I’m feeling rather relieved and relaxed now that I’ve thrown in the towel on this whole dating thing. Oh, if something comes up, I’ll still consider going out with someone, but I’m not going to pursue it any more.

I haven’t had a weekend to myself in quite a while, for reasons other than dating. I was afraid that I’d be knocking around the house bored, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I spent most of Saturday morning working on jobs for the business, and took a trip up to the city after lunch to look for some tools that I need. Deductible mileage, woohoo!

Unfortunately, the place I was tool-shopping happens to be right next door to a combo auto parts and outdoor store, and I am just incapable of getting out of that place without dropping a significant dime. I made it past the truck tool boxes, although if I keep accumulating spare parts, I might need a side box. I managed to resist the after-market muffler display. I did not buy a camo-printed swimsuit (because swim season is over, silly.)

But I was following the mounts on the wall, being drawn deeper and deeper into the expensive bowels of the store. I easily resisted the waders aisle, because of course, I don’t duck hunt, although I did get a kick out of the father and grandfather blowing duck calls for the two toddlers in the shopping cart. No, it was the lure of the hunting clothes that pulled me; I browsed through the “medium” rack and managed not to fling the waterproof leatherette mossy-oak patterned sheepskin collared hunting jackets to the floor to roll around on. But they were on sale!

Then, in a daze, I walked right into the gun counter. You would think I would have seen it there, but I was still all a-tremble from the thought of a nice Goretex jacket adorning my closet.

And Lo! Before me was a glittering rack of irresistible treats. The salesman saw me, and used his salesmanly wiles to help a couple with a scope fitting, leaving me to drool and leave nose prints on the glass display case. They must keep a case of Windex stashed behind that counter.

While he was gone, I carried out a conversation with myself. I think it was with myself anyway, although the guys chatting up the fletcher looked at me funny. Might not have been.

“Self,” I said. “Self, it’s been entirely too long since you’ve had a functioning .22 rifle. You know you’re never going to find the part to make the antique one work, and besides, doesn’t that one deserve to be put out to pasture by now?”

Self quite agreed with me, and looked longingly at the beautiful wooden-stocked Marlin hanging on the wall. Of course, there was also a Ruger 10-22, but those have always been just a little short for me.

By now the salesman, with his uncanny instincts, had figured that I had bit, and it was time to reel me in.

“Can I help you?” he purred.

Oh yes. Yes, you can, little man.

He showed me the Marlin, but pointed out the one little flaw in my plan. It was a Ducks Unlimited Special, and I have never and have no intention of hunting ducks (although I do love their calendar.)

The disappointment must have shown in my face. He hurriedly drew out his secret weapon, the *Ta-Dum* catalog! Never fear! Special-Order Man is here!

So through the catalog we went, .22 by .22. Sadly, the unadorned Marlin was not to be had in the lower forty-eight. Still, we pushed on, browsing Remington and Ruger before finally landing on the Savage page. I have a little bit of a soft spot for a Savage rifle, as that?s what my Dad carried and that’s the make of my trusty (read: broken) old favorite.

“A Savage!” I declared, blowing his eyebrows back in the breeze of my vehemence. “I must have a Savage!”

So we pored over the Savage page, with me reading upside down (as that was much faster than his reading right-side up) and finally selected a nice stainless-barreled, synthetic-stocked little autoloader that was perfect for my self-justification of teaching the kids to shoot (although we all know whose gun that’s going to be.)

And he pressed the magic buttons, and I filled out the magic paperwork, and we collectively bitched about the State’s policy of requiring a trigger lock on all gun sales, and presto! A shiny new toy is on its way, direct from somewhere-or-other on the East Coast, and shall be here in ten days. Whee!

So see? Had I a boyfriend, I probably would not have had time to be shopping for such important purchases. Or probably not the two fancy Irish Whiskeys that I bought later at the Frosty Adult Beverage Warehouse. Hey, I don’t get to town very often, and these things have to be planned in advance.

