I could rave on and on about how much I love this girl and how wonderfully talented she is and that I just don’t get it why you aren’t down on your knew begging, mercy, please release an album so that I can feel my God-lovin’ ears with your fancy schmancy tunes.

I could tell you that this woman has jazz-arms, and I love the way they flail when she gets excited, and that those scrunched up black eyebrows have got to be the secret behind that awful note she belts out, perfect, leading to beautiful.

I could tell you she’s amazing, makes a mean pancake, and that I think she was a woman way before the rest of us were, and that she always seemed to know how to drew beauty from suffering, or that snorting coffee backwards whilst laughing so hard my sides hurt can make another person vomit.

I could share with you the wordless ways that she taught me a little bit more about life, and that I drew so much from her grays, for they were filled with light.

I could tell you that I bang my head against random objects trying to get why you haven’t yet heard of her.

I could tell you that this person is an outrageous fruitcake and braver than most.

I could tell you about the time I thought my heart would explode within me, hot tears over mango lassi, chutney and samosas.

I could tell you that at a time we were intimate enough to leave the bathroom door open, and that I miss those days.

I think I’d rather just let you listen to her.

I was glad to see my mom. She wore me out. I was glad to see her go. Now, she calls, and sometimes I don’t answer. Or I do, but I don’t say much.

It doesn’t seem to jade her, I doubt she notices. She talks and talks, and doesn’t ask how I am. She talks about how she’s losing weight, or how her hair gets so many compliments since the visit to the salon here in France - my birthday gift to her. She rambles incessently about missing me making her italian coffee or aperitif on the patio, bringing out olives and saucisson. 

Vacation was wonderful, and exhausting. She wore me out.

How do you tell the woman who birthed you that you are tired of having to nurture her, to care for her as if she were your child? How do you explain to her that you don’t even expect her to be there for you, that you know her better than that, but your heart’s desire, is just to sit around a table and talk fow hours about something new, meaningful, the subject more interesting than the food that is in your mouth?

How do you explain to her that if you are quiet it is because you have already heard this monologue ten thousand times, and that you esteem that if someone cuts off your every sentence it is because they do not believe that you have anything interesting to say?

I could say that I am sad since her visit, but that would not be true.

I can breathe, I feel lighter, grateful to have escaped some kind of bitter, shallow circle. I am thankful for Manboy and the simplicity of my life, for evenings on our own terrace, now that we are no longer on vacation, and rosé loosening the tongue. I am thankful that with him I am home.

Because we are going to St Tropez to spend a week basking, meowing, and purring in the sticky French sun. Er, unless the rain continues…

My mommy is coming today. I can say mommy with dignity, since I’m over thirty. I’ll be heading to the airport to pick her up in a couple of house. Tomorrow I’ll pack her, Yuki and the incredible all-enduring son in law MB into my suitcase car to head for the sea and sun.

I can already taste the pineau. Mmmm, les vacances.

Sometimes there is so much to say, a mountains of facts, updates and information, and words in my head are poetry while the ones leaking from my fingers onto the keypad remind me, well, of the smelly wet dog that is curled up by my hip at this very moment.

I could be deep, and tell you something meaningful, like maybe the ‘why’ of why we are moving to America, and how much this means to us. But that would involve more backstory, and I just don’t have it in me for now. Maybe I’ll tell you. Maybe. But suffice it to say that I am relieved, lighter since we sealed the decision. It was a long one to take - over a year of talking about the yeahs and what ifs while obsesso-analyzing every possible impact that moving now or waiting to do it later could have on our tiny lives. This was very difficult for me, but I thinl for some reason that MB needed to do it that way. He’s never made such a move. I’m the one who would rather do something she’s never talked about than to talk about something she’ll never do, so the decision making process was, obviously, quite breaking.

It’s bittersweet, I’ll have ya know, as moving means declaring the official (at least momentary) abandon of our pursuits - pursuits that have been among the most frequent and self indulgent here on the blog. 

