Going East, But It Feels Like Going West, The Wild West

This is going to be short, sweet and dirty, and this blog is about to get real wild.

I must arise in mere hours, as in 5, to take the boys to the Wild West.  There has also been a request to visit the Whitney Portal store (Gee, I wonder if they sell t-shirts?), so I am going back to Her Granite-ness, with muppets in tow.  We’ll float on our backs in the saltiness of Mono Lake, mere weeks after I shed tears pondering a family campfire.  It will happen, and laughter will abound.  And we’ll visit the town in “arrested decay”, Bodie.  Cap it off with a drive through Yosemite on the way home.

My heart needs to be there, and I need to be there with them.

I’ll be writing and responding to comments while on our adventure, but I may not get a full post in until my return later in the week.  What I can do is answer questions.  From the mundane to deeply personal to trivia (can’t be answered on Google cuz you know I’m looking everything up).  Shoot them at me via twitter @cleoeverest or comment on the post.  I’ll be bringing the answers.  I can belt those out in between herding kittens as they scamper through the Alabama Hills and beating off rabid-for-fries chipmunks as we indulge in one of Doug’s burgers at the Portal.

It will be sweet to get dirty in the Sierras again.

Finally, I leave you with this most awesome creation from a kitten.  She named the man with no name.  While I was on my hike of Tam I received a small flurry of tweets from @amberfouc about the man with no name.  Specifically with regard to naming him.  Hire this girl.  She nailed it in about 8 minutes.

Mr. Delicious.  Or as she said, or straight up Mr. Delicious.  It was the last name she sent.  And it was the perfect one.  I smiled big for rest of my hike.  It is SO perfect for reasons I cannot share.  I know you understand.  I am most delighted by this name because it came from a kitten.  I love that.  It’s also a word I love to use.  Thank you, A.  We are forever linked by deliciousness. Just the most perfect name ever.

So now I have some questions for you.

But first a little back story.  Mr. Delicious found the blog on his own.  He never asked for the URL or my pen name, and I never offered it.  He knew that I wrote one and what it was about, but we rarely talked about it.  One night while having dinner I felt compelled to ask if he had ever read the blog.  There was no impetus for the question other than a feeling he had.

Yes, I have.

We stared at each other across the table, smiling.

I was a bit taken back by his reply, yet I knew he would say yes.  I’m not even sure what I said next, but I could tell he wasn’t ready to talk about it.  And we haven’t talked about it since.  To be fair, we also haven’t seen each other in a month or so.

I don’t think about this much, but it’s pretty funny that Mr. Delicious knows so much about me, but we’ve never addressed that he does.  It would take me a year to express to him all that I’ve expressed in this blog, at least.  That’s an odd balance of information exchange in a relationship.  Not bad.  Just odd.

I’ve pondered what I need to say to him about HGM.

I write about my life.  And those in it.  I can’t exclude.  It just doesn’t work that way at HGM.  And I’m going to be doing this for the duration. Are you totally cool with that?

I bet a fair number of people would balk and walk.

We’ve known each other a few weeks and now you’re going to give me a name and start writing about me?  Did I tell you about my recent job transfer to Boise?

Mr. Triathlete asked for my pen name early on.  But he never acted on it.  I find that supremely interesting.  He’s been globetrotting for the last few months and teaching me how to swim in the open water.  He says it’s not for lack of interest, but for lack of time.

I believe it’s because he’s not supposed to read it.  Not yet.

Writing about Mr. Delicious and Mr. Triathlete is a big step in the evolution of HGM.  A risky step in essence, but to me a must do.  I can’t NOT write about those I encounter, those I date.  I’m putting into practice all I’ve learned.  How can I not share the results? I’ve been slowly introducing them as I step into this new level of commitment.  That’s what it feels like.  Ironically, kind of like a marriage.

I’m not just bringing the Little Dude and the Tall Dude into a relationship.  I’m also bringing HGM.

How do I work that in to the conversation?

Love yourself,

Cleo