Quick Notes

The door on the office fridge is broken. If you aren't careful opening it, it falls off, which is annoying.

My baby paladin is now 71, and is actually slightly stronger than the orc. Go go Kinnavieve!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I shall be baking pumpkin pies, and this year I will make sure Taylor's dog does not take a bite out of each one.

Thawing Out

Back in Texas. The cold front coming through today means that the high will only be 68 degrees. I can live with that.

Dating Report

So, I logged into Warcraft last night and immediately got several whispers asking how my dates had gone. Which was pretty cool – makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, knowing that people are interested. Especially after such a long time of struggling with feelings of loneliness and yet needing to keep my life hidden from the outside world.

But yeah, back to the dates. Or dates with training wheels. Or just getting together for a bit with a friend. Or however you want to look at it. They went great. I can't remember the last time I sat down at a restaurant with a single, attractive, available (at least theoretically) woman. I'm sure it happened once or twice in the last seventeen years. Must have. Just been so long I can't remember. But it was really nice. Good conversations, some good laughs, no awkward pauses. I felt relaxed and comfortable (most of the time – more on that in a minute), and I think I did a decent job of holding up my end of the conversations without dominating. Now, obviously, Bell's been a very good friend for over six months now, and Steph and I have been friends for more than half our lives, so unless I somehow fucked the evening up with grandiose fuckosity, things were pretty much guaranteed to be at least okay, so that took a lot of the pressure off. But everything went a lot better than just okay, which is going to help a lot with the not freaking out if and when I get an opportunity to go on a date with someone who isn't a friend yet.

Well, I kinda did have a couple of "oh crap, I shouldn't be doing this, should I?" moments. And I had to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that no, I wasn't doing anything wrong, that it was all okay. No one was gonna get mad or think I was a jerk or anything. And then it passed and I was relaxed and happy again. Knowing I was with a friend helped.

One thing I'm going to have to work on, I realize, is getting used to very different rules on physical contact. After years of marriage, I'm pretty used to it being able to just reach out to the woman I'm talking to and stroke her hair or touch her knee or whatever, because she's my wife and it's okay. And all three of the relationships I've had in my life started with some degree of physical intimacy before moving on to dating. But with a woman I'm just getting to know, it's obviously going to have to start with pretty much minimal contact, and stay that way until …. I dunno what. But something. Like I said, gonna have to work on this at some point.

Steph told me before we said goodbye that she expects monthly reports on my dating progress, although she won't be grading me. At first. Oh, and she suggested I try meetup.com as a starting point for creating a real-life (as opposed to on-line) social life. So I checked it out a bit, and found a few groups that look interesting. So we shall see.

Addiction

So, I'm at the local mini-market the other day with my sister, 'cause I wanted to have some Diet Coke while I'm staying with her. And she asks, "Do you want one or two two-liter bottles?"

"Four"

"Four??!?"

"Yeah, four. What?"

Need More Warm

Cold Pennsylvania is cold.

Four Martinis Later....

... I feel pretty mellow. And sleepy.

Had dinner with my sister and her husband at their favorite martini bar. Apparently dinner is half-price saturday night, which weren't bad at all.

Talked a lot about dating with them, and before that with friends and my therapist. I was pretty freaked out the other night when I wrote that post - eHarmony is a scary, scary place. We WILL find your SOUL MATE in just SIX WEEKS if only you will TELL US EVERYTHING about YOU RIGHT NOW. Holy frack that was too much for someone like me who wants something, just not sure what. But I'm feeling much calmer about the subject now. Still confused and uncertain, but calm.

Some things I have learned and/or concluded:

While on a date, do not ask a woman what color underwear she has on.

Socialize more in real life - join some sort of club or organization where meeting women happens often.

Asking a woman out for a cup of her preferred caffeinated beverage is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

Offering to fly to Chicago to go out for a cup of her preferred caffeinated beverage would probably be creepy and unadvisable.

Brett has in some sense been dating various guys for the past ten years. She would never call it that, and until now I haven't either. But looking back, there's always been some guy who needed her help, or would come over to help with some project like chainsawing trees or whatever, and after they'd talk and get some coffee or lemonade or whatever. Sounds a lot like what I'm contemplating now.

Dating 20-year-old college students when you're a preofessor and they're your students is wrong on so many levels. Dating 20-year-old college students when you're just a regular 40-year-old guy apparently may or may not be wrong, depending on whom you talk to and what kind of relationship you're talking about.

I'm having dinner with two different single women this week, both of whom are very dear to me. Excellent opportunities to get used to being in social situations with women while at the same time feeling perfectly safe just being myself. 

I are very sleepies. Nite nite!

On a Brighter Note

Just got back from the grocery store. Freezer is now fully stocked with popsicles.

Yeah, yeah, and some real food too.

