really do have healing properties, in the most profound, holistic sense.

At any rate, at one point in the excursion, the leader (a very very knowledgeable woman of edible plants in the wild - including their lore, practical uses, her own experiences with individual plants, etc., etc. -- the breadth & depth of her knowledge quite astonishing) charged the little motley group to disperse for a few minutes, and for each of us to find a single plant, growing thing, that somehow spoke to us, caused a reaction in us. At one point in our venturing along a gentle woodland trail, a couple of the participants, standing at the edge of a precipice beneath which lay a rippling pond, pointed out the tiniest diminutive wildflower in bloom, that I would never (in my de facto seven-league boots) have noticed. The tiny blooming thing was no bigger than a thimble, a simple white efflorescence, one here, one there, growing out of the wintry brown hard scrabble - like miniature Queen Anne's lace (those large majestically airy heads) -- which always remind me of beautifully-set diamond rings -- so these were -- actually about the size, perhaps, of a diamond ring, simple, ornate, precious, tiny...

So a bunch of us hovered, teetered on the eroding edge of this sharp precipice to admire this tiny miracle of a plant!

I had been struck by that one, and then moments later, when we scattered to lose ourselves in our own explorations of mind meeting nature, I was now attuned to seeing, and looking for, the truly diminutive, easily missed excrescence -- and before I'd taken many steps, was stopped & felled by the most exquisite single wildflower – of a different type - in bloom, on its own tiny exuberant scale, again emerged out of the hardscrabble. I don't know what it is - no one in the group knew - hepatica was one woman's guess - since it wasn't an "edible" it was out of the range of the specialized expertise of the guide...

Later, back at the 'education center,' we were each given some rudimentary art materials to paint an image of the plant that had caught our eye & our imagination. Which was a nice moment, afterward, when we went around in a circle and shared our images. Each one was different! Each person had been struck by some unique detail -- flowering terminal bud on twig, unfurling fern, the fractal complexity of yarrow leaves...

I was happy to see what everyone had managed to depict with really the most frustrating set of overly-basic primary-colored watercolors, pencils... our images didn't approach the sheer perfection and subtlety of the individual plant details that had struck us... and yet our expressions were beautiful, and so diverse, it would have been nice (I wish belatedly) for our images to have been arranged, patchwork-quilt style for a moment, and recorded all together, as a snapshot and rendering of that rare moment, when a number of strangers got together, to appreciate nature, and make a bit of art....

***
Sweetheart, I am missing you, and I really need to tweak this, if only to format the images better.... this isn't a perfect, spare, eloquent Cornell box of a post -- it's more like the nature of my messy dresser-drawers...

So I will let this go - and probably I will instantly regret it - in the sense of - oh it would have been better this way - I should have tweaked that

So I'm closing this chest of drawers -- now you've peeked into the jumble of contents within

***
Sweet abiding thoughts of you, my dearest

***
and I think of you too - who I sense to be about
I hope all is well with you --
despite all

Hello sweetheart, sneaking up behind your chair to put my arms around you and give you a big kiss on the top of your head - only of course you tilt your head up, so it's a proper delicious buss. After a chilly, damp, gray morning in the last few hours it turned into a beautiful sunny day, and so my plans, as I tried to settle on them, kept changing as my mood and the weather changed. At first I'd thought I might drive down to Rhinebeck but since it was so gray - nah, save it for a nicer weekend. Then I thought I might go see a one-time (locally) screening of a movie that co-won the Grand Prize at Cannes a year or two ago -- I figured it must be at least pretty good. But I was wary of its 2-1/2 hour length, I wouldn't have been home til after seven, and I've been missing you all day and wanting to commune with you properly, since yesterday evening my writing felt a little rushed. So after lunch I lay down for a bit, fell asleep, woke up refreshed, ready for my excursion. On my way along country roads eastward I stopped at the local international arts colony, at their cafe, for a reviving cup of coffee -- ahh, delicious. I was still aiming for the movie, but oh it was just so glorious out, moon roof open, flying along the roads... besides, I was in the mood for sheep's milk camembert, straight from the source, it's been a long while. (Though seriously, I'm going to have to pull up my bootstraps in the smart-dieting department, what with bad Chinese, exquisite French pastry, copious pours (in melting-ice-filled glasses) of wine, etc., etc.) So I gave up any pretense of heading to a darkened theatre, and gave in to my insatiable, exuberant appetites, dreaming lascivious thoughts & conjuring impossibly intoxicating images of you the whole way, darling -- yes, I kept my eyes on the road, in one sense, but - a little like the photo above - superimposed was this whole other wonderful scenario where you & I were together, and enjoying imbibing each other entirely - zero calories, no - fewer, even, than that - given the absolutely delightful vigorous calorie-burn that feels not like exercise but the most exquisite form of play. (Ah, and this was after I'd had a gratifying time with you, in the bedroom, completing the day's trifecta before it was even two -- all this, and church too -- so, busy morning.)

At the farm grazed and meandered a couple of individualistic free-ranging sheep, and a donkey that mingled among a flock of sheep. As I approached, it rolled on its back in joy, happy for the springtime warmth & sunshine, as are we all. It clambered to its hooves quicker than I could snap a shot in its exuberant momentarily supine position, and then regarded me balefully as I snapped shots.

Home now, and I've just enjoyed the most indulgent delicious snack of the creamy, mildly tangy, ultra-fresh camembert, spread on a slice of rustic sourdough - I'd stopped by a bakery too, on what turned out to be my scavenger hunt of rounds, completed with a stop at the wine store for a bottle of chilled white rioja. Ahhhhh--- heaven.

I can't help but see a connection with the Gospel reading from this morning, about which the very wonderful, intelligent, insightful Reverend delivered yet another eloquent, deeply-considered sermon. "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:20-33) The Reverend hastened to assure the congregation that we aren't to hate our life, or the world -- that in fact (and she gestured, again, at the banner hanging there)... "for God so loved the world..." No, she said, rather it's Jesus in his way, cryptically, almost as in a riddle, stating - or overstating - something in such a way as to grab our attention. It's really a statement about human suffering --- that there's nothing good per se about suffering, which is inescapable in life, but is not the end, or point of it. So if you are unhappy, troubled, grieving, sorrowing, enduring physical pain, etc. -- suffering, in your life in this world -- it isn't for naught....

