My emotional affair

Can you see him?

I've known him for a long time.

He's known me even longer.

But for the past 7 weeks, I've been sneaking away to meet him in various places after I drop off the kids at school in the morning.

Unlike singer Billy Paul, who met his married Mrs. Jones "every day at the same cafe," I meet my love all around town.

"Why would you meet at the same coffee shop every day?" I ask rhetorically. "Wouldn't that get boring and dangerous -- because people would begin to recognize you two?"

"We met every day at the same cafe..."

Let me show you where to go...

"Where should we meet today?" I ask him.

"Let me show you...let me show you where to go..." he sings back to me in his Michael Jackson falsetto, repeating the lyrics he gave the King of Pop.

Then he breaks into that "take me to church" style "a-uh-hun-a-uh-hun" riff that MJ did in the song that lets you know he had some kind of saved soul.

He makes me smile with that memory.

Thankfully, my emotional affair partner likes nature, just like me, so we usually end up in the scenic, picturesque woods of the Ohio Valley somewhere.

I leave my Droid 2 off or on silent and don't even look at it when we're together. Sometimes I get mad when others find our spot and park next to us. I want to be alone and secluded with him.

I read the letters he's written me. At times I get antsy just sitting there with him, so we get out the minivan and walk and hike to high points in the hills and stare at the sun or tree roots that serve as stairs, or hang back on a suspension bridge.

The more isolated, the better -- I'm not even afraid all the time when I really know he's with me.

He puts up with me crying and cussing...

Did someone smell a dog fart? Look at the colors in my weave!

...and railing about other men or my friends and what not.

We are in tune with a razor-sharp wit and particular inside jokes that no one else would understand.

He gives me the best writing ideas. Seriously.

He makes me dream of titles -- and inspires me to see things in me that I normally wouldn't.

I was shoved back to Him when I got in trouble -- again -- and he's been reminding me that it's the best place, most healthy place I could be.

He keeps me from swallowing all the Lorazepam I've got left in my medicine cabinet -- the exact same pills they found on MJ -- and pulls me through each valley onto better days.

When I kind of diss him in the morning or on weekends...

I'm always better for having spent the time with him

...and give him short shrift because I'm too antsy to get to this online world, back to my grind, I begin longing for him later.

Even when I haven't, I still feel that pull around 9 p.m. some nights to go lock myself in the bathroom and be alone to talk with him.

Away from the noise...

Away from the Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and Braxton Family Values and Google Trends...

"Just me and you," he sings right now in my right ear. "Don't worry about a damn thing...we don't need nobody else...just me and you..."

He gives me business success...

...through night visions, day visions, and ideas that come out of somewhere that say:

Have you thought of trying it this way?

I don't always listen. Many times, I do.

And there's a flow...there's a hunger...there's a "real recognize real" factor -- like one of my Twitter followers told me -- that people pick up on.

So much so that some local peeps/friends invite me to lunch and get in my face and check up on me, after I've soaked in enough of my love and I turn the Droid back on and the MacBook Air comes open and I let the world back in.

By far, this emotional affair is the best I've ever experienced. And it's the only one I need.

Et tu, dear blog reader?