Of all the java joints, in all the towns, in all the world, I walk into hers. I had a date with an angel last night, and her name is Ashley!
Ashley is amazing! She is beautiful and considerate and kind and fun and fantastic! She went to monumental effort to put together an outfit for our date last night; consequently, she was always the only woman in the room all evening, or so it seemed to me. I'm still a bit over-the-top smitten this morning, but what the hell! I like it!
When I arrived last night to pick Ashley up at her house, she was worried 'cause she was running a bit late. She was repeatedly apologetic, which I assured her she didn't need to be. I tried to get her to stop saying she was sorry, but then she apologized for that. Like I said, amazingly considerate. I adjusted the restaurant reservation time, and everything worked out fine. We had dinner at Peerce's Landing and it was delicious. Try the sirloin tips, and the Crabatini appetizer is to die for!
I pulled out one of the moves I hold in reserve for special occasions or a very special woman, two considerations which each applied equally last night. The tactic is kinda Sean Connery-esque, and I discovered it in my ever-trusty copy of Dating for Dummies under the inset heading of "Mr Smoothie" (p. 164). It impressed me when I read it, so I employ it sometimes, albeit sparingly. Basically, you just give the restaurant manager your credit card information a day ahead of time and tell them to add a certain percentage to the total for the tip. Then when dinner is done and the plates are cleared, you can simply get up and go.
Conversation with Ashley, last night, was incredibly engaging, interesting and never, at any time, awkward or sparse or dull. I didn't feel any pressure to be able to keep our conversation moving along, all credit to my lovely companion. I never felt the need to consult the proverbial dating-to-English dictionatry to figure out what she was talking about. In fact, I don't think either of us needed to clarify any point of our conversation last night. I think the fact that we both acknowledged a little case of nerves from the get-go went a long way to quelling said nerves, and enabling free-flowing and relaxed communication.
Ashley is a lady, through and through! Incredibly lovely and enjoys being treated with the requesite respect due a lady. She enjoys having doors held for her, a gentleman standing when she enters a room, and having her cigarette lighted. None of this diminishes her sense of independence or strength as a person, and only adds to her classicly lady-like and beguiling allure. She has a predominant sense of grace, style and class, with just enough of a hint of roughness on an edge or two to make her also seem incredibly down-to-earth, non-threatening and approachable.
So, we left the restaurant and headed for the dance venue. The people were nice and the lesson was fun. When it comes to tripping the light fantastic...well, let's just say I'm obviously not light, nor particularly fantastic. I'm quite certain that Ashley must be a Ginger-Rogers-in-waiting, but being paired up with me and my two left feet, she lacked the proper showcase to give evidence of her dancing acumen. We left the dance hall shortly after 9, and I took her home.
When I used to imagine the ideal woman, she was not half as wonderful as Ashley! For however long she graces my life with her company, I will have truly been blessed. Ashley makes me happy. Its not just because she is pretty and smart and funny and kind, all of which are very true, btw. It is because she has reconnected me with some interests that brought me a great deal of happiness before we ever met. Her companionship at every level thus far enjoyed has restored my confidence as a gentleman worthy of the company of a wonderful woman! The fact that it is Ashley, in particular, with whom I get to enjoy that company has restored my confidence in God's plan and good luck.
I told Ashley I have two tickets to an upcoming performance of the BSO at the Meyerhoff; she is trying to get the night off so that she can go with me. On the way back to her house, which is very nicely decorated, btw, she figured out that the next night we are both off is next Sunday. She asked if I might be interested in getting together then. I told there was no "might" about it, I am in.
Play it again, Sam!
"As Time Goes By", Jimmy Durante.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Happy Days
There is a blue moon this month. I have a date this month. Coincidence? I think, maybe...not-so-much. I'm happy.
I stopped by the diner to chat-up Ashley last night. She had on some crazy-cool cat eye glasses. Her retro is just so in-tune with almost everything I'm all about. I told her I needed her number; she immidiately wrote down her home number, cell number, and address on an order pad and gave it to me straightaway. I asked her to go dancing next Saturday; she immediately asked for that Saturday off so she could come out with me. She thought of my time and the opportunity to share my company as important! Its getting more and more difficult to think she's only being sweet and not interested in us getting to know each other. I'm happy.