Moving means giving up the French health care system and thus, the infertility treatments which cost us nothing (at least financially). It means facing the fact that we are, or rather I am, not ready to get back in the saddle, er, stirrups for the time being. It means facing weakness, and admitting that I’m just a bit sensitive in that area, and I’m not the girl that can have a gazillion doctors eyeing and sticking things into her woman parts without having it mess her head up.

Leaving here also means that we will not be pursuing adoption here in France, for now. We started the process, but it was tearing and half-hearted as we faced the reality of what was entailed with pursuing this little dream. Adopting here means five to seven years of waiting, which means at best I would be just under forty (yikes !) before our life could continue in the direction our hearts were leading us. Yes, children are wonderful, adopting is wonderful, and it is not without disappointment that we decided to live out on desire and sacrifice another.

As for the house, we’re actively renovating, the turkey’s armpit is starting to look like something, rock walls and all. It’s hard, and we just want to leave, but we need money to move so the better the house looks, the better it will be for us. The plan is that we spend the summer in piles of hammers, paint and dust, so that in September we can put it on the market.

We asked Yuki what he thought about all of this. He didn’t say much, just gave us this look.

1.) I could make this two posts.

Or I could take an astoundingly long interview, and sadistically turn it into an even longer post by telling you what’s been going on the past couple of weeks while we’ve been fighting with the mafia   our internet provider.

Hmm, sadistic? I’ll take you up on the second option. IN LIST FORM for added curtness.

The goods :

Remember the turkey’s armpit and our former crack habit? Well, it’s slowly but surely transforming into a deliciously marketable quaint village house, with stone walls to boot. Pics to come, dearies.

2. We are moving as soon as we get this puppy (the house, not the dog) on the market and sold. To the states. Likely Las Vegas. Long story.

3. I can’t wait. My heart is beating so fast.

4. Therapy with the fraggle lady is the best ever. Everyone should have a therapist who looks like a muppet. It’s the tops.

5. Found : FOUR tiny two week old kittens abandoned last Monday by the lake. Hate people who do such a thing.  Yuki has since become a mother. Manboy and I are oohed and awed by his tiny kitten butt-licking maternal instincts. I never knew he had it in him.

6. We’ve now decided that next to the kittens Yuki looks like a giant. At five pounds, he must be at least thirty times their size. Still fits into a purse, but hello, BIG FREAK OUT when we see him next to one of those little babies.

7. The kittens, who we are bottle-feeding special kitten formula are the subject of various ‘I need a home’ announcements around the neighborhood. To my bitter discontent, they now each have a name and a story behind the name. Sushi;, La Rouquine, Ray Charles and Boris have taken over the house, and our lives, with their tiny needful cuteness. I’m struggling to keep my cold cold heart as prickly as possible, so that we won’t cave in and become the neighborhoon ‘Cat People. Manboy, on hte other hand, is campaigning to keep them. ALL FOUR.

8. Can you imagine us moving to Vegas with a dog and, duh, FOUR CATS? Say, Hello, can my ZOO and I come and crash at YOUR PLACE until we find an apartment to rent?

 2.) and Remember this guy’s idea? Well we got lucky and our interviewee, Kristy from She Just Walks Around With It, gave us a really personal-fun-writery-deepish sort of novel answer to our prying-tell-us-everything questions- graciously humouring us whilst we did nothing but overstep our bounds. And we love her for it. We’re actually pondering instauring a ‘free kitten with interview’ policy, shipping and handling included. Hey Kristy, want a kitten? Interview anyone? Anyone?

I’m going to get on with in, seeing as I’m having my ankle-bones nursed at the moment and it is quite painful. Here goes…

ZEE INTERVIEW :

You talk a bit on your blog about your Imaginary Internet Friends (IIF). How do you feel that they are actually that different from your Real Life Friends (RLF)? What do you feel when an IIF crosses over into being a RLF? Have you ever regretted ‘taking the leap’ from IIF to RLF?

This is really hard to gauge. Probably if you are a “regular” reader here, we could totally be friends in real life.

That said, I should point out that I don’t think I’ve ever made a “real life” (flesh and blood) friend from my blog. I don’t know why that is. Lack of interest? Or maybe I’m just way less interesting in person. Or smelly.

Can you tell us how you make those cute little pencil drawings with text boxes that we find peppered all around She Walks?
Yes!

I use Word.

Seriously. I use the drawing tools in MS Word. I have no Photoshopping skills to speak of, and have kind of given up on ever getting them. Whereas I have spent more days and hours formatting Word docs than any human ever should.

I use the free-form drawing tools in Word, then I just do screen-grabs of the images. That’s it!

Why did you get into internet dating? What did it bring you?
I went on my first internet date back in freshman year of college. (That would be the fall of 1993 for those of you keeping score.)

When I got to college, I discovered the internet, and email, and IM and chat rooms. I was thrilled and thought it was the coolest thing in the known universe. Immediately I started using it to meet boys.

The reason I liked using the internet to meet guys in 1993 is the same reason I like it now (hold on, let me use italics, I’m about to get all wise): in real life, you meet someone’s exterior first; online, you meet the interior.

Not only is the latter more important in forming real connections with people, the online medium makes it SO much more efficient to weed out those who aren’t worth your time.

When I’m in good physical shape, meeting guys isn’t that hard. Meeting guys who are smart, interesting, well read, and who have something to talk about? That’shard. The internet provides all kinds of pre-screening.

But let me be honest. When I’m chubby, meeting guys offline is hard if not damn near impossible. Being over 30 and chubby makes it even worse. In singles scenes, I come across as desperate simply for existing.

Online, it’s totally different. The guys see my personality first. They don’t see my dress size, they see my mad written medium skills, yo.

And so while real-life chemistry matters a lot, and while some guys will simply never date an overweight woman, I have found that men are more willing to consider my whole package when they meet me online.

What did it bring me, you ask? Confidence that I’ve got a damn sexy “interior,” regardless of my exterior (which is far more subjectively considered “damn sexy” by those with excellent taste).

It also brought me El_Gallo. And, if a little indirectly, The Boy/T.

And Ish.

What is the craziest internet date you ever had?
Oh my good lord.

Given that I’ve been doing it off and on for 15 years, I’ve had some doozies.

Sometimes they’ve been good crazy, like when the chemistry is right and the sex is unexpected and hot.

Sometimes they’ve been bad crazy, like when the chemistry isn’t right but I think maybe that will change and it doesn’t and there’s a lot of resultant forehead slapping and “let us not speak of this ever.” [See bad kissing story, except like, worse by a million.]

And then there are just the bad dates. There was the one where we had so little chemistry that I think we were both repulsed and then I blogged about it and then he READ the blog. And the one where the guy told me — to my face that — WOW, he didn’t expect me to be THAT overweight. There was the guy who decided to wait until we were in something of a compromising position to tell me, by the way, that his roommate was his mother. There was the guy who lied about being married. The guy who humiliated and insulted me in a public online forum the morning after our date. The guy with food OCD. The guy who showed up in sweatpants to take me to dinner. The guy who started off okay and then became crazy allergic to my cats, after which point we got into a contentious storytelling game of one-upmanship that left us both bitter.

And of course, the guy who liked to try to convince people that he is from the future.

But the happy-best-crazy internet date award would have to go to the one I went on with Ish. Because it started August 6, 2005, and hasn’t ended yet.

Please share what it is about knitting that draws you.
I hardly ever knit anymore because I have learned (the hard way) that on any given day, I can only balance my job and one creative outlet. I can’t seem to keep up with blogging and knitting and singing and comedy and one-off personal projects. Especially because I want to write a book and have started about five of them but haven’t made any headway. So any time I knit, I feel guilty that I’m not doing something else more career-related or bloggy or both.

