Today at the local cafe the woman behind the register called me "sweetie." I know that lots of people see this tendency as patronizing or too familiar and thus get annoyed, but this never fails to make me feel good. Especially since I see this woman all the time, though we've never acknowledged each other in any way and it would come as a shock to me if she recognized me. I also realize that I went in at a time when they weren't busy, and I have my hair in braids, which a lot of people seem to respond to on me, and I happen to be wearing a bright yellow over-sized man's dress shirt that I bought at the Salvation Army a couple years ago. Perhaps I looked like a "sweetie." For whatever reason, it made me happy.

The blog has been infrequently updated mostly because my life has been on full blast. It seems like every weeknight and all weekend I have a commitment of some sort -- the weekly landmark seminar, the landmark group leaders conference call, movie/game night with my friends, dinner here, gym there, happy hours, parties, barbecues, clubs, events...plus with S. in  my life, friends see me less and thus schedule more...and to think that nearly two months ago I had the energy to do maybe a quarter of this and was usually resentful or disengaged when I did do anything.

Yesterday I watched a mourning dove fluff up and call out its single woeful call while the tree branch it was on bobbed like a swimming pony in the San Francisco wind.

Darned if I know whether or not I'm the dove, the branch, or the figurative swimming pony, but I identified with the whole scene!