Worth A Thousand Words

Today's Track: Sara--Bob Dylan

I decided this morning to do some cleaning. I don't know what led me to this decision, though I suspect extraterrestrial involvement. You see, I clean no more often than is strictly necessitated by considerations of health, safety, and general well being. And it shows. My house is like a Discovery Channel documentary. Things are rapidly degenerating to the point where one cannot enter a room without being prepared to make first contact, or at least step in something really icky. I have lovely plush blue-green carpeting in my bathroom, which quite perplexes me, because, as I recall, the flooring was white vinyl when I moved in. There are areas of my home in which it is entirely possible to find deposits of unidentifed rubbish so advanced in age and mass that they have begun to be subjected to their own internal geologic forces. And there are at present no fewer than three separate entities vying for control of the environs of my closet, one of which has attempted to establish diplomatic relations with my dog. At least, I hope that's what it was doing...
I decided to begin my adventures in household sterilization by cleaning off the dresser in my bedroom, as the things inhabiting it seemed least likely, on the whole, to be capable of biting me. The things I found there, as a collection, are quite startling, and probably speak not-insignificant volumes about me as a person. Among the items I found were:

• One of those plastic-and-glass 'bird' toys which, through the complex mechanics of thermodynamics, are able to simulate ducking and drinking from a vessel of water, but which, owing to the much simpler devices of Murphy's Laws, doesn't
  
• Several assorted golf balls
  
• Enough loose change to pay down the national budget deficit, or at least make tacky coin necklaces for the entire population of Hokkaido
  
• An inexplicably great quantity of string
  
• Something which looked like a socket wrench engaging in some revolutionary form sexual intercourse with a second socket wrench
  

As I was pondering these items, I noticed--as I generally do everyday--the picture I have leaned against my mirror. It seems almost absurdly out of place amidst the other rabble, like the Pope in a KISS video. It's not even framed. Just a simple color print, but easily the most valuable item in the lot. No, it's not a photographed map to Eldorado or Cibola or some such place (although that would be appreciated, should any of you be considering a Christmas gift for the Masked Logician). It is a portrait of Sarah, my pseudononymous beloved.

**Caution: Sappy Doting Ahead. Proceed At Your Own Hazard**

I acquired this particular picture just before Christmas. I keep it positioned on the dresser as it is so that it greets me each morning when I wake. Though, if I am to be completely honest, most of the time this early-morning admiration occurs before such time as I've located my glasses, and so the benefit is much more a subliminal rather than a visual one, as I am quite stunningly nearsighted. At such times as I am able to actually see it, however, it never fails to please me greatly. Whenever I look at it, I'm struck simultaneously by two thoughts: One, that she is perhaps the most singularly lovely woman I've ever seen, and, second, that I am preternaturally lucky that such as she be willing even to be seen in the same room as myself.
Yes, for those of you haven't yet guessed it, I am totally, utterly, inexcusably, irrevocably, helplessly, hopelessly, head-over-heels, starry-eyed, slack-jawed, falling-down, three-degrees-to-starboard, upside-down, ass-backwards in love with this woman. I can--and do--spend the preponderance of an entire day in just thinking about her. I find that something as simple as talking with her on the telephone for a few minutes can lift my spirits completely. I have spent literally hours reflecting on some detail of her person, such as her eyes (which, by the way, are a fantastically indescribable gold-ringed blue-green-gray color). Or the way she laughs. Her smile, her grace, the fact that she knows who Ernst Blofeld is... I find myself constantly awed by her in more or less every way. Yes, I am pathetic. Thanks for ponting it out.
All silliness aside for a moment, Sarah really is a fantastic woman. She's extremely intelligent. I feel as though we can commmunicate on a similar intellectual level most of the time. And, when we can't, she tries not to make me feel like too big an idiot. She has a unique and wonderful sense of humor (and yes, that does mean that the thinks my jokes are funny). There is a powerful warmth about her, and a great wealth of personality. Very caring, emotionally open, strong in will and character, and wise in a way I doubt I'll ever be. At the same time, she somehow manages to remain quiet, reserved, and unassuming, which only adds to her charm. In addition to being, basically, a wonderful person, she is also, in my opinion, an exceptional writer--a fine example of her work can be found here--and a gifted artist in many other media. And let me not forget her angellic voice. Or... Well, I could go on for hours about her.

