The metro is not full – at least not at the back end of the train.  I look at the people but don’t really see them.  They are not the ‘city types’ that will crowd the train later, with their suits, briefcases and shoes; perfectly styled hair and, because we are in Italy, sporting the latest style of sunglasses – even if the weather is dreadful and gloomy.

No, these are the people who work at more manual labour or in bars or cafés or restaurants.  But neither are they smartly dressed – but then, why would they be.  I, on the other hand, look like I’m just on my way for a night out, which, of course, when I dressed, I was.

It’s only three stops to my home – well, to the nearest metro stop to my home – and then a 10 minute walk to home.  The streets are fairly quiet.  Not as quiet as when I usually take the dogs out, since that’s a little earlier, but, still, quietish.

I ponder, it being so late, do I take the dogs out immediately or do I have coffee and shower first.  It starts to rain but not heavy rain (thank goodness) just that light, misty rain.  We don’t get that so often here, not like the UK.

I arrive home.  They are pleased to see me and I them.  They smell the smells of a strange place and seemingly can’t get enough of it.  Let’s be honest, these jeans spent most of the time on a chair and not with me inside them!

I take them out after preparing the moka for coffee.  I was offered coffee before I left but decided it would be better to come home and sort the dogs out, so, declined.  We do a shorter walk.  I am already late.  Well, I say late.  Of course, I will be in at the time I used to be….which also means that I will leave later.  But, right now, that’s OK.  Later is later and not now and nothing can change the way I feel or the humour I am in.

It had been busy last night.  Many emails to answer.  V wants to borrow the car to pick someone up from the airport.  He was supposed to go to Berlin but decided he couldn’t afford it.  Instead he wants to pick his friend up from the airport.  We arrange that he should call me on Sunday and we shall make arrangements.  He asks after F and explains a little about him and Ig.  He’s not ready for a relationship right now and so it is not going anywhere.  I say he is starting to sound like an Italian.

Of course, that’s not really fair.  Most people are like this.  Not me.  For me too much thinking is involved.  You either have the Karl Spark or not.  If not then there is nothing, if there is then that is all.  Perhaps it is me that is totally at odds with the world?  Perhaps the rest of the world is right and I am wrong?  Still, it will change nothing.

FfI wanted me to call her.  She calls my phone and immediately hangs up.  The signal that I should call her back.  I Skype her.  She answers and says she is upstairs and that I should call her on her mobile.  I say it’s too expensive for me to call her back.  She thought it was a company mobile!  Some people!!  I say, I shall speak to her tomorrow, unless, as partially planned, I go to F’s for the night.

I start a conversation with another friend.  He’s a new friend, from Saturday but I really like him.  We have funny email exchanges.  He makes me laugh. I shall call him NfM.  We converse by email, Facebook and Skype, at one point, all at the same time.  Which makes for interesting discussions.

He wanted to look at my blog.  Given Lola’s comments in the post below, I am slightly nervous about it.  I mention him and think that, perhaps, he won’t fully understand the way this works.  That anything I say here are only my thoughts at the time.  And may not even be all the thoughts but some partial thought, some nuance.  I briefly contemplate that I don’t give it to him but that seems stupid.  If I am frightened of what I say then I shouldn’t be doing this, this blogging.  I give him the link and try to explain (badly) that if he reads something about himself it’s not meant in a bad way.  After all I do like him.  You may ask what the hell am I doing putting it down here if he’s going to read it.  Well, first of all, I doubt that he will (it’s a little bit wordy for him) and secondly it helps to explain the problem that Lola mentioned.

So, he reads some stuff and finds himself mentioned and I feel bad that it doesn’t say wonderful things about him ‘cos I really do like him.

F suddenly arrives home.  He is earlier than I expected.  I thought he would be much later.  I am happy he is home though.  It means he can tidy his place and then he can be ready for tomorrow, when I may go round, if he wants it.

I don’t know this at the time but he reads my emails with the links to songs that I love or ones that explain me or ones that are for him.

We chat over Facebook for a bit.

I’m still chatting with NfM.  F calls.  He asks me what I am dong.  I say that I shall go and take the dogs out and then have a glass of wine.  He asks if I want to come over for a glass of wine there.  I don’t know why he asked.  It is totally unexpected but so what I want to do.  I say yes, I would love to.  He says to give him 10 minutes for a shower and stuff and the place is a mess.  It makes me laugh.  I tell him that I am sure his place will look immaculate to me.  I tell him that I will be about half an hour or so as I need to take the dogs out and have a shower myself – without adding that, obviously, I need to be dressed well, smell good, etc., etc.

It is, in a way, a little unfortunate as the conversation with NfM was good and now I have to blow him off quickly.  I don’t want to do this as, I feel, we are building quite a good rapport but this is life.  I tell NfM that I must go.  The next day he complains that I was rude and didn’t say goodnight.  He’s right.  It makes me feel bad.  Especially as now, he may have the wrong impression of me.  Relationships – a bloody minefield.  I haven’t had time to explain to him yet, for him to know who I am.  Damn.

Still the dogs go out.  It’s fast as it is raining so hard and they don’t like the rain, so they hurry too.  I am hurrying for a different reason.

I am worried – ‘cos that’s the way I am.  I worry that my old problem will come back – tonight.  I don’t know why that is.  But I worry anyway.  It seems that is what I do – worry.  It’s all in my head anyway, I know, but then the problem is in my head, I know that too.  And I worry that the worry of it will cause the problem.  Bah

I take a shower and leave.  It’s a 10 minute walk to the Metro and three stops away.  About 20 minutes in all.  I notice nothing, not even the rain.

I arrive and phone as I go through the gate, following some other people.  I arrive at his door as he opens it.  It is raining so much that I don’t do what I had thought in my head  I walk up the stairs, him following.  At the top of the stairs we stop and kiss.  It’s a needy kiss from both of us.  And long and deep.  He misses me, for which I am happy; I miss him too.

He says, as we sit on the chair with wine, we can be a couple, if you want.  I want to reply that, for me, we already are.  I want to say that, in spite of what he might say, I know that we are in his head too, even if he is scared that I will just disappear like all the rest.  He doesn’t need to worry.  I’m not going anywhere.  Instead I say that I would and that it would make me very happy.

I say that, if we are a couple, he will have to meet my friends.  He tells me that he cannot because it will be too embarrassing.  He will meet them only as a friend of mine.  This is a little ‘lost in translation’.  He really means that he will feel pressurised by this and, therefore, can only handle it if he is introduced as a friend.  Hmmm.  This means I have to explain this to my friends – but I know they will understand.  Even the newer ones have begun to understand me well enough.

I need not have worried about needing the miracles.  I have one but, really, it is not necessary.  Even during the night, I wake up, from time to time, and hug him or stroke him, even for a few moments before drifting back to sleep.  I think I hear him say that he loves me….but in his sleep.  Perhaps this is someone else, or perhaps this is me.  But I think it is me anyway.  It is enough.  We have all the time in the world – and no time at all.  That’s the bit he doesn’t get but I’m working on it.

He needs to feel secure with me, to trust me, to know that if I say something, it is true.

The alarm goes off at 6.30.  I want to hold him and kiss him and hug him.  He gets up because he has to let me out.  He will go back to sleep until 8.  That’s OK.  He needs his sleep and he needs to feel secure that I will not disrupt his routine too much and not treat him like shit and not take advantage of him.  I won’t but he does not actually know that…..yet!

I leave and catch the metro.

We have all the time in the world – and no time at all.