if you are lucky, you get to go from what the shrinks call your family of origin to form a family of creation. i have done that now. ephelba says i did it when she asked me to move in with her and i said yes. of course that was was too intellectual and abstract to be real for me. then she says, what about when you brought your pillows over? surely that was it. i guess men just don't have the same relationship with pillows that apparently women do, because that was absolutely not significant to me. well today i trucked over a good pile of my stuff, and that was no abstract intellectual construction. it was hard work, and i sweated. but still, what gives me a sense of being home is how ephelba worked to make a place for me here. bought new furniture and reorganized the whole apartment to let me feel welcome and wanted and loved. its a great feeling. we worked so well together, hauling this idioticly heavy TV of mine down the three flights of my former apartment stairs [third floor, naturally] and up this one horribly long and rickety one that goes up to ephelba's second story flat. [she rents the upper half of a house] so now, i do feel moved in. ephelba marvels at this. the decision was made weeks ago, she says, and you're just catching on? so it goes. and here i am. drinking a warm can of miller, because there wasn't enough room in the fridge for the twelve pack, [it is definately not a bachelor refridgerator] still slightly sweaty and sticky from the move, and typing at this ridiculous hour. but i am nowhere near sleep. there is a seven and a half year old boy sleeping away hard in the next room, who amazingly enough, looks up to me. i am going to be allowed to be some sort of parent to him. a daunting thought when i have just recently been able to care for myself. also when the concept of 'step-father' holds such undiluted repugnance for me. may i never be called such a name! ephelba says we will think of a new one, she knows how i feel. i love her for this, among about a million other things. now we have this bright shiny new life together. i look toward tomorrow and smile. you have no idea how wierd that feels for me.