Dear Paint, I long for the leisurely days spent in your company, you know how I love you. I also know you love to be told why I love you, let me count the ways. I love you when you allow me to explore your flexible, buttery suppleness. Sometimes I love to just watch you. I see the ways that you respond to the caress of my brush. I marvel at how you respond to the trials you are given. When you are spread thin, I see how you strive to maintain your integrity under pressure. When you have the time to thickly apply yourself, all of your lavishly rich beauty begins to gleam in a satiny smooth and radiating surface. I find such joy in the memory of you draped in beautiful colors that flow across your surface like rivers of shimmering reflective skies. I even miss your unique fragrance, and find both thoughts of fondness and frustration flooding my mind whenever I catch a whiff of your presence. I guess there is always the struggle in a good love affair, like the time you succumbed to the influence of the evil hydrogenated oil and refused to preform your duty in our relationship. I banished you from my presence for a time. It was a dark time in our liaison; you caused me to almost lose faith in you. Then there was the time we struggled together to discover your allergic reaction to certain plastics, solvents, zinc, moisture and wax. I ask your forgiveness for my part in exposing you to those things. It was good to learn of your unexpected response before too much damage was done. I pledge dear one, that I won’t be subjecting you to that environment again, our relationship is far too dear to me to risk it. Yet you are ever forgiving, willing to bend to my every desire. I marvel at your many and varied character traits; your gifts of creative expression are truly inspiring to me. At times you are like a gourmet chef, it is ever a thrilling surprise to observe the blending your many personalities into constantly new and interesting combinations. Your soft creamy texture under the pressure of my brush is ever obedient, ever eliciting a desire to spend more time with you. We shall go on like this for many more years I believe, as I am committed to a long term relationship with you. Your faithfulness is inspiring; I know you will never embellish a story overmuch. I can trust you to be true when startled, just as I know you will be firm and unmovable when I leave you unattended. I find great pleasure in the memory of our creative works, like offspring, that are etched into the story of my life. The thoughts of spending time with you next week has been joyous upon my mind, as I know that together through our creations we shall again tell stories that inspire and uplift. Until then, all my love, LJC