Now, I am not going on any far-flung flights-of-fancy about where this thing between the two of us is going. I'm not even sure this thing is going anywhere. I am just now getting comfortable thinking there is even a thing. I'm happy.
I guess the next chapter is the getting-to-know each other chapter. That sounds like so much fun to me. And, not thinking too far out, it would be kinda nice to have a gal around to help me celebrate my birthday next month - at dinner, or a show, or both. Its the idea of having somebody around to be able to talk to on a certain level that is not necessarily limited to any individual concept like romance or friendship or mutual intellectual and artistic interest - but, instead, all of that - that is what has me floating through this whole week on cloud nine. I'm happy.
So it looks like I have accomplished my goal. It looks like I actually am acceptable dating material. I think I suspected it; and, many of my friends never, ever doubted it. This time, though, I got it in writing. And, yes, I'm happy!
"Blue Moon", Dean Martin.
I stopped by the diner to chat-up Ashley last night. She had on some crazy-cool cat eye glasses. Her retro is just so in-tune with almost everything I'm all about. I told her I needed her number; she immidiately wrote down her home number, cell number, and address on an order pad and gave it to me straightaway. I asked her to go dancing next Saturday; she immediately asked for that Saturday off so she could come out with me. She thought of my time and the opportunity to share my company as important! Its getting more and more difficult to think she's only being sweet and not interested in us getting to know each other. I'm happy.
Now, I am not going on any far-flung flights-of-fancy about where this thing between the two of us is going. I'm not even sure this thing is going anywhere. I am just now getting comfortable thinking there is even a thing. I'm happy.
I guess the next chapter is the getting-to-know each other chapter. That sounds like so much fun to me. And, not thinking too far out, it would be kinda nice to have a gal around to help me celebrate my birthday next month - at dinner, or a show, or both. Its the idea of having somebody around to be able to talk to on a certain level that is not necessarily limited to any individual concept like romance or friendship or mutual intellectual and artistic interest - but, instead, all of that - that is what has me floating through this whole week on cloud nine. I'm happy.
So it looks like I have accomplished my goal. It looks like I actually am acceptable dating material. I think I suspected it; and, many of my friends never, ever doubted it. This time, though, I got it in writing. And, yes, I'm happy!
"Blue Moon", Dean Martin.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Back to the Present
It is amazing to me the mysterious ways in which God works!
I have known for a long time that I have wanted to find a woman with whom I am sympatico. Call it a soulmate, a girlfriend, a lover, a confidant, whatever. I want somebody like that in my life, not because I need a very exclusive fan club (even with both of us present, many times, she might be my only fan), but because I want someone there in whom I can invest the love and trust that lives inside me, and there's alot.
The first part of my life has not been a bed of roses. There was alot of emotional turmoil. I wanted to do things differently from the people in my family who hurt me, and who hurt each other; like I said, there was alot of negative energy. In 2007, I was nearly at my rope's end trying to figure out how to reconcile negative energy and positive intentions. That, for those of you who don't know the whole story, is when my friend Dawn suggested I find a good therapist. Well, having never been in therapy, the fate of it all was in God's hands and He matched me up with Vickie. I think it speaks volumes as to my opinion of her that this blog is named in her honor. Then, when she took her leave, I had the good sense to know, with God's help, what to look for in a new therapist. I found Kerry. Let's just say The Man Upstairs is 2-for-2, with both at-bats yielding home runs!
Back to my part of the story. People told me that in order for anyone else to accept me, I first needed to learn to love myself. Well, being a naturally self-depricating smart-ass and cynic, that made no damned sense to me at all. I didn't think it would work. Two or three sessions in, Vickie discovered a severe disconnect between me and my emotions. She helped me rewire the connections - the main ones first. Wow!
I have taken all of the negative energy and created a detoxification plant for it within me. Well, the detoxed, negative energy was converted to love and kept having to be stored up. I used alot of it to help mend a fence with a family member that had been nearly 30 years broken. Then I looked, and there was more love than when I started to put things right between me and my father. I still had never learned to spend it on myself. Slowly, that changed.
It started changing when I cried out to Dawn for help, and admitted to myself, her, and God, that I wasn't in a place to be able to fix these things alone. I knew I was in for a battle. I used a multi-pronged attack of therapy, and friendship, and prayer, and social reconnection. I think, all glory to God, that the social reconnection strategy has been the most effective tool in my aresenal. I spent most of my life dwelling on what I was not. I didn't want to be my dad. I worked in law enforcement, but I wasn't a cop. The spin on everything was negative.
