Mr. Smith and I had lunch. We sat outdoors, and ate our expensive burgers, and contemplated life, the universe, and everything.

He'd started seeing Hannah again. He'd gone back to the dojo he'd quit, because the sensei seemed overly bloodthirsty.

"As a quitter," I teased him, "you really suck."

He shrugged. "I never really wanted to break up with Hannah," he admitted. "But she cheated on me; lied to me. She seemed to think that breaking up was the next step."

Funny, that. When we think of infidelity in relationships, men seem to come in for a lot of blame. Yet, I've seen statistics which seem to suggest that as many as half of all women cheat on their primary romantic relationship at some point durin their lives.

Of course, as a society, we also often forget that women are just as capable of domestic violence as men are. Look at reports from emergency rooms, some time.

Of course, you don't see adverts with pictures of a guy with a black eye posted on the subway, with statistics about how often women are responsible for domestic abuse.

After all, he probably had it coming, right?

Such things are the failure of looking at anything as a monolithic situation. If we look at anything as being all of a piece, we miss details.

If all infidelity is done by men, we don't notice that women have affairs. If all domestic abuse is committed by men, we don't see that men are also abused, that children are abused.

If "The United States" is all one block of people, marching in lock-step, we miss the fact that there are anti-war protestors standing on street corners, holding signs which read "No Blood for Oil!"

But then, they're probably just foreigners, anyway.

Sinfest is funny, and while occasionally sacreligeous, also has a deep current of "truth" running through it. He'll never get syndicated, because he's too honest, too rough around the edges for the conservative masses.

I was catching up on the strips I'd missed over the last couple of weeks when I stumbled across that one. It was a moment of syncronicity with some other things I've been thinking about, lately.

I've mentioned before that I've been known to sign up for yenta services, and usually balk when it comes to actually paying for the priviledge of talking to other people who have signed up.

The other day, I got a communication request from someone on one of them, but I really don't have the $60 to respond.

But...

She has a fairly unique name, and a fairly unique profession, and I managed to track her down. I have an email address for her.

Now I have a quandry.

Should I even try to contact her? She initiated a request for contact, but she did it thinking that I was the kind of guy who could afford the rather expensive service.

Plus, I'm afraid that I might seem somewhat stalkerish if I display that I have enough logic to track her down apart from that site.

Plus... do I even want someone to be involved with? Yes, I'm lonely. Yes, I'm sometimes unhappy being lonely.

But is there really room in my life, right now, for someone else?

sigh.

I've been in love.

(He writes, at three-thirty in the morning. He's up, because his stomach is bothering him; he's doing some work via telnet that his boss will never notice, nor give him any credit for).

I was in my early twenties when I met Rebecca. From the first time I saw her, I knew that I wanted to see more of her. We dated for several months, and I fell in love with her in that romantic, "you are the center of my world" sense.

In the end, she told me that she didn't even know why she kept in contact with me; that I was her pathetic, charity case friend.

I've been in love. I was in my mid twenties when I met Trish. From the moment I saw her, I knew that I wanted to spend a lot of time with her. We lived together for almost eight months, and at the end, she told me I was an ignorant bore.

I've been in love. I was in my early thirties when I met Amy. From the moment I saw her, I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life talking to her. In the end, she pointed out that I wasn't a nice, Jewish boy.

I do not think I will ever feel the Big Love again. I think that three shots is all anyone has a right to expect.

But... just once more would be nice.

And... if it could be arranged so that she felt the same way... about me... at the same time... that'd be great.

Thanks.

Visiting Equipment Girl stopped by my desk. "You want to go to lunch?" she asked.

Quadry. I really, really wanted to go. I'm really broke.

She offered to buy. I accepted, on the condition that, next time she was in town, she let me buy her lunch.

So we walked over to Brooklyn, and had a slice and a soda each, and talked.

We talked about hockey, about holidays, about her boyfriend.

Her job requires her to travel alot, and it's never planned in advance... it always seems to be last minute. She's gone for weeks, up to a month or so, at a time.