And so I do very very much love my life in this world -- and I will lose it, as do we all. And I hate the suffering -- oh, but I am so very glad for the happy joyous engaged loving bits.

Love you darling. Many kisses. Isn't that camembert divine?

Dear love, many kisses hello this cool gray evening. Back from a full day out on the town & environs. Attended an interesting nature walk this morning, at Olana, having to do with noticing and appreciating wild edibles, there in most of our gardens - garlic mustard, nettle, dandelion, wild carrot, wild onion -- , that are just starting to crack through the earth and come to life and turn green at this very beginning of Spring. It was a lovely walk, very informative, I greatly enjoyed it. It was very peaceful and calming, and forced me (as with Kathe Izzo's 'plein air' writing workshops there) to simply slow down, stop, examine, look. And I will... I'd like to do more justice to writing more about this, but the hour's getting a bit late, I want to be there for the Grilling of the Cornish Hens outdoors...

Oh sweetheart, I am not in a writerly mood at all at the moment. I wish I could just be in your company, stoking a nice crackling wood fire maybe, cozy blaze against the chill. I did other things today too, I had fun, had the car for much of the day. Attended a showcase designer-decorated H. for Humanity townhouse, in town, that was charmingly and ingeniously done - I could have moved in right there. My eyes lit up at the small, spruce, tidy kitchen -- honestly, I just felt like cooking something right then & there. I had fun too, because this really good looking older Australian gentleman seemed to notice me, and be charmed by me (he was there with his wife - aw shucks), and as we all self-toured through the house (the vibe was of a real-estate 'open house') he'd glance at me, and I'd glance at him, and --- boy do I wish I were the sort of person who could manage a great big wink. Anyway, it was just charming fun, and I'm glad (since I've been striking out thus far on CL) that someone who I find attractive also seems to find me attractive -- so I would put that on the checklist as a -- positive! Ah, I'll never see him again. But no matter - as I said, he was there with his wife. Unlike the apparently single Adonis of the Utz Chips, who Yet Again I did not see at ShopRite this afternoon.

Afterward I strolled Warren Street, and had a delicious cup of coffee, and an utterly decadent piece of "Opera" torte, chocolatey buttercream layers. I do love cafes, that is a particularly nice one, truly like being in Paris, or in a Hollywood version of Paris, since I haven't been in Paris but once, and that was thirty years ago, and I had no money at the time at all, that one weekend with a girlfriend, who was on her junior year abroad, and we'd taken the Cross-Channel Ferry, with all of maybe thirty dollars left over, once we'd sprung for a room in a charming sunlit walkup neighborhoody hotel... Je voudrais un cafe au lait, I remember having occasion to say a couple of times in Paris that weekend, when we ventured out with our converted currency ($ to pounds to francs) -- and I felt quite elegant saying "je voudrais" rather than "je veux" which would have been the table-pounding cruder way of putting it. I would like...

I would like, je voudrais, to kiss you, dear sweetheart, to put my arms around you and to feel yours around mine. I hope you've had a wonderful day, and have a pleasant evening in store. I will be thinking of you, as always, I do as I go through my day, about the woods for example this morning at Olana - oh you would so have enjoyed that, I thought -- or at the cafe, we would have shared the pastry -- I will see you later, for sure, darling -- we'll have our conjunction, we will, as seen from 'down under.'

All my love ---

Oh honey, thinking of you all day, sitting here now listening to children shriek in joyful play outdoors, a neighbor's yard, where a large, tall, safety-screened trampoline has been set up to channel and contain their energy - sounds, and looks like fun. Nothing to report in CL news, I think it's turning into a bust, though I'm sort of hooked on reading men's posts, even if they're not remotely suitable for me (guys in their 20s or 30s, for example) - I'm just looking for mini-short stories. I managed a trifecta today, plus a run-through of hymns at the church, so I feel as though my 'to-do' list of sorts was accomplished. I feel as though I've put on a few pounds lately -- a little too much pasta the last few days, plus Chinese takeout last weekend - not so much of it, but that stuff is lethal, in terms of calories & sodium. And I feel myself slipping away, ever so slightly, from my rigorous home workout regimes - what used to be "4-5x/wk" is now more like three (for sure) - with four a stretch. Ah, but I turn on Dr. Oz, and I have to say I become re-inspired to move my body and get fit -- even if I don't quite groove on all the obscure supplements he's extolling.

Sweetheart, I am just sitting here sipping pink wine & tapping my fingers along the keys. I was just glancing at "men looking for women" ads, men age 52-60, in the greater Boston area... a few more-interesting posts, than are to be found in these provincial outposts. I'm not in a Joseph-Cornell box (not even the hummingbird glass dome piece), but I'm in some sort of box -- that I can't seem to get out of, and that is, and isn't of my own making. I mean, if D's and my marriage had been less than happy (from my point of view anyway) when we were selling our apartment and planning where to move -- I wouldn't have chosen such a socially isolating place. But I thought we were happy, so it didn't seem to matter -- I definitely wasn't thinking -- wow, the quality of M seeking W in an area that doesn't even have its own defined category on CL -- man, that's going to be tough for me.

So we/I should have stayed in the city? Where I had to work for a living, and also do all the housecleaning (D did a lot of the cooking), but was much too exhausted by the end of any given day, for romance, going out, doing much of anything beyond collapsing with a glass of wine & a meal and conversing with D... As I got older in Brooklyn, I stopped going out of my way to exercise, even, besides walking -- I just didn't have the time or energy.

Oh anyway, there's hardly any point in reviewing that ancient history. It's just that the situation I find myself in -- I didn't see it coming, I really didn't. And not that it's all bad. I mean, parts are really good. I like the leisurely, unstressful pace of my days. I like not having to report to a loathsome boss - such as my last one, P., and her moronic bully, K. That said, sometimes I miss working with a very congenial boss... which did happen for me over the years -- really, in the end, looking back -- it wasn't the content/subject matter of a job that ultimately sustained/engaged me -- it was whether I got along with a boss. And I did have a few, really great, cherished (in my memory to this day) ones -- that somehow could deal with someone like me, who had a lot to give on a job, but just not "jack of all trades" in "all ways" "all the time."

