I feel fulfilled, and consider myself lucky, to have witnessed my first Handfasting ceremony. Kurt and Lori jumped the broom this afternoon. They were tied to a maypole. It was beautiful.

I spent a lot of time with Martin and his new boyfriend, Trevor. Phillip had to go home early, because of a migraine headache, and that wasn't good, but it allowed me more time to be with Martin. (Phillip and I arrived in separate cars, me in a Flexcar, because Phillip was a Democratic delegate.) I like Martin a lot. It's easy for me to talk to him.

Life was good to me today.

The May 2004 issue of The Sun arrived in the mail today. My Second Chances story is in it. So, now I know what it feels like to be a published author. It feels good - really good - great. It also feels a little unreal. Version 1 of the story exists as two separate posts in this blog. Version 2 exists as a graft of those two posts into one, flowing narrative, branching off into side thoughts here and there. Version 3 is the highly edited version, trimmed down to the heart of the idea - it's the published version.

I find myself almost afraid to use our new, pre-paid, cellular phone. I'm expecting a call this morning, and we have dial-up internet access and only one phone line, so I forwarded our "land" phone to our "cell" phone. That cost us 1 unit. (One unit = one minute, rounded up.) And what if the call comes, how many more units will it use up?

This may not be a bad way of thinking, though. It reminds me of an article I read, a long time ago, in Wired magazine about the Amish and technology. Contrary to popular belief, the article said, the Amish, in general, are not against 20th century technology, they're just cautious of its effects. The article told a story of an Amish community that decided to support itself by making furniture to sell to tourists, since farming was no longer profitable. In order to make enough furniture to meet the demand, the elders in the community authorized the use of electric woodworking tools, with the stipulation that the electricity be provided by gasoline-powered generators, and not from the local power company. The reasoning behind this was that whenever the electricity ran out, it would require a long trip to town to buy more gasoline, and therefore the individual would have to think carefully about how important that electricity use is, and would be less likely to use it for something frivolous.

It's just a shift in the paradigm for me - a new way of thinking. But in order for this experiment to work, in order for us to truly know if a pre-paid plan is more or less cost-effective than a monthly plan, we need to use our new cell phone like we used our old cell phone.

This has been a month for endings. Well, this has been a year for endings - but it's been this month especially. This morning, I cancelled our monthly cellular service. (I don't think the customer service guy had seen many accounts as old as mine.) Today, I said goodbye to my counselor. Today, Phillip told me that he closed his blog.

Phillip and I can't remember if it was 1997 or 1998 that we got our cellular phone. There were times before that when I thought a cell phone might come in handy - like the time I got stood up at Folklife (before I met Phillip) - but the idea of owning a cell phone didn't appeal much to either one of us. It was the big snow storm of '97 or '98, when it took me nearly six hours to get home from Everett and I had no way of contacting Phillip to update him on my progress, that we decided to get a cell phone for emergencies. I got what was, at the time, an amazingly great monthly rate from a well-known cellular service provider. And we got what was, at the time, a slim and light-weight cell phone.

The irony is that the one time we really needed the cell phone for an emergency, we were out of any cellular service area, and used a pay phone at a gas station.

The monthly rate is now only average. The cell phone is now bulky. But we've kept the plan, because we never get anywhere near our monthly minutes. We've kept the phone because, except for being old-fashioned, there was nothing wrong with it and we figured that landfills had enough old cell phones in them already.

But our six or seven year old cell phone is wearing out. It's a shame, but it would cost too much to repair it. The battery life is diminishing. (See January 10) The selection wheel is almost useless.

So, we're trying an experiment. We're dumping our monthly plan, and trying out a pre-paid minutes cellular plan. With it came a more stylish phone (smaller, anyway). The tricky part is going to be the fact that on a per minute basis, a pre-paid plan is more expensive, but with a monthly plan, we've paid for a lot of time that we never used.

Of course, for us, a cell phone is nice to have, but it has never been a necessity.

We'll see.

I enjoyed Worlds' End, especially the enigmatic ending with its hint of something to come, but I do enjoy the Sandman stories that deal directly with the Endless better.

I'm making my way through The Sparrow whenever I have some free time. The Two Towers, meanwhile, had been put on the nightstand for awhile, only because The Sparrow is a library book with a return date. I haven't had much success trying to read those two books simultaneously, so The Two Towers will wait.

A friend has emailed me. She read my last entry, and thought that one our sugar gliders has died. No, that hasn't happened, but I can see how it could be interpreted that way. I emailed her back and explained the entry.

I thought about deleting that last entry, and I thought about explaining it further. I don't want to do either, or at least not the latter at this time.

Gladden T Hart, Gladys Night, and Gladys Night's Little Pip, Squeak, are all doing fine and fighting over peanut butter in the next room.

Parting doesn't feel good at the moment it happens. In hindsight, there are sour grapes and you realize that it was for the best, and that you're really better off now. Then something physical happens by, like for instance a cardboard box, and the reality of it envelopes you.

Sadness.