Domestic Bliss (A Guest Entry By Heather Shaw)

July 30

You've all already "met" me through through Tim's Tropism entries these past few months. Some of you have obviously followed his links to my own journal, as my hit count has doubled since we announced our relationship online. But, since Tim moved in with me this weekend, (and his computer is just now being set up by the man himself upstairs as I write this), I figured I'd write a guest Tropism entry and introduce myself good and proper.

Hello! My name is Heather and I'll be your girlfriend for this journal.

I am, at the moment, enthralled by domestic bliss. Tim and I just ran a phone cord from the upstairs window in through mine downstairs so that we can properly share the phone line. This is after some delicate struggling with the phone jack upstairs, after which we decided the wiring in this house is more complicated than we can handle by ourselves. (Luckily, I have some handy friends that might be able to help us out.) There's still much to do with the house, namely move all the boxes and furniture out of the dining/living room so we can use more of our lovely, shared common spaces. Of course, everything but Jeannie's room is common space now. We live together. We're a couple.

Whee! Neither one of us has really lived with a lover before. And we're both excited. We keep looking at one another and remarking, "You live here; I live here; we live here. Wow!" Right now things are wonderful; I am reveling in the fact that I can just wander into the other room (or sometimes just across the room, or sometimes, just roll over) and hug and smell the wonderful manly presence which is now a permanent part of my life. Neither one of us thinks this will go without a hitch, but we're ready for the bumps and are determined not to freak out over them. And we're both so happy. It's lovely!

Ah, Tim also requested a weekend recap, done in the style of his Tropism entries. I'm not sure I can quite provide the style, but I can make a go at the recap:

Friday afternoon was a frenzy of cleaning at my house. The landlady seems to want to pretend like all the old tenents are moving out while brand new ones are moving in, and she wants the house as clean as it would be if we were cleaning before leaving forever; she wants it to look as if no one lives here at the moment. So, Aron and Jen and I invited friends over to help us clean. My job was to clean the kitchen.

The only friend that I managed to convince to come over to help was Susan, who had called earlier to borrow some baking soda (both Susan and I were overly excited at the prospect of having neighbors to borrow baking ingredients from; she lives around the corner). Soon after Susan's arrival, the house decided we needed wine to help ease the pain of cleaning.

Whee! While I highly recommend having wine and good friends help with the cleaning, it doesn't exactly make you task-oriented once the tipsies kick in. By the time I called Tim (who was still in Santa Cruz, packing) both Susan and I were beginning to be a bit giggly. Tim, by the way, was cranky. He had warned me that moving makes him cranky. Yes, it does. But when I tried to get off the phone with him (Suan had finished swiping down cobwebs with the paper-towel-covered broom and needed a new task or, the very least, company and another glass of wine), he suddenly became the sweet Tim I love so well. Didn't want to let me go. I talked a bit more and told him I'd be seeing him soon.

Susan and I took a break so I could make Tim a "welcome to your new home" pie. By the time Tim got here we were both extremely giggly and more than a little drunk. I opened a bottle of white wine I'd had chilling and told Tim to "go ahead and catch up".

Oh, dear.

We helped him unload his car, although he had already made three trips by the time Susan and I got our shoes on. I have RSI and am under doctor's orders not to lift more than 10lbs, so I could only carry, you know, pillows. I guess at one point (here's where my memory starts to fuzz, as I was pretty drunk by this time) I told Tim that Susan and I could be his "bunnies", then turned to Susan and asked, "Does that offend you, that I called us bunnies?" It hadn't.

David came by, and we all sat around talking and being deliciously social. I was too drunk to monitor Tim's drinking, but suddenly both bottles of white wine had disappeared, and I thought, "uh oh". Sure enough, the next time Tim vanished into the bathroom, horrible retching sounds floated back at us. We all exchanged looks, and I hurried back to my bathroom where Tim was worshipping the porcelain bowl-god. I tied his hair back, cooed soothing things at him, and went back to my guests. David offered to walk Susan home soon after, and I went back to my poor, vomiting lover.

I sat on the bed and assured Tim that he really didn't want to "just be dead". He was praying to a god he doesn't believe in, asking for this quick death. My suggestions that he just ask for it to be over didn't go over; death seemed preferable. He kept fussing at me that I shouldn't go to sleep because he might choke on his own vomit (by that point there wasn't enough bile to choke a titmouse); I assured him that I'm a light sleeper.

Oh, I've been that drunk. Poor love!

Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, Tim passed out. My bathroom/toilet is literally 3 feet from my bed, so he was right beside me when I put a blanket over him and went to sleep.

Sometime in the early morning, he woke up and crawled into bed beside me.

After that, I had to get up and do the landlady inspection while Tim dozed in my bed. Around noon Tim joined the land of the living and was even able to help me make Ginger Couscous Primavera to take the Triple Whammy Birthday Picnic that started at 1pm.

Ah, these young 24-year-olds. They bounce back so easily, it's enough to make you sick.

I'll let Tim take over the rest of the weekend recap. It was very nice to meet all of you. Thanks for listening.