Hello darling, yet another amazing Cary Tennis response that hit me right in the gut when I read it. Not so much the original letter itself -- and Cary seems to take the letter as a springboard and go off on a tangent, that may or may not directly relate to letter writer. No matter -- I strongly related to his take, and there were moments this morning afterward that I felt, do you know, just possibly I really might be getting past this, really way way past this, as in he's in the dust in the rear-view mirror. I used to care if I'd ever see him again, and I think I am at the point, or close to it, that I feel -- no, I don't, I don't care if I ever see him again, he wasn't worth it, it was an illusion, a lie, and for whatever reason I got sucked into it. I didn't know then -- how could I? -- how to judge people, especially men, what man, what boyfriend could be right for me, could be good for me. He was, as it turned out, psychically disastrous for me. But just the sort I suppose I was raised to expect to be my ideal attainment -- now, that was unconscious on my part, as Cary points out about the deep longings that seem to express themselves in lust but are about something else. Yes, I believe he's right -- certainly in as how I read his letter is how I find it applies to something I experienced.

That is the secret. You must get to know the values. Yes, I see that, and I have a good feeling about things, just maybe, a cross between the sun and the moon, if such a thing were possible -- sexy and good, warmhearted? I'm feeling uncharacteristically reticent... I don't know, I've said before that I might feel a need at some point to discontinue my blog. I'm not quite there yet, and yet I'm feeling pushed and pulled a bit in different directions, where suddenly blogging my heart might not be the thing I wish to do so much anymore. Maybe I'd just rather tell him -- if that's how things might go with us, it's too soon to tell, maybe, and yet, I find myself thinking. So what do you think?, he asked (or words to that effect), as we sat knee to knee on a bench in a private shaded courtyard, in the company of a companionably snoozing brown spaniel. I don't know, I have to sleep on it. And I did have to. At the moment I was sitting there with him, my knee aware of but sort of avoiding his knee, just a bit -- I just didn't know what might happen - might he kiss me there? But then the gallery owner came down, and goodness knows if there aren't spy cams around anyway, in such an enclosed private space --- well, anyone could walk off with one of the small, obscure, but rather charming oils hung on the wall.

Well, we'll see. This man is a self-described 'alpha,' and so far what I've seen, and heard about as he told me about his life, is a whole lot of warmth, and caring, and givingness. He's an 'alpha' - of course I believe that. But he's not the sort of 'alpha' - however sexually motivated I believe he is -- who's a power-player -- that is, a player. The man I may be meeting up with early in the morning tomorrow for a walk (I'll bring some plum cake, to go with that coffee!) - if he's feeling better - he's been waylaid by a bug, I hope very fervently not from what I discovered to be horrifically unsanitary conditions when I in all innocence excused myself from the table only to find -- well, I've been haunted by that awful image, so I won't inflict it on you. I've always been squeamish, and it doesn't make me feel happier that one of the waitstaff was the one who - upon my sounding of the alarm - appeared with a plunger.

Anyway, I'm just tapping my fingers here, hoping - I don't know, that it all works out. That the good guys win.

Beautiful afternoon, rather warm and humid. I'm in a slinky tee and panties, sipping from an icefilled glass. A beautiful session this morning - maybe beautiful isn't the adjective - powerful, effective -- and afterwards I showered & washed my hair, which air-dried in soft 'Slavic Venus'-like waves before I took a brush to it and finished styling with the blow drier. Oh, and before all that, I woke very early this morning, before six, and got up, and by eight in the morning already had taken up a hem of one of my dresses -- much improved, that shorter length. And I went food shopping, and I've got a book on reserve waiting for me - that tout Armonk is reading, you know, the one about the dom and the sub, or is it the Alpha with the alpha -- whatever. I'm going to have to run up to Kinderhook tomorrow. The regional library system must have purchased way more copies of that book (whose title offhand I don't even recall) -- Gray something? Or is that the name of the male character? Well here in Gray Gardens I'll be very interested to take a peek -- and if I don't like it -- find it too tame, after all the youp*rns I've been slow-downloading and perusing with my readers on as if doing any other kind of perfectly on the up-and-up research of any other sort -- then I'll return it. Because when I had first reserved it, maybe six weeks ago, there were something like 76 holds on the 1st returned of some 3 copies in the entire mid-Hudson system! So -- it better be good. And I will continue reading the book that I'm currently reading too... though it's due Friday, and I tried to renew it, but the system wouldn't allow me to -- there's a pending reservation - someone else would like to read it too - not, obviously, from having read and decoded cryptic aside comments about it from me, since I rarely even link to the book -- perhaps it was the favorable Times review, which in fact I'd discovered post facto...

Anyway, that's that dearest, for now -- the most wonderful aroma of an Asian-styled (fusion?) vegetable & shrimp stir fry/sauté, wafting up the stairs -- seasoned with sesame oil, red curry paste, garlic and ginger, and soy sauce -- that's okay - isn't it?

Very many kisses
warm, as ever
no - I mean, warmly best, ever yours
oh never mind all that ---
xoxo
Belle