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

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