*At this point, I am going to temporarily ignore the 'whipcrack' noises emanating from the reader. Besides which, I warned at the end of the last paragraph. *

I suppose it goes without saying that we make a tooth-aching couple. From the silly pet names--among which are "Snuggle-Bunny" and "My Sweet Potato"--to the way we always make stupid moon-eyes at one another and ceaselessly engage in the most revoltingly cute displays of affection known to man, there is pretty much no goofy-couple activity we've forgone to this point. We finish each others' sentences. We talk for literally hours on the phone when we can't be together. We can't go more than sixty seconds wihout professing our undying love. We are, in short, disgusting. For my part, I am old enough and wise enough to know full well what a fool I sound, but far too young and in love to even begin to give a damn, and I'm pretty sure she feels the same way. I say this because, believe it or not, we were not always this way at all.
I was in high school when Sarah's mother introduced us. Not precisely the opening of a great timeless romance, it would seem. But we traded pleasantries, made small talk, and so on. Then for a while we didn't talk much. But slowly--due in large part to the fact that I was painfully shy--we came to be friends. It turned out that we had a good bit in common. We were intrested in many of the same things, belonged to some of the same clubs, and had very similar dispositions. She just happened to be what is technically known as "a huge Trekkie dork", which meshed well with a number of very similar tendencies in my own personality. My sense of humor, which has always been rather odd, seemed to find a welcome audience in her. In spite of the fact that I was cultivating quite a cynical turn of mind at that time, she always interested me. Therefore it came to pass tha we spent progressively more and more time together.
Fast-forward a bit, to just before the end of my last year in the high school. I was working through a number of problems in my life at that time, which is a polite euphamistic way of saying that I was a basket case. As a result, I'd gone from a top-of-the-class, straight A, Honor Roll student to...well, pretty much anything but. In my infinite adolescent wisdom, I chose to deal with this in a strictly rational and logical fashion, being that I actively ignored everyone and everything and withdrew totally from the world. Totally, that is, except for Sarah. Even during the worst of those times, I always looked forward to whatever time I spent with her. I can remember waiting outside the room where she had her final class of the afternoon, waiting for dismissal time, so that we could hang out together. We'd talk about the day, or things in the upcoming week, or whatever. Never anything much, just friends relaxing and enjoying one another's company. Most every day, we'd stroll around the grounds together, often hand in hand, just laughing and killing time. We lived a fair distance apart, and, as I didn't have a car, we did most of our communicating outside of school by telephone. Much as we do even today, we'd talk for hours, the subject ranging far and wide and beyond description. I even (almost) worked up the courage to ask her to my senior prom. While I hadn't been paying attention, she'd become my best friend, and I had come to care a lot more about her than I would have ever thought possible at the time. Over the next few months, we grew closer. At her encouragement, I--a world-class introvert bordering on psychological reclusiveness--I began to 'open up', which was something I had absolutely not been prepared to do. As a result of this, my feelings for her, which were not, though I failed to rcognize it then, merely those of friendship alone, increased significantly. Skip forward again. A little over a year ago, I guess it would have been. One evening, after spending some time with Sarah, I began to think about her. Really contemplating her, and how I felt about her. I realized, quietly and with no fuss or fanfare, that I loved her. It didn't come to me like a moonstruck sonnet, or a flaming vision. It just was. I loved her. It was an odd thought, because it was so unexpected. But it was also true. And dangerous. After all, here was my dearest, truest, and best friend, and there are just certain feelings one is not supposed to have for one's best friend. So I decided to keep that little bit of information to myself. But, sooner or later, the cat dashed out of the bag, as they are wont to do.
Somehow, at some point, she let me know that she too possessed feelings that were not strictly platonic. But nothing could come of that, obviously. Our friendship was far too important to both of us to risk any sort of alteration to our relationship. I said we shouldn't, she said we wouldn't. We thought we weren't.

Obviously, we were wrong. But, in my opinion, wrong in a most spectacular way. We've been lucky, I think. We've bridged the space between friends and more-than-friends successfully, if not precisely effortlessly. That same deep, meaningful mutual understanding that made us friends now helps to form an indescribable and enormously powerful bond between us. We've only been an 'acknowledged' couple for a few months at most. And it should be said that this is very much a first for both of us. Neither Sarah nor the Masked Logician, regrettable though it is to say, were previously highly experienced in the realm of romance. But the way it feels, the content familiarity, the connectedness, the things that get said without speech, all seem to say that we're doing something right.
For my part, I feel as though I've gotten more than I could ever have hoped for. I had a friendship of the most profound sort imaginable, and now, in addition to that, I've got a partner, a lover, another half, as it were, who makes phrases like 'soul mate' seem almost too shallow. We speak of marriage, of children, of one life together. Forever doesn't seem like long enough.

Olympic-caliber woolgathering, I'd say. I've been sitting here for what feels like hours, staring at this picture. Not a bad occupation, I'll admit, but this house isn't going to clean itself.