No updates for the past week or so, but with reason. The flippant answer: I had better things to do. (The even more flippant answer: namely, my boyfriend).
More seriously, I spent the weekend driving down to surprise Caspian with a visit. It was a 15 hour drive there, just over 1400km. I left Sudbury early, 7am I think, and called Caspian from my cell phone when I had been on the road for about three hours, claiming to have just woken up. I had previously forged some excuse for being unavailable for most of the day - I said I was going down to spend the weekend at home, and that my mother and I were going to be in Toronto all afternoon and evening.
"Hey, love, I'm just hitting the road now, then my Mom and I are probably going to leave for Toronto as soon as I get to Barrie..."
"Will you call me when you get home, just to let me know you made it safely?"
Shit. "Um. Of course, love. I'll give you a call in about three hours."
So, I had to stop in the middle of Michigan to buy a phone card and find a payphone. (My cell phone doesn't work in the US, and I couldn't just call directly from a payphone because the area code would show up on caller ID, and I didn't want him asking awkward questions about where exactly I was calling from. But I figured routing the call through a 1-800 number would mask things well enough).
I got back on the road after that, and drove pretty much straight through, arriving at his house some time after 9pm local time. His car was in the driveway, but the place was dark. I let myself in the front door, which was unlocked, then tried the inner door: locked.
I knocked.
No answer, but a moment later, I heard his cell phone alarm go off, and heard him mutter unhappily as he turned it off.
I smiled, and knocked again.
"What?" He sounded sleepy and irritated and absolutely adorable.
I knocked again.
"Who *is* it?"
I was grinning ear to ear at that point, absolutely delighted with the entire situation. Finally, I relented, and gave him a reason to get out of bed.
"Are you going to let me in, love?"
There was a profound silence, then a sound of movement, then the door opened slightly and he was standing there half-dressed in the darkness blinking the sleep from his eyes. Then a moment later I had my arms around him and everything was right with the world.
He was appropriately surprised. And while it was too dark for me to actually see the expression on his face when I showed up at his door, the moment was still well worth the drive.
I had planned to only stay for a couple of days - drive down on Thursday, spend Friday and Saturday with him, leave Sunday. But on Saturday night he asked me to stay just a bit longer, and skipping my film class on Monday seemed like a very small price to pay for making him happy. (I'm sitting in the discussion period of that film class now, in point of fact; having missed the movie itself, I have nothing to contribute, so I am sitting quietly in the back with my disused laptop, updating Lokys instead).
The startling thing for me is how natural it feels to live with him. And, by extension, to live in America. Whenever I visit the US I usually feel a jarring sense of unreality: everything is just a little bit off from the way it should be. It's the small things, really. Stores have different names. I don't recognize half of the brands on the shelves. Cereal boxes don't have French translations on them. But this weekend, it all seemed... a bit unfamiliar, still, but not wrong the way it used to. I spent two months living in Milwaukee without that city ever losing its air of strangeness, but strolling around Caspian's town with him feels comfortable.
It feels safe.
I hadn't expected to ever really feel that way about anywhere in America. God knows I've spent enough time there on various vacations - my family used to go to North Conway, NH two or three times every year, visiting the same shops, eating in the same restaurants every time, but it was never more than a vacation spot. My parents have a timeshare in Florida; my mother averages two or three months per year there now. It's halfway to home for them, I think, they're comfortable there, but I never have been despite numerous trips down.
(Yet I'm planning to spend a week there with Caspian in February during my reading week, driving from Sudbury to Illinois to pick him up, then heading on down south to Florida over two days, and I find myself looking forward to it as much as I used to look forward to our New Zealand visits. And I don't even really like Florida, normally, but the thought of him being there too makes it infinitely more appealing).
Anyway. It was a wonderful weekend, I submerged myself with utter contentment into the domestic banality of grocery shopping and cooking and running errands. I made him French toast. He added me to his account at the video store when we rented a handful of DVDs. On Monday I went in to his office with him, and curled up on the Ikea loveseat in the afternoon sunshine with his copy of Tigana while he worked, and every so often he called me over to solicit my input on something.
I ramble about this sort of thing, but I can't help it: it's absolutely wonderful to me. I never in my life thought that I would even want a conventional relationship, much less actually find one. Me, a smiling housewife? My scowling rebellious 17 year old high school self would have glared around for something to gut like a fish at the mere thought. Even a year ago, my sociologically-trained liberal student iteration would have dismissed the notion as entirely too conventional, too plebian for me. But now, the greatest happiness in my life is just being with him.
Next update: the drive back; some musings about American radio; the Lake City Homestyle Cafe; fuck the UP, seriously.