john legend has a song i like alot, called "all of me."  (i happen to like the version of him with lindsey stirling on fiddle, lol)

the chorus of it goes:

cause all of me
loves all of you
love your curves and all your edges
all your perfect imperfections

i really like that part, specially the perfect imperfections.  doesn't that ring true for the one in your life?  mine has these funny shaped ears, lol. they are curved like the letter "C", lol. she always wears her hair down, seldom puts it up, to hide those ears.  i think of all our friends, i am the only one who has seen them.  the are imperfect, but totally adorably perfect. 

one eye is noticably larger than the other, well if you look close enough.  but when i see those cobalt blue eyes locked on me, i never notice the size, only that they are looking at me.  and i melt.

her posture isn't what it should be, she rolls her shoulders a bit forward.  those pretty and soft shoulders.  creamy skin.  when she sits in front of me, i forget her posture, not sure why, lol.

she is from new jersey, talks way too fast, and kinda nasal sound to it. when we are out shopping and get in line to check out, often times there are more than a few looking our way due to the contrast in her voice and mine (which is much slower and with the drawl and twang, lol).

her teeth are pretty, but her vampire teeth are ever so slightly moved forward, they remind me of singer jewel who is quite fine with her teeth.  something that could have been fixed with braces, but there was no money for that back then.  i like them as they are, they were that way from a time before i ever saw that first grin.

imperfections.  flaws.  we all have them.  and so many of them!  each and every one of them that makes someone unique.  i think i am gonna look for more.

Since said our "I do's" to each other and in front of those who care about us.  What a magical day that was.  And the magic continues.  I wondered how things would be, I mean if things would be any different after the ceremony.  I mean we had lived together for 5 years or so, sharing our lives and victories and setbacks and troubles and joys.  And yet something is different, thought I can't really put my finger on it.  But it is as if now their is an aura about us, a filtered light that follows us together.

I don't believe in soul mates, that there is just one perfect person out of so many billions.  Can you imagine if you spoke English, and your soul mate spoke Mandarin?  lol.  But I do believe that sometimes you find the perfect person for you.  And there are probably several of them out there, but they don't always cross your path.  Some people are very clingy, they like togetherness, hate being apart, cept maybe for when you poop, lol.  Others like time apart, away from each other.  And so many other variables: like movies, like certain foods, like long vacations or like several short ones, like walking, like talkings, prefer quietness, etc.  None of these are right or wrong, but we are not all wired alike.  I think too often two people connect, but they are unalike in so many ways, in time they tire of each other.

But then sometimes the stars align, and by some stroke of good luck, you wind up with someone that fits you like a glove.  We are both clingy, we both hate being more than 20 feet apart, lol.   My eyes water when she leaves for work, can't help it.  Such joy when she returns and I see that little grin of recognition.  I have written about it many times over the years.  It is the nicest thing, her best feature, that from the moment our eyes first met some 9 years or so ago, she had a small grin appear.  Sometimes it looked like a grin of guilt, a grin of being caught doing something she shouldn't.  Over time though, I came to see it as something she saw in me, or felt about me, and it is just awesome.  And it is always there when our eyes meet.  It is an awesome feeling to know that something about me gives her such joy, or pleasure, or contentment, that it brings forth that tiny grin.

We watch tv sitting together in a chair, a chair big enough for one and a half people, lol!!  So that means one sits a bit on the other, legs over the other.  It is lovely.  Still put a little note in her lunch sack before she leaves for work.  Seldom do I not do that.  And when I don't do that, I take one to where she works.  Sometimes its a poem, sometimes its me telling her something about her that I love so much, sometimes its a rememberance of something from our past.  I tape a piece of hard candy on the note.  Some sugar for the sweetest person I have ever met.

