The photos I found in my camera when I got back to work from my week off.

I think he said, “I love you” to me this morning.
He was hugging me goodbye and mumbled something into my hair. The “I” was clear but the rest of it got sort of slurred into my neck. You know, how you start to say something and then sort of turn it into humming a little tune? Like that.
“I luvlalalaalalaaa”
Haha

I say, “love you” to most all my friends. It’s getting hard not to say the words to him.
I have never been with someone this long without saying the words unless I really did not love the someone for some reason.
However, do I really love him? Am I sure? Is this what I want? Is this last three months of feeling happy; of never fighting, of amazing sex, of passionate kisses and looking into each other’s eyes, is this love?

I spent my entire vacation with him. We had a great time. Not really doing anything special. Hanging around, driving around, walking around.
The brakes went on his van and I got the privilege of watching he and his father and his son and his friend Steeve run around and fix car and talk and laugh with each other while I sat on the grass and smoked. When we were getting ready to leave his dad said, “look at JJ there sitting so quietly like Buddha”. I guess it was a compliment. I would like to think he wasn’t referring to my fat belly.

Oh, I guess I should mention that he got a new car. 1980 Toyota Celica. Runs good, needs work. All hail, amen.
It is so close to the ground and so cozy after riding in the van. Jr has been banished to the back seat where kids under (how many feet tall) are supposed to ride, hoo hah!
Jr is not happy about it but he has windows and a whole back seat to himself so I think he will get used to it.


The first day of vacation. Thursday night, really. He picked me up after work and we were headed for the bridge.
An aside on this, I used to be able to count the times I had been over (and under) the bridge on one hand. Now, I have no idea how many times. I suppose I could count or something. Ahh, fugeddaboudit.
We were driving in the van and I went to flick my cigarette ash out the window. I’d had problems with the ashes coming back in on me before but this time a hot cherry came back and landed in my right eye. I closed my eye and covered it with my hand and said “OW”. He asked me what was wrong and I told him “hot ash in the eye”.
My eye was watering copiously and I opened it up to finger around because I could feel something (or someone) in there. I pulled out a cinder the size of a mouse poo and held it out for him to see. He said “wow” or something like that. I said, “I’m going to sit here and cry for awhile, I guess”. He said, “Ok”, and that’s what I did.
I had no mirror to speak of so I couldn’t tell what it looked like. It was watering so much and it really hurted.
When we got to his place, I made a beeline for the bathroom and looked and the horrid mess that used to be my right eye. It was bright red and swollen and still watering a lot. I pulled it open and I could see a blister on the inside of my top and bottom eyelid. I called out “Erik, come look at my eye, I can’t really see it”. He came in and looked at my eye. I said, “can you see a blister?” and he said, “yeah. I see one on your eyelid but what really bothers me is the one on your eyeball”.
EEEWWWW!
A blister on my eyeball? Gross.
Anyway, I couldn’t really see out of it. It pussed and watered and looked disgusting for three days. It got stuck shut when I closed it. I had to soak it open the first day. Then it was all better and not hurty and not blurry. I can still see a lump when I am looking out my eye, but I cannot see anything when I inspect it. Whew.

Nothing else really noteworthy happened.
Last night he picked me up after work and he had some time to hang out. We decided to go to the park and he asked if I would buy some beer. But of course!
We went to the Bell market that is closing. The one on the end to Haight street, right across the street from the park. Everything was 40-60% off and I figured they would have no beer. I was right.
They did however have wine, on sale and we got two bottles of white Manachewitz and a bottle of Watermelon Pucker. Cheep.
We went to the park and all the regular suspects were there.
Oh, the wine was sweet and the Pucker made a great chaser.
After about 15 minutes of chugging we were calling it Bananachewitz and Watermelon Motherfucker.
He called his dad to see if dad could pick up Jr at school and dad said no.
He made a plan to take me with and pick up the child and then take me home later.
We went to the school and picked him up and played on the playground there for a while.
I got a sliver in my knee and Jr got a sliver in his hand from the wood chips they put down in the playground.
Once we got back from the playground to his place we decided I would stay the night, rather than have him drive me all the way back across the bridge, with the child and then they drive back to his place, all with him pretty buzzed. It was bad enough that he drove home that way, why tempt fate, right?
So I passed out on his bed and was almost two hours late for work this morning (which is ok, I have a flexible schedule. I just had to stay late. Blah).
Oh, this has to be a thousand words by now.
I am back. Did you miss me?