Saturday, September 11, 1976

As Friday night, at midnight, gave way to Saturday morning, I was intently reading Cullen's book; but, in the back of my mind, in a wway from which not even Cullen's masterful account could detract, I felt very keenly my absence from my Beloved. Had this been a normal weekend, we would have probably been waiting for our pizza to be brought to the table, while finishing our salads. While we enjoyed these meals immensely, my Beloved did not mind to leave the Pub, in order to kick off those shoes, and unbutton that silky shirt in preparation for several hours of driving through the sultry summer night.

I reached the end of Cullen's monograph just as dawn broke over the college campus. The chill of terror he had evoked in his prose was almost palpable.

Later that morning, after breakfast, I visited the bookstore, and purchased the books needed for the three classes towhich I had been assigned, all of them required and not elective. Incoming freshmen were not admitted to elective courses in the first term. I also found in that same bookstore a collection of several of Milton's prose writings, which I immediately added to my purchases. Upon returning to my room, I learned, rather rapidly, that I did not enjoy Milton'a prose nearly as much as his poetry.

I did not look forward to the coming night---my third away from my Beloved, and the second weekend night we could not spend together. That smile; a glimpse of those long, soft curls, cascading over that bared torso from which the unbuttoned shirt flaps had drawn back, and the always pleasant scent of those midnight blue socks---these sensations, remembered, haunted me through the rest of this day.

I expected that the nexr day, Sunday, would be doubly difficult with being unable to attend worship at my church, as well as being apart from my Beloved. While nothing could replace these two absences, I had a couple of audio tapes of films I had recently recorded (in those days, no video tapes existed for common use; no dvd's and no internet). I will describe them, and what I did with them on that Sunday evening, in the next and final entry.