The other night, when we have our pillow talk, lol, she asked me what she saw for us when we were in our 80's.  I told her well, I can still see me wondering if I am gonna be getting in your panties that night, I can still see me flirting with you every chance I get, and I can see us chasing one another on those electric shopping carts in Walmart.  I can see us dancing on the porch when nobody is around.  Kissing till our jaws and cheek muscles ache the next day.  Walking late at night, holding hands.  So dark we see nothing but the stars if they are out.  And yet knowing exactly what she looks like, even in the dark, it is imprinted and won't ever go from my mind.  I can hear us making those same noises we make now when naked together.  And the giggles afterwards.  And the "shhhhh" you are gonna wake them up!  I can see brushing out her hair.  Bringing her coffee or breakfast in bed.  I can see her eyes seaching out the dessert cart when we go out to a fancy place to eat, lol.

I told her when I look in her eyes I see this very beautiful girl, that I adore like I never thought possible.  And I get a bit light headed when I do that.  And I can see, when I move in closer, I can see me in her eyes.  And I will still see that at 80, just as I do today.  And that small grin.

Happy anniversary to us!

Happy Sunday y'all.

je dois dire que je vous aime bien


and i mean it!
 

its a done deal now and back home after nearly 7 weeks on the road.  cut our road trip short by a couple of weeks, were missing people, missing home, missing the horses and dog, and missing this old front porch, lol.  we did put in quite a few thousand miles and saw so much of this country.  i highly recommend a road trip.  spacious skies and purple mountain majesties have a whole new meaning for me now.

we met someone id first met online like 7 or 8 years ago, had always had plans to meet, but never did for one reason or another.  she is like drop dead beautiful, and was always so nice to me, made me feel special at a time when i really needed that.  and she was, in person, every bit the angel i had come to know online.  of course, things we had talked about doing so many years ago cannot happen now, lol, but i was allowed a hug which was amazing.  we stayed with her for 4 days up in wyoming.  really no excuse for not having met before, and now she is coming to see us next spring for a week.  if you have an online friend that you have known for awhile, i think it best to figure out a way to close the distance.

my face hurts from smiling.  lol.  dunno why but things are different now, in a better way though.  its strange, all my adult life i have always wondered how you knew someone was the right one.  always perplexed me.  i still dont know the answer.  what i do know is you will know when it happens.  just somehow.

now it is back to work, back to the routine and seeing how many of our plans we can make come true.  and planning for the next road trip, lol.

happy sunday yall.

being single!  how cool is that?  and scary in a way.  but all in all, im so excited.

and yet, its a huge deal to me, its as if everything in the past has been building to this moment.  to me it seems a dividing line, a line separating the past from the future.  a future with somebody.

from the time we became a couple, i set my goal to make everything as special as i have the ability to do so.  not about buying expensive things, but about constantly showing affection, always looking her in the eyes when she has something to say, providing a lap when she needs to be held, pushing her through walmart while she sits in the shopping cart and piling stuff on top of her as we shop, until her legs are covered in so much stuff then leaving her in the middle of the aisle, lol, and i go down the next aisle leaving her there.  soon enough she shouts my name, louder as time goes on, haha.  then i come back to the rescue, acting all innocent! 

i can't wait as we walk toward each other, hold hands, (prob give her a quick smack on the lips, though that's not in the plans she knows about, lol) and then turn and walk down between the rows of our guests (its gonna be outside!). everyone turning to watch us walk toward them, past them, and stand in front.  we have no one to give us away, all our parents are gone, so we are giving ourselves away, to each other.

no flowers other than each of us carrying one long stemmed rose.  roses grown in the garden that my daddy started so many years ago. 

friends will begin to arrive on thursday and the bbq and beverages will begin, lol.  then saturday our ceremony.  she is gonna be so beautiful. a sundress and a floppy hat. barefoot.  i will close my eyes and remember what she wore the first day we met.  cut off blue jeans, with that white stringy stuff all over where she cut them off.  a grungy tshirt that looked like she had worn for three days, haha.  and a cap, on backwards, like a little dork.  barefoot. lol.

but wearing the same smile, the same tiny grin, that she will wear when we turn to face each other to say our vows, our pledges to each other.  she really hasn't changed very much and i am grateful for that.  i cannot think of one time in the 8 years i have known her, that she didn't do the little grin when we made eye contact.

