You know the drill by now: the bigger the developments, the more I summarize.

Hands-down winner of the 'WTF? Sweet!' award goes to doing a blind date because of a guy who crashed on my couch for a week that I sorta knew in college who knew a chick who knew a chick who was looking to date. Rather than add another head-hanging story to a scrapbook of funny oy-vay moments, it turns out the blind date kept on truckin'.

Emily and I are currently in that grey zone between casual dating and a relationship. I'd feel odd dating someone else, yet I'm not heavily attached. I rarely am until the exploding jet planes crashing into LA rush hour traffic part, but still. I sincerely and deeply like this woman. As Mari suggests, and I concur, she's a good compliment for me.

The weirdest part? We get along well, like human beings, even after the relationship gets sexual. Like, things stay normal. Think about this from my perspective. In my experience, sex seems to single-handedly drive a relationship straight off a cliff. People just get weird after fucking. Or you begin playing mental-emotional hop-skotch or chess, where every conversation is like a board configuration and you have to outmaneuver your opponent. Your opponent being the person you fuck.

Ludicrous. I know. But I am well-versed in ludicrous.

With Emily, however, it's--straight-forward. Fun. Refreshing. Light-hearted. Game free. Not mentally or emotionally taxing.

I have a new analogy. Shut up, I do. It's applicable.

Being with someone is like going to sleep when you have a big event the next day. You can play mental jumping jacks to try and force yourself into a coma, circling around, in, through, and between thoughts to rationalize the concept of sleep and convince yourself that it's best but somehow almost not quite just get there maybe. Or, you can just let go and fall into it.

One works. One doesn't. I am used to a double super big gulp of doesn't. And having just had an hour conversation over the phone about nothing in particular and laughing all the way, I like the taste of does.

A cool aspect is that Emily is as activity-oriented as the usual hanging out/movies/meal sorta deal. About 2 weeks back for our third date, for instance, we'd had plans to either cross-country ski or do ice-skating. Granted both of those fell through for various reasons, but we had fun almost rescuing the princess on her old school NES. Now and then, during the week, we'll go out to lunch for an hour and talk about our days, silly shit co-workers are doing, stuff like that.

I even seem to have passed the friends test. Every guy reading this journal--that would only be Daniel and/or Adam if I'm not mistaken--knows what I'm talking about. At some point in a dating situation, a girl/woman wants a consensus opinion from like-minded people about her choice. And well she should get such a thing. Many an asshole and men of ill-repute can get under the radar of one person's common sense, but when you face her friends, that is a barricade upon which bullshit crashes and breaks.

The session in question was this past Saturday. It was our 5th date, I think. She'd invited me to bowl with her friends and her in a post-bowl game. I didn't know what this was, but if it meant more bowling, cool. She and I'd had fun walking around James Madison park an hour prior, holding hands and talking about her trip to Ankor Wat. Fast forward to the then now, with us watching basketball as I took down a first gin and tonic. We both agreed I'd bowl better with a little sauce, based on prior experience.

The friends in question I'd be meeting were from her public affairs grad program, Karen and Molly, along with Molly's boyfriend Tim. Karen reminds me of someone I club-know at the Inferno and Molly reminds me of my old friend Adi's girlfried..who reminds me of several other jewish women I know, all of them good-natured and nice. Here too, both of them were pleasant and nice. Tim was cool too. He was a thick-set man with a bald pate too. Liked joking around. The lot of us would give each other high fives after spares or strikes. I kinda whiffed more than I wanted to, but people were sympathetic since it was really just my second time bowling.

We then went to El Pastor/Horchataville for mexican. Mari knows the capital of Awesome, Wisconsin, and it is El Pastor. I decided on tacos. Everyone else decided on entrees. El Pastor serves food in gigantic proportions--except my tacos, bizarrely. I ended up helping Emily finish off her enchiladas. Molly had a "medium" (read 9 inch long by 4 inch wide) chimichanga with some meat substance and avocado. My arteries hardened just looking at it. Curiously enough, the men's bathroom reminded me of a film noir. Barely lit in fluttering pulses, blue. Odd contrast to bellowing mariachi music.

Emily thinks they like me, and y'know, I like them too. I mean I just had fun. No awkwardness at all.

We then headed to her place, watched something for approx 10 minutes, insert what you will, and then went to sleep. Ok. "sleep" and sleep. Maybe more "sleep" than sleep. It's my journal, I'll TMI all I wanna. I will say I missed sleeping next to someone. Saturday mornings have never been more lovely and sunday mornings, well, feel less like Montreal and drinking eggs.

Current plans:

*Lunch tomorrow at Murimoto. Do I have the shrimp again or something different? Hm.

*Rollerderby on Sat. May and her were going and May figured I might get a kick out of it. Emily playfully chided me about enjoying the company and not chicks in short skirts beating each other down. It's my choice as to whether I end up going to the Inferno or doing more with her. I said I'd see how it goes, but let's be realistic: dance at the Inferno versus spend time with someone I really like.

Yeah.

It's less yeah because I'm going to 'goth night' tomorrow. But it's still pretty yeah.

I've been doing photography since 2003. Same camera, mostly the same lenses (or rather some additional lenses besides the built-in one). And nearly 4 years later, I have my first show. There are 4 other photographers for this thing. My promoter, our promoter, has hooked up a good space where we can comfortably display 10-15 11 x 14 pieces. A bigger one as well, where I went with a 16 x 24 of 'Two of Hearts.' In total I'm presenting 13 pieces. Thumbnails are accessible here. Obviously the sharpness doesn't approach the originals, but you get the idea. So far my plan is to invite, well, everyone I know.

It's May 11th, 7-10pm, in Madison, and you're invited.

I normally don't mix my different lives in the punchbowl that is a given moment, but I'll make an exception. Psych and neuro people, any artistic folk in proximity, old friends, new friends, hippies, Inferno folk, scientists. It will be a palatial orgasm set to ice sculpture trickling for 3 hours, flooding down into some alcohol-soaked miasma of an after party. The type of night hangovers were made for.

We've been having weekly meetings. Not especially productive ones, but we've crawled along. We met at the space last time to see what it was like, meet the owner, etc. I got a sense of what'd work, how we could use the windows right.

I recently shelled out 300 bones for framed prints of all the pieces, 2 of the ones that I think might sell, and 8 of Tungsten Falls. Like I told Mari: "I could just get 20 of it and make my money back." She agreed. It's a crowd pleaser, dunno why.

So yeah, art.

I have saved long. I have saved semi-well. I have applied for and obtained some fine, fine summer funding along with a tax refund and some cash I'm making as a reader for my advisor's course.

I have almost saved enough to buy this camera.

How much is it, you ask? I answer.

Yes. Yes I am. Quite likely 'fucking' am.

Here is my logic in paying more for a camera than the cost of my car plus half a year of rent. I could just blow 1,200 and get a Rebel. I could just blow 3,000 and get the EOS 5D. Or I could just get the best and be done with it. Granted, getting the EOS 5D with some good glass/lenses is probably better than the EOS 1Ds with crappy glass.

What else would I spend these savings on? Leather trenchcoats and designer gas masks? Jewelry? A new used car?

No no. I believe foolish spending decisions involving thousands of dollars is not only a good idea, it is an American idea. And I need to fulfill my quota.

The End

That's enough self-congratulatory monologue for one night.

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