Dating

Is it proper for a married man to date? It certainly doesn't feel proper. I mean, if I were to be totally up front about my current situation - separated, doesn't see any real hope of reconciliation but not yet ready to file for divorce, still in love with my wife even though living with her made me miserable - I have no doubt that any woman with a bit of sense would split post haste. Who would want to get entangled in that mess? Even at a casual, have dinner from time to time level. And being anything other than completely open is not acceptable.

On the other hand, pretty much all I know about dating comes from sitcoms, where everyone is young and beautiful and has great clothes and homes they couldn't possibly afford. Not the most authoritative source....

Thinking about it, there ought to be other people in similar situations, yes? Maybe a little farther down the path, but not ready to jump in the deep end. Or even the shallow end. Or any more than sit on the edge and dangle their toes in the water for a minute.

I tried looking into on-line dating services just now. Holy crap, was that intimidating. After skipping over the ones which weren't applicable (services for ethnic groups, religious affiliations, homosexuals, swingers, millionaires, etc.) pretty much everything I looked at was promising single women serious about a relationship looking for single men serious about a relationship. That's not me, at least not now. Possibly not for a long time. If I were to go this route, and I ain't saying I am, what I'd be looking for would be something with other people like me - confused, trying to start over and not wanting to take more than tiny steps and utterly clueless about how to do so. One would think there's some sort of market for that, yes? Gonna take more than a five-minute search to find it, apparently.

Or should I just wait until my situation is more resolved, and maybe it'd be easier. And proper.

This Got Nothing To Do With Nothing ...

... it's just irked the heck out of me for years now. So I'm gonna bitch about it.

It's the TV ads for those drugs to help guys have erections: Viagra, Cialis, that other one. Have you noticed that the actors in these ads are getting younger? Lately, the guy look like they're in their late 40s, with a wife who looks 10 years younger. It's one of those creeping things. Now these drugs were developed for men in the 70s and 80s who have real medical issues. I totally sympathize with those men. But, in their 40s? Give me a break. I'm 40, and everything works just fine. "Dude, I can't get it up as long and as often as I could when I was 18" is not a valid excuse to start taking prescription meds.

Nor do I believe the only reason this middle-aged couple is not having hot sex in the kitchen right now, or some other room of the house (or the outdoor deck with his and her bathtubs - wtf is up with that?) within 36 hours, is because the sink just spontaneously asploded. Sinks don't do that (and if they did, it sure as hell wouldn't be that funny). Teenaged daughter and her friend walk in, dog tells you he's gotta be taken on a walk or he's gonna go in the living room, oh crap dinner's burning - those would be believable.

It's Over

I really, really have got to figure out how to accept this and move on with my life. Whenever we talk, there's always "I need to do X" or "I have to do Y - I don't have a choice". And these are the same things they've always been - her farming operation or volunteer work at the school or pretty much anything that isn't about trying to repair our relationship. Nothing's changed, and it never will. 

I Need A Vacation

Been feeling stressed a lot lately. Between work issues, money issues, family issues, and warcraft issues, I haven't been having a lot of fun lately. Fortunately, in eleven days I'm flying up to Philadelphia to visit my sister. She's gonna take a few days off work, we're gonna watch movies and eat junk food and drink, I dunno, maybe margaritas. It's gonna be pure hedonistic sloth, and I'm gonna love it.

My sister and I have always gotten along well in our strange, weirdling way. Periodically one of us will break out a quote from something we saw as kids, the other will give the appropriate response:

"Plahsmah!"
"Dawg plahsmah!"

or,

"And you, how long have you been a robber?"
"Four foot one, sir."
"That long, eh? Jolly good."

or,

"Were you born this stupid, or did you take lessons?"
"I took lessons!" (indignantly)

We find this utterly hilarious, and of course everyone around thinks we are raving lunatics. Which is the best part of all.

I'm also going to take some time to visit a couple of friends while I'm up there. One of them was my best friend in college, since about the second week of freshman year, and she and I have kept more or less in contact over the years. We occasionally manage to be in the same place at the same time, and that's always good fun. The last time we saw each other was I think 10 years or so ago (eep! too long, too long!). When I sent her an e-mail letting her know I'd be around and asking if she wanted to get together for dinner, her response was "Dude! even if I had plans, I'd cancel them", which made me feel pretty good.

The other friend I'm going to see is my friend Bellwether, whom I've never met before. It's one of those internet-age on-line e-mail, IM friendships, that started with leaving comments on each other's blogs, then we started doing some stuff in Warcraft, then we started getting to know each other as regular people, outside of gaming. I've really come to appreciate not only her wit and her creativity and her utter unpredicatbility, but also her support when things get rough. It's going to be great to meet her and see her face and get to know her without the limitations of chat windows and text messages. But I gotta say I'm a little nervous too. What if I turn into a tongue-tied dweeb? What if I come across as boring in real life? Or even worse .... old? I know it's going to go great and I'll be really glad I did make it happen, it's just my nature to have unreasonable worries.

