I mentioned him last Monday: Anthony. Cute Chicago triathlete and my summer-temporary-boyfriend. It was a title we both agreed upon. We had others (BBB and LAB, to mention but two of them), but this one made sense. He was my boyfriend during my two weeks in Chicago. We had dinner together every night for a week, we went out or stayed in together each night after dinner. We talked in the morning and kissed each other goodbye. We took tours together, we went to bars together, we walked half of Chicago hand in hand or arm in arm. Boyfriends, right?

The temporary thing was a joke at first. A tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging that this can't be anything serious because I'd be leaving in 10 days. Except it was serious. He makes me laugh. He makes me smile... constantly. He knows when to say the right thing to cheer me up and he knows how to listen when I just need to vent.

And it's all magical, probably because we knew there was nothing to push for. I can't expect anything from him because I'm moving on from Chicago to Miami and then San Francisco. He cant try to change me because I'm only here a short time. No expectations. And it worked beautifully.

So as I sit in my Miami hotel room and Joel surfs the internet from my hotel room bed, I wonder how it will be tomorrow when I'm gone from Anthony and Joel is gone back to Ft. Lauderdale... and I face my time alone again.