I couldn't have sustained an affair in any part of that past, not that I even wanted one. It's only now, that I have the time & leisure, really, and the distinct lack of most other contacts of any form.

I have to say that -- well mostly I've expurgated someone from my thinking, I am simply so disgusted and done -- and yet I envy, simply, his energy, his testosterone, his methodical way of setting up a life for himself that worked for him, his drive. I wish - I suppose - I had some of that - genuinely so, I mean. I used to force it -- try to be more 'career-oriented' and 'assertive' and 'goal-oriented' and 'positive' than I naturally was -- which I could do, and credibly fake, and kid even myself (what was the alternative? approval from anybody whoever lay only in trying to project & enact those qualities). And now I can't. Not that I've 'lain down & died' -- that's not what I mean, far from it...

oh anyway, enough rambling, sweetheart
how are you, I wonder?
well, you're not in my particular predicament, of course
you're in yours -- and maybe it works for you, just as it is, I don't know
it's impossible - it's okay - WWIII wouldn't be big enough to describe the scandal it would cause
no - just as well it remains a constellation of stars overhead, as in Titian's painting, of Bacchus & Ariadne ---

I do wonder about you though, I keep reviewing the little shards of fragmented memories & images I have
& one springs to mind
it was some years ago, a visit to Jersey - a day trip
maybe it was for my aunt & uncle's 50th? I don't recall the occasion
but I was getting ready to leave - I was in the kitchen
and your eldest daughter, not very old at the time (high school?)
sprang into the kitchen and planted herself in front of me and absolutely scanned & studied me, very deliberately
and (I figure) she judged -- 'nah, couldn't be' --
and I just stood there looking at her - numbly, as per my usual - what?
I'm always a fish out of water there -- that is, I'm not of "the tribe"

anyway, when I think of that, especially since I'm uncertain as to the timing,
it just makes me wonder - how long I might have been on your radar?

I don't know -- I don't mean to dwell on it, or re-create 'drama'
but it's an image that springs to mind sometimes, as I think about things
your daughter, sensing something, squarely planting herself to investigate
she has your legs & hips, I think - or something like them
I remember very fondly the image of you -- standing frozen in place -
your beautiful hips & legs swiveled, as you piercingly regarded me

Hi sweetheart, another glorious day, and yet I sit here feeling a bit fatigued, a bit discouraged, a bit annoyed -- oh it's not even worth going into -- just cryptic, overly veiled CL postings, and then people wonder why they're not meeting who they want. Jeez, just be direct about it already. I might send him a message to that effect, but what is the point? Absolutely none. Except that I had to look up what a 'reverse responder' is, and paranoid self wondered if it was in reference to me. Of course it could be about anyone, he's been posting for at least a couple of months now (that I know of), maybe longer. So 'responder's reverse' is a bridge (the card game) term, it turns out -- a game forcer. Wow, was I a game forcer in not wishing to email endlessly, and wishing instead to meet for coffee? You know, if you're going to be a Dom -- just freakin' say so already. No, I never did state in any message that I'm a graduate, from a certain era, of a Seven-Sister school -- but you know what? I'm not "inhibited" -- I'm a bit reserved (but get me, if I love you, behind closed doors and I don't think you'll ever think of me as inhibited - ever) -- and yeah, bedroom or no bedroom -- outside the bedroom, when it comes to encountering someone I might wish to know -- hell no, I'm no "Sub" -- I wish absolutely to be in as much control of my own destiny and desires as possible, actor in my own life. I know I'm getting riled up over nothing, and really, his snide cryptic asides in the newest iteration of his post may not even refer to me at all. I don't even own a little black dress. Not yet, anyway. Game forcer indeed (she growled). Hey, at least I made an effort to look nice. Unlike him. Dom --- slob. Okay, he wasn't a slob -- but he definitely wasn't "all that" either.

Okay, I'm done - maybe. Sweetheart, oh grrrrrr. It is so tough being our age, isn't it? Man, it's so much easier to be younger, illusions mostly intact, or if not, then hope - oh, never mind, I'm not going to complete that thought. And just now a mosquito bit me --- that bug's moments are numbered - I tell you!

Okay, okay, I'll calm down, I'm fine, I am. It was a nice day. I just pulled a roast chicken out of the oven, and in went a pan of orangey chopped root vegetables to caramelize. I have a number of blouses – a half-dozen – hanging in the closet, that I bought for, I’m not kidding, five dollars apiece, on clearance at the local department store last spring. And even at that price (originally $40) I was looking at them ruefully - they look so frumpy & boring - I had a mind to give them to Goodwill. But these days, with the sudden incredibly mild spring -- they've turned out to be just the perfect, wonderful, very comfortable tops to wear with jeans -- and they look quite nice on me (better than on hangers). I'm glad I didn't donate them -- or else I would have nothing to wear around the house & environs these days. My life such as it is -- as much as I would like to keep a "little black dress handy" -- revolving mostly about home, ShopRite, walks around here, the church to practice the weekly half-dozen, and maybe the library.

So my dearest Bacchus, yes I'm your Ariadne, a bit grumpy this evening -- oh not really, I'm fine. The sun is shining. The chicken & the roasting vegetables smell divine. I'm alive. I had a wonderful time with you today. I found Cornish hens marked down 45 percent, cheaper than chicken. I'm enjoying the biography of Joseph Cornell. I've been remembering a few dreams on waking, and noting them again. Tomorrow's Friday. Maybe this weekend I'll drive down to Rhinebeck. I'm very very glad to connect with you. I get the sense that you're home these days. I read an Op-Ed in the Times today, about homesickness in the age of globalization -- and I thought of you, wondered if you get homesick, imagined that you do, though also I get the feeling that you like being away, or not so much in the thick of things, where it’s not "you" so much as a "representative-function" you - but still, one can be profoundly homesick, even while home, or away, for something, some elusive -- oh what is it?

