Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

May still see the old friend this weekend, but really isn't looking like a hookup at all.

I post this only for those of you charting my sex life with charts and graphs and powerpoint presentations. No need to make any adjustments to your calculations.

Trying to decide to and/or get up the courage to ask out somebody...in the workplace.

She's a medical assistant in the neighboring department, 29. Very perky, petite, frankly kind of bug-eyed but cute in an unusual way. Seems younger than her age, which could be good or bad. Intellectually perhaps not a match (but I don't know that for sure). Very girly, but more Suicide Girl than Barbie.

But she's fun, has a great body and is always coming into my office to shoot the shit and joke around. I think she's single, or at least she hasn't taken the opportunity to declare any boyfriends (and I've tried to give her chances to talk about things like that).

This could of course cause a shit/eat conflict, which I'm leery of. Oh, and I haven't actually asked somebody out on an honest-to-god date since - and this is not hyperbole - 1989, when I took a girl from Lombard to see Rain Man. I don't count asking people to dances, nor do I count the women I wound up with through natural progression or whatever. I'm talking about "Would you like to do something with me Saturday night? Maybe dinner, a movie?"

The prospect terrifies me.

But this girl is cute, and fun. And I could use some of that.

Attractive, interesting friend coming into town in a couple weeks. Possibly a hook up, maybe even probably.

Calendar check: it's a kid weekend.

supremely suitable sound.

Heading out to have dinner at a friend's new place. Should be a nice time. Wine, giggles, maybe watch a movie.

But of course it will be a platonic evening. She's attractive, interesting, but boundaries were drawn long ago on this one.

I'm beginning to suspect that I'm going to have to really take a step out of my comfort zone if I ever hope to have a non-platonic relationship ever again.

The San Francisco Bay Area weekend summary:

• Night prior: 3.5 hours of sleep

• Early morning: PDX, A+ for Horizon Airlines. Seriously. SO easy.

• Mid morning: Long looping drive from OAK into SF. Over Golden Gate. Enjoyed.

• Late morning: San Rafael check in. Nap.

• Mid afternoon: Wedding party. Sweating. Drinking. Meeting lots of people recognized from facebook. Laughter.

• Late afternoon: Talking to cute woman in hot dress. Best chance for connection?

• Minutes later: Odd sense of humor not understood and/or appreciated. Fuck it.

• Evening: Hotel. Alone. Movie. Room Service.

• Mid morning: awake late. Stare at football game. Decide to not visit friends in the city. Too far, no time.
  

• Noon: Check out. Gigantic turkey sandwich consumed.
  

• Afternoon: Back to friend's home/party location. Sit by lovely pool for hours. Enjoy view of golden hills. Blood orange soda mixed with pinot noir? Not my idea, but surprisingly not shitty. Relaxing: si.
  

• Mid afternoon: to OAK.

• Late afternoon: Zero TSA line. A- for Horizon Airlines.

• Flight: Old lady, why in the fucking hell did you decide that it was a good idea to bring really fragrant Chinese food on the airplane? I mean come ON. Eat your goddamned potsticker before sitting next to me on this tiny regional jet. I like Chinese, but this is too much. You're 11 inches away from me. Mind your chopsticks.
  

• Night: Home. Quiet. Deeply unsatisfied. Also, a fish in the tank has died.

Nonspecific longing anticipated for the week ahead. Not for the fish. Although probably that, too.

I've written about 100 blog posts in my head since I last committed one to the screen. Not sure why they never made it this far. A chance to unleash creative energy and/or miserable blathering...lost.

Got served with divorce papers today. It wasn't a complete surprise. I mean she told me about 2.5 years ago that she had a lawyer. I moved out 7 months ago. I knew how this was going to end. The FE-W had warned me the papers were coming (she signed on 9/11...NEVER FORGET), and was kind enough to have her lawyer do it through the mail rather than serve me in person at work or some bullshit like that.

I'm so ready to be done with this thing, but I was still pissed off. It is a huge stack of paperwork. She has a lawyer, I can't really afford the multiple thousands it would take just to get one. We're playing nice, joint custody, no disputes over belongings. We gots us some ol' irreconcilable differences but we wish each other well. And she's being exceptionally reasonable. She even is asking for 25% less child support than she could in theory get based on the state calculator. She knows I'm giving pretty much everything I can within reason.

But to fill out the state-mandated worksheet on child support her lawyer used a salary that isn't accurate by...a lot. Starting this month I've been in my job for one year and my guaranteed salary is done. I work on production. See patients, get paid. See no patients, get no money. See more patients, get more money. I think the potential is there to make a fair bit more than my guarantee from year one (I've been above that threshold for a couple months) but it's really variable, especially in this economy, and I have no way to predict how much I'll really make. Past pay stubs don't accurately reflect my future earnings.

So even though our divorce agreement specifically states I'll be paying less than I could, I'm afraid that the salary they used on the final paperwork could come back to haunt me years down the line if she asks for more.