She says it's rough on the relationship.

I can only imagine.

She's really beautiful. She's easy to talk to. I think she's even interested.

But....

I wrote a little over a week ago about the party that brennabe invited me to as her guest, and how I met a beautiful, brilliant woman there, named Karen. I wrote about how I asked the party-goers in general if they'd be interested in going to see Goodfellas at the midnights, and how only Karen actually agreed to go.

She went home to change out of her costume before the movie, and met up with me there. I didn't have a costume to change out of, so I was there sooner, and bought tickets for both of us. The ostensible motive was that I didn't want to have to stand in line once she showed up. The real motive was more complicated.

Anyway, she showed up, and I gave her a ticket, and she frowned and asked me how much it was. I told her not to worry about it; that she could simply buy, next time. After a moment, I added, "Unless that really bugs you."

She indicated that it would be fine. We went in, sat down, watched a movie full of blood and gore and gangsters, and then came out. I walked her to her car, and she brought up the idea of seeing another movie together.

I agreed that it was desirable, and that, if it was going to happen, I needed some way of getting in contact with her. She gave me an email address, and when I got home, I wrote a note to that email address asking if she'd like to do the dinner and movie thing.

I got no answer.

I figured that maybe, just maybe, something had happened, and the note hadn't gotten delivered, or she'd meant to reply and got sidetracked, or... or something understandable. So, after a week went by, I dropped a second note to that email address.

So far, I've gotten no response. I looked her up today in the campus directory, and found a different email address listed for her. So I tried it.

If she doesn't respond, I'm going to give up. Even I can only obsess so much. I'm mystified, though... if she didn't want to talk to me, why did she bring up the topic of going out again?

Ugh.

I went to a party tonight. I didn't know anyone when I walked in... I'd gotten the invitaton from brennabe, who thought it sounded like the kind of thing I'd enjoy.

It was. It was a banned books party, and everyone there was a reader.

I talked too much, and made an ass out of myself talking about how great OAT was... to a guy who turned out to be her new boyfriend. Fortunatly, I didn't talk about her underwear.

And... I met a really incredible woman.

Her name is Karen. She's a grad student at the U. She's studying something that fascinates me. We talked about it a little bit. We talked about the bizare journey that my life has been.

I talked too much.

We went to the midnights, and saw Goodfellas, but, even though it was only the two of us, it wasn't an actual date... she didn't realize until fairly late in the evening that it was just the two of us who were going.

She's beautiful. She's smart.

And I really don't think she's interested.

But, then, as I told brennabe earlier, I don't know... I sometimes have a hard time reading signals from women.

I'd really like her to be interested.

I don't think she is.

Hey, mom... I met a nice, Jewish girl!

It turns out that dulcenaia wasn't actually standing me up... she had a horrible flossing accident.

(I've found it best not to ask questions... last time we were supposed to meet, she canceled because she had to wash her hair)!

Anyway, we got together, and had an awkward conversation. I felt like a Super-Sized Dork (want fries with that?) She didn't say much.

Oh, well.

For a while; I've been aware of dulcenaia for a while. She's a student at the same university I am, and occasionally writes an entry about how she's lonely, wishes she had more friends.

I thought that I would cultivate a friendship with her, as I did last year, with childofsnow.

We agreed to meet for coffee.

She stood me up.

I guess she wasn't all that interested in having more friends, after all, or if she was, she was hoping for someone younger and hipper.

I'm sitting here, watching an old project render on the Suns, playing with render time and large images. I'm thinking about life, the universe, and everything.

Not too teribly long ago, I admitted that there was a woman who had evinced interest in me. I also admitted that she broke two of my dating rules. To whit, 1) Never fall for anyone who lives further away than a city bus ride, and 2) Never fall for anyone who is already seriously involved with someone else.

Some of my readers may point out that I break the first of those rules (which is not my rule one... Rule One is: Never Get Involved With Anyone Crazier Than You) on a regular basis.