I went to church. I also started going places when I would otherwise just have rushed back home or hidden out behind my camera. I drew from some of my photo school friendships heavily. It started with Dawn, but my healing was helped along by Jack and Alison and Chris and Lou and Veronica and Isabell and Nicole and Jenn and Colleen and Macao and Jeff, among many others. I started feeling social acceptance from these people. However, it was not until one night several years ago when I decided to make a friend that night and met Erica that things really began to turn around dramatically.
Erica, and subsequently, many of her friends accepted me into their circle. These people didn't know me from Adam. I didn't really have to get good grades, or be a good dispatcher, or produce prize-winning photographs, they just liked me! I didn't know people could just like me. I wasn't even sure if I could just like me. Maybe I had been likable - and, indeed, was liked - without having to do all the other things all along. What? WHAT! I guess I always assumed it was conditional.
Unconditional love and acceptance is one of the most humbling realizations you can get to if you don't have it. During my time disconnected from my emotions there was very little within me that could bring about feelings of happiness, peace and contentment and/or provide some kind of catharsus. Some of the few things were music, heady discussion, history, ironing, great art and vacuuming. For some reason - I think because of the unparalleled need for hope in its truest sense - music and art from the 1930s and 1940s resonated with me, even as a young man in college. I was mesmerized by swing and big band and men in suits and hats and women wearing stockings with the line up the back and pin-up girls. It all seemed like a good time. I think it is less than slightly coincidental that all of these things existed before me or anyone in my immediate family-of-origin. Back then, I think I believed the world might have been better off without me having ever been in it. But I got to a point where I think it is a blessing to be here to accomplish God's will with the time He has so graciously given me. The big picture was and is coming close to achieving razor-sharp focus.
So, enter Ashley. I've been looking for a woman person to be that one special friend. I don't know if she's it, but the positive attention I have gotten from her is amazingly appropriated. She's not just any woman. She has the capacity and apparent compassion to understand a tough past. She is into the 1940s era stuff I enjoy so much. She's also petite, friendly, funny and pretty. She kinda reminds me of a cross between Lucille Ball and Audrey Meadows. Things that I thought (and maybe, indeed, do) make me seem like a dork to most other people, she also enjoys; there is that hint of "sympaticism". Her invitation to go swing dancing has launched me into a rediscovered indulgence of those few things that used to connect me to my emotions when I, myself, was cut off from them. I'm having so damn much fun revisiting the things that used to bring me happiness when I didn't even realize that's what I was looking for and needfully craving, that it makes me thankful and proud to be my own kinda dork. The fact that I get to share this with a gal like Ashley, at whatever level, and for however long, is just the cherry on top the sundae. This woman has made me fall in love with myself, and she validates my interests in a way that, because of her approval, makes those things seem really cool!
Put it this way, I'm so happy that today I ironed nearly everything in my closet!
"Things Ain't What They Used to Be", Duke Ellington.
I have known for a long time that I have wanted to find a woman with whom I am sympatico. Call it a soulmate, a girlfriend, a lover, a confidant, whatever. I want somebody like that in my life, not because I need a very exclusive fan club (even with both of us present, many times, she might be my only fan), but because I want someone there in whom I can invest the love and trust that lives inside me, and there's alot.
The first part of my life has not been a bed of roses. There was alot of emotional turmoil. I wanted to do things differently from the people in my family who hurt me, and who hurt each other; like I said, there was alot of negative energy. In 2007, I was nearly at my rope's end trying to figure out how to reconcile negative energy and positive intentions. That, for those of you who don't know the whole story, is when my friend Dawn suggested I find a good therapist. Well, having never been in therapy, the fate of it all was in God's hands and He matched me up with Vickie. I think it speaks volumes as to my opinion of her that this blog is named in her honor. Then, when she took her leave, I had the good sense to know, with God's help, what to look for in a new therapist. I found Kerry. Let's just say The Man Upstairs is 2-for-2, with both at-bats yielding home runs!
Back to my part of the story. People told me that in order for anyone else to accept me, I first needed to learn to love myself. Well, being a naturally self-depricating smart-ass and cynic, that made no damned sense to me at all. I didn't think it would work. Two or three sessions in, Vickie discovered a severe disconnect between me and my emotions. She helped me rewire the connections - the main ones first. Wow!
I have taken all of the negative energy and created a detoxification plant for it within me. Well, the detoxed, negative energy was converted to love and kept having to be stored up. I used alot of it to help mend a fence with a family member that had been nearly 30 years broken. Then I looked, and there was more love than when I started to put things right between me and my father. I still had never learned to spend it on myself. Slowly, that changed.
It started changing when I cried out to Dawn for help, and admitted to myself, her, and God, that I wasn't in a place to be able to fix these things alone. I knew I was in for a battle. I used a multi-pronged attack of therapy, and friendship, and prayer, and social reconnection. I think, all glory to God, that the social reconnection strategy has been the most effective tool in my aresenal. I spent most of my life dwelling on what I was not. I didn't want to be my dad. I worked in law enforcement, but I wasn't a cop. The spin on everything was negative.
I went to church. I also started going places when I would otherwise just have rushed back home or hidden out behind my camera. I drew from some of my photo school friendships heavily. It started with Dawn, but my healing was helped along by Jack and Alison and Chris and Lou and Veronica and Isabell and Nicole and Jenn and Colleen and Macao and Jeff, among many others. I started feeling social acceptance from these people. However, it was not until one night several years ago when I decided to make a friend that night and met Erica that things really began to turn around dramatically.
Erica, and subsequently, many of her friends accepted me into their circle. These people didn't know me from Adam. I didn't really have to get good grades, or be a good dispatcher, or produce prize-winning photographs, they just liked me! I didn't know people could just like me. I wasn't even sure if I could just like me. Maybe I had been likable - and, indeed, was liked - without having to do all the other things all along. What? WHAT! I guess I always assumed it was conditional.
Unconditional love and acceptance is one of the most humbling realizations you can get to if you don't have it. During my time disconnected from my emotions there was very little within me that could bring about feelings of happiness, peace and contentment and/or provide some kind of catharsus. Some of the few things were music, heady discussion, history, ironing, great art and vacuuming. For some reason - I think because of the unparalleled need for hope in its truest sense - music and art from the 1930s and 1940s resonated with me, even as a young man in college. I was mesmerized by swing and big band and men in suits and hats and women wearing stockings with the line up the back and pin-up girls. It all seemed like a good time. I think it is less than slightly coincidental that all of these things existed before me or anyone in my immediate family-of-origin. Back then, I think I believed the world might have been better off without me having ever been in it. But I got to a point where I think it is a blessing to be here to accomplish God's will with the time He has so graciously given me. The big picture was and is coming close to achieving razor-sharp focus.
So, enter Ashley. I've been looking for a woman person to be that one special friend. I don't know if she's it, but the positive attention I have gotten from her is amazingly appropriated. She's not just any woman. She has the capacity and apparent compassion to understand a tough past. She is into the 1940s era stuff I enjoy so much. She's also petite, friendly, funny and pretty. She kinda reminds me of a cross between Lucille Ball and Audrey Meadows. Things that I thought (and maybe, indeed, do) make me seem like a dork to most other people, she also enjoys; there is that hint of "sympaticism". Her invitation to go swing dancing has launched me into a rediscovered indulgence of those few things that used to connect me to my emotions when I, myself, was cut off from them. I'm having so damn much fun revisiting the things that used to bring me happiness when I didn't even realize that's what I was looking for and needfully craving, that it makes me thankful and proud to be my own kinda dork. The fact that I get to share this with a gal like Ashley, at whatever level, and for however long, is just the cherry on top the sundae. This woman has made me fall in love with myself, and she validates my interests in a way that, because of her approval, makes those things seem really cool!
Put it this way, I'm so happy that today I ironed nearly everything in my closet!
"Things Ain't What They Used to Be", Duke Ellington.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
The Present is a Gift
Vickie, I luv ya! Erica, I luv ya! Ashley, I get the biggest kick out of you and your different nuances and peculiar traits! You're aces, darlin'!
First things first. Vickie let me know that she and the family are well, and just coming off some well-deserved vacation time. I am so happy!