As a little girl, in the moments before I'd fall asleep I used to feel this strange sense of yearning, falling, longing, immersion, pulling, tending, as I started to lose consciousness in not only the darkness of the room, but in my mind, eyes shut, mind emptying, filling with something else. It happened so often that I would try to grasp that sensation, as I lay in darkness on the verge of sleeping and wakefulness, that very edge -- as a girl, I couldn't name what it was that I was feeling, this enormous feeling of being enveloped and drawn in -- into what, into what? I still don't know, really, except that the idea of falling asleep in your arms, hours from now, after the sun - suddenly turning the light in the aerie rosy – has set, is very appealing, just sinking into them, not quite Ariadne:Bacchus, in that way that she seems to be falling, and he's picking her up, although it's a three-dimensional sculpture, I would love to see other angles of it...

and the sensation is of slipping comfortably into each other's arms, because we fit right together, and feel right, and there's no game-forcing, or reverse-responding, it is just all comme il faut, though possibly not the way my Victorian Babcia meant it, though I believe she was no stranger to passion herself...

And I'm no revisionist historian -- no, rather I'm a dreaming, yearning, ever-hopeful futurist

many kisses - one two three - on your lips just now darling
your beautiful face & lips
and more later
under covers

Snakes and Ladders

Hello darling, another beautiful afternoon. I've been sitting here musing, and my thoughts keep returning to how very impressed and engaged I was with the sermon I heard last Sunday, given by a young woman "Mother," guest Reverend for that service (and next Sunday's as well). Not having been a churchgoer for most of my life or otherwise particularly religious or observant, I don't have a firm grasp, and really hardly a passing acquaintance with Biblical texts, and I have never considered individual passages very closely, in any depth. So serving as accompanist now, and having the opportunity to participate in and listen to the service, is proving to be an education for me, and a challenging one, as I listen to the readings from the Old and New Testaments, and relate them to my own spiritual leanings and beliefs, as I make sense of them. I tend not to take them overly literally, to me they are wonderful extended metaphors, whose meanings I can only glimpse at, and maybe just start on the journey to grasp. So the readings last Sunday were: Numbers 21:4-9, Ephesians 2:1-10, and the Gospel of John, 3:14-21, the first line of which is "Jesus said, 'Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up...' -- which is a direct reference to the story told in Numbers 21:4-9, about poisonous serpents invading a camp, biting the people, many of whom died, and Moses, commanded by the Lord, putting such a poisonous serpent, cast in bronze, up on a pole 'and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.'

So the Reverend spoke at deeply-considered, eloquent, fascinating length, drawing parallels between the images - the serpent on a pole, Christ on the cross - and connected also the serpent to the (poisonous) serpent of Adam & Eve, of whom we are all descended. I mean, really, I was quite astonished, and moved also, the way the Mother described how the second line of John 3:14-21, is one of the single most famous and crucial in all of the Gospels -- so much so that -- as she gestured to a large printed banner hung on the wall near the lectern, it is on this banner as if to prove her point -- "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."

Anyway, I was very struck and moved by her extremely intelligent, carefully thought out sermon. I thought of Henry Ward Beecher, maybe -- what it might have been like to listen to him preach from the pulpit, just very intelligent connections -- not preaching 'down' at all -- truly her sermon was very complete, not 'dumbed-down' in the least -- another aspect of it which I found incredibly refreshing. I hesitate to use the word 'charismatic' with reference to her, because in a religious setting that carries specific connotations (to my mind, of blood-and-thundering) that I don't intend -- and yet I absolutely hung on her every word, was fascinated to see where she'd go next, as she so thoroughly and completely and beautifully explained each of the readings, and then sewed these amazing connections among them.

So, again, I'm not very religious, but I think a great deal, very much so, about, let's say, the human condition. And I think a lot about -- well, the Bible and a religious setting will use a certain set of terms, perhaps, and I keep listening for what I think is a central problem -- that of narcissism & narcissists preying on the -- well, those who don't choose their ways, and aren't especially equipped to handle them. Sorry I'm being so inarticulate here -- I suppose these ideas are more deeply felt, in me, than formally expressed -- it's something I "feel."

And this morning, as I went about the kitchen doing some cooking, meal prep for several meals, I thought of the fantastic quote, uttered by Samuel L. Jackson, in character, in some movie of recent years, in which (I think, I didn't actually see the movie - an airplane becomes infested with serpents) where he, determined, resolved, springing to action, declares, "I have HAD it with these m****r-f******g snakes on this m****r-f*****g plane." Doesn't that connect, wouldn't you say, with Numbers 21:4-9?

The other thing I think about, since I'm on the subject (because I'm not about to become a Bible-thumper, not in my life, nor in this blog), is the idea of sin, as expressed in the Ten Commandments, which have been an explicit part of the service these Lenten Sundays. And I listen to the Reverend declaim each one (e.g., "You shall not commit adultery"), and I join the congregation and intone, "Amen, Lord have mercy." This, the day after a morning coffee date that didn't go so swell, but the very point of its happening in the first place was in the hope that it, somehow someday, might.

I don't know, one can throw stones at me if one wishes (gee, doesn't that happen somewhere in the Bible, boy that sounds familiar - Mary Magdalene, wasn't it, the Emma Bovary perhaps of her day?), but in my moral parsings (lame & easily rationally challenged as they might be by someone who might wish to adversely judge me), I see a distinction between lonelyhearts who fall, or try to fall, into another's arms to ease such loneliness -- versus, serial bloodless cold philanderers who blithely lie & cheat & serenely cruise on and on their entire married lives, no matter what casualties & carcasses of broken hearts lie in the wake of their tornadic path. (Tornados don't feel a thing either -- those 'serpents of the air' -- but that's no comfort to their casualties.)

Sweetheart, I will most likely tweak this in the morning, I am glad that I was able to tap out this much, of a complex subject that I've been churning on...

at least you have a little glimpse of what I think about, when I'm not cruising CL posts... Marilynne Robinson I'm not. Though I might have a hard time convincing that native Idahoan (or was it Iowa?) that as an Easterner I'm not a complete stick-in-the-mud.