I am still infinitely glad that I learned how to knit at all. I love having it as a skill, like knowing how to drive a stick-shift. (Because you never know when an emergency may happen where you’ll have to drive standard. Or, um, knit a scarf.)

So it’s fun, and creative, and in the end you get the satisfaction of having made something. I love all of that.

Do you ever knit while drinking? If so, what was the result?
Ha! Yes. And the result is that counting — which is hard enough when sober — is even harder with wine.

Lemme find it in the archives…

Here’s a post that includes me being all James Bond like with the knitting and the wine.

And here’s its result:

You’re so candid over the internet! (Ex. posting tooshie pics…) Did that ever come back to haunt you in real life?
The naked butt picture has not come back to haunt me as yet, no. Still, there have been times when this blog has made me blush for one reason or another.

On a serious note, when Ish and I first started dating and he was separated-but-not-divorced, his relationship with his family was strained. To be respectful of his privacy, I basically didn’t post about him or us. The one time I put up a relationship-y post about us, we’d been dating for four months. His family found the post and everything kind of blew up. It was an awful mess.

The most embarrassing moment ever, though, was when I mentioned my blog during a job interview. Because I am an idiot.

After reading your divorce story, you seem to have come a long way from the girl at the top of the stairs drowning in her grief. How has the She Walks contributed to that?
Wow, in so many ways.

I joke that blogging is like therapy, but it’s absolutely true. It helps me get my thoughts out, and challenges me to do so in an organized way. This really helps put things (whereby I mean “my life”) into perspective.

More importantly, the feedback is/has been life-altering. It’s life-affirming to hear “I felt that way, too!” I honestly had no idea I would be “relatable.” But it’s also nice to be kept in check. (Even when they’re trollish, I think the negative comments help keep things real in a “get over yourself” kind of way.)

Lastly, I have dreamed of being an author for pretty much my whole life. To blog, and to have an audience, is incredibly inspiring. It helps me believe that I could really be a “writer” someday (and that in some ways, I already am).

If you could take revenge on your Ex in some way, without him knowing who did it, would you? What would you do, if so?
Absolutely not.

Well, let me rephrase.

He has to live with what he did, just as I have to live with what I did. We were both at fault, he was simply more of a jackass. The only thing I want from him — or did, anyway — is for him to feel remorse. If he doesn’t, or never did, he’s then bound to repeat his mistakes. To which I say, “Eh, he’s someone else’s problem now.”

Besides, I really have moved on. Blogging the experience was unexpectedly cathartic. And if living well is the best revenge, then Dave? If you’re reading this? Neener, neener.

How did you meet Ish?
I met Ish when he replied to a Craigslist ad of mine. On paper (erm, or email, you know) he seemed great, and I was convinced we’d hit it off even if the chemistry wasn’t there. Like, even if we didn’t have a romantic spark, I thought we could find a way to be friends.

He wrote me at about 4 p.m. on a Friday, and we met at 8:30 p.m. the next night. Just like that.

Funny enough, our first date didn’t start out very well at all. The first date story is here.

Can you describe to us the precise nature of your relationship with him?
Oh, sure. How much time do you have left?

echo, echo

This question deserves its own entry and I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now. The problem is (and has always been): what do you write about your relationship when your partner reads your blog?

But here we are. It’s been over two-and-a-half years now and our relationship is awesome. We’re serious about each other. We’ve moved in together. We discuss the possibilities of a future together. But there’s no timetable and no exact commitment.

He’s not ready. And I? If I say I don’t think I’m ready, either, I am lying. And if I say I think I am, then I am the girl that no one wants to be. You know, the one whose options are to “wait” or “leave.”

So yeah. More on this later.

You write that you started the blog as somewhat of a weight loss diary. What do you see the main purpose of it as today?
I started this blog as a weight-loss diary when I thought that blogs had to have a theme. And while I’ve learned that “themed” blogs are easier to find, tag, index, and reference, I still don’t wanna. Because I am a “life” blogger, and want to write about my life as it’s happening. I don’t want to lose readers or credibility because I only write about weight-loss once in a blue moon.

