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Ok, I'm a big sap. A big Asheville-type guy, but I just don't happen to have a pony-tail in my grey hair shorter than an inch. I watched an Ingles grocery store commercial that made me cry. A flippin' commercial! It starts out with a young couple at the door to grandma's house and she expresses anxiety about fitting in with everyone. He says "It's ok, you're family now." and they're ushered in to a busy family household with people running around getting ready for the big meal. "How was your honeymoon?" someone - likely a sister or cousin asks in the kitchen. Her answer is interrupted with someone else coming thru with fresh biscuits out of the oven. She asks the sweet old grandmother if she needs any help and mama looks up from a tattered card with the recipe to say "No, we've got it, thanks!" or something along those lines, but we see that grandma sees our new bride trying to fit in. Then the meal of wonderful gumbo and the family is talking non-stop and the husband confides that it's grandma's secret recipe. We watch the new bride still struggle to fit in, to get a word in edgewise, but is a bit too shy. We also see that grandma notices in a kindly way and from across the table that new-bride is struggling to be a part of the family.

Then they're saying goodbyes and they walk out the front door, and the new bride is about to tell new-groom that she likes the family, but couldn't fit in and she reaches in her pocket and finds the old tattered card with the gumbo recipe on it. Grandma can be seen smiling as she closes the door.

Sheesh, I'm so susceptible to the obvious. I should run out and watch 10 Steven Spielberg movies to be pummeled with obviousness! Then, I told my sweet Helen about the commercial and I got all teary just telling it, and we BOTH cried. I really love being open hearted, but I'm a bit too easy when it comes to having my emotions yanked around, I think.

Don't get me started on the damn John Deere commercial where mom and child get dad a hat and key for his birthday!

I just got news back from a biopsy, and i don't have MRSA. MRSA, pronounced 'mersa', stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - a high falutin' way of saying a staph infection that's grown smarter than our regular strength antibiotics. I had a boil on my face and went to the doc and he did the usual (I was even thinking of naming my firstborn twins Lance and Drain) but put me on loopy and powerful antibiotics in the off-chance that i had the resistant kind of Staphylococcus. But the worst of it - and in the midst of dieting - Helen and i decided that if i were particularly pathogenic that we shouldn't kiss.

Kissing is something that we do daily. We make time for kissing. I know it sounds silly, but after a first date with Helen, i waited as long as i could (i think at most 2 days) and called her up.

"Hello. Helen?"
"Yess, is this zen?"
"Yes it is. And i was thinking, that well, i um... I'm coming over to kiss you."
"Okay."

Okay. Okay? Holy shit! I'm glad i had already showered because the winds that blew me over to her house were not strong enough. My car squealed under the pressure of me gripping the wheel at high speed. I didn't think of anything as i drove, only which direction, which lane, which path was quickest. I got there and we did nothing but kiss each other in all its manifestations: slow, fast, little kisses, big smoochy ones, neck nibbles, hair-breathing kisslets. It was amazing.

So for us kissing isn't just a greeting or a goodbye, it's a release and a necessity. A form of life of it's own that puts me right back into the heaven of being next to the most precious of beings here on this sweet Earth. And the point of all this is that i'm at work and can't wait to get home. Can't wait for her breath to mix with mine and to look into her eyes and put myself back into alignment with the universe that is kissing Helen.

No MRSA for me, nossir!

When i first awaken in the morning, i am weak-minded. It's not just that i can't think very well, but my internal dialog hasn't been kickstarted. I'm in a swimmy-headed state between states of thinking. I haven't let go of my dream world and the real world hasn't made enough of an impression on me to care enough to begin the kind of regular thinking that includes to do lists and appointments. I call it 'math thinking' and Helen knows not to innundate me with too much too soon.

Helen on the other hand begins joining hands with the real world before she even wakes up i think. It's almost as if her waking mind is so strong it pries her out of the comfortable memory foam of bed. By the time her body moves it's already with the purpose and determination of expected results. I expect nothing of the day on just waking up, have no clue about results and only as they present themselves - a pile of unfinished photos on the computer, the need to change the dressing on my latest wound, whatever.

My weak mind can easily be hijacked. This morning Helen was in the kitchen making our breakfast of an egg, some weekend bacon we allow ourselves and a grapefruit halved for each of us, all while listening to Eat, Pray, Love on CD. A book i've been enjoying with her, both reading it to her at night and listening to it in the car or kitchen. But this morning, it is an endless stream of words that hijacks my brain and doesn't let my own feelings and dull experiences come back to me. I do the breakfast dishes and then have to almost run out of the kitchen to be able to hear myself think. I have only thoughts of what i'm being told. I can't start zen's day without my thinking utensils, whatever they may be. But sweet as a golden brown marshmallow, warm and satisfying, Helen turns the CD off after she notes my distress. We sit on the porch for a moment and have the small conversations of love and passing thoughts that intimate people do. And my brain settles down to be able to write this post.

And i'm awake now. And happy.