Wow, tools and booze AND guns all in one trip. Tell me why again, that men aren’t all over this?

Damn. Robyn tagged me for a meme. Robyn! I hate memes! When was the last time you saw one on here? But just for you, I’ll try.

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy
1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.
2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity.
3. An unusual individual reaction to food or a drug.
List five of your own idiosyncrasies and then tag five friends to do the same.

1. Well, let’s start with an easy one, shall we? The Nuts of Doom, that is. Walnuts are evil. They make my tongue swell up to overflow my mouth. Each time I get into them, I get a worse reaction, so I use that as an excuse to stare suspiciously at home-baked goodies and inspect brownies for walnuts. I don’t really mind because I can’t stand them anyway, and this gives me an excuse to not eat them just to be polite.

2. Feet. I’m weird about feet. I don’t really like other people’s, but I don’t suppose that’s so unusual. But when I’m warm and secure and comfortable, my feet will rub back and forth like a cat kneading their paws, and all of their own volition. I usually notice it after a while and stop them, but they start again all by their lonesomes. And feet MUST be outside the covers to fall asleep, unless it’s really cold out. And toenails must always be painted.

3. Hair. And body hair, at that. I’m a plucker. I can’t stand for my eyebrows to be bushy, and will fuss with them every day. It’s a wonder that I’ve managed to restrain myself and still have eyebrows, but I also think really skinny ones look freaky. Fortunately, plucking does not hurt in the slightest. I have one of those spinning tweezer depilator thingies, and I love it. I’ll shave occasionally, but it makes me really happy to use that thing, and I can finally manage the jungle that is my arms. I may have a touch of trichotillomania.

4. Vacuuming. It’s a genetic disorder; all of the women in my family love to vacuum. Y’all, I have a picture of a vacuum on my living room wall. Granted, it’s one of my sister’s art projects (from what? Fifteen years ago?) but it was so symbolic of our family that I’ve kept it up there for years. I have a nice fancy vacuum that you’d think I would use more often, but what I really love is a nice shop-vac and a giant pile of dirt. Too bad I lost the shop-vac in the divorce, but at least I also lost the creator of the giant piles of dirt.

5. Handedness. I’m nominally left-handed, but I do so many things with my right that it took me years in elementary school to figure out which one I was. They kept giving me the lefty scissors, and I couldn’t cut a wet noodle with them. I think they must have thought that I was just clumsy. I have the worst time to this day telling my left from my right, and I give terrible directions unless I use North and South instead of left or right. I throw with my right but write with my left. I hand-quilt and eat with my left, but use my right for knife work when I’m cooking. My right eye is dominant, but I can shoot a rifle equally well from either side. I would not be able to shoot a left-handed bow to save my life. In college, I cut the end off of one of the fingers on my left hand in a pig-feed hopper, and had to take a written essay final the next day. I did it with my right hand, and finished before half of the class. I can write equally poorly on a chalkboard with either hand—which isn’t saying much, as my dominant hand is pretty illegible when I’m forced to write upright like that. It’s been confusing.

There, now for the tagging. LA, I’ve seen you do a meme or two, but not this one, I think. Grouse, I would be interested to hear your answers. And how about Lex, SuzannaDanna, and my friend the Grey Biker?

You know, I never say much in here about politics or various tragedies. I never know what to say, or sometimes even what to think, and I usually just leave the writing to those better qualified than I. There’s nothing that my writing can do about it either. I’ve donated and so has everyone else that I know of. There are a thousand places to do good.

And I am pretty damned remote from the Hurricane Katrina tragedy. I’m safe in my house, my kids are safe, we still have jobs and schools and food. I don’t watch that much TV, so I don’t get inundated with a lot of news coverage that may or may not be fair. I read most of my news on the internet, where it’s gone through a filter of someone else’s perceptions quite as easily as the TV news has, but there are more perspectives to pick and choose from.

