Blue!

I'm not freaking out so much about the changes that my life is undergoing. In fact, I'm not really freaking out at all, anymore.

One of the things that was bothering me was that I felt like I was moving into someone else's life, rather than us putting our lives together. After all, I am leaving my job and my apartment in my city to move near his job in his city and into his house.  Understand, he isn't making me feel like this or making me do this. This is all an improvement, and we are putting our lives together. Just, at this point, the "together" part has not quite melded. It will, as more of my stuff moves in up here, but it is a process that won't quite get fully underway until next summer.

This summer, however, the Gentleman Caller has been trying to find ways to start the process sooner. One of the ways came about when we painted the house. His house has been painted a light blue that has turned lighter in the sun, especially on the front, which faces due west.

Now, we have already identified a decorating problem between us. He likes warm, neutral, brownish colors. I like bright, strong, super-saturated colors. After all, I painted my living room bright yellow. His is "teddy bear" brown, which is sort of a light, cafe au lait color.

Anyway, he wanted me to help him pick out the blue for the outside of the house, and with our different tastes, this might have become a problem. Instead, we found a blue that we both liked, without any real negotiation. We just both liked it.

This is it:

I'm sure this picture doesn't give the right impression. It's called "Cameron's Eyes," whatever that means. As it splattered on me, I thought, "I'm becoming a Smurf!" So, it's kind of a Smurf blue.

Then, since the Gentleman Caller and our Award-winning Houseguest, in town for the holiday, had been joking about Braveheart, I decided that maybe this was more like that color of the paint that the Scots anachronistically put on their faces. "Hey," I thought, "I could dip half my face in the blue and run down the streets shouting 'FREEDOM'!" It would be sort of appropriate for the holiday.

But that's not really the point. The point is that we agreed on a very strong blue. Then, since I love painting and since I am going to be living here, I got up on a ladder and got down to business turning the house Braveheart Smurf blue. The two of us painted, and held the ladder for each other, and discussed various topic of no import, until the sun became too baking hot to continue. Somewhere in all of this, the house started to feel less like his house, and more like ours. I'm not entirely sure that I've ever felt that before, but whenever I come up the driveway and see the bright blue, I feel less like a guest and more like a resident. I feel less of what I'm leaving and more of what I'm gaining.

Now, a sparkler: