Let's see...

Relapse Post #8
When we're young, we make plans. At this point in my life, I'm supposed to be doing X, making Y amount of money and married to a fine Z who does that crazy thing with their....um, I digress. We make plans. Sometimes set in stone. But life doesn't always go according to plan. You make adjustments, you change, you take in the lay of the land and make course corrections based on previously flawed information. But in any case you end up keeping moving forward. And if you're smart, you always have a plan. Not inflexible anymore, but a plan. When I was young I made plans. But I didn't know anything then. So now I have better plans.

It is that time again.

Time to get out your costumes, get your dance moves down, decorate the house and cook the feast. It happens every year and you don't want to miss out, so be ready. It's Sporty's birthday.

Well, actually isn't for a minute, a month or so, but one doesn't just run out at the last minute with these things. Am I wrong for thinking in advance?

In the past I planned as much as three or four months in advance, looking through shops and pricing things trying to find stuff she might like. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes it still comes down to the last weekend I'm wandering through some little shop trying to find that certain something just before we'd go out. I actually liked doing it, and I don't particularly like shopping.

There was always something about her face, the way it lit up when she would open the bag after we'd had dinner. I say bag because it was rarely one big gift, but instead a series of small gifts. She's complicated, so I tried to get something for all the various facets of her. For a long time I considered getting her *cough* jewelry. First girl in a long time. But it seems that when my mind leans in the direction of such grand gestures, fate swings out of nowhere and shoots me a quick painful jab to the eye. Or the throat.

But when I got her gifts her face would glow a little. She would grin, peer into the bag, and then go through it all, taking the time to remark on everything, good or bad. There is a happiness there I just can't put to words.

She likes the tees with the cool slogans on them, so look for them but have never found any I thought were, um..."suitable" is the term I'm gonna use. She likes to read, so I've given a book or two. I'd get her bath stuff because well, girls like bath stuff, even when she said she didn't like bath stuff she liked it. She likes bracelets, so I get her bracelets. I throw in the quirky. Sometimes I see stuff that makes me think of her and I've learned enough to know I need to get it now, or find myself trying to remember which store I was in when I saw that. I've gotten her gift cards, which I think are so impersonal sometimes, and hats so she looks like the cool chick in the back of the jazz club who you just know owns a motorcycle and knows walks around the house barefoot.

Making her happy makes me happy.

Made me happy.

Well still does really, only some of the magic isn't there because of the distance. But I can hear her smile through the phone. It's hard to describe.

As I said, in the past I would plan three or four months in advance for that one night, considering and re-jiggering. I'm a little late this year, only got a few weeks. Hope I can find something good enough. Yes, I really do have a list. And a plan.

Barkeep, a little traveling alcohol.