WANTED: This Man

I am happy that Evan is in the field, doing what he loves, sharing his passion and expertise with others. I am proud of how excellent he is at his job. I really am.

It's too bad, though, that he can't catch a glimpse of my life here when he's gone. I think he'd get a kick out of it.

For one, I can't stop cooking.

It's like an illness. I am making quantities to feed an army (so I have been feeding the office instead). My love is coming out sideways: sesame salad, pumpkin pie, guacamole, sliced fruit, a root vegetable medley, jasmine rice with stirfry...

It's outta control.

For two, I am letting myself go.

I haven't taken a shower in days, waiting for the mudding to dry on the bathroom walls. I sleep in the clothes I wore during the day, drag myself out of bed minutes before I need to be at work (ok, so that's not new), and consistently misplace my drive to exercise.

Yesterday, I remembered that I still need to feel feminine without Evan around and bought an orchid to put in my hair. Loose capri pants, a hoodie, no earrings, flip flops, hair all akimbo... but I got an orchid, see?


Liz Hall took pity on my state of disrepair and gifted me some perfume to mask the fact that I've forgotten to apply deodorant three days running (Isn't that what the Venetians used to do?). So I am walking around with my wrist to my nose daydreaming about putting my nose to Evan's neck.

And I am listening to this song that I dearly want to share with him. And I am reaching for the directions to the rice cooker, directions that he never needs to read. And I am wishing he were here to say without saying, "Simmer down." And I am leaving my things on the floor with an abandon that pays tribute to habits he left behind for me. And I am regretting washing his scent out of the sheets and not finding it in the closet among his clothes when I realized my mistake. And I am savoring that he is laying his head on a pillow we share. And I am thinking it's cold here without him, no matter how much I love the hot water bottle I place under the comforter each night in his absence.

And it's cold in part because a recently detected carbon monoxide leak has left the house without heat until we get a new furnace. That's something I think Evan would want to know about-- that we were in danger, but now we are safe. That I appreciate waking up in the morning to my life and our life together.

It's all so temporal. Here today, gone tomorrow.

I treasure the now we have.