Anywho, 11 days 'til vacation!

"And you, how long have you been a robber?"

:: silence ::

"Jolllllly good."

Some Dogs Like To Go For A Walk

Mine prefers to go for a drag...

Voting

I voted today for president, for the fifth time in my life. 

I feel no allegiance to either major political party. Nor do I fit the labels of "liberal" or "conservative". I believe that we need more nuclear power, that the government should stay out of people's bedrooms, churches, and doctor's offices, that a modest national debt is a good thing, that we need a strong defense, that we need to protect species like polar bears and bald eagles and mountain gorillas but I couldn't care less about amphibians. I believe in hiways and free trade and embryonic stem cell research and progressive tax rates and giving people to save more and consume less.

In 2000 I was prepared to vote for John McCain, but he dropped out of the race before my state's primary.

In 2004 I heard Barak Obama speak, and thought "Holy crap, that man's going to be president someday."

Political campaigns are nasty, dirty, brutish events which leave all aspirants sullied. This has always been the case, going back at least to the ancient Athenians and probably long before them. It is unpleasant, but inevitable, and I accept this. What I Can. Not. Accept. is members of one campaign referring to citizens of this country as un-American, just because they have differing views on some issues. That they don't live in "real America". That they are anti-America. That is an attack on patriotic citizens, an attack on me, and an attack on the principles of democracy. It is an act worthy of Joe McCarthy, or the instigators of the salem witch trials. And it has cost their candidate my vote.

He may not have crossed over the line himself, but if he cannot govern his own campaign, how can he govern this nation?

Warcraft QQBBQ

So, like I said, Shadow Priests got majorly changed in the vew Version 3 of World of Warcraft, leaving me with a very well-geared character that I just don't enjoy playing any more. I've tried it, and it's just not fun for me. So I've been working hard to level up my paladin. She's only three levels away from Outland now, 15 from the cap, with two-and-a-half weeks to fo til the expansion. And I've been enjoying playing her. It looks like I just flat enjoy melee classes over casters - warriors, rogues, shaman, and now pallies.

Problem, though, is there's a lot of fun stuff going on right now. Headless Horseman, Achievements, and now the Scourge Invasion. But leveling takes time. A lot of time. So pretty much, I'm having to watch these things go on around me, without participating. Which is getting frustrating.  I'll be really glad when the expansion comes out, and I'm doing the same stuff as everyone else.

Okay, QQ off now.

Trials of Separation

My therapist thinks I should date other women. Be open to the possibility of intimacy with them too. Buy some really nice sheets for my bed, she told me one time. But definitely accept that reconciliation with Brett is not likely, and that she and I both know that I'd be miserable again if I moved back without Brett making big changes to how she behaves toward me.

I don't feel okay with the idea of dating. I went on a few dates when I was single, twenty years ago, but none of them led to anything. Might have been a second date or two, but I can't remember any third dates. Instead all of my relationships (a grand total of three) stared with friendship, then became physical, and then we got around to dating. Doing things in the more traditional order is a little intimidating. And then there are the implications. Going on dates with other women would mean giving up more of my unfounded optimism that still believes in the possibility that it can be worked out. 

Brett wants to reconcile. She flat out told me so last night. I'd gone over to the house for dinner and afterwards we played cards and thoroughly embarassed Taylor by giving her The Talk Part 3: Birth Control. We did a real good being a team, making it clear that we both felt this stuff was no big deal and that we expected her to put this information to use. After Taylor went to bed we talked some, and I said what I wanted was to be together but to be happy, and that I thought that would only be possible with more therapy, and she told me she wanted me to come back, and we ended up making out on the living room sofa. We have been much more physically affectionate these past two months than in recent years, and it feels so good. I love her, she loves me, and we want so much to be close.

But, it's not that easy.  Her instincts are still screwed up - sooner or later we'll have a difference of opinion, and she'll call me a loser and a jerk for having opinions or feelings different from hers. We'll agree to do something in a particular way, and then she'll go and do it her own way and be totally baffled as to why this bothers me - after all, it doesn't bother her. And we'd be right back where we were a few months ago, miserable and stressed and desparate for a way out. This just will not work.

And what do I want?

I don't know. I'm happy right now, happier than I've been in a long time. And I don't want to give that up. And I don't want to start any new commitments, just yet. But, keeping things in limbo might not be fair to Brett and Taylor, and possibly me. So, I just don't know. Wish it was simpler.

Coolest Damn Game EVAH!

Also known as mopping the floor, for those of us who are not six month old puppies.

Warcraft Frustrations

So, version 3 of World of Warcraft is scheduled to go live in a few days, with major reworks on combat rules, the roles of different classes and talent builds. Minor changes too, like pets no longer taking up valuable bag space and hairstyling available in all the cities. All in preparation for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, which is due to hit next month. There's a lot to be excited about.

