onsdag, the weather aside.

As the sound of my favorite Cat Power record fills the room, I think about your reply.

The fireplace that was hand-delivered to our suite, here on the top floor of this old house we live in, it shines with the glow of pretend flames, while heating the room ever so slightly. I can hear my husbands fingers gingerly turning the pages of the dictionary beside me, as he discovers the words in the dictionary that begin with Q, but have no U to follow.
It's interesting, living with someone who's thoughts you get to follow so precisely and consistently. And someone who's thoughts often characterize yours, yet with a slight tinge of confidence in his voice, yet not in mine.

Today began with the struggle to wake up, as is most mornings, although this morning, it was easier than most. I had a dream about my grandmother dying last night. She was sitting on her chair, closed her eyes, and her soul just drifted away. In my dream, my mother only told me 3 days later, with which news i greeted with anger. When i awoke this morning, i promptly phoned her to make sure that when such a tragedy did arise in the family, that i would not be the last to know.
We left the house after a timely lunch. Leftovers and a peanut butter slathered piece of pumpernickel bread.

We bundled up and took our bikes downtown. As we passed the storefront windows, I liked how I looked. My grey pants and black jacket were complimented by my old blue book back, holding my laptop, Foucault textbook and a Sylvia Plath novel I brought along, just in case I need some escape. It only took us a few minutes to ride to the middle of the city, the place visitors come when they don't know of all the little nooks that fill the city...the places only people who live here know of. The little video stores and bakeries that fill the Cook Street Village we now know so well.
We arrived at our destination, the corporate Starbucks, the place we've been going to study since we were given a card, with dollars that could be spent only there...I plugged in my computer, and began my reading on Intersexed infants, and the process that follows their birth...reconstructive surgery of ambiguous genitalia, and reassignment of gender in some cases.
I love this kind of reading. It's fascinating because it's about sex, but not sexual. I love reading about how much gender is such a complex construction of our social system.
Johannes read his book patiently in a chair more comfortable than my own. He's on the second book of Lord of the Rings. He loves that kind of escapist writing, if only I wasn't so busy reading for school, I'd love to do some of it myself.

After my reading was complete, we quickly escaped the busyness of the Starbucks environment, where every surrounding conversation is not only distracting, but uninteresting, to people like myself, who always hopes I'll overhear a conversation that fits my most keen interests...someone I can find to be friends with, based on simply overhearing them speaking to someone else.
A few items of home and sexual intimacy were required to be purchased, so we stopped by a local retailer to acquire such items, then took our bikes back home.
After arriving at home, it was realized that a movie, Kinsey, one of the most fascinating movies I've seen, had to be returned. We again, got dressed for the cold bike ride, two shirts, two sweaters, jacket, scarf, and Norwegian-grandmother knit black and white gloves...We set out again.The ride down our street is comforting, a slow decline, making the ride a simple one for such a novice rider like myself.
I slipped the movie through the Return slot, closed the door, and looked at the sky. It was that time of night just before the final bit of yellow from the sky is enveloped in the clouds...

I suggested a ride to continue our day, a ride to the ocean that's just at the South tip of Cook St. There's a beautiful bed and breakfast on the corner, and I always love seeing the sign that swings in the wind, and is lit by a lightbulb, shining at it from below, casting one of those shadows that ends up on a Christmas card that my mother would love.
We rode on the street, the way you are supposed to when you live in the city...and when we arrived at the end of the bike path, we stopped for a few quick minutes at the end of the pier, just long enough to take a few drags of a cigarette. The sun had reached it final stages of setting, and I saw a boat in the distance that looked like an elephant, fit with a decadent robe of jewels and color.

Johannes kissed my neck and we stood there, overlooking the water as lovers do, and laughed at our conveniently typically romantic moment.
When our moment ended, as the chills worked their way up the sleeves of our jackets and down the back of our spines, we rode home again, with Johannes' bike chain clicking the whole way. He gave me the better bike, the black one, the one that fits me better, the one who's seat I can reach.
We walked our bikes the last few minutes. The ride home is a little tougher than the way there, for when a decline on the way there, it must mean an incline on the way back.

We arrived back in our suite with pink cheeks and noses.
I felt pretty, and put on a pot of water for dinner.