Maybe we can start a theme for those of us who are life bloggers, whose category would be None Of The Above.

Oh me? I’m a NOTA blogger.

How do you deal with the fact that some three years later the issue of losing weight hasn’t been resolved?
I guess I feel the same way about the fact that it’s actually been like, ten years (give or take several years in my adolescence and teen years) and my weight loss hasn’t been resolved: crappy.

I am constantly failing at my attempts, and constantly trying to figure out why. I do believe it’s a matter of motivation — I’m pretty good at doing things I want to do. Except I can’t figure out how to make it matter enough, realistically.

It’s a bit over-simplistic, but to find the right motivation kind of requires un-learning a lifetime of beliefs. I honestly thought that I would achieve less, was in fact worthless, if I was overweight. And, when I was pushed far enough down this road and hit rock bottom, I was able — finally — to lose weight. Fear of never being successful, of never being with an attractive man, of never being treated like a respect-worthy citizen by “society” eventually spooked me. My switch was flipped on, and I went from being fitness-averse to being obsessed about weightloss.

In case you missed it the first time around, I chronicled (rather succinctly, I should add) my fat-thin-fat-present escapades here:

Escape From Stepford: A Weighty History (part 1 of 3)
Escape From Stepford: A Weighty History (part 2 of 3)
Escape From Stepford: A Weighty History (part 3 of 3)

I’m in a funny place now, though. I don’t feel like my life has been hindered by not being thin. Somewhere along the way — perhaps because of my ex-husband, perhaps because of my moving to San Francisco, perhaps because I’ve simply grown up — my sense of self-worth has stopped equating to my body size.

Which is a wonderful thing, right?

Yes and no.

Yes, because la la la rainbows and unicorns and hurrah for loving ourselves and just walking around with it.

No, because I do not like being this weight, I don’t want to stay this weight, and man — being “spooked” is SUCH a good motivator. I just can’t seem to grab that one thing, to tap into that one motivational kicker that will jump-start me and keep me on track.

But I think I will yet.

Do you feel that the blog has changed the course of your real life? If so, how?
Sure, in lots of ways.

Feeling like I really could be a writer, for one.

Validation that I’m funny is also really important.

But probably the biggest impact my blog has had on my day-to-day life is in my career.

I attended BlogHer ‘06 with Whinger and (indirectly) Jenny, just because we all had blogs and were like, I guess we should go to this thing, huh?I had NO idea before I attended how big blogging was, how many women were doing it, or that there were any “rockstars” other than Dooce. I had never heard the term “mommyblogger.” My head practically exploded.

While I was there, I was also overcome with the desire to be a part of it. Not just the blogosphere, but of BlogHer. It was clear that they were on to something potentially huge, yes, but also my event planner beacon was screeching at me: HELP THEM! DO SOMETHING! GET IN THERE!

I contacted Elisa after the event, basically saying I want to be part of you! If you’re looking to hire someone with my background, pick me! We met for lunch a few weeks later, and a few weeks after that, I joined the organization.

If you could spend one day with your mother today, how would you spend it?
I could get super verbose here, but I won’t.

I would not want a single day with her. The very notion makes me feel like I’ve been punched in the gut, and just typing this requires me to hold back tears.

I miss her every day. I have regrets — things I said to her, things I didn’t say to her, things we should have done, things we didn’t do — that run so deep I am not sure I will ever outlive them. I carry around grief the way anyone who has experienced this kind of loss does. It never goes away, it just comes and goes, like an unpredictable emotional tide.

But I have learned to live with it. I have healed, somewhat. I have gotten used to the fact that this is my reality (as much as I can).

I could not bear to have the wound re-opened. To have her here and then gone again, to start the grieving process all over again…? No, it would simply be too painful.