What's the problem, you may ask. Why do I fall for far-away women? Is it a lack of attractive, intellegent women in Tucson?

Well, no... Tucson is a university town. There is, I assure you, no shortage of attractive, intellegent, and, no doubt, even slightly kinky women here.

I just don't meet any of them.

My major social outlet is the computer. I sit in front of a computer all day, at work; I go home, and sit in front of a computer. Yes, I know, this is sad and even pathetic, but it's a fact of my life, so get over it.

And yes, I know, before anyone feels obliged to point it out, that by and large, women aren't attracted by my l33t typing skills.

Anyway, as I was saying, essentially the only women I meet are the ones who share this with me. And, if you meet a woman through the phosphor screen, the chances are better than not that she lives Someplace Else_TM.

It makes for a lonely existance, yes, but not unbearably so... usually.

Anyway, the point of all this was that there's this woman, who says she's interested in me, but who lives on the other side of the country, and is involved with another guy.

It's arguable how serious the involvement is. He lives a couple of hours away from her, by car, and only comes to see her sporadically. But he says he loves her; she's said in the past that she loves him.

So, you know, I'm not holding out much hope of anything really coming of this thing, of this interest she has in me; that I have in her.

Recently, I sent her a greeting card. Nothing much, really, just a little card with a vintage photo on it of two kids playing dress-up. Kind of cute. When she got it, she let me know, thanked me.

The other day, she wrote this long entry in her journal about how no one ever sends her anything in the mail except bill collectors.

Oh.

Well.

Okay, then.

Mixed messages really burn my soup, y'know? I mean... if you say one thing, but act in another way, which am I supposed to listen to?

Jana took me off her friends list. I've always maintained that people's friends lists are for them, and that no one has the right to tell anyone else who should or shouldn't be on their friends list, and that there could be nine thousand reasons why anyone would take you off theirs.

That said... I'm kind of confused. I found out we were broken up from an entry in her journal, and now, apparently, she doesn't even care enough about me, about my life, to occasionally glance at mine in passing?

Yeah, well.

When I was in my early twenties, stationed in Alameda, California, I fell in love with a woman named Rebecca. She later dumped me for the boyfriend previous to me, who she married.

A few years later, she got divorced, and looked me up. We resumed our friendship, and talked on the phone on a weekly basis, emailed daily... until she was stable again, and communication between us slowed down.

I protested, and she responded to my protest by telling me that I was her pathetic, charity case friend, and really, she was doing me a favor by talking to me at all.

Which is there mostly to say that it's my opinion that a big part of friendship is communication. You have to actually talk to people to be their friend, and on a fairly regular basis.

If you're not talking to them, if you're not communicating with them, they're probably not really friends.

Or lovers.

In other news, I found the correct equation for an ellipse, and tried it, and it worked right. I'll post pictures of the ship with the windows installed sometime soon, if anyone's interested.

Not tonight, though, 'cause tonight's D&D.

I talked to nekojin this morning. Ostensibly, she called me because she wanted to discuss a couple of aspects of tonight's D&D game, and gloat at me because she has a girlfriend, and I don't.

I spent several minutes saying "Uh-huh," while not really paying much attention to her descriptions of her sex life. She once commented that men seem to have strange, lace and lingerie, Penthouse magazine ideas about what lesbians do together in bed. If that's so, I've been disabused of most of them, by my friendship with Prudence. Thanks, Pru.

Finally, she got around to asking questions. What was this about a new girl? How did I feel about being dumped by auophir?

Well, I explained, first of all, I wasn't dumped, per se.

Was it my idea to break up? Well, uh, no. Was I pleased to not be dating Jana anymore? Well, uh, not really.

I was dumped, Pru asserted.

I argued that it wasn't so much that I was dumped, really, as that I smell like Campbell's beef barley soup.

While she was trying to figure that out, I talked more about the whole thing. No, I wasn't all that happy that Jana decided she was no longer interested in me. But what could I do about it? Weep and wail? Tear my hair and clothes? Bemoan my fate to the skies?

