I never expected another instalment in this saga.

Who’da thunk it?  Six years later, reciting the Greek alphabet (or trying to), dancing and singing while chopping onions, comparing our recent dating lives and agreeing that dating per se isn’t for us, hugging goodbye with kisses on cheeks …

But it is too much.  After *both* goodbyes (he came back when he apparently missed a bus … and crashed here for the night), I wept.

Just before I went to bed last night, I found him crouching by my bookshelves, flipping through my copy of Remains of the Day.

"Oh," I said, "I still haven’t read that.  I can’t bear to."

He said, standing up, "Isn’t this the most frustrating movie of all time?  Didn’t you just want to kick them for not telling each other how they felt?!  I mean, come on!!"

"Yes," I said, guardedly, "Yes."

…

On one of our walks, he said, "Wait.  Here."  and picked me a perfect blackberry, sweet and full.

….

Ms Spur dropped him off at a SkyTrain station.  She said, "Moosh really seemed to enjoy your visit.  Glad you came."  And apparently he said, "We hadn’t seen each other face to face for a year and a half."

I hadn’t even kept track.

…

The only way I know that much time passed, is because our hanging out had none of the old agony of unreality in it.  I have so abandoned all hope, that it is quite comfortable to be in his presence.

But still I wept when he left.  The second time, I looked at the mark of his height that we’d made on the wall.  (Ms Spur and I have started using washable Crayolas on all surfaces … drawings and random poetry and such … )

I would never admit to him that I am crying at the prospect of two years without seeing him.  I wouldn’t be crying if we hadn’t just had a very fantastic 24 hours together, reminding me of all the ways we seem to be mates.

He’s 23.

That sort of hit me at one point today.

I never saw it happening before.  But here we are in our adult spheres, interacting.  I am glad he has seen me in my present abode, thriving.

This is sort of like that morning when I woke up with Chopin and Brahms in my head and I knew I couldn’t date Mr. Arbitrage.  Oh, oh, I remember me.  And in the words of the innocence mission, "Seeing you, I know what is right and what is true.  Oh I see the way I want to be … oh I see the way I want to be … "

We do chores together beautifully.  Dishes or cooking or laundry is just another reason to whoop it up, be silly, be serious, dance, wiggle our bums, entertain each other with witty repartee.

Much practicing to do tomorrow.

(I never had a plan for how to deal with it if the Friar ever broke up with his girlfriend.  I honestly assumed he would date her for some appropriate length of time and get married to her.  I never expected to have to deal with a newly-single Friar, somewhat chastened by his experience.  Actually, ironically, I recently had a dream in which the Friar asked me to play the music at his wedding, and I said to him, "Are you out of your mind?!  How can you ask me that?")