Every time we go out it’s amazing.  I can tell you why, and I will, but the greatest testament I think is the fact that Frosting tried calling me 3 nights in a row and on each of those nights I was on too great a date to want to pick up.  I’m texting him though, without someone jealously peering over my shoulder.  We’re on the same side of the booth, he slid in right next to me.  The only one I’ve ever had do that on a date was me.  It also might be because he’s doing a funny stint with the waitress a la The Rock.  I get out after we eat and we end up dancing in the aisle.

Another night we’re in Starbuck’s ordering our latest drug – chocolate hazelnut croissants and smoked butterscotch lattes and we start having this really great thing with everyone on the other side of the counter.  I can’t even remember exactly what was said, just this funny and light connection.  The one taking our order says she can’t charge us for everything because we ‘made her chuckle’ and she starts subtracting things from our total.

We’re out to dinner.  Not at the place we had the amazing time at last Wednesday that we swore we’d return to, but the place next door.  We stood literally at a crossroads; the past pulling at us and yet the allure of adventure feeling so tempting.  We decided not to try recreate an amazing time but instead shake the dice and try something new.  A few songs after we’re seated, Jenny Jenny 867-5309.  That seems like a pretty good affirmation of the choice.  Then we’re talking as we’re waiting for our food and I’m explaining that most, if not all, the great artistic minds are in fact a little mad; and I feel that I may be going this way as well.  That the more I write, the more differently I see the world and the less organized my mind is.  He doesn’t seem concerned; of course, it’s not his mind.

I then get into  what I lately see as my writing style formulating.  I like to jump around my timeline as opposed to telling the story sequentially.  Instead of it being chronological, it’s more emotional memory triggered in the present that then takes me back to a moment in the past and fills in the story.  I don’t know if there’s a name for it but I’ve seen other authors do it and I’m asking/explaining how I feel it’s my style too and wondering out loud if it would work.  Before he can even answer me, the guy on stage breaks into Purple Rain.  It’s the purple checkpoint.  My favorite!

One night we go to Motorworks Brewery.  My massage therapist recommended it and the Yelp reviews are good.  There’s a gorgeous patio out back with bocce ball, except neither of us knows how to play bocce ball so he makes up a game, explains the rules, and let’s me go first.  And, according to his made up rules – I win with my first move!  I walk around the tops of the 2-by-4’s lining the “field” like a balance beam and he walks backwards keeping a face to face pace with me.  We go in to get a beer and end up staying well after closing.  We do after work shots at their invitation and inclusion and watch them mop and count the till.  We hit it off like friends.   And when we finally start to leave and settle up, they, like friends, refuse to charge us for anything.   I even got a shirt!  It was the last one.  They had to take it off the display for me and then they just hung the naked mannequin back up.   Crazy fun times.  Blessed times. Then as we’re driving, I’m giving them a good review and posting pics on their Facebook page and I look up and we’re crossing a bridge.  Why are we crossing a bridge?  I don’t know much yet about the exact geography of where I am but I know we didn’t cross one on our way there.  It’s a full moon and it looks like there’s a spotlight on the water.  He suggests we sleep on the beach some night, not tonight, but one night when we’re prepared with covers.

I think I may have found a fellow crazy romantic.