Love you sweetheart, wherever you are....
many kisses
xoxo
(what one must do to extract snake venom, isn't it --
mark an X on the flesh, and suck out the poison ---
oh the thrilling chilling days of reading child's encyclopedias!
I never did have to do that --- not til now, I didn't --)
dearest love -- here I go --
xoxo
love you

Hi sweetheart, such a beautiful day, yet again, astonishing. Our privet hedge, which doesn't normally leaf out til nearly May, is tingeing green. The 'hedge-fund' guy's forsythia are in bloom - yellow-green - chartreuse. It's in the seventies. I'm in a thin striped pink cotton blouse and panties, having just vacuumed the downstairs, what I didn't get to yesterday. As I dragged the vacuum cleaner from the kitchen to the dining room (necessitating unplugging it from the solarium to the living room) a pair of dark fluttering whirrs shot past my head -- what? Not one, but two birds - sparrows - had gotten in the house, and suddenly I had to try to throw open sashes, to try to let them out. It was the stuff dream/nightmares are made of, the panicked birds, at the bay of stained-glass windows -- on the other side of which the storms are still in place. Which fortunately unlatch, as I discovered, grateful as I released the catches and sprang them open, letting in a rush of fresh air, that they didn't fall to the ground, or into an overgrown shrub - no they stayed propped open. That's nice to know. In any event, after some running around the downstairs, with me beseeching the birds like some rescue worker, one of them for sure flew out the back door - and the other seems to be gone too - although I didn't witness its escape. And now unscreened windows are shut back tight, against insects, and perhaps bats.

I could be in a better mood. No, I don't look like a Dallas C. cheerleader. I'm just me. I don't understand my own situation, especially looking back on my life. I'm having a hard time. My family -- poof, gone, I was expendable. I wonder how they are doing. Does everyone look at CL all the time? I imagine my younger brother is having an affair, just a quiet longterm FWB-type thing, and then he goes to work, and evenings with his wife retires to his study and plays his guitar. The 'coffee date' reverted back to a variation of his original 'vanilla' ad -- so much for my faulty analysis of that venus flytrap, who now wishes pix before responding. As I said - I'm no 'cheerleader'- type -- but man, I don't know -- don't you have to pay for those? I'm just bumming out a bit -- housecleaning plunges me into it, then usually I can get back out -- I mean, don't I look nice -- somewhere down the (vanishing) middle (class), nice, of my age, trying to keep myself up? I don't hear from anyone, ever. I assume wedding invitations went out -- I didn't receive one. Which makes me feel slightly - I don't know if paranoid is the word. My coffee date asked me -- does the wife know? And I said, I don't know, certainly not from me. But if she did catch wind, somehow, then of course I would be persona non grata - a role I should be used to by now. And I am used to it, it's written into the fibers of all my bodily aches & pains, just thinking about it. And then sometimes I wonder too - I mean, I do believe in intact, loving families - but that has eluded me my entire life, including the one I was born into - why is that? I feel that I would have made - well, I would have tried very hard to make a warm, happy home, happy family.

Anyway, you don't need any more of that. Maybe -- it's not cynicism exactly, more like birds, liminal creatures outdoors, hovering between the skies & earth & feeders, suddenly finding themselves trapped indoors. I think that most of us sentient, sensitive, caring ones - are living, at least mentally, some other life, in some other dimension. I hardly see how it could be otherwise, for a fit, intelligent person.

I just seriously don't quite see how I wound up so severely alone, I really don't. And that's what's troubling me right now. Even as I type, and the sun is shining, and it's beautiful out, and it'll be Dover sole for dinner, fried, and dressed with a quick sauce of dijon mustard, lemon & butter.

I wonder if I will ever see you again, if I'm now persona non grata. And if that's the case, then why should I address daily posts to you at all? I suppose that's why I've been trolling the CL ads, to no avail, sparrow beating against the panes.

And other times I'm just fine, and I will be again, I know my mood will improve, and I'll try again --

two birds, trapped
many kisses, sweet silent darling

Vanilla (or, as 'salt loves meat' )

Message from Belle to Mr. ~, Saturday afternoon

I just wanted to drop you a note, to thank you for being so game as to take me up on my proposition that we meet this morning. I had a really nice time -- though -- I'm sure you know -- as publishers write we're "not quite right for us." But I had a nice time nonetheless, and I did incorporate our encounter in my blog post this afternoon, and I thought you might like to read it -- by way of feedback -- in a kind way, I mean - I hope - just so that -- well I hope it goes absolutely wonderfully perfectly just where you want it to go --- the next time

thank you for such a delightful encounter with you, in various forms, over the last couple of days! I am very glad to have met you -- all the very best, Belle

***
Hi sweetheart, I wonder where you are. I am completely bushed. I just spent several hours cleaning the house, as much of it as I could, stripping down to just panties to clean the baths, upstairs & down, wash the kitchen floor (Cinderella as Francis Bacon, paralytic on all fours). I'm in a good mood, my mind was on the go constantly as I kept seizing on yet another item that needed a swipe for de-dusting -- upstairs blinds, oh you name it. But now I have relaxed a little, wiping one by one individual fronds of a potted palm up here in the aerie. And listening to the eveningtide sounds, peaceful bird calls - they have a sense of the hour...

You know, I'm very bad at writing short stories, but as I stood, slowing myself down as I went through the relaxing motions of washing the plant, I thought reflectingly, with a sense of quiet pleasure, that I feel as though I've just been in one, or tangentially helped with something - maybe? I mean, I had a little coffee date the other morning, he'd been posting ad after ad for a while now, and he sounded appealing to me, though slightly beyond my range, geographically, and in age. But appealing in other ways. And he was nice, he was. I'm glad I met him. And maybe he feels that way about having encountered me. Things definitely didn't 'fly' between us... it turns out that he was looking for something - or someone - other than what he'd been posting about. I mean, when I see 'non-vanilla' - well, if that's code for something specific, then I didn't know the code, and figured I'm nonconformist enough to count as that. Plus to me, at this point, anything other than blue battery-operated toys would be manna, whatever the flavor - besides, doesn't the resourceful deployment of such toys, and the revelations they have brought me, count me as 'non-vanilla'? Anyway - so I trolled the usual postings this morning, to see what had gone up overnight... and there was a brand new ad from him, completely reworked & reworded.... explicitly stating the nature of exactly what he is looking for. I read his post, and can't help but think that it's in direct response, a re-gearing as a result of our meeting over coffee this weekend. And you know what? I'm glad this all happened, I think it's quite beautiful actually. I mean, I responded to an ad in good faith... and I know that he posted in good faith too, but was feeling reticent. And increasingly frustrated, because the respondents aren't who he's really looking for. And something broke, somehow for him - that is, liberated him - and now he's directly stating what he wants. And if he'd done so from the start, there's no way I would ever have responded, I would have sailed right on by. And the other thing is, at my 'ripe old age' (hardly - but experienced enough, certainly, to feel very empathetic & philosophical about things -- though I have my limits) I understand that individuals may have a very divided nature. I believe he is looking, on some level, for who he originally thought he was seeking - but on another level in his divided self, he's really yearning for, especially as he (we all, at our ages) confronts aging - oh, his fantasy...

