kenyon

too sleepy for proper eye makeup removal


but not to recount an epic tale using the fewest words possible (for me, anyway).

WAY back before email, i met my sweetheart the old fashioned way. through the mail.

while visiting the east coast, he saw a poem i'd written

(which won a ridiculous poetry contest in a local newspaper; if you think this didn't create a little tension between me and my english teacher that year who'd also entered, think again. she was nervous around me all year and way too quick to praise.)

so, lo, he creepily obtained my home address through backhanded means. i still remember my mom eying the piece of mail suspiciously; Kenyon, you have a letter! Only, on the back, there is a picture of a young Bill Clinton with some of his teeth blacked out and the word "terror" collaged underneath with letters cut out from different magazines! she didn't think it looked very safe. i didn't attempt to communicate that it was simply punk-speak for "hello." i re-directed him to my P.O. box.

we exchanged our zines and both fell smitten.

we wrote long letters for a year. that gradually merged into phonecalls which lasted all night (leaving me bleary-eyed and coffee-addicted my senior year of highschool).

i found out years later that he was drunk, or at least heavily buzzed, during most of those phonecalls. intense things were said. we loved one other. we'd be together forever. we were different (and, presumably, better) than other people.

eventually he got a free plane ticket off someone (a woman, no less! lax airport security! those were the days) and flew out here from san francisco to meet me the day after my graduation.

let's not read into the fact that we met on this very romantic bridge in providence that is, in fact, broken. it only extends halfway across the water.

moving on. we gave me this tattoo:

and, after kissing a lot

moved in together. only, when we kissed, my lips were fully present. a piece of them was not somewhere else, as in the above pic. maybe i should have held back a small piece for myself, but i was naive and it wasn't my style.

since then, east coast, west coast, north, south, dumpsters, featherbeds, we've been together.

i mean, sort of.

mostly . . .

now, over twelve years since the first letter flew, his old friends and mine are all tangled up together, including my best girl and one of his best boys who are now happily engaged.

unlike this journal entry, the story does not end here . . .

(and, curious kids, it will not be wrapped up in written form any time soon . . . apologies. think of it as a sluggish serial.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

meanwhile, more kenyon food:

involving pecans, shitake mushrooms, carrots, greens, quinoa (grain), ginger, garlic, onions, fennel, flounder with tamari/wasabi sauce. and fresh fruit/veggie juice