Be Careful What You Wish For

May 23, 2004

Tonight, at about 11PM, I decided I was going to sit on my porch for a while. I turned off all the lights (porchlights as well as the ones in the kitchen that shine out). I grabbed a beer and my camera, and just sat there, in the dark, for a while. What light there was came from the street, a fair distance away. The wind was blowing steadily, but not too hard. The temperature was perfect.

Sitting there, sinking a beer, I felt both happy and sad. It felt great to be alive, to be sitting there, drinknig a beer, feeling the wind against my face and listening to the leaves rustle as though they were all talking to each other. But a part of me missed being in a relationship. Tonight felt like one of those nights where I wanted to be on a porch with someone I cared about, and the two of us just sitting and talking, there in the dark. The sadder I got, the more I thought to myself: Right now would be a great time to have someone here, someone I could talk to.

Above me, I heard a door open. And down the stairs, I hear a scurry and realize my landlord (Ted) was letting his dog, Fairbanks, out. Fairbanks ran down and when he realized that I was sitting there in the dark… he came by and started to smell my hair.

And yes, we talked. Albeit briefly. I asked him how he was doing, and how his night was going… and he promptly went over and pissed on a tree.