Is Mercury retrograde or something? This has been the weirdest week.
No, I guess not for another couple of weeks. Maybe I am getting a preview of coming attractions? Missed connections, irritable people for no obvious reason, the self-check-out at the store not working this morning and no one around to remedy it. Are we all just so distracted as to not be fully present? And oh gosh, this contract with The City is turning into a nightmare for me.
The good news is that this is only my responsibility until the end of the month, but what a way to go out. I have this six-hour retreat tomorrow and things have to look up after that. They just plain need to. This level of stress is not healthy.
At least “The Fling” is still operational. I just keep seeing new facets of him. And some of them are sweet indeed. Even if he does repeatedly put the silverware in the dish drainer upside down. He’s been carrying my poetry chapbook around with him in his pack for the last two weeks.
I have a flare up of the costochondritis, the inflammation of the cartilage that centers around the heart but it affects the whole ribcage and have been teaching sore all week. The teaching doesn’t make it worse, gentle exercise is a way to address it, but I have held off on stronger exercise and haven’t been to the gym for days. And the gym usually helps with stress mitigation.
Plus, you know, I am in love. It is ridiculous. Mooning around the place listening to romantic ballads and disco music. I seriously never thought I would feel this way again and to have it reciprocated is an astonishing thing.
Astonishing and exhausting. This is why young people fall in love. They have more energy for all the complicated logistics of fitting the pieces together even briefly of two very busy and complex lives. Yesterday he came over early before my morning class and hung out in the other room while I taught and then we had a whole three hours together.
I am thinking about it like a sand painting, exquisite in execution and design but so fleeting in nature. There truly is no future for us so we are making the most of our time together. For however long that is.
He has begun getting the work done on his left arm to fill out the tattoo sleeve. If you don’t live here, you may not have any idea how common tattooed forearms are for men. This round the artist added some beautiful roses, he is doing a garden theme, and the rosemary is going in there as well. I am chuffed that he is getting the same tattoo I am going to get on my upper back around my melanoma scar woven into his sleeve.
I think Mr. Finch would approve. And it is after all… only a fling.
And once this other stuff settles down and I can return to a relatively normal schedule there are poems to write.
I am not as mad at Walt as I was. I haven’t seen him or had any direct interaction with him since the blow up but other people from the group have been coming to my class. There is a board meeting next Thursday that I will go to, but I am not pursuing any other contact.
The thing is Walt’s absurd behavior forced Mr. B. and I to do some serious soul searching and if we hadn’t done that and made the mutual decision to play this out, well…things would have been different, and not half as much…fun.
Yesterday, holding me he asked if I was happy, and I said yes, wildly insanely, in this kind of I can’t quite believe it monotone and then I said I am particularly happy I didn’t let you walk out that door. He would have gone. It wasn’t a ploy. We came so close to not having this…
A nice counterbalance to all the frustration and annoyance and just sheer I can’t wait until this is over-ness I am experiencing with all the other stuff.
Once he figures out his work schedule we are going back to the movies.
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