gushing over my boyfriend

I have a boyfriend.

My boyfriend helps me take out the garbage. He stops me to tell me I’m beautiful when I put my hair in a ponytail. He kisses my shoulder and my back when I’m writing emails and printing my travel itinerary. He puts his hand over my heart when we are lying together, post-bliss. He looks into my eyes, gives me his big warm smile, and holds me until we fall asleep. When I wake up, he greets me by saying, "good morning, beauty."

My boyfriend is freckly. His hair is ash blonde and he’s a full foot taller than me. He has light blue eyes and an infectious smile. He looks at me like he’s looking at something he’s known for a long time, and can’t replace. He reaches for my hand, when we are walking down the street or waiting for the bus and sometimes without warning he takes it and kisses it, being very debonaire. He finds so many places to leave his kisses, the tip of my nose, my elbow, the middle of my forehead, and I try to repay him, kissing each freckle that marks his light pink skin. He lets me swarm him with my affection and returns it threefold.

My boyfriend calls me back right after I text message him. He wraps me in his arms and kisses me sweetly, like the first time, when he sees me. He drops by to see me when I get back from being out of town. He spends the whole day with me. When we rush out for drinks, in the pouring rain and he looks back to make sure that I’m not swept away in the gushing gutter. He treats me to drinks and dinner.

He prefers my hair the way it is naturally, but gave me a hair dryer when mine broke just to make me happy. He’s the self professed authority on my beauty. I love lazing about in his arms. My boyfriend is easily becoming a very good friend.

My boyfriend makes me smile unendingly. In so many ways, he’s my opposite, but in more than just the way he kisses me, I find so much of myself balanced in him. I feel at ease knowing that we are seeing the world the same way. For every moment I spend with him, I want another two. I feel so lucky to have my life surrounded by his adoring affection. I’m so happy I found him in this far away city.

winds of change

I've been dating my kiwi chef for about a week now. It has been very sweet and lovely with evenings filled with dinners, and movies, and occasionally sleep overs. Sometimes a cute message would captivate me and I'd be thrown into a blushing post-script analysis as I have a tendency to do. It seemed like I couldn't get enough of his undivided attention. Words were tossed around by our friends, dangerous words that I wince at like, "boyfriend, girlfriend, love" when they saw us around each other.

But last weekend, it seemed that something had changed. His typically adoring glances seemed to disappear as the night wore on and although in the morning he was back to his devoted self, the night before left a bad taste in my mouth. Eager for a reconciliation, I wrote him a sweet note, thinking perhaps, that I had been holding back my own affections too often. The note has currently gone unacknowledged. He even called last night to cancel our plans for today.

Under the shroud of this dark and looming cloud, I did the only reasonable thing. I made a date with a guy I met when out for drinks with my girlfriends. I'm here for a short time, it might as well be a good time.

sometimes life inspires art

Yesterday afternoon I meet my kiwi chef at the pier for date number two. He greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and we walked along the waters edge, and through the very so lovely botanic gardens before finally settling into the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The day was as bright and warm as our conversation. When we arrived at the Gallery we poked around the exhibits, giving our thoughts. "What comes to mind when you see this?" He teases over an eclectic modern piece. He was the perfect companion to see the Gallery, not too serious, not too dismissive, and just cheeky enough. I was explaining my thoughts on a wavy contemporary painting, when a lady from South Africa took a photo of us. She showed us, and said with pleasure that she'd be using it for her own exhibit. After I swooned over a photograph of the Eiffel Tower opening, we headed to Paddington for a drink.

The afternoon quickly fell into the evening and before I knew it I was sharing a bottle of wine (and a few kisses) with Leonard Cohen and Jeff Buckley serenading us. There is just something about him I can't help but like, that I can't quite put my finger on. I feel like with him there is no one I'd rather be than myself and that is very refreshing. When I finally tore myself away, I got a lovely text message, "Thanks for a great day, you're smart, sweet and beautiful. I am very much looking forward to seeing you again."

I couldn't help feeling light headed, and it's not just the wine.

a new week, a new boy

It's a new week in Sydney, which means it's time to mix it up with a new boy. Not that anything was wrong with the old ones, it's just that my Italian boy is getting a little clingy. What used to be endearingly cute text messages that I would feverishly try to translate have somehow become annoyances. I'm sure some girls would relish the idea of ten cute text messages a day, but I suddenly find myself less enamoured by there contents. This might be in part because I may have let things go a little far last week. Suffice to say, I'm bored, and as mean as it is, I'm applying my "love 'em and leave 'em " strategy.

I spent Monday night on a very nice date with another cute chef, this one from New Zealand. The difference is, he is aspiring to be a journalist and unlike my Italian chef, we actually have very nice thoughtful conversations. He picked me up and kissed me on the cheek and we headed off for a nice walk and dinner at a somewhat fancy Thai restaurant. We chatted all throughout dinner and he wooed me with his thoughts about the world. As the perfect gentleman he is he treated me to dinner and when I thanked him for the night he leaned down for a brief kiss.

He called me yesterday (a first, since everyone in this backwards land loves to text), and asked me to go to the Art Gallery with him tomorrow afternoon. Of course, I swooned.