Over the weekend, I had a consultation with an artist regarding my next tattoo. It has been scheduled for August and I am very excited to see what he comes up with based off all the stuff we talked about. It will be a camera and it will include Chris’s initials somewhere on the camera. That is all I can tell you. He asked me why I was choosing this particular design and I told him that I have my first photography showing coming up in September, something that every time I think about makes me want to vomit. As an artist who puts his art onto peoples bodies every day, he completely understood the vomit reaction. He’s used to working on a much shorter time frame. So I surprised him with all my planning and pushing the tattoo date to August. I’ve been sitting on this idea for over eight years. Two and half months is nothing.

But, all of this got me thinking about what I need to do to get ready for the show and I started breathing high up in my chest. I told Michael that I am not ready and he said we have time to get you ready. Then I gave him a specific task: find me space to flatten out the prints I ordered so they can be framed. He decided that his work bench in the basement would be a great space for this and immediately got to work cleaning it off. He also told me that giving him this task was very helpful because he cannot read my mind. Also, I never ask help. So he will complete this task and then sit around until I give him the next task. This turned out to be a good communication moment for us, which brings me to my next thing. It is June and since I will be out of town all week, we decided to do thing we do every year in June since we met. Every June, we make a conscious effort to have dinner at Bella Napoli’s, the scene of our first encounter. After work this evening, I will pedal my bike to Bella’s and meet Michael and the Cabbage there for half price pizza.

We are romantics.

Ten years is weird.

I have had two people in as many weeks ask me if Michael and I have gotten married. The answer is no. We have not gotten married and will not be doing so in forceable future. At least not until Michael manages to whittle my ‘hard nos’ down to a ‘fine, whatever’. He’s too busy with his education and school things to do much whittling. We can verbally renew a five year contract, though that may not happen until December. The contract renewal requires a Tiffany’s. Usually, any ole’ Tiffany’s store would do, but I really really want to go to the newly remodeled Tiffany’s in New York. The contract can sit it out in limbo for the next few month. This works very well for us and this relationship, but ten years does feel…strange. Yet, here we are still tolerating each other. Saturday, we took our growing collection of cardboard boxes and opened them up. We laid them out flat in an 18 x 10 rectangle and pinned them to the ground. The idea is that it will kill the grass and make it easier to dig out a spot for us to pour or own concrete pad. Some day we’ll put a shed on that pad. In the meantime, I keep referring to the cardboard space as my patio or (break) dance floor.

While a cardboard patio (of break dancing floor) is temporary, it is the beginning of something more permanent. I think this sums up our relationship nicely.