Here Then Gone

CT was here for a whole week and I forgot to take pictures. Mostly, we got up late, laid around, ate food (some good, some bad) and watched movies. It snowed here for two days over the weekend, which smooshed us into a cozy huddle that we never quite recovered from, even when the snow melted and the sun came out and it was 65 degrees in the valley where I live. There is something about snow on mountains that demands hot chocolate and fresh croissants. Luckily, both are nearby. Real, dark hot chocolate mere blocks from my house. It's going to be a lovely winter.

The thing about visits from boyfriends is that it's not always possible to enjoy them fully when they're happening. There's always anxiety about having fun and making the most of your time. This eventually turns to anxiety about the impending departure. Then there was all the work hanging over my head the whole week. I think, though, that just maybe we pulled off a couple of perfect moments right there in the middle.

He left yesterday and I cried and, still crying, sat down to finish a very difficult paper--the first official academic paper of my doctoral career and that made me cry harder. It sounds pathetic but it was closer to hilarious, me sitting there in sweat pants, red and wet in the face, leaning over my post-it covered copy of Jean Genet's Querelle to write about anal sex and blow-jobs, which yes, made me miss CT and cry some more. Hilariously pathetic perhaps.

Later, after I had collected myself and texted CT the location of the smoking lounges in the Cincy airport, I saw his shoes sitting in the bedroom, cuddled up with my things. He calls them his work shoes but really they are just his shoes. I'm not sure what he flew home in. I should probably send them back soon, but I like having them here. I've put them in the hallway with my own shoes. They look like they're waiting for him, like any minute he'll walk through the door, home from wherever he's been.