Straight No Chaser

Martha's Vineyard, Many Hours Driving Home

"it's late, and i'm exhausted. i'm just calling to tell you i'm sorry. i'll call you back as soon as i can."

that's okay. i'm a little (a lot) irritated, but nothing serious. tonight was scheduled to be the "how are we gonna do this year" discussion, wherein we were going to talk through how we're gonna do this year. obviously. he's not one to chicken out. it is late (but we've talked later than this, much, regularly), but i don't know, whatever. he wanted to be mushy last night while i was in the backseat of my dad's car, trapped in the quiet at a mcdonald's drive-thru: "i got your letter. reading it, i really missed the sound of your voice. i really love you." and me, bursting with reciprocation but unable to spill it, having instead to fend off my dad's repeated order solicitations, and eventually annoyed because well, it had been a long week, and from one thousand miles away he'd managed to be a bright spot, and i didn't feel like letting him destroy that with empty words that would eventually fall apart.

i'm not really mad. glad he did manage to call, if nothing else. he's back in atlanta, which means back in dewey's clutches, which means random powwows at two in the morning, mass migrations to off-campus meeting spots, a whole lot of inflated egos doing the usual job on his slightly less gargantuan one. i've been getting ready for it all summer, but it's a week early and i'm not quite psyched up for it yet. if we did get married someday, i could see myself maturing into the role he'd need me to play, but then i'd have decades to do it, whereas now i have to jump in and out of helpmate mode every five minutes. it's hard. it wears me out. it's worth it, we do agree on that point, but it still wears me out. one week till i have to do it in earnest.

on the bright side, god willing, we're going on a road trip for his birthday. to houston, to see dave matthews. i can see this being the high point of the school year, easily. hence i'm fighting this constant urge to beg him, PLEASE don't fuck this up.

i made personal history by donating to a site auction. i said i'd give the winner a full port raid (pretty ambitious for me, but i think i can manage), "offering suggestions for edits and revisions." that seemed wholesome and honest. i read well, i have strong opinions, and i don't miss much, mechanically. i've given out my share of pretty detailed reviews--i still do, when it's asked or required of me. so i'm looking forward to doing that, but noticing, with increasing ironic amusement, that the high bidders are instead going for mini-raids (set number of reviews, usually five or ten), plus merit badge/awardicon. i made the offer when i really needed the gift points, and i could have thrown in an awardicon or something, but that's one of those things that seems so obviously unethical that i can't figure out how it slides by. the merit badge thing i can maybe understand. someone bids high in a charity auction, then maybe they deserve a fundraising badge. but to blindly offer an awardicon, or any other type of merit badge, ignorant to the strength of the pieces one is going to read...that just seems a little whorish. supposing i offered an engraved plaque to the best piece reviewed, and then all the pieces sucked. i'd be guilty of that most hideous crime, devaluing the gifting system, making myself fodder for someone's irate article someday soon.

to each his own. while we're at it, though, it is possible to give oneself an awardicon. one could always cut out the middleman.

in other self-congratulatory news, i racked up two thousand views while my head was turned, and am now closing in on twenty-four hundred. not sure what any of this means, as i never am, and i sort of regret not establishing some cutesy routine for multiples of fifty or a hundred, but maybe i should just feel thrilled that folks are reading anyway. as i do. did i mention that i missed you all? i exchanged a few words each with prob, zoo and mariposa while i was up north, and that only made me miss everyone even more poignantly.

now i feel a bit bitchy. must neutralize, perhaps with an alphabetic ode to marcus, a la zoo. i apologize in advance, as it's going to suck.

axe-scented masterpiece cooling beside me, sugar-dusted
beignet dissolving on the
cupped surface of my tongue, your
damnable
elan upends me time and again,
fain though i am to for
give.

that's all i got. every ode i ever write starts kind of that way. seems like there was something to tina earlier, "jade pendant between my collarbones, brilliant ruby beneath the rose petal," and so on--gem references for the emerald forest, which i liked, and this time something edible, appropriately; one of these days i'm going to figure out how to ACTUALLY write poetry so i can ACTUALLY do that with decent results. for now, though, it's four o'clock, with less than three hours till time to get up, and somewhere out there there's a world that needs saving, and i'm going to fail it dismally if i have to chance it without enough sleep.

on the off chance that anyone's dying to hear about the beach, i'm going to squeeze out a couple paragraphs tomorrow. the system demanded a marcus entry, though. in case you were wondering.

sadly, i've not heard from grymme in what seems an aeon.