Hey y’all (heh, I guess that’s pretty presumptuous, thinking there’s a y’all…), I’ve been extremely busy lately and have been missing this blog like candy (mannerism stolen from Ms. Dean, I would link her here, but she’s also been silent on her blog).

Since I last wrote/recorded, lots has gone down. I started working on a different project at work, I went to my cousin Paul’s wedding, and some other things…

Cousin Paul’s wedding was very nice, Catholic, but surprisingly short. It was a great excuse to see lots of people (Aunt Trish and Uncle John in GA, Phill, Shannon and Cheyanne in Clearwater, FL, and then Aunt Mary, J.T., Sarah, Jenna, Matt, William, Aunt Christine, Uncle Gene, Grandma Bea, and probably some others). Actually, I need to remember to invite Aunt Christine and Uncle Gene to dinner. They live right in Lincolnton and until the wedding I hadn’t seen them in over a year, and that’s mostly my fault /-:

(I do sideways smilies b/c Boss Claws got me hooked on them back @ IBM. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out an analog to which [fortunately] I need quite often. )

August 5th, 2007…this is one year after Jenny was taken from our lives. For this weekend (August 4-6), MomN, DadR, and KT and I went to Asheville, just to be together and away from Charlotte. We had a decent time, Asheville was nice, though not all that I’d always hoped it would be (which is the progressive-ness and borough-ness of San Fran, the quirkiness of Carrboro, some college town aspects of Chapel Hill, and the climate of and proximity to Charlotte), but then again, my hopes were kinda high, esp for having never been there. We looked at lots of art and walked all over downtown. Everyone was having a hard time, but it was jsut very nice to be in each other’s company.

August 6th…I met Emily. Nathan goes to a UU church and I realized one time recently (in May) when reading their wonderful principles copied here:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and
  compassion in human relations;

• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our
  congregations;

• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our
  congregations and in society at large;

• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

that I am UU too!

anyway, Nathan was @ his church on Sunday August 6th (I’d yet to return from Asheville), and there were some new faces our age, so like a good resident of The Great House, he invited them to dinner Monday (he cooks on Mondays, even though this is my scout night, a-hole).

Monday Emily and SuperObnoxiousAndAnnoying Man came to dinner. In total there would be like 15 people there that night. Dinner was good (w/e it was) and people were all cool except for aforementioned dude who dominated the dynamics a little too much. Well, I gave Emily a link to The Greater Charlotte Map b/c she’d said that she was new to Charlotte. Well, she ended up coming over for dinner again Wed night. This night there were fewer people, on the order of 8 (many people would say on the order of ten, but that’s because they think in base 10, 8 = 2^3, and so is a perfectly logical “order”), and we all got to talk to each other more. Emily and I clicked. Emily was a hit all around, she is from Greensboro and went to UNC, and despite all the very near connections, she never actually met any of us. Well, something about the ease with which she shared, and her interest in each persons own related stories was refreshing, not a competition for attention, nor even disappointment at having to postpone a story for another time. She learned to play Wii that night and we all watched some Great youtube videos. Well, after that night we began an email correspondence (that weekend i was in FL for Cousin Paul’s wedding, and every stop I made along the trip I found my self giddily awaiting/hoping to find in my inbox a response from her). We wrote a few hundred pages of emails over those 4 or 5 days talking about ourselves and our families and our pasts and respective presents. At some point in the weekend when I couldn’t deny it to myself any longer, I admitted to her in an email that I was attracted to her and that there was some turmoil there on account of my love for Jenny. I also said that I was really interested in building a friendship with her as a foundation for either a stronger friendship, or for w/e else might develop. Well, hours (what seemed like millenniums [hm, ffox's dict had "millenniums" and not "millennia," this is contrary to my brief search, wherein Wikipedia reassured me that I meant "millennia"]) later, I checked my email from Phill’s house while we were waiting for him to get home so we could go to a thoroughly unsatisfying, and downright disappointing dinner at Macaroni Grill, and she had responded! Well…she said that she too had been excited to find responses from me, and she reciprocated my attraction, but definitely thought that my interest in building a friendship as a first priority from which we could have a romantic relationship, or not, was a Great idea (intrinsically so).

Well…that didn’t work too well. Well, it depends on your viewpoint…we did indeed get to know each other much better and to build a strong friendship, but prolly sooner than either of us intended, we were dating. I have fallen in love with her. I will post lots more about her (who knows when at the rate I’ve been publishing), but I do want to say some other things, more TGM-oriented before I close tonight.

After Jenny died, I never thought I would be able to be happy again, luckily for me the love and devotion of my friends and family made this an impossible thing to believe, and within a few months I found my self genuinely happy from time to time. Well, even then, I was delighted to see that I could indeed be happy again, but I still wasn’t sure I’d ever be AS happy again. I admitted to myself during some dark introspection that since all I really wanted to be when I grew up was a good father, that I’d prolly find and marry someone eventually, and be happy, but just not as happy as I’d been with Jenny. Well, while it is totally different, I do feel as happy as I did with Jenny, and I must thank Emily for this. She is a remarkable woman, she has already changed my life. She is Great.

Happy 1st monthiversary to us. And yay for early bedtimes.