Anyway, I was gratified - having typed that, perhaps I shouldn't take credit, my possible effect (if any) so personally - that he finally was able to dare write what he really wants (and if you can't do so in that venue, where can you?) and I truly hope for him, that he finds just precisely who he wants.

Wow, so in this season, when encounters such as this can be so gentle & profound & kind & nudge us towards our true selves & something good & beautiful? I am very glad to be within my own Chekhovian short story.

Darling, I am so tired, my fingers are just tapping on the keys, channeling whatever's firing my tired brain...

and you & I have a connection, perhaps not so dissimilar
a connection - anyway
many many kisses, darling love

***
CL posting, this morning

Non-Vanilla Romance, fun, literate, music, arts, kink ... right responder is craving,curious, or already experienced submissive to whom the word 'spanking' alone may have an alternative meaning for her...

Hi sweetheart, a beautiful hour on this spectacularly gorgeous day. The sun is shining, temperatures have been in the 70s, I've been in a slinky top & skirt all day, bare legs & heels, enjoying the sun on my bare arms. I had the car for the afternoon, so I hit the library, picked up a book on reserve, then drove with the moon roof open along winding country roads, glimpses of fields, and hills, and airfields, and old houses, over to Chatham, mostly because we're out of bread - good bread, that is, the only kind we bother with if we're going to have those carbs, so I scored a sunflower-millet and a rye at the bakery. And then headed back along a different set of rambling scenic byways, and stopped at the local international arts colony - the visitors center there, that reminds me of the Saarinen terminal at JFK, modernist spaceship plopped down in vast rolling cow pasture. They have a cafe there, offering gourmet lunches and light snacks, open weekends only. I'd had lunch already, leftover Chinese, and thought I'd have dessert. It is such an unseasonably warm day that the cafe was populated, tables set outside on an elegant stone terrace occupied, county denizens sunning themselves and dining merrily in the delightful light & air. I noticed that a few of the parties had bottles of wine. So I asked the server, who brought my coffee & cake -- you can bring your own wine here? Oh yes! I'm so glad to know that, I said, because I stopped here for lunch some weeks ago, and would have stayed but was really in the mood for a glass of wine with my lunch -- and so I left. The young woman frowned - oh no! Another woman, seated in the sun at a table next to mine, overhearing our conversation, offered -- I'd give you some of ours, except that we just finished the bottle! That's okay, I replied, I'm just glad to know, for the future.

Which I am, darling -- I would love to while away a post-church service sensuous hour with you in heavenly, restorative sunshine, sharing a delicious bottle of wine, and perhaps pressed panini. We might order their weekend specials -- but the couple of times I've stopped there - they're always "out." There's such a small attendance that they don't prepare a lot of food in advance, not the gourmet specials anyway -- a wild-mushroom lasagna I'd gone out of my way for weeks ago (what with no wine - plus they'd run out of the 'special' - I left), some corned-beef concoction today -- also "out." At another table, a gentleman came late, joining a party, in full merriment -- oh aren't you going to order anything, caroled a woman -- or are they out of food?

Anyway, it was just very cheery & delightful, and I'm glad to discover, or rediscover, this place as a really great destination for an hour of a weekend. So I sat there in the sun, in my pretty outfit & sunglasses, enjoying the hot strong coffee and wedge of dark chocolate-orange-Guiness-stout cake (the very first slice of it, cut from a white-iced wheel set beneath a clear glass dome - and another server, perhaps the pastry-chef herself, popped outdoors to ask me - how is it? delicious! oh good!, she beamed, running back inside). In the midst of savoring it all, I read the opening pages of my library book, a biography of Joseph Cornell, of whom I know next to nothing about, but who I appreciate, on some level, as just an extraordinary person who came to his way of expression sideways, and by vicissitudes of life, and - well, by just what he had to offer, & so modestly - and at the same time, eloquently, powerfully. I am having an easier time already getting into the thick of this biography -- I don't know why that Maid as Muse one of E.D. isn't grabbing me. I think I have a mental block against it, given issues within my own house, this whole horrible marital class warfare going on between D & me. Maybe the subject on some level just hits a nerve too much - I don't know how to explain it, but I keep renewing the book, and there it sits, within a short stack of books to the side of me, atop a filing cabinet -- and I can never seem to bring myself to read further in it. Strange.

Anyway, darling, I Think of You too, sixteen times in a day, and more times over. We would have enjoyed a lunch at the cafe, and - oh by the way - I think you would have appreciated the sermon at the church service today - but I'm getting away from myself - perhaps, as I glance on that topic, it would be a good subject for a separate post.

I hope all is well with you, my dearest, and that you are having a wonderful, enjoyable time, wherever you are. I think of you - as always. All my love.

(launching without proofing - while the sunlight, past six, is still golden)

Hi sweetheart, back from my date & jaunt into Albany. I had a nice day but I won't bury the lede -- the date was pleasant -- but no spark. No surprise. One has to be surprised for spark, not for lack of it. My first time driving into that burg, up Route 9J, a lonely empty highway closeby the river. I was virtually the only car on the road, midmorning, me and occasional most unfortunate roadkill. And then one passes the Port of Rensselaer -- gray, empty, vast, windswept on this overcast morning -- makes a turn, heads over a ramp that circles around, and then suddenly - Ozlike - is spread what there is of the skyline and dense urban fabric of Albany. So surreal - like an upstate Brasilia, seemingly plopped down in the middle of nowhere. I can hardly describe how alone & isolated I had felt driving up the lonely road -- and then suddenly the city right before my eyes springing into view. It's not like coming into New York City at all, with its vast approaches of exurbs, suburbs, ratty urban edges and then one's in the eye of it.