The simple fact is that Jana's not interested anymore, for whatever reason. I'm not going to pine. I've been a piner. I spent years pining after women who didn't love me. Rebecca, Melissa I. ... and nothing came of it.

That's one of the reasons why my Ms. Right Shopping List includes the trait "in love with me, and willing to show it." Well, okay, maybe not in those exact words, but read carefully, you'll see it.

Jana isn't.

It's that simple.

As for the new romantic interest... No, I'm not going to say much about her, beyond the fact that it's there. I have my reasons.

Yes, I'm interested in her. Yes, she's interested in me. No, I don't know a lot about her. Yes, we met online. Yes, I think that we could be friends as well as lovers. No, I don't really expect anything but pleasant flirtation to come out of it.

But, various people have been enthusing over this article about what schmoes nice guys are. So, once again, it seems that I'm actually a passive-aggressive schmoe.

Probably best if I just do the alone thing for a while.

I think I'm getting the hang of this dating thing. You just... you sit back and watch all these guys try to impress you in really... strange... ways, and then, I guess, you just pick the least disguisting of them.
--Lucy, If Lucy Fell

Remember... if they ladies don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
--Red, The Red Green Show

It's easier to get killed by a terrorist in America than it is to get married after thirty-five
--Sleepless in Seatle

Tom came by, and wanted to know if I felt like catching a movie. I did. Terry's with her mom, because her parents are in town this weekend, so Tom was at loose ends.

I kind of wanted to see K-19, but he talked me into seeing Reign of Fire instead. Not that I was hard to convence, since he was paying.

It was... okay.

I came home, turned on the television, caught If Lucy Fell which, so far, is turning out to be pretty darn good.

It's about relationships, about romance on the part of less than fully adept people. I, of course, am less than adept. Actually, when it comes to the whole romance thing, I guess you could call me a moron.

Or, I guess, that's not completely honest. I'm pretty good at the romance part. I'm a charming bastard. I can't help it, really. My father was a charming bastard. My uncle... maybe not so much a bastard, though definately charming.

So. I do really well at flirting. I do really well on first dates. I'm pretty good with parents.

I'm not so good on second dates.

By the third one, I'm peaked.

Maybe it's all about the fact that I have trouble believing that anyone could actually be interested in me. My behaviors, yes. The learned skills of romance, yes. The sex... yes.

But me?

P'shaw.

Maybe that's why I keep doing the internet romance thing. Maybe it's the thought that if she can't see me, can only see the behaviors, that somehow, there'll be something in it.

My parents have been together for... what? Fifteen years? Seventeen years? A lot. Of course, it's their third marriage to each other. They've been divorced twice.

My mariage lasted two years. It was the longest relationship I've ever been in.

Obviously, my parents know something I don't know.

How to get past the third date, maybe, or how to keep reinventing their relationship.

No, this isn't all rhetorical. There's a woman expressing interest in me, which is somewhat flattering, and somewhat exciting, and somewhat frightening.

Of course, she lives where it is completely and utterly impractical for us to actually see each other.

I don't know what it means. I don't know what to do about it. I don't know that I should do anything about it. I don't know that I should not do anything about it. I don't know....

perlandia wrote an article this morning about how glad she was to have paka there. I admitted to some jealousy, and she commented that she'd made a list some time ago, a sort of shopping list for what she wanted in a partner.

I have a list of my own, though I haven't presented it online in a while. Instead, I make comments like "Phoebe Buffet would be a good girlfriend for me," or "Lorelei Gilmore is my dream girl."

And while those are true, they're not particularly helpful. More truths... I don't want to be alone. I'm very tired of being lonely. I'm ready to meet Ms. Right. A partner for the rest of my life.

In no particular order, I want a woman who:

• at the beginning, will take a little bit of a risk, to let me know that she's interested; maybe will even persue me a little bit.
  
  
• believes in something outside of herself, and respects my beliefs and passions.
  