What would you say to her?
Well, and this is the other problem. I would probably spend the whole time apologizing. For not being a better daughter or person, for not understanding more, for not being more patient with her, for ever being angry with her — for still being angry with her — for not listening more, for not asking more questions, for not giving her the benefit of the doubt all the time, for not helping her, for growing up, for going away.

I would like her to know that I get it now. And I am sorry.

What do you miss most about her?
The first answer that comes to mind is, not surprisingly, her laugh. She was funny and she had a smile that’d knock your socks off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of her where she’s smiling the way she did in “real life.”

Her smile was an experience.

But if I’m going to be raw, the answer is having a mommy.

I miss having her around to be my mom, for all the reasons that are unique to any mother-daughter.

I have so many wonderful maternal influences (I even call Hakuna “M2″ for “Mom 2″ or “Second Mom”), and I am lucky for them. It’s not something I really talk about, but I relish getting to spend the night in homes where there’s a mom who’s about my mom’s age, like when visiting Hakuna or Jane. I love visiting Ish’s parents’ house. I sleep better, warmer, safer.

I miss being someone’s daughter. I miss being my mom and dad’s daughter especially.

What do you think she would say about the woman you have become?
I can’t handle the emotional side of this question, so I will answer it more pragmatically.

My mom was a complete free-spirit before having kids, and I never got a chance to meet that side of her (except when it leaked out). I think she’d see my life in San Francisco, and be pleased that I have found a balance between the “must-get-married-get-high-powered-job” alien version of me that I tried on when I was 20ish, and the re-interpretation I’m currently living.

She’d be happy with my being happy, of course.

She would wish that I was thinner, even if she’d never say so. She’d want my a cappella group to have a CD.

She would love my blog, she would LOVE the name of it, and she would read every day. She would write me emails telling me what I forgot and what I should write about (I would listen to her some of the time). And eventually — it would take some coaxing — she would start her own. And then she’d be obsessed with it.

She’d be thrilled about my relationship with my sisters.

She probably wouldn’t say it in so many words, but she’d love how much my sisters and I are like our father, too.

I have no doubt that she would adore my selection of Ish and his of me. (She would be perhaps a little vocal on the subject of grandchildren.)

I try every day to be the kind of person who she’d be proud of. Even when I don’t do so consciously, I make all of my decisions with my parents in mind. They wanted nothing more than for us to be loving, and loved, and happy, and to have as much fun as possible.

What more could I possibly aspire to?

OK so MB and I are stuck in a war between France Telecom (evil French internet/phone mafia) and Free (our helpless little internet provider) which means NO internets, NO phone, and NO play. Work is crazy, and piled up to my eyeballs, so I’m deeply sorry, my dearies, but posting will resume once the mafia relents connection is up and running again.

Meanwhile, to appease you, here’s some more puppy porn :

I guess carrying a little dog in a purse isn’t too bad after all.

The evening would have been perfect if I hadn’t been wearing low rise jeans, and leaning in a little to closely to make out Manboys discreetly soft conversation.  I did, however, have a coat with which I managed to cover myself before the one person who hadn’t yet seen my arse anyone else saw what I had so generously exposed to them at the place I am now ashamed to ever set foot in again my new favorite wine bar.

Something about the time changing (we do it a few weeks later than in America), or maybe it was the fact that Manboy had dismantled the bedroom shutters in order to paint them, sending morning rays of sunlight like a coaxing, teasing floor through the bedroom’s double glass doors.

I opened it to let in fresh air before collapsing anew into pillows and slumber, vaguely aware of Yuki’s soft patter as he ventured onto the open balcony and set to work chewing on the iron grate, undoing Manboy’s precedent day of work as his teeth left long slivers in the fresh paint. It will surely peel before it’s time now.

By the time we rose from our lazy morning haze the sky had already begun to turn from the peircing morning blue light to a hazy gray, which settled, and cloaked our village for the rest of the day. Manboy set to painting again, and I joined him on the downstairs terrace, suddenly inspired, and set about a series of continuous line drawings of flowers and the church across the street and Manboy and my feet and such.