So, a few posts back I mentioned a gal named Ashley who works at the Double T Diner in Bel Air. I think a good portion of Heaven's angels must surely be diner waitresses! I said I wasn't anticipating any kind of connection with Ashley; but when a beautiful woman has a penchant for 1940's vintage pop art, culture (she knew Jimmy Durante as "The Schnoz" - bestill!), music and fashion...well, how can I help but to try to create a connection - at some level - with a gal like that. If she were a guy, all those interests would catapult her to the front of the drinkin' buddy/best friend pack. Just sayin'. Suffice it to say, she's cool! Ashley has this little squeak to her voice that could melt the Tin Man's heart, but I digress. Anyway, I've been making a bit of an effort to try to get her attention, lately. Then, last week, I ran across a pair of earrings that I knew she'd buy for herself, had she seen them first - lucite pink poodles, of all things. They weren't very expensive, but they were so totally her! It would have been wrong to not get them; so, I did. I gave them to her tonight and she really enjoyed them. Then, she invited me to go swing dancin'. While it is no more (or no less - 'cause swing/big band is right up my alley) than what it is, her invitation put me on Cloud 9 for the rest of this evening, just to think someone as cool as her wants to keep my company! There might have even been a coupla woo-hoos and yee-haws in the car on my way home. Perhaps. Okay, there were.
More good news! My friend Lynn is coming back to town this week, and I'm off from work while she's here. Lynn is really cool, too - mostly by way of playful annoyance and irreverent sarcasm! Her company, last time she was in town, let me know that my heart still had the room and desire for a wonderful, beautiful love, confidant, co-conspirator and very special best friend. So, I owe my buddy Lynn a debt of gratitude I'll never be able to properly repay. She's awesome! She and I, and our friend Vickie and her fiance are all going to an Orioles game on Wednesday evening. I honestly cannot wait to hang out with these fine, wonderful people, all of whom I love and admire greatly!
It would be greatly remiss of me to not give all the honor and glory of my wonderful good fortune back to its undeniable source, the Good Lord in Heaven above. Many of you know that I have been having "issues" with God, lately. Once again, His way and His timing are the better option. You think I'd learn...
Tonight - in this moment - life is fun and I am happy!
"Jump Jive An' Wail", Brian Setzer Orchestra.
First things first. Vickie let me know that she and the family are well, and just coming off some well-deserved vacation time. I am so happy!
So, a few posts back I mentioned a gal named Ashley who works at the Double T Diner in Bel Air. I think a good portion of Heaven's angels must surely be diner waitresses! I said I wasn't anticipating any kind of connection with Ashley; but when a beautiful woman has a penchant for 1940's vintage pop art, culture (she knew Jimmy Durante as "The Schnoz" - bestill!), music and fashion...well, how can I help but to try to create a connection - at some level - with a gal like that. If she were a guy, all those interests would catapult her to the front of the drinkin' buddy/best friend pack. Just sayin'. Suffice it to say, she's cool! Ashley has this little squeak to her voice that could melt the Tin Man's heart, but I digress. Anyway, I've been making a bit of an effort to try to get her attention, lately. Then, last week, I ran across a pair of earrings that I knew she'd buy for herself, had she seen them first - lucite pink poodles, of all things. They weren't very expensive, but they were so totally her! It would have been wrong to not get them; so, I did. I gave them to her tonight and she really enjoyed them. Then, she invited me to go swing dancin'. While it is no more (or no less - 'cause swing/big band is right up my alley) than what it is, her invitation put me on Cloud 9 for the rest of this evening, just to think someone as cool as her wants to keep my company! There might have even been a coupla woo-hoos and yee-haws in the car on my way home. Perhaps. Okay, there were.
More good news! My friend Lynn is coming back to town this week, and I'm off from work while she's here. Lynn is really cool, too - mostly by way of playful annoyance and irreverent sarcasm! Her company, last time she was in town, let me know that my heart still had the room and desire for a wonderful, beautiful love, confidant, co-conspirator and very special best friend. So, I owe my buddy Lynn a debt of gratitude I'll never be able to properly repay. She's awesome! She and I, and our friend Vickie and her fiance are all going to an Orioles game on Wednesday evening. I honestly cannot wait to hang out with these fine, wonderful people, all of whom I love and admire greatly!
It would be greatly remiss of me to not give all the honor and glory of my wonderful good fortune back to its undeniable source, the Good Lord in Heaven above. Many of you know that I have been having "issues" with God, lately. Once again, His way and His timing are the better option. You think I'd learn...
Tonight - in this moment - life is fun and I am happy!
"Jump Jive An' Wail", Brian Setzer Orchestra.
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