Reassurance

If I could count on one thing per day, it would be that I'd see two big ol' ears and a fiercely wagging tail.

Kai won't leave my side. If I'm on my couch, she's beside me. When I go downstairs, she goes too. If I lay down, you'll find her in the room. She licks my elbow to get attention. She loves to play. In fact, if I could get an employer to pay her for playing, she'd be making
me rich. Her energy abounds.

I almost left this post titled "Girls and Dogs," and almost typed the simple statement "Both need a lot of reassurance." They do! Constant affection. They need to know you care.

But Guys need it too. They need reassurance from their companionship. Thus, I simply titled this "reassurance." It's a law like gravity.

New Message
Originally uploaded by tommykline

Anti-Advertising

Picture this: You are at a store, looking at an item that you've wanted for a while. You can afford it, and bring it home. You've imagined your ability to use it, and how much fun it will be, or how practical. So now it's under your arm, and you're hauling it to the checkout counter.
Now you're in your car driving home, and now you place it with all the other things that you thought you'd have fun with.

And there it sits.

I want to develop a mental program that runs just before the moment I pull out my billfold. I want this program to run my anti-advertising campaign. Slogan? Maybe "This thing you CAN own, but if you choose to, you HAVE to own it."

That's too long. Let's try "The cost beyond the cost: House full-o-shtuff, Volume 1."

Or "The Cost of Ownership, a Loss of Freedom."

See, I have too many things. I have back-ups for those things, in case they break. My house is full. And I can't give away most of it, because everyone else' houses are full too. Yet, whether I'm click-clicking around, or in a store perusing, that thought never runs through my mind until I'm home.

It doesn't cross my mind that I'll have to clean what I'm buying. I'll have to provide for it. Provide storage. Perform maintenance. Pay for electricity to run it. Wash it.
My grandfather used to say "never invest in anything that eats or needs painting." I used to think that was a complicated way to say "invest in land." Now I know it has to become a life philosophy.

Hold nothing dear, as everything will pass. Hold everything dear, as everything will pass. Don't try to own everything. Just enjoy it.

Anti-Advertising programming to continue...

Time Passes Again

Trailblazer of Fun
Originally uploaded by tommykline

Change can be seen and felt right now. I noticed geese flying south last night. And this week the corn husks have turned from vibrant green to dying yellow. Last week I began layering to stay warm on the bike in the morning.

Summer is ending, and fall is beginning.

It has been a great summer, but a quick one. It never really even began, really. No scorching-hot weeks.

Where did it all go?

Labor Day Project

Labor Day Project
Originally uploaded by tommykline

The good thing about Monday off? The ability to complete a project that gets started.

-Okay, I didn't get finished. But the baseboards are on, and it's all caulked up. All that remains is moving the stuff back in, and painting over the caulked parts!

Metaphorical Foliage and New Love

On a whim one day I decided to buy my shop lunch. I ordered "You Pick Two" for everyone, and was attempting to hold the bags and put on my hat while walking towards the door. I was in uniform so I had to get 'under cover' (meaning put wearing the hat) by the time I was outdoors. On my way through the glass doors I noticed a very pretty girl with a look of recognition in her eyes. It was only a momentary glance, and I went back to the shop and enjoyed lunch.

Later that day I received an email from someone who'd been pointed to the blogs by a college friend that was a High School classmate of Alison's. She'd sent her condolences just after Ali's passing, so I knew the name. We decided to have lunch one day... it was nice to be with new company; new company with whom I didn't have to explain my story. It was weird, but very nice. Funny thing when I tell someone about Ali for the first time - the conversation stops.

We decided to have lunch another time, and became friends.

Soon we were hanging out regularly and I had developed feelings. Niki was very VERY respectful of the situation, and I had to be very forthcoming about where I wanted our friendship to go.

I'll back-track here momentarily to detail my recognition of my own feelings. I have written previously that I held the secret of Alison's diagnosis for a long time. I did my very best to love and support her. I love Alison so deeply that it scarred. It's permanent. But I understand that she is gone. And maybe I had more time to prepare emotionally because of that secret. But what I didn't predict is that another love would not have to compete.

I thought my feelings for Alison would never allow for someone new.

And I thought that developing feelings for someone new would tear me up.

So it was really some revelation to realize that they didn't compete at all. Somehow they are separate, one having developed into an oak (I tried to link back to a post where I wrote about how our love went from a flower to a solid oak but realized in searching that I write the word "tree" a LOT), and one that had just budded, not yet developed it's own metaphorical foliage.

So I made a choice to let it grow.

I stand and face the future, molded by the past.

If we are less dramatic, I'll revise the last sentence to read 'I have resolved to see what happens.' I had hesitated to write about Niki for some time. Can you imagine the pressure that something like this could put on a relationship? But now I know we can handle it... and that this is the next step.

With warmth, all, welcome Niki.

I know it was meant to be. She has so much compassion, so much heart. If I had to list three things to write about her as an introduction, I'll say that 1) her smile and laugh is 'right', and infectious. 2) She really lives each day, not taking them for granted. and 3) she's got whatever 'it' is.

If I have learned anything in my twenties, it's that nothing is predictable. So I just write about it and enjoy the story.