Every time I turn down my screen's brightness I think of my first boyfriend. I generally just remember the moment, but sometimes I reflect on the relationship as a whole. To be honest, I'm not sure what I had thought or felt at the moment, because I think my memory might be slightly skewed by my perspective on the whole relationship. We were hanging out in a hallway in our high school watching something on my computer when it started to die.

I turned down the brightness on my screen and said, "I heard this saves your battery." The concept had made sense to me, but I figured he would be able to confirm it.

"Oh really?" He said, surprised. "Where did you hear that?" Even with my strong taste for sarcasm, I didn't catch that he wasn't serious. I think I responded with someone's name but questionably as if I didn't want to give them away. He had made it sound like the most absurd thing he had ever heard.

Eventually, he told me that it was indeed true and he was just joking. But that tone has always stuck with me. It was so condescending like he was laughing at a child who had learned an adult word or advanced topic.

"Oh really, little child, what do you know about the Krebs cycle?"

The only boyfriend I've ever had that did not give me a condescending tone is the one I married. As I write romances, that's one of the main things I try to focus on. The male doesn't have to be a condescending ass. It's not cool and it's not cute.

Though... I have had a storyline on my mind that would involve a major age difference. A younger woman and an older man. A few years ago, I would have never considered it. Probably because of my aversion to condescending relationships, but this doesn't necessarily need to be that, I just have to be careful. I feel like I go through phases and I think the older guy thing is another phase.

At first, I was thinking, this could just be a stand-alone book. But then me, being me, I tried to come up with a way to connect it to the series I have in mind. Like we can't just do simple. It has to be this giant thing I don't know if I'll ever achieve.

There is a shimmer of hope though. I just started a Mark Twain book and it mentioned he was 30 and had just gone through several jobs, trying to find something he was good at. I'm just 1 year over that. Plenty of time.

Photo this week: view from inside the large barn of my grandparent's house over looking the farmhouse