I get up at 8:30, come upstairs, pour myself a coffee, sit at the computer reading email, responding to some, checking out my favourite websites to see what’s new on them today.

Loverboy comes in at 9:30. He’s been out doing chores, I guess. He’s going to town with his dad, he says, and since I mentioned going to town today, maybe I’d like to come with them?

“How long will you be?” I ask.
“About an hour,” he says.

I ponder. Usually when he says something will take an hour, it takes two.
I have to go to the library and the store, and that’s all. If I go with them, I’m sure to end up twiddling my thumbs for an hour after I’m done my errands.

I’m still in my nightshirt, haven’t eaten anything. I’d rather take my own vehicle in later, when I’m ready to go, than hurry now to leave. I tell him thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to hurry now, anyway.

***

I love people. I like to be with them for an hour here and there, in small doses or in small groupings. I like it when people are around, when people stop in, when a friend comes for a day or two. But when a gathering is large, I prefer to dip into it for a while and then get away, back to solitude. I am filled up with human society in a very short time. And it doesn’t matter how much I like the people we are with. I always look forward to when they leave, or when we do, because that is when I will relax again.

Loverboy is different. He will seek out people, as if being alone is wasted time.

From my paper journal:

Loverboy and I engage in these verbal sparrings that leave me terribly exasperated. I get to my wits’ end and think I can’t take it anymore, I want to get away from it, it’s no use.

Then, the next time I see him, he’ll surprise me by being his sensible, loving self again, and I am totally disarmed. And in love once more. It’s quite the wondrous thing.

I love the smell of his skin.
I love kissing his mouth.
I love the masculine grace of his body — the way he stands, walks, moves.
I love his hands — their size, their shape, their sureness.

Parts of my body warm up as I write these things, as I think about the way he looks and tastes and smells and feels. But I do not put this book away, turn over, and instigate lovemaking with the man snoring here beside me in this bed. No.

I enjoy the heat. He rolls over to face the other way. I stretch, content to leave him sleeping. I do not have an itch that needs scratching. I have a healthy sense of being alive, of smouldering lava in key places.

There are many times like these, when I think of or watch him and feel lust. He finds that impossible to believe, because I do not always instigate a sexual encounter on these occasions. I may simply focus on the sensation itself instead of acting upon it. This is apparently unthinkable to L.

I explain it to him by saying “I am a woman, not a man. Maybe there is a difference bigger than the obvious visual ones. Maybe I do not feel driven, as you do, to pursue a pleasure other than the one I am already enjoying. Maybe I am slower to heat to boiling point.”

People and animals were gathered in front of the newspaper office a block away from the hotel where we had our supper. The vet was in town giving pets their shots, and there was a pretty good turnout.

Halfway down the block we met Lucille in her wheelchair, holding two newly shorn dogs by their leashes, and her husband, Buck, walking beside her. Loverboy pulled over to the side of the street to chat with them.

“You get to work!” he called out to Buck, who yelled back “No YOU get to work!”

This is the typical banter between them when they meet. Buck is a farmer’s son who had a machinery accident as a young man and suffered brain injury, evidenced by some speech impediments and a reduction in cognitive functioning. He had to come live and work in town here, where there are both homes and employment for the mentally and physically impaired.

There he met and married Lucille, whom I met for the first time last night although I have seen her around town. Her physical handicaps are severe — it looks like she has no torso to speak of except for a sizable chest — and both of them have some difficulty with speech, as I found them hard to understand.

They have managed to purchase their own home and make a noticeable success of their independence from the group-living situation they started out with, and before the conversation was over they asked Loverboy if he’d have a look at a van they are thinking of buying. They aren’t sure if the asking price, with trade-in of the vehicle they own now, is fair.

So today we’re going to town so he can check out the vehicle and tell them what he thinks.

And I’m going to buy my sweetie a late lunch at the drive-thru, where buffalo burgers are all the rage. Then I’m off to my home town to see my granny.