  
• will accept the things I do for her, and can give as well. Someone who isn't looking for a Father, who doesn't want to be my Mother.
  
  
• is in touch with her body, and comfortable in her body. Someone sexually aware and open.
  
  
• is interested in body piercing and/or tattooing.
  
  
• either knows, or wants to learn, ballroom dancing, who will go dancing with me on a regular basis.
  
  
• loves literature, reads for recreation, and thinks about what she reads. Being a Science Fiction reader is a bonus.
  
  
• enjoys the cinema and the theater.
  
  
• questions the world around her, and her place in it. Who asks how things work, tries to understand everything. Someone with an active curiosity.
  
  
• Will enjoy my body, and take an active and involved role in sex.
  
  
• someday wants to be a mother, either biological or adoptive.
  
  
• I can love with all my heart, soul, mind, and might, and who will love me as
  much. Who will be my best friend, and vice versa.
  
  
• will see me clearly, and love me for who I am -- and yet, accept and support
  the changes I want to make in myself, and the directions I want to grow in.
  
  
• is physically affectionate, and maybe just a little bit of an exhibitionist. I'm not talking about wanting to scare the horses on a regular basis (though occasionally would be okay), just being willing to hold hands in public, or smooch at stoplights, or maybe occasionally wear a colored bra under a white tshirt.
  
  
• can make me say "woof" just by taking off her shirt. Attractive, maybe in an exotic way.
  
  
• is open and trusting.
  
  
• will let me sing to her.
  
  
• can play and be silly with me.
  

Is that so much to ask?

As I drove to work this morning, I was thinking about Jana. I think about her on and off, because I like to understand things, and at the moment, I'm not completely clear on the whole issue of the abortive relationship with Jana.

I realized that I'm not terribly upset about losing her as my girlfriend, though of course, I'm not best pleased about once again being in a not-dating situation.

I realized that Jana was never my friend, never my peer. One of the things I want in a partner is that she be my friend and my peer. Amy, the last best friend I had, was both of those things, though we never became romantically involved... she was looking for a nice, Jewish boy, and since I'm neither....

Anyway, the point is that, while Jana was (is) intellegent, she's also very self-abnegating. She never believes in her own intellegence, her own ability to do things and figure things out for herself. She doesn't seem to question life, the universe, and everything in quite the same way I do.

While we might have been companions, I don't think we would ever have been peers.

So I guess that's all right, then.

I'm watching a "special presentation" of The Gilmore Girls on the WB. It's the episode where my One True Love, Lorelei Gilmore, tries to figure out if she should marry Max, the very nice English teacher guy who has proposed to her.

Which reminds me of some of the issues I'm having in my own life. Not that I'm pondering marrying Jana. That would be silly. We've been together, actually face to face, all of two weekends.

It's just that...

I like the idea of having a girlfriend. Really, I do. I just had in mind... someone who was geographically closer. I mean, I ostensibly have a girlfriend... and I'm still spending my nights watching empty television, eatting butter noodles and rice-and-salmon.

Not that I have the money to do anything else, really.

Plus, Jana doesn't like my teeth. She doesn't like my home. She doesn't like my flag shirt. She doesn't like my bowler hat with the concho hatband.

Gah.

I'm so stressed out.

I just got off the phone with Jana. I mentioned the article about the Endor Holocaust.

She mentioned that she wasn't planning to come down here to Tucson again until the middle of July.

We had, previously, been planning for her to come earlier than that, in June.

She doesn't want to stay in "the ferret hovel," so she doesn't want to come down until she can afford a hotel again.

She calls my home "the ferret hovel." She calls my teeth "fangs," and won't let go of the fact that she wants me to get them straightened.

This relationship is so doomed.

There was a game we used to play in the Navy, on those late-night watches when the big ship plowed through the even bigger ocean. "Wha'd'y'call," was the game, and it was a sort of game of vocabulary, and sort of a game of wits. The point was to take a group of words that were related somehow, and link them to one that wasn't.

