So darling, while I'm waiting for the phone to ring, as it were, I'll write to you, as per my usual. Why are things so difficult? I'm bumming out, possibly for no reason, which is making me feel slightly crazy, gaslighted. I really don't like things ambiguous, unresolved. Or maybe this housewife with too much time on her hands expects too much from someone who works overtime and has other pressing obligations as well, as much as he (since it was he who posted) wants... well, someone, a woman he can connect with. Which I would have sworn is just precisely what happened yesterday afternoon... not that so much happened (ahem), but what did was so powerful and sweet and joyful, and there was much much talk of working out near-future plans for meeting again, the whens and wheres -- such forward-thinking -- & acting, instigated not by me. I was certainly willing... but not right on the busy main street... so we strolled a few blocks, among the 'painted ladies,' beautifully restored Victorian houses, zigzagging along sleepy residential side streets, and we strolled and chatted and laughed and conversed, and then he stopped, deeming secluded enough the spot, on the sidewalk in front of a tall front-garden arbor where, in the shade and discreet cover of lilac yet-to-bloom, he took me in his arms...

oh heavens, for my first time with someone else in over a quarter-century the impresses -- two - very deliberate - one here - one there - were exquisite--

afterward we exchanged ideas, possibilities, as to potential hideaway rooms in, as in Chekhov's short story, Slaviansky Bazaar hotels…

all on the walk, back onto the main street in town, where we parted -- and not a moment too soon, because while we each had optimistically fed two quarters apiece into the meters --- time was up, a few minutes past even -- and I'm sure we both - though we were in separate cars, parked on different blocks, can be glad that we weren't slapped with parking tickets because the time had expired -- solely because I hadn't wished to be kissed --- that is, I did wish to be kissed, which wish he himself formally requested -- but not in full daylight, in view of possible neighbors passing by - not right on Main Street.

So whatever the costs of a kiss -- ah, though the parking meter was flashing '0:00' a few minutes past three, at least there was no horrible slip of paper beneath a wiper, I'd gotten away with it, and so I started the engine with great relief, my heart full, mind full, and pulled away…