The 1st part of Saturday found Brian packing his stuff and heading out to Illinois for spring break, just his wife and thoughts to keep him company. He seemed in high spirits, me along with him. I pawed along the internet to suffocate a few hours, re-organized and processed some of the raw HIP data, drew down Clan of Xymox into my hard-drive temple, ate something with srirachi hot sauce. Maybe I went in to work to look at some stats my assistant sent to me. Maybe that was today. She's doing these for her honors thesis. Surprisingly I've only had to write part of it so far.

The second part of Saturday was going out with Emily and her friend/my e-mail acquaintance May, off to see what this creature called Rollerderby looked like. I felt a bit of a behavioral botanist in this, but I knew it'd involve rollerskates, short skirts, and women smacking each other down; a curious combo worth investigating. More time with Emily was all the excuse I needed--and I'd finally get a chance to meet May, who'd originally hooked us up for our first blind date.

It was raining large saucers but not buckets yet when we picked up May. She's Japanese-American, uninhibited, and charming in a vervish way. We all swapped 'I did this today' stories, with Emily and I talking about turning down this or that street to get to the place. May was amused and asked if our banter was pre-scripted. We asked in near unison why. She said we sounded like her grandparents. It was good-natured banter about directions, so we semi-officially became her grandparents after that point. I'd turned up JJO at this point to catch Nirvana's 'Rape Me'. She said it was definetely now like driving with her grandparents. We cackled and turned it up. I thought Bush sang the song for some reason, but no one called me on that little error.

At around this point the sky had darkened and armies of frost crashed against my windshield. Emily helpfully indicated I should defrost, which hadn't occurred to me since the windshield was only moderately not visible. The rain came like Peter North, viking droplets bellowing up and down the car as conversation was had and my concentration stayed sharp. Ems noticed the rollerderby place first. I turned out from the beltline, drove up a residential street, back, and then proceeded into damn near every parking ramp along the place. See, the rollerderby could only be gotten to by ONE parking ramp. Everywhere else somehow lead to the place but there fences and stone barricades surrounding it. It was like assaulting a motte and bailey or any old medieval castle. I mean we spent a good 25 minutes going here, there, anywhere below or around it to find a spot. Finally I parked on the same residential street I'd found. I umbrella'ed Emily and May out of the car and we proceeded to get more tangled up. I'd suggest this route through the parking lot, May would suggest something else, and by lots of trial and error we found the magical parking ramp up to the place. Originally we were going to climb 6 feet of jutting stone from one level to another, but Emily was wearing a skirt and May thought 'yeah naw.'

I'd just met May but it seemed like we were old friends already. All of us gelled well. She'd make some comment or swear, we'd laugh, I'd make an observation, etc.

If you have never been in a Rollerderby before, imagine a Harley Davidson bike show crossed with Nascar but sprinkled with lots of punk/hipster girls and an assortment of 20-somethings looking for good times in semi-safe places. My first indication beyond the heavily midwestern local flavor vibe was a dude with leather bondage strapes all across his chest, no shirt, small leather shorts, big ol' fat gut just hangin' out, glasses and a ZZ top beard. Classic biker indoors attire, clearly. He ended up being the coach for the Unholy Rollers.

One thing I hadn't expected was none of us knowing what the hell was going on. We spent 15 minutes trying to puzzle out what all was going on. Finally, a long-haired dude Emily knows from her bowling league came by. He gave us the 411. Apparently, for a given 2 team match-up, there's a pack of skating chicks that go both first and slow. Afterward, a 'jammer' from both teams begins skating fast about 4 seconds after the pack. The object is to pass this pack without members from the opposite team knocking you down. More times one goes around the pack, the more points. There was also a lot of nuance he alluded to but didn't elaborate on. That's all we really needed.

May kept to herself for the first half while Emily and I occasionally talked or did this or that PDA. Nothing gross, just subtle like holding hands or what have you. At first we were standing pretty far away from the action, given the sheer number of packed humans. As the teams went through their first halves and second ones, though, the place began to slim some. In amidst this, I scored us canned rolling rock and popcorn from the "fun zone". All of us didn't care for the rolling rock, but hey, it was that or michelob.

There was a decent span in the second half where Emily and May were talking about, I'm guessing, May's new dating interest Mike while I watched the festivities. As if the world weren't small enough for coincidence sake, I know Mike through my roommate Brian. Granted I barely know the guy, but still. Emily and May had a hard laugh over May admitting he looked like a hobbit. He does. No harm was meant by it. It'd be like saying I look like a punk who shops at thrift stores; I do and I just do. Emily nicknamed Mike as Frodo. Damn it was funny.

Rollerderby let out and I drove us over to the capitol. I was starving for a full meal. Emily and May were in various states of snack wanting. After a long deliberation in my head I'd suggested Brocach because, well, it's a bar (what May definetely wanted) and it has food (what I and Emily wanted). She was laughingly disappointed at the menu mostly containing fried stuff. She'd given that up for Lent, but she kept getting into situations where she'd order something and then be like "crap!" I ended up having a mountain of fries covered in cheese and bacon. I had this look of feigned 'oh fuck I have to EAT all this?' horror on my face. Priceless.

As we drank and ate, May talked about how dating had usually sucked and she sometimes wished she was single. This was past tense, though. Somehow I started offering her advice about the guy's perspective on the whole matter. This seemed odd because I'd basically just started dating Emily, and here I was talking about how guys can feel awkward and vulnerable about the approach and hunt, why they might seem kinda cool at first, etc. I got into semi-insightful territory about it all, and I think May may have gotten something out of it. Basically I was trying to impart that while the process sucked, you'd get to a point where you could better judge the guy and if he was who he seemed to be--then keep or dump his ass accordingly.

