Good Morning, Taylor.

I’m beginning to notice I start these letters with “it’s been a while.” And it has, really. When I started these letters it was because I was very lonely after I came out. I didn’t have a lot of people to talk to, and I felt like these letters were my way of sharing my world to you.

We talk outside of these letters, and that hasn’t changed, but I also have a lot of friends now. The Artist and I see each other almost every week. I talk with The Corsair, Poco and The Editor a lot. While I don’t talk to the Wise Woman all that much, we still do talk online every so often. I share my life with a lot of people now, and with not a lot of time, it’s made my sharing here a little sparse.

We just recently figured out where all our time is going. Ragdoll has a system laid out about how we share life, and what’s work and what’s free time…and when I took that over as well as the finances, I wanted to know why we just didn’t have a lot of time. It turned out stuff that she was doing that I would consider “work” wasn’t being counted as work. We’re supposed to have 49 work hours a week. This is her job and commute. But if we count everything she and I HAVE to do, it’s more like 73 hours. Almost another full time job. We’re working on ways to make this work for both of us, where we have protected free time where we can do things like this – writing letters. 🙂

But we are doing things. Lots of things.

There was a local fireworks display I watched from our deck. I can’t see these up close because Ragdoll will get recognized and I’ll have to go back inside. But while I can’t see these up close, it made me excited that I would see fireworks again in July.

Ragdoll finally took me to the ocean! This was a vacation that had been planned and canceled multiple times, but as I’m now in control of our finances, and really fixing things up, we were able to make the vacation actually happen. Well, that and that the lodgings were nonrefundable. But we both had a good time. She likes to drive, and she drove us out to the coast, which was a nice long trip for her. She had the evening with the ocean, too.

But the next day was all mine. I spent the whole day exploring the beaches on the west coast. Looking out into the ocean and thinking “there’s nothing out there until you hit Asia. I walked the beaches played in the water, saw crab shells dotting the beach, and even met the local crows who were a lot less friendly than our crows. But at the same time, a very comfortable with me around. It was such an amazing time on the water, and I didn’t want it to ever end. Some of the beaches were rocky with beautiful sea stacks, but hard pebbles…and some were sandy beaches that went on forever without a single stone. And the saltwater air. I love the saltwater air.

We spent sometimes at the Hall of Mosses, too. It wasn’t as spectacular as the name makes it sound, but it was really beautiful nonetheless. I really loved seeing trees that were hundreds of years old, in a forest that who knows how old it was. But just having a day all to myself with no work, no chores, no wait-until-tomorrows. Just me and the water under my toes.

Ragdoll drove back to the house, but not before giving me one more surprise – a ferry ride! I got to enjoy a ferry trip back to the mainland. Just a thirty minute ride, but I got one last taste of that sea air, and got to see the city from the water. I was very very happy.

I’ve been working on making bread again. Last time I made Japanese Milk Bread, it came out very good. It’s not light and fluffy like real Japanese Milk Bread, but the recipe works to make a nice sandwich bread. But the last loaf I made had coriander and cinnamon in it. And while we both agreed it was the best toast and jam bread we’ve ever had, it was too sweet for just general sandwiches. I took out the spices and it made a much better sandwich bread. Still not true Japanese Milk Bread, but it had the floppiness and moistness of store bought white bread. Still not a big ride from it, so I ‘m thinking of making a bigger batch next time, to try and get a real sandwich loaf size.

I’m cooking a lot more now, and I’m responsible for our lunches pretty much every week now. Which is good because I’m the one who eats most of our lunches. I’m still making small mistakes, but I’m not burning our hands, or wasting food. In fact, our garden is now producing chives! We have more chives than we know what to do with. Sadly, we got ONE lonely little strawberry and someone ate it. My money is on the squirrels. Didn’t even wait for it to get nice and red.

This month all the bird babies are coming to visit! We have new crows: Scooter and Skeeter! We have baby starlings and sparrows and doves, too! So many babies, and they’re all visiting my feeder for food. It makes me happy that the birds, especially the crows, feel safe with my feeder. And the crows will even stop by while I’m there with the kids. Skeeter even visited me once on her own – she likes to explore. 🙂

With the free time we’re getting back, I’m trying to read again. I ended up not liking Luka and the Fire of Life and gave it back to the library. I did start reading The Third Millennium though. It looked neat, as a history of the future. Really strange, but I like how it feels like a report from a historian in the year 3000. That first century from 2000-2100 is rough, though. And the one we’re living in.

Finally I’m watching movies again, too. I saw all the original Star Wars movies with Ragdoll’s help, and I loved them all. The prequel movies…well…we’ll get into that when I talk about July.

Cause a lot of things have already happened in July. And more are happening in October! The Klara and the Sun movie is coming out! I’ve watched the trailer a million times already. Klara and the Sun is my favorite book and I’m really wanting to see how it turns out as a movie. I’m a little worried because the trailer feels very “lighthearted comedy” which it absolutely isn’t. But I saw a few glimpses of the harder story poke through, so I have hope. High Rise wasn’t a good movie compared to its book. I hope Klara comes through a lot better.

It’s getting late, and I want to save July’s musings to the end of July.

Miss you and Didi. I hope you’re both well.

–Andrea