I have not yet learned how to joke that way

The night we slept on Lily's floor in Cleveland James said to me,
"You constantly narrate everything.  That's not normal."  Maybe. But thanks for the meta-op, babe.

We (everyone in the house) cooked an entire meal together yesterday while dancing.

Who says multitasking is impossible?

Well whoever it is was right, but how much attention is really necessary to make cheese and potato soup?

Mike gets so smiley when James and I dance to spanish music.

I admit everything blurs when a spanish song I love begins to play.  

Like in West Side Story.  

I am Maria. The music is Tony.  

No one is racist or in brown face.

Last night I told James everyone in this house matters.

Thinking about why warrants an update, because how I felt about each of them a few months ago has changed.

I'll start with Beks.

The Fall Day of Reflection I was grouped with her and Andrei to do a more intimate talk.

With the schedule the way it was we only got about 7 minutes apiece to say the most important and meaningful things.  Not ideal.

I told her that I felt judged when we first met, and that I was certain I was projecting my own feelings onto her.  She nodded knowingly and smiled.  

Her sense of humor has come out a lot more in the past month or so.  

I don't feel judged any more and that makes it so much easier to be myself around her.

She cares so much about doing what's right all the time.  I think that's part of what she feels close to Mike about.  Though Mike manifests this in a different way.  

A rub still exists between us on certain topics -mainly gender dynamics, I think.  

She has a strong inclination to defer to men.  I find that way of thinking so foreign because my dad never treated me like a "girl."  If the TV was on the fritz, he'd enlist me to help.  If a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie was on, he'd ask me what kind of sandwiches we should make. Even when I was a kid he took my opinion seriously, and I take that understanding with me into every conversation I have.  

Still, I know there is so much to her and I've only seen a small part so far.  

She's more open-minded than I originally gave her credit for, and more accepting of people's decisions and views.  I can tell when she doesn't agree or approve because she will nod and be very quiet, yet she doesn't make an extra effort to let me know she thinks whatever I'm doing or thinking is wrong.  I like to think she's still sussing out what she feels about life and doesn't want to give a final ruling on anything yet. We should all be more like that.

The other night we tried watching The Sound of Music.  I made extra room for her to cuddle up to me.  Eventually as she fell asleep her head made her way to my shoulder.  At some point I admired the Baroness's hair, "Her hair is so beautiful."  Beks answered from her sleep, "Thank you."  I laughed quietly and my heart jumped a little with what I think must be love.

I suppose I should point out the fact that I've been calling her Beks.  A while ago I asked if I could call her that, and she didn't seem keen on nicknames.  "I like Rebecca," she said.  Then one night Mike called her "Rebes."  I lost my shit.  "Nope. Nope. Nope," I protested.  Amidst our laughter she agreed to let me call her Beks.  My desire to do so came from a long wish to know someone called Beks, everyone knew this.  So I dropped it for a while, ruling that it wasn't fair or even fitting since it had nothing to do with her as a person.  

Eventually James and Mike called her Beks.  And so it was decided for us.

Mike, you're next.