Okay. I get it now.

Our grass had reached about to my armpits...but I'm short, so it was still workable. Then my neighbor John burned up the bearings on his mower, and I finally caved in. I borrowed Katie's boyfriend's spiffy John Deere mower with the automatic transmission and the cupholders.

It was a little incongruous...pulling that beautiful new mower on John's crappy trailer with the rotten boards, pulled by my crappy eBay pickup, but I can handle a little inconsistancy in my life. I'm just that flexible. Ask anyone. Flexibility is my middle name.

But now...I'm in love with that powerful, shiny mower. It's like the Fabio of Mowers. If mowers could open the top three buttons on their grill, this one would do it. You can imagine it's hair, if it had hair, blowing gently back from it's manly, chiselled features. This mower would NOT get hit in the face with a goose. It'would deflect the goose with it's cupholder. It's just that clever.

I'm going to offer to trade Katie to him for the mower. Think of it as a dowry. She's young and strong and will make him a good wife. And I'll be able to mow the entire three acres in three hours. See? It's a win-win!

Afterwards, while I was still deaf from the mower anyway, I borrowed John's chainsaw and cut down an old tree that was dead and filled with carpenter ants. And that was fun...chainsaws are so butch...but I'm a little stove up today. In fact, I think maybe my hair is the only think that doesn't hurt this morning.

So...while I was tooling around on the ultra-fast John Deere, I was thinking maybe I could get a new one, and consider the other one a restoration project...a show piece, like antiques.

Damn that Dane. He's ruined my love affair with my old mower. He's turned me into a mower whore.

A Love Poem...But Without The Poetry Part

We have maybe 20 readers. Of those 20, probably 15 read us because they think we're interesting or amusing or they love us but can't get us to return their phone calls and this is practically like interacting.

The remaining 5 can't stand us, and they're looking for some opportunity to discover a weakness that they can exploit to make us feel bad on some AOL board later.

So to those of you looking for dirt, I say...Haha...you're going to hate this post. :-)

Lori and I have been together for three years. Three years ago I was attracted to her and intrigued by her wit and zest for life, her compassion and intellect...but frequently frustrated by her inclination to be deferential.

Them days is passed.

She has apparently worked through whatever issues caused her to defer to me, and she's come roaring out of the gate. She's feisty and funny and full of piss and vinegar and I love the hell out of her. I feel a kind of exultant joy at this relationship that surprises even me. I love that she's as smart as me, as funny as me, as opinionated as me. Neither one of us has to carry the other or explain the joke. I love the sideways glances, the quick caresses, the eyes that melt my heart, and the laser jabs from nowhere. I love that she'll sneak up behind me, kiss my ear and whisper, "Bitch."...and then laugh.

Every other weekend we have two days off together, and I fall more deeply in love. And every time, I think "Okay...this is as big as it gets." But so far I just keep finding more stuff that delights me.

I don't think I've ever had this much fun with anyone in my life. For the first time ever, I feel sort of panicky at the prospect of dying someday. Forty more years won't be enough with her.