The guy was nice, attractive, we spent well over an hour, sitting side by side on a settee, chatting over cups of coffee set on a low table before us. It was like being in a living room. I looked very nice, I believe -- I made an effort -- wore a nice skirt, pretty patterned top, bare legs, nice heels. I've decided to reacquaint myself with lipstick. I abandoned wearing makeup years ago, when we moved up to the country, and I don't miss it, but I thought - well, a touch of brightening lip color can't hurt - I'll do that much, happily. I wish my date had made a bit more of an effort - possibly I might have been more attracted to him? He looked as though he'd rolled out of bed into the first rumpled pieces of clothing he could find, which were sort of too big, very loosefitting on him. I don't know. I did like him - again, nice to chat with -- and yet -- I felt at times as though we were talking a little past each other -- that the arrows of conversation weren't exactly connecting -- just shooting past. Like talking to one's self, only there's another person there. The rhythm wasn't quite right. Oh, it's okay, I still had a nice time, and it was great simply to talk to someone for a bit, get out of the house, enjoy a cafe that's new & fun for me (a scruffy, casual place, reminding me of college town cafes). And I am very very glad to have encountered him in any fashion, over the last several days in email exchanges, because he quite forwardly asked me a direct question -- to which my immediate response was (in oddly stilted prose) -- "maybe!! honestly -- it's been outside my repertoire heretofore -- but I'm really really open"

I mean, god knows that decades ago when I endured corporal punishment, its parental administers were hardly asking -- would I "like a spanking now & then?"

Actually - probably I wouldn't - but - wow - thanks for asking!

many kisses, sweetheart
going outside now to enjoy the glorious sunshine & beautiful warm day

Hi sweetheart, internal roller-coaster ride today riding the gamut of emotions from A to B (does he or doesn't he), anyway, bottom line is that I have a date tomorrow, a bit of an adventure in store, whatever happens, because I will be driving into Albany. Which, for this former Manhattan & Brooklynite - who's terrified of the BQE - of driving in big cities -- Albany looms in my mind a bit not as "smalbany" - which I had to ask what that was -- "sm" stands for small, as in small apple, not the Big Apple --- but nevertheless for this driving not novice, but not whiz, Albany looms in my mind at the moment as Big Bad Ass Albany. Still, I'm looking forward to meeting the guy, even if it fizzles -- which I hope it won't -- I'm not going through this exercise, or effort, or outreach, or whatever you want to call it, because I think from jumpstreet it's going to fail -- no, not at all, he seems --- well, he intrigues me, and at least in quick, casual, funny email exchanges, has delighted me. So we'll see. We Know The Drill, as Dame Maggie Smith might intone, peering over her bifocals knowingly and dismissively. Kropka.

And if the date goes south at the cafe, then at least I have the car, and maybe I can do a bit of exploring. It really is beyond high-time that I checked out the metropolis to the north of me. Gawd knows Rhinebeck is, for this restless urban spirit, stompin around for some action, a bust.

Dearest sweetest Steve McQueen -- so am I to gather that it's torpidly humid where you are? I never check the weather where you are, wherever on this globe -- I hardly check it here for myself, have to ask D, or maybe these days, just because this March has been strangely more like May, simply to know how to dress...

oh please have some awesome TexMex for me
don't you love avocado? I just love it
D and I both do, actually
and it's been super-inexpensive at the supermarket for a couple of months
so we indulge in the luxuriously sensuous mild mouthfeels at least once a day
we eat it straight -- sliced, into a salad
but I love guacamole too

oh who knows what tomorrow will bring?
perhaps another slice, or even a whole half
sliced or mashed
of deliriously delicious rich mouthfeel that
makes me feel wholly alive

love you darling
hope all is well with you
many many kisses
xo

Hi my dearest Pablo (oh you're so much sweeter than him), up in the aerie at the end of the day, sunk in this chair, reflecting on the day. I've actually been writing quite a bit all day, email exchanges with a CL man, it's been nice, interesting, his reactions and responses are very thoughtful & some of them quite visceral as well, very engaging, and I do feel 'heard.' And also -- well, it's just so nice having someone actually write back to me -- to have an actual conversation, if only online. So we'll see. I don't hold out much hope from any one such encounter. And yet I continue to hold out a tiny lit match of hope in the concept of CL -- that so many people are looking, most of them probably not in good faith - but some yes -- and that I subscribe to the buckshot theory -- just keep shooting, shooting, not randomly, wantonly, try to aim, pick the posts that speak to me somehow, just keep trying, keep at it... and maybe, just maybe -- I'll hit the target. Because other than the buckshot theory -- what do I have? Doing nothing, languishing even more --- so taking up that old dusty rifle, clapping on my hat, stepping out into the fields, and aiming at the clay pigeons seems at least - proactive!

And even if nothing comes of it (as frankly - and I'm an optimist - I expect) it is so interesting to get a glimpse into another person's life, and psyche. It is as close to 'meeting people' as I am getting these days -- and I do enjoy meeting people, and having conversations, and getting to know someone - just out of curiosity, for who they are -- even if the spark doesn't ignite -- even as anyone 'for real' on CL - hopes, of course, that it does.

And that spark can ignite at any moment -- one doesn't see it coming. In an instant at ShopRite some time ago, when I glimpsed the Adonis of the Utz chips (to date, never a second sighting). Or - how about you, sweetheart? So many years we were in distant oblique orbits around more central planets -- and then suddenly -- we transited! Or something. I don't know my astronomical references very well, and also I have slid, as into another dimension, into another metaphor -- hopelessly mixing them, akin to sinking hopelessly into quicksand... forevermore...

Let me lie flat on my back, arms & limbs outstretched. That's the way to save one's self from quicksand - did you know that?

Ah -- roughly what I feel like doing with you right now, your having your way with me, however you like...

I mean, since the match finally flared after being struck against the box how many times?

Love you darling -- wherever you are, I hope you've been having a wonderful day
many kisses
xoxo

Hi sweetheart, I'm so glad you're back, or landed, well back here anyway, I missed you so much, and was absolutely elated, dearest Bacchus, when I saw you again. It is the most glorious moment just now -- that tranquil golden honeyed still poised moment -- windows open -- cardinals outside vocalizing - tu tu tu. And I'm admiring a new pair of shoes, that I've placed on top of the library book Maid as Muse, silvery (or 'pewter'-colored ones) that will serve well in warm-weather months. Which suddenly one has to think about in these parts -- it's March, but feels like May. I remember well, as a very young girl, in Marches, trudging home to feel delight to see crocuses poking shoots up through the scrabbled edge by the stoop. But it would be so cold! and damp and chill. And this might have been past March 21 even - the official start of Spring -- and it would be anything but that - in the chill gray drear -- as a girl, in my endless exercises of self-mortification, as much as I craved light, & warmth, & sunshine, I had to train myself to disregard the calendar date & whatever astronomical technicalities attended to formal season changes, and simply resign myself that March truly belongs to Winter, and not at all to Spring, and that It's Simply a Month to Be Suffered Through, until -- oh happy thought!, and cheerful kindergarten song -- April Showers Bring May Flowers.

I think that's about all I have for the moment. I'm fooling around again, on CL. Going fishin' has perhaps produced a (welcome) bite -- though I suppose it's debatable who's the fish & who the fisher. (Clue: this fish went for the 'hook' -- twice -- and finally got yanked up.)

If I'm sounding elliptical & enigmatic along the lines of you-know-who... perhaps it's because I continue to follow closely the daily effusions as found on the Secret Life of E.D. page... which prompted me to reserve from the library, a biography of Joseph Cornell, entitled Utopia Parkway.

Dearest, I have the idea that it is very late where you are. I assume you are in bed by yourself, in a dark room, but much as you do for me when I wake in the wee hours... scoot over darling, my love, in that lone bed of yours, let me lie down beside you, we'll regard each other in darkness, stroking one another's heads, faces. I hear your murumuring voice (and the cardinal sings tu-tu-tu), and we understand each other quite well I think, there's so much history there that doesn't need to be spoken, or explained, and I wasn't always the dzika one -- and neither were you, always, solely --

Oh my dearest love, why are our pleasures so short and interrupted?, and song of solomon

-- query search-terms, landing on my blog, yesterday evening

Darling - was that you, lighting on my blog in that fashion? That was beautiful, and referencing the exquisite Song of Solomon too, though that line isn't in it. I hope I didn't inadvertently frustrate you with my post yesterday -- I suppose I became frustrated myself, words could not express what kisses, and gropings beneath a silken moleskin parka could...

***
Sweetheart, it is suddenly summer up here, okay spring, but a strange one -- well into the seventies, even a touch muggy (a storm is possible), so balmy & warm that I'm in my shirtsleeves, a couple of windows open. Birds are tweeting, sounds wafting in from outdoors so peaceful, wind chimes softly tinkling, notes here & there, gentle whooshes of occasional distant traffic on the highway. If it's this warm here, how is it by you? Ah, I would like nothing better than to hang out at your neighbor's pool, just you & me -- that is, if your neighbor is away, the house & garden are utterly secluded, and I'm wearing not a faux-fur trimmed pelt, but a swimsuit - if that. And we plunge into the clear blue lapping diamond ripples of the pristine oblong container of water, and swim a few lengths to stretch our limbs, and then meet in the middle, and kiss like mad, as in that week with Marilyn...

Ah, it's clouding over now, and since there are no leaves on the trees, things are looking very bleached and gray indeed. I have so little to report, my dearest, I think of you, and you are a great comfort to me, settle me right down, when I wake in the middle of the night, my heart pounding, mind futilely racing. I went for a walk today, trying to get to the bottom of my constant subterranean mental agitation, to no avail -- except -- maybe it wasn't on my walk, actually, it was moments before, while I sat at the organ in the church, reviewing next week's hymns (& good thing too - because one of them is quite difficult indeed, I'm going to have to spend time working it out). Anyway, as I sat in that peaceful church, all to myself (except for -- ?, because I never feel utterly alone there, I somehow sense, that someone or something is behind me, observing me --- there is something about that ancient edifice) -- the thought occurred to me -- that I might not have been so upset, or so unsettled by him, fruitlessly and unnecessarily so, over a long period of time, if he could have simply said - after his brief flurry of very intense epistolary wooing -- you know, I can't really give you details, but I've met someone here, and so it's been so nice remembering about you, but really now my thoughts are turning elsewhere --

and so I sat at the organ thinking - and I think I murmured it out loud - to the empty rafters -- if he could only have told me that much

and then I went through the hymns, and spent time with the complicated one, and afterward left the pine-cone church, nestled among very old pines, and shut the dark-brown painted door behind me, and continued my walk, and wondered why I can never seem to find simple peace -- and then I thought -- it's going to seem petty, and maybe it is, but I'm going to have to delete him. I've been thinking about doing so for quite a long while, had a draft post ready to go, to that effect, for the past month or more - but I don't know, it always seemed so - well, as I said - petty. Or in CL terms -- because a lot of the male posters specifically state that they don't want "drama" (whatever that is - exactly - that they mean; I take it to mean, not so much "I dislike histrionics," as -- don't have a life, enmeshed context, a history) - well, my summarily flushing him might be viewed as "drama." Oh so what. Actually, it felt empowering to resolve to do so, it's my blog after all, my "front door" (though I know there are back entrances of sorts, that I have no control over, but - well, c'est la vie) -- at least I can assert the merest gesture, a semblance of control. But it may be enough, going through the motions a bit.

Love you, sweetheart. Hope all is well. Oh look, the sun is coming out again, all bright and shiny, the day outside my window glinting like a new silver dime.

xoxo

***
Note: I've decided to block desertrat5 as a follower; I suspect I know who it is, the covert nature of his following has bothered me from the start, I don't wish to think about him anymore, and so I've decided - no more. If I'm mistaken and it's in fact a complete benevolent stranger who lit here for whatever reason, then please accept my apologies and don't take my having blocked you personally. Though I would add that a while back, I did ask you to drop me a line about yourself - and evidently you decided to not deign to come out of the shadows, for the briefest moment, to let me, via a private message, know.

Apologies for this bit of housekeeping, but it happens.

...immediately return
the rat to its cage
if it starts to become frustrated.