update from sparkleup

writing/sawtooth/limerent-object/beats/02-meet-cute.html

@@ -23,13 +23,13 @@
 <p>I have long since acknowledged that, despite my ability to listen actively and to guide patients through therapy, I am insufferable. I do not mean to denigrate myself in this. It is a fact and I am comfortable with my role in life. I am autistic and comfortable with all that comes with that (indeed, it works to my advantage in my professional life as I work primarily with other autistic individuals). I have few friends outside of a professional context. I do not enjoy drinking. I am devoutly Catholic. I suspect, for some whom I met at university, even at the private school before that, that I am out of place for being so &lsquo;low&rsquo; a species in such lofty places as those, for such are the places for the cats and dogs of the world, not a coyote who has, in their mind, pried himself up from the blue-collar professions of his ancestors<sup id="fnref:ancestors"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:ancestors">2</a></sup> or some imagined poverty.</p>
 <p>Along with all of this, however, has come with a necessary distance from romance and relationships. This is another thing that I am comfortable with. The celibacy that was in my future as a priest was not a thing that I was in any way uncomfortable with, and when I moved on from that life I saw no reason to change that. I do not enjoy the word &lsquo;single&rsquo;, because that implies something &lsquo;less than&rsquo; in today&rsquo;s society. I am happy alone.</p>
 <p>I have, at various points in life, picked up a romantic twinge, and when I do, I cherish it. I will sit with that feeling and enjoy it, and then I will put it up on some shelf within me to be a part of my life, and yet in some way apart from it.</p>
-<p>It is not unlike praying in that sense: God is always a part of my life, and yet is apart from it. I do not subscribe to many of the modern evangelical takes on religion, wherein God is within you and Jesus in your heart, but something perhaps more conservative and old-fashioned. God is beside me, perhaps. Above me. He is with me, but not within me.</p>
+<p>It is not unlike praying in that sense: God is always a part of my life, and yet is apart from it. I do not subscribe to many of the modern evangelical takes on religion, wherein God is within you and Jesus in your heart, but something more conservative and old-fashioned. God is beside me, perhaps. Above me. He is with me, but not within me.</p>
 <p>Another way to look at this is perhaps that these feelings are embers, or the smoldering of paper that has not yet caught fire into a relationship. You can see the faint tint of red crawling along the fibers of the paper, and yes, I suppose that you could blow on it and coax it into something more, but better, for me, to watch it slowly consume the paper, enjoy the beauty of the ember and the delicacy of the ash it leaves behind, and then, once it has gone out, acknowledge that it has left me a new person.</p>
 <p>That, however, is not what Kay has done. She has flared into my life as a bright spark. It is not the slow crawl of smolder along paper but the bright flash of magnesium caught fire. Unstoppable. Undousable. Inevitable.</p>
 <p>This &mdash; this and joking about the fact that that we both have what sound like single letters for names, Kay and Dee &mdash; is why I brought her up to Jeremy, this brightly burning light in my life that has suddenly claimed me. This feeling is new. It&rsquo;s novel. I have had what I had assumed &lsquo;crushes&rsquo; were before, but to be smitten is a very new feeling for me, one that I do not quite know how to approach.</p>
 <p>Kay and I met during the last year of her undergrad and the first year of my graduate studies at UI Sawtooth. She had taken a job in the campus library to help pay her way through school, working in the interlibrary loan office, a service that I was starting to use more in earnest.</p>
 <p>That&rsquo;s four years gone now, though, and that these feelings were not in place soon after we met clouded my judgement when I started to pick up so intense a set of emotions. When one feels a yearning that saps one&rsquo;s strength, one expects that this is to be fairytale-level pining. Love at first sight. Smitten by looks. Utterly taken with the ways in which one speaks.</p>
-<p>But no, when I first met Kay, I had made a mental note that she was a conventionally attractive coyote, no-nonsense and to the point, an absent-minded dresser, and almost frighteningly competent. I read in her some of the same facets of autism that I see within myself, and I suspect much of her quiet efficiency stemmed from the fact that she, like me, often found herself feeling insufferable. It has taken me training and practice to soften my voice, to understand expressions, postures, and the vocal tics that make up people. I feel myself to be an empathetic person, a fact which drove me first to ministry and then to psychology, but to <em>actually connect</em> with those around me on an individual basis took effort.<sup id="fnref:maskingeffort"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:maskingeffort">3</a></sup></p>
+<p>But no, when I first met Kay, I had made a mental note that she was a conventionally attractive coyote, no-nonsense and to the point, an absent-minded dresser, and almost frighteningly competent. I read in her some of the same facets of an awkward social fit that I see within myself, and I suspect much of her quiet efficiency stemmed from the fact that she, like me, often found herself feeling insufferable. It has taken me training and practice to soften my voice, to understand expressions, postures, and the vocal tics that make up people. I feel myself to be an empathetic person, a fact which drove me first to ministry and then to psychology, but to <em>actually connect</em> with those around me on an individual basis took effort.<sup id="fnref:maskingeffort"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:maskingeffort">3</a></sup></p>
 <p>I freely admit that the ILL office was not necessarily the type of place where one focuses on exemplary customer service, but still, this did not seem to be something that Kay was interested in in the slightest. She was there to do her job, do it quickly, and do it well. After a few visits picking up and returning books<sup id="fnref:books"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:books">1</a></sup>, I decided that I would try to befriend her and find out how much we had in common.</p>
 <p>Was this some early expression of my feelings toward her? I do not know. I do not remember feeling in any way romantic toward her at the time, yet for me to deliberately seek friendship from someone was not a thing that I might otherwise have done. I do remember thinking at the time that had I asked her to talk over a coffee, that would have carried such connotations, so instead, the next time I had an order of books to pick up, I simply asked her major.</p>
 <p>For some reason, I remember that she had been in the middle of typing something when I had asked, claws clicking on the keys, and that she had stopped and blinked rapidly at the screen, and I imagined thoughts crunching out of gear within her head.</p>