My funny Valentine needs a pseudonym

But nothing seems right just yet. Perhaps because so much of our interactions involve the invention of monikers for ourselves and each other, because these move quickly, because he comes up with the best ones--and so, anything I attempt to pull out of the current will be rendered almost immediately obsolete. It will never make sense and it will leave me feeling a tiny bit guilty for writing behind his back. (He has a blog, tied to his band's website, where he writes things that are impersonal and crazy and funny and beautiful. He's only written one post since I met him--it is based on a conversation we had over email and in person over the last week, and it includes a reference to something that I said, which makes me rather weak-kneed and butterfly-stomached--and all of it is completely surreal and nonsensical. He doesn't have a Facebook account.)

For now, then, he'll just be D.--the biggest box I can put him in, as non-signifying as possible.

He's beautiful, funny, and smart--a madman to be sure, but not one that raises redflags. He is changing the way I think about presence and the present. He spontaneously started reading from De Profundis when I was at his house on Friday morning. We share certain neuroses about noise and sleep and our fighting for mental and emotional space. I managed not to lead with all my traumas this time.

In short, I could get used to this, to this being able to smile without being obsessive, to getting phone calls at thoughtful times and mindspinning emails that make me laugh or empathize or--perhaps most of all--think and create. I could get used to holding hands in Prospect Park, to mornings in the suburbs, complete with a schoolbus and a hausfrau waving in sweatpants and overcoats. I could get used to white noise and not drinking so much I get hung over and to the ability to put uncertainty and stress into a box that doesn't take over my life. Yes--and I hope I get the chance.

For the moment, though, I am working through Browning, finally, trying to deal with the enormous amount of work that has piled up while I have been grinning into greenbrowngrey eyes over brunch tables and museum exhibits. Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" is on Radio Paradise. I decided this week that it's stupid to even think of going on the market in the fall, and that stressed me out for the rest of the day but now I feel better. I am trying to remember that impermanence and uncertainty has to be welcomed even when it seems like a bad, destructive thing, and that I need to keep practicing even when I don't think I need to.

And I wouldn't tell you that my life is perfect. School is hard for a number of reasons. My computer is dying and I'm worried about money perpetually. My work habits have been embarrassing. I know that there are a lot of loose ends right now and I don't know how that's going to shake out.

But what I will say is this--I looked back here at the archives for last February, and I am grateful to have many of the same problems without the feeling of abject wretchedness.

And so, happy Valentines day indeed.