Again, only a little odd on my end to be saying this in front of Emily.

Somewhere between finishing 2/3'rds of my fry mountain with occasional huge bites (both of which impressed both of them immeasurably for some reason), May got a text. Mike wanted to meet at the Dane. She went back and forth between wanting to go and blowing it off. We totally dogged her on and she succumbed. Succame. One of those.

Usually the Dane is a bar drinking oasis divided into two camps by a big ass wall: 1) the twenty-somethings orgasm of noise and clusters of people being obnoxious; 2) the much more laid back, much more quiet thirty and up-something crowd in the more sitting oriented section, right next to the tables for eating. We opted to sit at the tables. The server didn't mind. Mike came around eventually. We all talked about stuff I can't remember. The highlight, Emily and I agree, was that Mike had been drinking since 3pm and his parting comment before leaving was: "well I gotta go. I'm gonna throw up or pass out soon." May took this as a cue to go with him. Emily later commented to me, "that was charming; he says he's going to puke and she's like 'yup time to go.' Oh May."

We left, parked, snuggled, 'went to bed', went to bed, and slept. I had a hell of a time falling asleep. I'm still getting used to sleeping with someone again. Been thinking about bringing over sleeping pills. Maybe it's the anticipation of being woken up at 4am for sex that keeps me up. My mind might figure, "well you're gonna get interrupted anyway."

Our plan for sunday was for me to go with her to church. It'd been a good decade since I attended a Christian service. This time it'd be Episcopalian. I figured what the hell, it'd be interesting. The service went on for a good 90+ minutes. I sang or said this part of the passion or this hymn without much ado. I did skip the parts about Jesus being the Lord and dying for this or that reason. I was baptized for some reason by my Mom when I was younger, but while I believe in something that resembles a higher power like God, the idea of the Trinity or Jesus being anything other than a divinely inspired ascended master don't appeal to me. The only part of the ceremony that was awkward was communion. I've never done the Eucharist, don't plan on eating the Host or symbolically drinking blood any time in my lifetime. I expected I'd be the only one to sit it out. Emily took my hand at this or that point during the ceremony. "There's nothing to feel awkward about" she said reassuringly after I asked about it. There was this one woman who gave a displeased look in my direction, but hey, I wasn't about to do Communion. I'm not a Christian and frankly I'd consider it sacrilege if I did it just to put on airs.

After service, Emily and I walked to a place she recommended for brunch. I talked about how the service was neat because I got some of those slight tingles I get when I do healing work or help my friends out. That's how I connect with the divine usually. She didn't seem put off by that and just listened. I appreciated this. It's not exactly easy to tell the woman you really like that you do that kind of thing. I figured it made sense to mention it. Maybe she might be open to some of the other secrets like that.

I ended up having grilled cheese with bacon (where she laughed and smiled about my indecision on whether to get fries or my eventual choice of a salad).

We spent the rest of the day together. About two hours of that consisted of an impromptu nap on her bed, I think. We then headed over to my place to get my laptop and do some work at a coffee shop. I introduced her to our man lair/man palace. She agreed: we were a hell of a lot more messy than she was. She teased me for awhile about it, though in her defense she desisted after just a little bit before I said it was ok. I did get concerned that I should have picked up some and that she'd make a judgment based on it. I asked her as much while we were driving to the Java Joint. She didn't reply. Naturally I didn't look happy about this. She gave me some reassuring arm rubs and "aww"'ed and all. I still think she found it funny. I was slightly upset at the thought I'd screwed up in showing her I really wasn't a very neat person. That slowly faded as I worked on processing more of my HIP data and she worked on a New York Times crossword. At some point I dropped what I was doing and tried helping her out. I got one word myself and helped her with a few, but for the most part the thing baffled me.

We ended up having dinner at a thai place. Damn good yellow curry and a seafood noodle dish. I'd never had fish balls before. They were decent.

We ended the day with watching The Maltese Falcon. She fell asleep halfway through. This was my first time so I was awake and enjoying it. She lightly snored here and there, would wake up, kiss me a few times, then fall asleep and do the snoring thing again. It was really cute. When the movie was over I roused her, lead her to bed, and told her that while she needed to wake up really early, I didn't--so I'd stay with her 'til she fell asleep. She liked the idea a lot. She drifted away pretty quickly after that. I spent a bit of time delicately dislodging my right arm and hand from hers. I laced up my stuff, looked in on her a few times, put her door key that she leaves in the door usually on her purse on top of a white business card, then left.

Monday I watched the NCAA tournament while writing. Yeah. Me. Sports. I figure I'd followed it through Emily enough that I had to see it. That and I suppose it's something to share.

Other news includes having all my testing this week cancelled due to my subjects having diarrhea/a bacterial infection. More time to have lunch or coffee with friends, or go to the VA.

I also went in for a doctor's appt. today to get screened for STD's. So far all I know is that I don't have HIV or testicular cancer. Score. I'll know about the other bits in a few days. I'm trying to think of whether it's appropriate for me to broach the topic of female birth control with Emily. She doesn't use anything currently. I'd use a male pill if such things were available, but they're still in the clinical trial/'let's see how many die' stage. No thanks.

We'll see.

I am thankfully less nervous about my relationship with Emily. It seems to be going really well. It's so unlike most previous relationships that it's really new waters for me. I like it a lot.

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