I met him for the first time at the Art Gallery. The cool dark smell of art, that leathery smell of oil paint and glaze, his intense eyes, and Emily Carr's totem poles looming darkly around us. Later, on the patio under hot July sun, wine glasses and laughter and his porcelain-skinned girlfriend. Red hair cascading to the small of her back; shimmering green shirt, skin skim milk blue, and wrists as fine as royalty.

Another time, a sunny afternoon on a patio, the creek sparkling with kayakers and yachts, and he's more than a little drunk, and he pulls a rubber chicken and a bag of feathers out of his backpack - a long story and a craft project - and it's so endearing that my heart nearly bursts with adoration for this man.

The chemistry. The leaning into each other at the art gallery, the intense eye contact. There's something about him that makes me feel desparately hungry when he's around.

He comes over one night last week. He sits at the table drinking beer while I make supper. When he came into the living room he stared at my T-shirt, I (heart) NY, and smiled quietly to himself and said, simply, Cute!. The delivery, the timing. Making me feel special and interesting and wholly beloved with a single word.

I can feel his eyes on me while I work at the cutting board. I wonder if it's my imagination, but then he pipes up So that's how you de-stem kale! I've been doing it wrong all along!, and that's when I know for sure that it was his eyes that I felt on my shoulder blades.

***

123.6

My weight remains more or less the same, but things are shifting around. My size 4 pants become ever more generous around my hips. My face and chest soften a bit. Or maybe I just become used to it.

I track my running pace, and I'm running a 5:20 kilometer with ease on regular runs. I contemplate entering a half marathon.

I find a picture of myself in a bathing suit from a few years ago. I paste it next to a photo of me today, and the difference is shocking. I send it to Daniel. He compliments me over and over.

I'm teachers pet at both yoga studio. The different teachers always comment on my strength. One day this week, I found myself balancing in crow. I didn't know that I could do it. The teacher comes over and urges me to attempt to launch back into plank. I think about it, firm up my muscles, imagine the move, and then to my own astonishment find my lower body moving through the air and my body reverberating like a diving board into plank.

***

D is offered an opportunity to work on a research project that would form the basis of his Masters thesis. The opportunity involves travel across Canada, South America, and Europe. It would mean a 30% pay cut and him leaving his municipal full time position.

We talk about it endlessly, considering the purpose of life, the likelihood of another opportunity such as this falling into his lap, and work out a budget to see if we can keep the car.

I can't decide what we should do. I want him to take it but I also worry about how we're going to keep on top of the bills. We slash things from the budget, and it is liberating. We balance the budget with $300 to spare each month.