For example, wha'd'y'call it when you murder someone? (Homicide). Wha'd'y'call it when you murder your brother? (Fratricide). Wha'd'y'call it when you murder your father? (Patricide). Wha'd'y'call it when you murder your boss? (Justified).

I took off early on Friday to go to Big Bear. Aparently, Den Herr Boss got a burr up his ass about this, because I got a nastygram from him on Saturday morning, about patches I hadn't done on one of our computers.

Now, first of all, let me say that no one uses this computer. It sits in a corner and collects dust. Secondly, let me say that it's not as if the computer was malfunctioning... 99% of the patches that Sun puts out (and they put out a lot of patches) are preventive.

But, he fussed, so I'm doing patches on the machine no one uses.

I love my job. No, really.

Anyway. I drove up to Big Bear on Friday. Left Tucson about noon, got there a little after eight. The Lakers game was on, so I had to wait for that to end before Jana would pay attention to me.

Jana's parents showed up a few minutes after the game ended. They're both very nice folks, but also rather demanding of Jana's attention. Actually, most of the weekend when we were at the house, I felt like I'd just get Jana settled and they'd call for her, and another flurry of Jana-activity would be set off.

Which is not a complaint, just an observation.

Anyway, we got up on Saturday morning, and Jana decided not to go to school for her Saturday class. I was unhappy about that... it was her first day with the new teacher for the class, and I didn't think that playing hooky was a great first impression to make... but apparently, I didn't get a vote.

I checked my email, found the fuss'o'gram from Den Herr Boss. I always hate it when he sends me crap like that. I feel like he's working himself up to fire me, and the IT market in general is crap right now, and in Tucson it's particularly bad.

We went out and drove around the lake, stopping in a couple of places. There's a touristy shopping district that we wandered through a little bit, and it has an arcade... Jana wouldn't play Rampage with me, though.

We played with puppets in a couple of places, and that was fun.

Then back to her house, and out to dinner with her folks. They took us to a restaurant of shocking expense, and Jana had asked me to be sure I offered to pay, so I did... hoping that they wouldn't take me up on it, because the evening's dinner bill came to roughly half my month's rent on LSD. Fortunatly, they didn't take me up on it.

We went to the lake shore, with the intention of watching the sun set, and the stars come out, but it was cold. Big dummy had forgotten to bring any socks, so my feet were cold.

We went back to the house, and Jana got busy doing chores and such. Her parents came home, and gave her a stuffed bear they'd found in an antique shop they'd stopped at on the way home.

We watched Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within on HBO. Jana was amazed at the quality of the computer animation, and hated the story.

Got up Sunday, Jana made waffles.

We went to the Big Bear zoo. For a small town zoo, it was impressive. Lots of birds, including a fair number of raptors. Several eagles. A handful of bears.

Went back to the house, got in the car, drove the monster drive back to Tucson. Left about one, got home about nine. Checked email, went to bed.

Jana says her father thinks I won't come back to Big Bear. I doubt he's right... I didn't dislike Big Bear, it's just an awefully long drive to spend so little time with my sweetie, and so much time competing for her attention with her parents, and her chores, and her life.

That sounds pretty whiny, and I appologize.

So, I'm back in Tucson, from Big Bear. I spent a lot of time in the car this weekend, driving, with only an audio book to keep me company. I checked Bernard Cornwell's The Winter King out from Talking Book World, and it turned out to be another book read by the British fop whose voice drives me up the wall.

(Please note that, in general, I like British accents very much. This guy, for some reason, drives me right up the wall, but I didn't discover he was the reader for this book until I was out on the road. He also read James Clavel's Shogun, and kept mispronouncing Japanese words).

I did a lot of thinking. Large, empty spaces will do that to you.

I have doubts. I have doubts about me, about Jana, and about us.

Jana is high maintenance. She's constantly moving, constantly doing, constantly talking. She seems to need constant reassurance that everything's all right. She's constantly worrying about something.

She doesn't seem able to just let go of anything.

