assertive but not aggressive. confident but not arrogant. intelligent but not lofty. protective but not possessive. affectionate but not overbearing. simplicity-loving but not simple-minded. honest but not without tact. agreeable but not spineless. sensitive but not overemotional. great listener. respectful. kind. laughs easily. the list goes on. this is ara. the more i get to know him the more i'm so very impressed that one human being seems to have developed such a keen balance between all these traits. given, i've known him all of two weeks, but the more we talk and hang out the more i'm convinced that he's even better than i initially gave him credit for. the more i find out that my number 1 concern from last week's post may not be warranted.

which kind of scares me. we just get along so well. we spend hours at a time just talking. i can do no wrong in his eyes. seriously. the other night i was over at his house hanging out and i went to the bathroom and came out, forgetting to zip my fly (haha rebekah :). and i couldn't be sly about trying to fix the problem-- i mean i think it was just pretty obvious. so i decided that i would suffer the humiliation and just say something stupid like "yeah... zipping my fly might be a good thing" and he doubled over laughing. but not because he thought i was a dork. he just thought it was hilarious. he thinks i'm the funniest person alive. he's proud of me. he gets excited about introducing me to family and friends because he's just so proud to be associated with me. he's always concerned about my comfort and safety. he was telling me about the day we met. he didn't say "you were hot." he didn't say "you were beautiful." he said, "you got out of your car and i just noticed that you glow. the way you carry yourself, the way you speak, the way you interact with people. you just glow." that's one of the highest compliments i've ever been paid.

it scares me because i do care about him but i'm kind of in non-commital mode right now. maybe because the crap with rock star isn't all that far removed and i don't want ara to be an emotional crutch. which i don't think he is but i just don't want to put him in a position to be. maybe because i'm leaving for three months. maybe because i want to focus on other things this summer. maybe because i just want to be boyless for awhile. maybe because i'm scared i'll break his heart. he's not foolish enough to directly talk long term when we've known each other such little time, but you can tell what he's thinking by his word choices... "you've never been ice skating? maybe we can go in the winter..." he looks at me with i-think-i-could-marry-you eyes and i just think oh ara, guard your heart. i don't know how to deal with this right now. guard your heart. then we exchange a hug and we both are compelled to remark on how much we enjoy the other's company, and one of us leaves. and so goes the dilemma.

in other news. i need to tell you that today at work we started something new. one of our toffee almond bars, formerly the fantasy bar, formerly the english toffee bar, formerly the artist formerly known as prince... seriously we've changed the name of this pastry a dozen times. but that's okay because it is the most heavenly 2X3 inch piece of food you've ever had. anyway, one of the bars was laying on a plate in the pastry case, horrifically mangled. of course we couldn't sell a melting, broken, sad-looking pastry, so we marked it out and decided to experiment. mike had the idea of throwing it into the blender with some of our frappuccino base mix. and it was grand. tasted like a cookie dough frappuccino. we decided that it would be great to make a blended frappuccino beverage that featured each of our pastries. next up: the oat maple scone. don't tell patrick. :)