I won’t finish this story but will leave it just as I left it when I first jotted down these thoughts.

I just spent a glorious afternoon with Rick.  It was so relaxing and enjoyable.

He called just before noon to see if I wanted to go to lunch.  The question was rhetorical since we have a standing lunch every Sunday.  That’s in addition to sushi night on Tuesdays and yet-to-be-labeled times that cover everything in between.

We got together around noon and went to a local Thai restaurant (BYOB, so we had a six-pack of TsingTao in tow).  We had dumplings, fried tofu and pad-ka-pow tofu.  It was delightful to put it in not so uncertain gay terms.

We enjoyed talking to the owner while we ate.  She’s such a great example of someone who came to this country some 20-and-change years ago, put together a good business idea — food from home — and found a very comfortable existence.  Certainly there is hard work involved.  I imagine owning your own business is always difficult.

But I digress.

We had a great visit with her.  We enjoyed a delicious meal that was in many ways healthy (not all of it, but most of it).  We sipped our beer.  We eventually paid our tab and left.

We opened the moonroof on the car and enjoyed a leisurely drive home in ideal weather.  A cool breeze blew from the north, sun fell through a cloudless sky, and temperatures hovered just above cold.

After parking the car in his driveway, we went inside.  Rick headed off to the bedroom and I went to the back door to let the dog out.  We played Frisbee for several minutes before Rick asked if I wanted him to cut my hair.

Of course I did.

Rick has been cutting my hair for about two years.  I don’t do anything fancy with it — I wear it short.  Generally sheared with a number 4, IIRC.

Sometimes it gets away from me before I know it and is quite long.  Well, quite long compared to what a number 4 looks like.  That means it’s not terribly long but, for what I’m accustomed to, I think it’s too long.

So I grabbed a chair and went outside.

I sat in the chair backwards with my arms crossed on the back of it in front of me.  With sunshine caressing my skin on a glorious just-right afternoon, I closed my eyes and drifted to a different world as his hands danced over my head with the shears.  I need not explain the wonders of having someone else touching your scalp, the soft yet massaging impulses of sensation that run throughout the body at such times.