By contrast, I'm pretty low maintenance, or so I like to think. While I occasionally worry about things, I do so in a much lower-key way than Jana does, or so I like to think.

I'm a quiet person. (stop laughing).

It takes a lot of energy to spend time with Jana, even time doing nothing... though, as I said, she doesn't seem capable of doing nothing.

And so I have doubts. Yet, at the same time, I have doubts about my doubts. How much of what I'm feeling is just because I have a hard time picturing myself as being in a "relationship"? How much of what I'm feeling is just because I'm feeling afraid of change?

How much of what I'm feeling is just because I spent sixteen hours in a car, by myself, in the last 72 hours?

Jana's coming again to Tucson in three weeks. I'll be paying a lot of attention to our interactions between now and then, and when she's here. I don't want to hurt her, because I do care about her, very much... but I'm wondering if we're really right for each other.

Den Herr Boss is out of town this week. He left a list of things that needed to get done, of course, because he never goes out of town without leaving a list of things that need to get done. However, he's not here to look over my shoulder, so I'm not actually doing any of them, today. Did stuff yesterday; will do stuff tomorrow. No stuff today.

Spent most of the day goofing off, and am now tired. Doesn't make sense, I guess, but there you go.

Jana has her first day of nursing school today. I'm excited for her. This morning, I looked up links for her, for the program Tucson Medical Center runs, where, if you're working for them, they'll help you further your nursing education. They're a teaching hospital.

Also sent her a link to Pima Community College's nursing programs. My father got his ASN from Pima.

Went by and looked at the condos I've been covetting for years. Turns out they're now a retirement community; you can't buy into the place unless you're over 55. Bleah.

Worked on a new character for tonight's game. I'm hoping to talk Tom into letting me play a Jedi Guardian named Oobedoob Benubi, which I will confess to having shamelessly stolen from Thumb Wars.

I know that, once I get there and we get started, I'll have a good time at D&D. I also know that right now, I feel tired, drained. I don't want to go. I will, and I'll have a good time, but....

nekojin pointed out the journal of janezero to me. I find it very disturbing, because it's about a dominant-submissive triad... a dominant male and two submissive women. The author is one of the women, and seems happy in the relationship.

I find it deeply distrurbing, because from the tone of the writing, it sounds as if this isn't just play, with partnership outside of the bedroom. It sounds as if this is the way that they live their lives.

And that gets into some pretty squirmy teritory for me. Playing at BDSM is one thing. Using it as another kind of roleplaying, in the bedroom, is something I'm fine with. Living it is another thing altogether.

I'm attracted to and repelled by it in sort of the same way I was attracted to and repelled by Nine and a Half Weeks.

I'm going to stop now, because I don't think I have anything meaningful to say... just "this makes me squirm and want to look away."

This evening, catching up with my online friends after being delightfully incommunicado all weekend, I talked to a dear friend of mine who was having a markedly less delightful weekend with a man who claimed to love her.

I realized that I wanted to point out to my friend that real partners don't tear each other down. They don't wake each other up so that they can tell their girlfriends or their boyfriends all the things that are wrong with them. They don't try to increase their partner's dependence on them by making less of them.

I realized that some of the relationships I think of as models for what I want in my life are entirely fictional.

Take, for instance, Tim and Jill Taylor, from Home Improvement. Yes, I know that they're fictional. Yes, I know that it's a sitcom, and that everything is neatly tied up in half-hour parcels, done up in brown paper and string in a way that the real world never is.

Tim and Jill, however, are still a great couple. Tim isn't perfect; Jill isn't perfect. They're often unhappy with each other, but they're always friends, and they always talk to each other and resolve their problems, even when they don't like each other's actions.

Tim does things for Jill, and vice versa. Yet neither of them pulls the other down, tries to increase the other's dependence on them.

Okay, I'm going to stop beating that horse, now. It's dead.

I'll just say that Jill and Tim remind me of my parents; of how they deal with each other through humor and negotiation.

I hope that Jana and I will, too.