Manboy looked at me quizzically, and smiled, softly inquiring as to the source of my sudden flood of creativity. I pretended not to hear, afraid that it would break the spell.

My eye traced the contours of his chin, hands, face and eyes, as my hand followed blindly on paper. One, two minutes passed. Only when finished did I glance at the paper, causing laughter to spill out of me and Manboy to look up from his semi-frozen, strained, unnatural painting position. I showed him the picture, which did not look anything like him.

He continued his painting and asked if I thought it would rain. I said yes (and was later proved to be wrong) and sketched a second portrait. And a third, and another, until a panoply of differing renditions of my Manboy lay sprawled on the cold marble table by my side. I had used a rock to hold them down, so that they would not be carried away my the wind.

None of them looked like him and I was glad.

That evening, after dinner and rum with orange juice, I asked him if we could just get naked and talk.

I was surprised, after over four years of marriage, that such a thing could make us shy. We giggled like kids. I guess that it’s natural to be naked in certain circumstances, others feel odd.

We did talk. I asked him what he wanted this year, and I told him what I thought about how unbearable it must be to spend your life with someone who doesn’t love you in return. I told him I thought that he loved me in a way that is very rare and that it has taken me a while to understand that. He said he wanted nothing. And then he corrected himself, saying that he wanted a Pentax k10, and iPhone, and for me to be happy.

I could hardly remember why I had been so angry with him, and why we had been so broken. I closed my eyes and prayed to God, anything, please, just don’t break the spell.

We recieved a letter - last week, or maybe it was the week before. It was from the Conseil Général in response to a letter that my Manboy had written to them.

I’m not big into snail mail, what with licking stamps and forgetting to mail envelopes. Sometimes they spend days weeks on the mantle of my fireplace before I actually get around to sending them. By the time I do finally get around to it, the person destined to recieve the letter inevitably senses my thoughtless procrastination as he/she opens the envelope, edges darkened by old dust, and news that is nearly obselete.

But Manboy sent this letter, and in his cartesian, timely fashion that is, well, so very French, and for my, so Manboy. He sent it the morning after the evening when he descended the stairs, rushing almost, with paper in one hand and a pen in the other. “Tu peut signer ici.”

I traced my hollow signature next to his own, before reading the words written at the top of the page. The were formal, curtly polite, and to the point.

“Tu pense quoi de ce que j’ai écrit?” His eyes lifted, hesitantly. I percieved a moment of fragility as he took the paper back from my own hands, folded it neatly, and placed it in the already prepared and stamped envelope.

I smiled tiredly, I had been waiting for such a question. “It’s nice, ” I said “really, perfect, je n’aurais pas pu faire mieux, merci.” I shut my eyes tightly and looked inside, trying to feel some hint of an emotion, anything.

All I could sense was gray and heaviness. We spent the rest of the evening in simplicity, watching Harolde and Maude and ingesting sinful quantities of green olives, flammekueche and beer. We didn’t again speak of the letter.

Our village boasts a tiny port on the banks of the Rhône. I took Yuki down there today, so that he could chase pigeons and run vicious circles around my feet. The wind was terrible.

It is one of my favorite moments, on a day off from work, when I can be alone with him. The I thought of how much he has added to our own tiny existence, how much things have changed in such a short time.

I contemplated our impending meeting with the woman who is going to begin and follow us through the adoption process. I wondered what she will be like, if her cheeks are round or if her gaze is bitter. I shivered nervously at the thought of our destiny being entrusted to someone whom we have not yet met and did not choose.

I spoke of these things to Yuki. I talked to him as if he could understand me, and I told him of the letter we had recieved in response to our own, that we had been summoned for a meeting that would surely lead to a journey. I told him that we love him and that we will be loyal to the end, and that last week, when we went to see our friends, I was so proud of him, even suprised to see the way he played with children.

I told him that maybe before too long he would play with our own.