But I'm not.

My main character the past six months has been a Shadow Priests. Spriests play a useful role in raiding - their Vampiric Touch spell causes the damage they do to monsters is returned to their allies in the form of mana, giving them the ability to cast more spells and do more damage without running out of mana. During a long fight, a shadow priest can return more mana than there was to start with. Additionally, spriests debuff their target, making them more vulnerable to attack, particularly from shadow magic. To balance this, our ability to do damage is less than that of other caster classes, such as mages and warlocks. But it's a fair trade, and I've enjoyed being the guy that makes it easier for others to do their jobs.

But that's all going away.

With the new rules, spriests are supposed to be generic casters. There will remain some mana resotration ability, but it will be at a flate rate - independent of how effectively we're hurting the monster. And two other specs - survival hunters and retribution paladins - will also be able to provide that mana. And the debuffs on our targets? Gone. To balance this, our damage is supposed to be ramped up to the point where we can match anyone in the raid.

But Blizzard got the math wrong.

All of the beta testers and theorycrafters are reporting that spriests are still at the bottom of the pack, damage-wise. Blizzard has aknowledged that something is wrong and that they're still working on it, but the actual class designer has said nothing. And now weeks have gone by with no changes, no updates, no explanations. Meanwhile, other classes are getting what appear to be final tweaks to their abilities. 

People are getting excited about the changes. Lots of buzz on the internet. Not everyone getting stuff as cool as the rhino pets for hunters, but most folks are getting something. There are complaints about Blizz pushing some specs to play in a way different than they'd like. There have been a few outcries when one rule change causes real problems (holy pallies comes to mind) but those seem to be getting addressed fairly quickly. I don't think any of the other classes are outright not working as supposed to, except ours.

I know my guild would allow me to keep raiding, even if the shadow priest build remains broken.. Showing up on time, bringing supplies, following instructions, and not standing in the fire count for a lot. Possibly being a nice guy helps too. But I don't want to the weak link in the raid's chain. It has zero appeal. And since I can't tell what Blizzard will do or when they'll do it, I'm no longer willing to wait on them to fix the problem of crappy dps. I've created a paladin, and I'm focusing on getting her leveled as fast as possible. I'd like to get to level 70 before the expansion, but even if I only get as fas as 58 or so I'll be ahead of the new Death Knights, and that should be enough to be at 80 when we start the new raids.

But it's really frustrating to hear the buzz and excitement going on around me, and not feel a part of it.

Things

Things I now have that I didn't before:

• mop
• ladle (needed for making proper pancakes!)
• toilet brush
• up-to-date vehicle registration

Things I still need to get:

• Waffle iron (even one that doesn't make Mickey Mouse waffles)
  
• small trash can
• cheese knife
• vehicle inspection
• nail clippers
  

Spontaneous Human Combustion

When you're a computer simulation of the inside of a car to see if the air conditioning is keeping the driver comfortable, and the computer reports that his skin temperature is approximately 10,000 degrees, you know something is not right.

I Wants A Strawberry Milkshake

Used to be in the movies, the way they let you know two people had just had sex was to show them lying in bed, with the Amazing Bifurcated Bedsheet that covered her up to the armpits but him only up to the waist, enjoying cigarettes. Not being a smoker, I've never felt any desire to light up after a romp in the sack. I often get a craving for something else quite sinful, though much tastier - a strawberry milkshake. Don't ask me why, I just do. Earlier in my marriage, that was something we'd joke about sometimes - "wanna earn a strawberry milkshake tonight?" Of course, unlike cigarettes, you can't keep milkshakes on the bedside table and McDonalds won't deliver them, so most of the time I would just do without.

Fast forward to two nights ago. I took Brett and Taylor out to dinner, and we spent part of that discussing dating as part of our project have The Talk with the kid. We covered things like dating is fun, dating is normal, dating is a progression and everybody moves at their own pace. I think we successfully cleared up a misconception that guys always to turn into drunken louts by the fourth date - no idea where that came from - but that if something like that should happen she can always call either of us to come get her. I think it went okay. Then I took them home and Brett invited me in for a few minutes. This ended up turning into the two of us cuddling on the sofa watching tv. And after Taylor went to be, things got a lot more intimate.

It was romantic and passionate and really, really wonderful. And after, we lay there holding each other for maybe an hour. But eventually it was time for me to leave, and that was hard on both of us. Brett said she couldn't bear to see me go, and left the room while I was getting dressed. I was really tempted to spend the night, to pretend a little longer that everything was all right between us. But I moved out for real reasons, reasons which are just as valid as they were two months ago, and it just seemed like a bad idea. So I went back to my apartment, walked the dog, and went to bed.