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In addition to being Tim's birthday, today (which is to say Tuesday the 12th) was notable for a couple of other reasons. For example, it was also Beth B's birthday.

Also, it was a day when chocolate unexpectedly appeared at my door, twice.

Some of the chocolate was because I ordered some chocolate from a catalog for a fundraiser for my neighbor's daughter's school. The rest of it was from Mary Anne: a box of Vosges chocolate truffles that appeared on my doorstep this morning, packed with two extremely solidly frozen ice packs and a plastic bag full of dry ice, because Vosges is adamant about keeping chocolate fresh. I confess I was a trifle dubious about some of the flavors, but the one I've had so far was delicious.

And why, you may ask, was Mary Anne sending me chocolate?

Because today was our ninth anniversary.

I haven't yet finished the present I'd promised her, which involves sorting through nine and a half years' worth of email. And despite an early start on it this morning, I didn't manage to put together the journal entry I was planning, and now it's an hour into tomorrow and I'm exhausted, so it'll have to wait a while longer.

But I do want to attempt a quick placeholder entry for now, while I can still plausibly consider it to be more or less the 12th.

Though we didn't really talk about it publicly, things between M and me were pretty rough for quite a while last year and early this year. We're doing a lot better now, thank goodness. But thinking about that reminds me how fragile things can be between people, even people who care about each other and have years of history together.

So for now, I want to link to two things: a sestina that Mary Anne wrote for my birthday in 2001 (I think that may've been the first time anyone wrote a poem for/about me); and my anniversary entry from 2002.

Everything I wrote in that entry is still true. Especially this:

I love you, Mary Anne.

I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.