"But I don't have more"
"But the divorce paperwork you signed says you do"

So I need some legal advice. Cheap, preferably free. A friend's mother is a paralegal, apparently a good one, and I called my friend to find out what exactly a paralegal does and if one would be useful in looking over the paperwork to  make sure I'm not walking into a trap. And then her mom offered to take a look at the documents. Mighty kind of her, truly. I didn't make the call for that purpose. I feel like I'm getting back just a little good karma. Not sure if I deserve any good karma, but I'm not opposed to it just the same.

In other news, going to the Bay Area this weekend to celebrate the wedding of a good friend. Going solo. To a wedding party. In another, romantic city. Where everyone else will be coupled. I love my friend dearly, because otherwise I wouldn't be doing this to myself. Sigh. I'm feeling so ready to move on. Just have to wait 180 days to make it official. But in the meantime I could go for some romance. Some excitement. Some anything. I'm ready to ease back into the pool. 

For one glorious week I'm living back in Portland, getting to actually play full-time working dad while the fe-w jaunts off to Europe on a business trip. It's great being with the kids daily, although I'm having trouble sleeping and my eyes itch in a way they didn't when I moved out of this house 5 months ago. Did I lose my cat dander tolerance? Some new cleaning product? Something in bloom here that doesn't extend its reach north of the Columbia River?

Spent some time with a friend over the weekend who is encouraging me to set up an online dating profile on the Portland Mercury. I haven't committed to that yet, mainly because...I don't know. It's too depressing. And another friend that has used that site did not have many good things to say about her experiences. But at friend #1's request I did start looking around. Mostly it's a crushing waste of time. There are a staggering number of hipsters who just wouldn't go for my type. But there are just enough intriguing women (well, 2) that I can't help but wonder if it would be worth the effort and potential public embarrassment. One is even my age.

But how can I sell myself? There's an awful lot of surface baggage to wade through before someone would buy into the concept of me. How's this for a intro line: "recently separated, father of two, Vancouver resident and bastard love child of Ethan Hawke and Charlie Brown wants to hear all about your bowel habits because that's what he does for a fucking LIVING"

Now I think if I can get somebody past those tremendous hurdles that I'm a reasonable fella. But how do you do that on a static web page?

Grumble. I may have too many self-doubts to pull this off. I'm afraid my last chance for romance...

I wish I was on your radar.

I am not responsible for your alcoholism. Don't even begin to go there.

I feel the same stress of our break up, and no, I'm not comfortable being around you or in your house anymore either. But it's your biochemistry, psychology and genetics that puts you in the situation where you crave a drink. That's not my doing, and I fully reject any claims otherwise, especially when I have made it abundantly clear that I am in full support of your AA efforts and will do whatever I can to allow you to achieve sobriety.

Argh.

Well, I think the readership has dried up, and that's probably ok. That's what you get for moving to the quietest corner of the intarweb tubes.

So. Just you and me and the coyotes, son. The occasional tumbleweed. I think I saw a field mouse in the claws of a redtail.

But the solitude gives us a chance to talk about what we're doing about the soon and the now.

Coming up on the long 4th of July weekend. Get a bonus day off 7/3 that I didn't know about and didn't expect. This coming off a slow work week that found me at home early, often napping. Highly productive. But much like Memorial Day weekend the kids are off somewhere else. The luck of the alternating weekends has not favored me. I've been invited to join them on the 4th itself up at a Mt. Hood cabin but think I'll decline. It would be with a group of other folks, all people that we were social with as a couple. This includes, oddly, one of my ex's former lovers from the time of her 1st marriage's decline. He's been married (happily?) for many years now, but there has always been some speculation that he was not pleased about my arrival in the picture way back when.

So no, I'll skip it. Nobody needs that kind of nervous tension, the unease of marital breakdown, on America's birthday.

But what to do with myself? My social network here in Portland is so small and the few usual players are not immediately around. It appears I'll be solo all weekend. I have a bag full of fireworks and alas, nobody to share them with. I'm enjoying the time to myself, but I get a lot of it during the week, and despite my occasional social phobias I'm realizing that I need to have more human contact than I am getting now. I guess I'm lonely? Is it really that simple? I hesitate to say it because I think that term immediately smacks of desperation, and that's not the way I feel. I don't feel like I'm clinging to whoever I come in contact with. I just want some company. Quality company. The last couple times I've been out I've had that and it's been really wonderful and refreshing. Is it wrong to want more?

I, like America, have independence. And that's good. I'm doing more with it than I did the last time this came around in my early 20s. I'm making positive life changes, dumping my spiritual tea in my Boston Harbor, voting my psychological GWBushes out of office, freeing my emotional slaves.

Yes, I went there. Sorry.

But America can't do it on its own, nor can I. I could use someone else in my life. A Canada. A Mexico. Perhaps in a pinch, a Honduras. A goddamned NATO would be just fine by me, too.

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off-topic: here's what I'm listening to lately. It's a downright summer jam from an otherwise confusing and challenging art rock band. I'd spend my 4th of July seeing them @ Holocene but I missed the sale.