We have started identifying blatant fan service moments by calling them out.
He apologizes for swearing around me. It's really quite cute, as if I did not use the phrase fuckity-fucking fuck on a fucking fuck-stick myself every now and then.
Turns out he's Neutral Good, rather than Lawful Good. His internal moral compass just happens to align with Lawful a whole lot.
The phrase "You sat me down and watched me it" makes sense perhaps only in my head, but that is how I describe what it is that Darkside does to me with movies and so forth. I used this phrase in my outside voice, and he poked holes in it, but I still think that it is a perfectly useful phrase.
There is no galaxy hanging from Orion's belt that we could see in the night sky, although Orion was out bright and clear.
We spent just shy of four hours talking writing. I am feeling inspired and challenged and energized and the plot is beginning to click into place so beautifully. I have sent him two massive messages with the primary contents of the Cracked Phoenix universe, and I'm already reading through Book 1 and seeing how it is weak and needs a reimagining and shoring up. If I can see this after that conversation, while still half-asleep, I can only imagine how it'll seem after another conversation or three and a full tank of sleep and no heartache.
I will miss him so intensely. We have email, and phone, and of course I will come back to Phoenix to visit, but oh, the unimagined luxury of stretching out the words and ideas in front of someone who already knows how you think and can hammer on your ideas until they become new again, who reads the same books you like, who knows your tastes, who (treasure of treasures) trusts you with his own words and worlds. I had not known that my best friend could be this to me, too, until tonight. (All the worlds we've made; all we've been through.)