i know everyone, at this stage of their life, feels they have chosen the right person.  and so many times, they haven't, for it doesn't work out.  she and i both feel we have chosen the right person.  we became besties before we became a couple.  all i know, if it turns out she isn't the right one, then the right person for me does not exist.

we love road trips, and the following tuesday (we plan to hang around till tuesday to visit with some people we don't get to see much before we leave) we will take the road trip to end all road trips.  7 weeks,  for just us.  hoping for lots of top down weather.  flying down the roads and seeing so much of this huge country.  wayfarers on. and maybe a cap on backwards. like little dorks.

but for sure that wonderful, heart-melting, little grin.

have a blessed Sunday yall.

moments in this relationship that made me stop, catch my breath, and wonder how things could always find a way to be a little better than they were before.  far too many to list.  one of them though was when she began to refer to this place as ours, or as hers.  rather than say why don't you come out to lori anne's house, it became why don't you come out to our house.  i'd longed to hear that, but never suggested it.  then one day it happened.  when it did i felt as if something in my chest was about to explode and i had to walk back behind the house and have myself a cry.  happy tears. 

the thing about being with someone, is being able to think back, to remember her, 3 years ago, or 5, or 7.  and noticing how she has changed.   and knowing ive changed to, and wonder what she notices about my changes.  probably things i dont notice.

and though i always wanted this to be "our" house, "our" place, sometimes i should be careful what i ask for.  a few sundays ago, when sitting in church, i was reading in the calendar of events and nearly had my heart stop when i read that everyone was invited out to our place to pick pecans the following saturday.  i wondered how in the hell that wound up in there, i didnt do it.  then i realized it was my partner in crime.  i leaned over and asked her what this was about and she said (lied!), "i told you about that."  lol. 

on part of this farm, there is this pecan grove we call it.  someone, many years ago, planted 240 pecan trees.  12 rows of 20 trees, though some have since died.  ive always liked to go and sit amongst these magnificent old trees.  wonder about the person, or persons, who planted them.  what were their plans?  what prompted them to plant them, and who did they plant them for? most of them wind up being eaten by squirrels, my mom always had some of them picked up for pecan pie, and to cook with, and i've done the same.

jaymie has fussed at me for letting them go to waste ever since she first came here.  i said something eats them so not really a waste, lol.  but she said i needed to learn to share!  and she took matters into her own hands.  she had been saving up the plastic containers coffee comes in, and milk containers, and had made handles and done all this out in the shop and i never really paid much attention.  i remember now seeing them, thinking just another craft idea she dreamed up, lol. 

and so i was assigned the task of making little sandwiches, making iced tea, and buying juice boxes, and drinks and getting them iced down.  she knew someone who had a pecan cracking machine so i had to get someone to put a generator out there, one we got after the hurricane.  she had gotten different people to loan us picnic tables and even gotten my brothers to haul them out to the pecan grove.  (they wouldn't do that for me at gunpoint! lol).

the end result was a pretty good turnout.  all ages, and we made an afternoon of it.   people took as much as they wanted.  some only a ziploc bag or two of pecans, others enough to make quite a few pies, lol.  after the last of them left, we sort of took a stroll and picked up any paper or drink bottles left under the trees.  she asked if i was mad and i said why would i be?  she said good, cause it was nice having so many come out.  and sharing what we had with them.  i said yes, it was.  she said it would be an annual event and even bigger and better next year. 

that night, we lay in bed after having fooled around some and she whispered to me "i think someone planted those trees for us, cause they knew someday two people would be in love and need a place to pick pecans, with their friends." 

after she fell  to sl eep, i lay there and id caress her back gently.  not to wake her, but then she can sl eep through anything.  i thought about sharing and i thought about how this girl had changed over all these years.  and i thought about how i had, and had because of her.  i could hear the sounds of voices, the sound of laughter out under those trees.  the clickety clack of the pecan cracking machine, and the noise of the generator. but most off all, i heard her voice, her words, about sharing.

and i heard the sound of measured breathing of someone next to me.  and i got that feeling again, like my chest was going to explode.

ps wtf is the deal with S L E E P being censored, lmfao.  someone get a grip.