icebluenothing

treebyleaf

I put her on a plane this morning at an unreasonable hour, never mind that you can't actually do that anymore, can't accompany a friend to a plane, you can't get any farther than the first security checkpoint with its X-rays and its metal detectors. I had to say goodbye to her long before she actually got on a plane, and I ruined my sleep to do it, but it was worth it. The rest of my day has been eaten a piece at a time by small naps -- I'd only had three hours sleep last night, and five the night before. I still feel groggy and useless, but I need to try to wake up and get some writing done.

One thousand, seven hundred and seventy miles away, treebyleaf is visiting her friend Mindy. Mindy also happens to have been my first lover; we broke up not under the best of circumstances, but have managed to rebuild something almost like friendship in the years since she's moved back to her native Texas, to Austin. She's spoken before of having me come down with treebyleaf on one of these little trips; always someday, never now.

One year, treebyleaf was there for New Year's Eve, and through the illusion of time zones, was able to call me on the phone when it was past midnight there, not yet midnight here; she called me from another year, from the future.

She's in the future again, right now; she lives two weeks in the future. It will be that long until I see her again. It's not forever. It just feels like it.

treebyleaf came over on Friday, and spent the weekend here, a rare pleasure for me. This was to be the weekend that she and I were going to attend Leavenworth's Autumn Leaf Festival, but financial considerations prevented it. On Saturday, we went instead to Country Village, an odd and charming little collection of shops in rustic old buildings, close at hand in Bothell.

The rest of the weekend, things were strange and sometimes stormy between us, but on the whole, happy and worthwhile. Our whole relationship in microcosm.

wendolen

It was a nice night. I actually went to bed and took a nap around 6:00 this evening; I was feeling really dizzy and headachy from low blood sugar, but didn't want to eat anything, because wendolen would be here soon and we'd have dinner then, so I figured I'd just sleep through the dizziness.

wendolen bought me dinner, which was a welcome surprise. (I just found out this week I don't qualify for unemployment after all, so what money I have I'll need to start keeping a closer eye on .... ) Then she talked me into taking her back to Central Market, a big fancy grocery store she's fallen in love with. It seems like we were just there; on the other hand, it was before 9/11, so it feels like a lifetime ago. It was fun doing a little window shopping with her. Being with her makes me laugh more than I would have imagined I could.

I got e-mail tonight from treebyleaf, forwarding a post she made to alt.gothic: "some days retail is worse than others," where she talks about the increased demand at her work for flags, for red, white, and blue ribbons -- anything. It made me want to smile and cry all at once. (And reminded me how badly I wanted to smack a good friend of mine the other night, who was complaining about "knee-jerk flag-waving." *sigh*)