"You bought me a card?" he asked, sounding a little worried that I'd bought him something, but he hadn't. "No," I replied. "I have a bunch of cards in my apartment. I didn't buy you a card, I just filled one out for you." I wrote a little note on the left side and a poem on the right. The note explained that the poem takes poetic license (it mentions forever, though I make no claims on his forever, etc,) and it included some levity to make the whole thing less sappy. He seemed to really like it. "I love your poems," he told me later. "I'm always more than flattered that you write some of them for me."
For dinner, I wore a green dress that I've been dying to wear for a year now. It has a satiny bodice and a velvet skirt that flares a bit past the hips. I tied an open button-front black shirt over the dress to make it a little less formal and threw on my new black heels. When I arrived at his door, Tom told me I was beautiful. We went to an Italian restaurant where we had delicious food and wine. Tom toasted our six months together and said some things so sweet I blushed.
The next day, we took a long walk in the glorious sun, then went grocery shopping to buy supplies to supplement our leftovers from the half-anniversary feast. We still had most of my delicious duck, duck sausage and beans. We bought a loaf of Italian bread and Asiago cheese at the gourmet store and went home for our gorgeous lunch. Finally, we took a nap on the couch while watching sports.
I woke up just in time to go meet my friends in Manhattan for Mexican food at El Centro. Madrid brought woman who'd just been accepted to the Teaching Fellows and wanted our advice. We told her about the good, the bad and the ugly of it while eating delicious comida and
steadily sipping on margaritas. I have no idea what that poor woman will decide. In the end I told her I was miserable at my job, but I didn't regret being in the Fellows program.This morning, after more than a year without a haircut, I finally did it. I went to Aveda, splurged the sixty-some dollars (counting tip) and got a couple of inches trimmed off. (The hair ends about where the photo ends). In real life, I look cute as can be with my new haircut, but getting a flattering picture of it was so difficult. Part of the problem is bad lighting, part that I'm trying to take a picture of myself, and part that I'm sleepy. Photos when you've got bags under your eyes are rarely flattering.
Well, at least the photo acurately portrays how cute my hair looks! Those waves? Natural. Hooray! The last haircut revealed my hair's possibilities for wavy goodness, and I was a little afraid that my new haircut might not yield such good results. But it did. Phew. Plus, no more split ends. The stylist, Amanda, said it looked remarkably good for hair that hadn't been cut in a year, and I'm lucky I have strong hair.
Oh, and the new books! I promised to mention new books. Well, Tom's been supplying me with his books for a while now, books like Slaughterhouse 5, Cat's Cradle and A Prayer For Owen Meany. He complains, "At this rate, you'll have read all my books before I have!" Now he's started me on the Dune series, which he got started on and loved as a teen. He's still got a soft spot for it, I think. The first book is really good, as are all the books Tom supplies. Even so, for the first time in months, I heard the siren call of Barnes and Noble. I went in and bought one book a student has been begging for (the third Artemis Fowl book), Jeanette Winterson's latest (she's my favorite author), No Bliss Like This: Five Centuries of Love Poems by Women, and Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America (as recommended by Val). You know, books are one purchase I never regret. The mediocre ones entertain you. The good ones become a part of you. The best ones change you. You never know until it happens.
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