Monday on Bougyman's Ramblings

Not Much, Just Heaven

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:48 -0500

Friday came easy—
Mari,
Coal,
me,
B,
all of us settling
into the same little patch of weekend.
Saturday took us to the Chattahoochie,
Coal giving Orca undue bravery,
while B and Mari gave her that first taste of the river.
Sunday belonged to Orca and me—
lazy,
quiet,
doing absolutely nothing
with impressive consistency.
No Mari,
just a day allowed
to stay a day.
Then Monday arrived,
marvelous without making
a big production of it.
Shark Week beginning.
Buckhead Restaurant Week on the menu.
Clark’s Steakhouse—
finally moved from
_a place we’ve both been wanting to try_
to
_a place we did._
Lovely steak,
the kind of dinner
that makes waiting this long
feel a little silly.
Then Craig,
apparently head of dessert enforcement,
forced a cheesecake upon Mari as we left.
Not suggested,
not offered,
Cheesecake: mandatory.
Monday still had room.
Irby’s next—
Doug,
Brit,
the crew,
all of us shooting the shit
while the night took its time
deciding when to end.
Around midnight, Mari’s Lyft arrived.
One absolutely lovely kiss—
the kind that doesn’t ask
for a better ending.
Then she was off.
Except Monday still wasn’t finished.
A few last messages—
some recap,
some goodnight,
somebody saying
she’s obsessed with me.
And now Tuesday
carries a strong hint
that tonight might have Mari in it, too.
No promises, just hoping.
On paper:
friends,
dogs,
a river,
one lazy day,
steak,
mandatory cheesecake,
Irby’s,
a midnight kiss,
one last message.
Doesn’t sound like much.
From where I’m sitting—
not much,
just Heaven all around,
with a strong little hint of more tonight.

When Can I?

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:45:55 -0500

Monday began without me—
a song waiting patiently
until I woke late,
body still somewhere back in Vegas time.
Sent the morning voice memo,
and before I had properly loaded,
her answer came back:
“When can I?”
Clipped.
The rest of the question missing,
its intent entirely intact.
The sentence looked unfinished…
it compiled anyway.
Seconds later:
“See you, lol.”
And Monday,
just like that,
had somewhere to go.
Mine was packed tight—
the stubborn kind of day
that won’t make room
just because something better asks.
So I answered like an adult:
“I’ll be done at 5.”
Her: “That’s so far away.”
Five o’clock had been
a harmless little number
until she said that.
Then the afternoon opened wide—
all distance,
dry light,
horizon taking its sweet time
getting any closer.
We went on with our day,
the thread kept light—
nothing said hard enough
to pull five any nearer.
When it finally wandered in,
I sent her own question
back across:
“When can I?”
Same three words,
traveling the other direction.
Then an hour went by.
Then another.
I assumed a nap
and let the silence be.
Until—
“I’m Up!”
“Lyft me?”
Two words, times two
and all that distance
became a route.
My hands couldn’t have moved faster.
Got Orca walked, set up camp at Irby’s—
Braves–Padres on one screen,
Dodgers–Phillies on another,
two games making their way toward a final
while my eyes kept finding Irbys entrance.
Mari arrived just in time,
shifting Irby’s center of gravity
the second she cleared the door,
leaving me scrambling for enough emergency math
just to stay upright in my chair.
A quick bite,
a couple beers,
and two finals later:
Dodgers lost.
Braves won.
The scoreboard called it even.
Then Mari’s eyes lit up
with that look I can’t resist—
“Check, Please”
No replay needed.
Back to 325,
Orca’s obligatory walk—
some processes don’t get skipped.
Then an hour or so
of couch quality control—
a proper load test,
conducted under real-world conditions.
It held.
We settled into cuddles
until the alarm at 12:30
called for the Mari exit—
tidy,
quiet,
efficient.
This time,
Orca and I walked her down
all the way to the Lyft.
A few “sweet dreams” messages later—
Mari back in her bed with Coal,
Orca and I back in ours.
Both sides of the thread
quiet at last.
“When can I?”
The sentence stayed unfinished.
Monday didn’t.

The Link She Left

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 07:47:48 -0500

Monday didn’t leave much room
for romance,
or theater,
or even dinner
with any real ambition behind it.
Work started early,
then kept finding new pockets of itself
long after the reasonable part of the day
had already packed up and gone home.
By the time the keyboard finally went quiet
around eight,
there was no performance left in me
except the small one required
to stand up,
find food,
and pretend the body had not become
a badly managed spreadsheet.
So theater night became couch night.
Ava was there,
a quick bite happened,
and whatever grander plan
the evening might have had
surrendered itself to binge-watching
and the kind of sleep that doesn’t need persuasion.
It wasn’t a bad ending.
It was just smaller
than the day had been
before exhaustion got the deciding vote.
The thread with Mari stayed light,
mostly because I had very little
left to throw across it.
That was on me this time.
No mystery.
No signal to decode.
Just a packed Monday
doing packed Monday things
until even the wanting
had to sit quietly for a minute.
Maybe that’s okay.
Maybe not every day
has to carry the thread
at full brightness
to prove the wire is still live.
Wednesday was already out there,
glowing in the distance
like something almost agreed upon,
which isn’t the same thing as a promise.
I know better
than to treat it
like a foregone conclusion.
The universe does what it does.
To us,
around us,
through us.
We just live it,
revise the route,
keep the thread moving
when the thread is willing,
and try not to make a god out of the calendar.
Still—
anticipation has its own engine,
and mine was running somewhere under the tired.
Not loud,
not useful,
just…
there.
Tuesday opened softer.
No speech,
no explanation,
no essay
from the other side of the morning.
Just one link from Mari.
“Delirious.”
The old rambling—
a dreamscape.
The memory-of-a-memory one,
from back when the writing
still carried more shimmer
than furniture,
more fever
than logistics,
more impossible beach
than weekday planning.
She didn’t annotate it.
She didn’t have to.
A link can be a message
when the right person leaves it
in the right doorway.
I hearted it,
of course,
because some responses
aren’t choices.
They’re reflexes.
The little red proof
that yes,
I saw what she left there.
I saw the old dream
walking back into the morning
without knocking.
I saw the way a bare thread
could still hold voltage
if the one small thing
placed inside it
knew where to touch.
Monday had been packed
until it emptied me.
Tuesday began
with a link to delirium
that filled the empty spaces.
And Wednesday,
still not promised,
not _safe_
from whatever the universe
decides to do with its hands…
kept shining anyway.