But I do read a lot of science fiction, and within that genre, I read a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction. And it horrifies me how much this disaster resembles the most descriptive fiction. Those authors really got it right, for better or worse. Those people in the Bayou are living through the end of their world right now, and it’s as frightening as the worst horror story. This real life story is even complete with villains and heroes.

Deamonte Love is my favorite hero. If you haven’t heard of him by now, he’s the six-year-old man (and that boy is a man) who corralled and took care of his baby brother, two cousins, and two neighbors, all under three years old, when the rescue helicopter didn’t make it back for his parents. His story gives me chills every time I think of it.

And if the heroes are too numerous to count, well, so are the villains. Robyn linked to a story this morning written by two paramedics trapped in the town during a convention paints a vivid picture of the horror. Go read it, if you would.

It’s too much like the fiction, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to enjoy that genre again soon.

•••••

I’m still not sure that I’m ready for this dating thing.

But then, it might be that I’m just not ready for a man to be calling four times a day. I don’t even like to talk on the phone, and this is getting to be way too much. I’m definitely starting to feel smothered; while attention may sound nice in the abstract, it’s not what I’m used to in reality.

Not only have the men I’ve been around been more remote, I am as well. I’m not prepared to be on the receiving end of someone’s outpouring of affection, especially not this soon and especially not with what I’ve been through in the last year. I’m not even sure that I have a functioning heart anymore, much less one willing to dive right in.

I feel like a horse trapped in the round pen, and the pressure on me is starting to make me feel like fleeing. When you’re working a horse (or cattle, I suppose) in a pen that they can’t get out of, all you have to do to make them go forward is to walk into their personal bubble of space. You can control the speed at which they flee by how close you come to them and how aggressively you do it. A horse that’s used to being exercised that way will just pick up your cues and not panic, but one that’s new at it will go into flight with much less of an imposition on their safety bubble.

I was OK at first, but he’s come way into my comfort zone, and I’m wanting to run away. And if he’s like that on the phone, I can only imagine what my reaction to him in person would be. It’s a gut-level instinct, not so much something that I can voluntarily control.

Fortunately, I have thumbs and can open the gate.

I had been looking forward to our upcoming date, but more for the actual activity than the company, I realized. And once I figured out that it was a relief when he didn’t call, the light bulb went on that this isn’t working for me. I don’t know if it?s the dating thing in general or just this guy, but I’ve pretty much made the decision to call it off and the knots in my stomach have loosened up.

He’s a nice enough guy though, and someone I do like as a person, so now comes the hard part. How do I dump someone who seems to be way too attached to me? It’s not a position that I’ve often been in, and I would never have imagined that I’ve be facing that after one date. I mean, come on, one date? If it doesn’t work out, how could there possibly be feelings to be hurt? I know mine would have been just fine if the situations were reversed.

I think we’ll have to have a little talk tonight. I’ll get the guilties, no doubt, because he already took vacation time to go to this thing, but maybe this is advance enough notice that he can work after all. Or whatever he wants to do. Not my problem, man.

It may be that I’ve become used to doing things on my own (again) and I don’t like to have my freedom interfered with. I’m a pretty independent person.

I can cancel the RV reservation, but I’ve still got two tickets to the thing, and they’re good any day. Any of my friends want to go with me? M, maybe you and me on Sunday? Or maybe I’ll buy one more and take the kids next weekend. They’d probably like it.

Phew, I feel so relieved that that decision’s made. That’s a sure sign that it was wrong right there.

Aaand, on a completely unrelated side note, I made pizza from scratch yesterday. This was the first time I’d ever made a yeast bread that was not in a bread machine, and it was fun. The kids liked it too, and the tiles I got to be pizza stones worked wonderfully. Now, I just have to ask JJ to use his tile saw so I can fit them in the oven on one rack and not be limited to personal sized pizzas. Ooh, maybe I’ll try making bread!

Update: Y’all. Y’all! Three phone calls and an email since I posted this. Dude, leave me a voice mail. I replied to the email rather shortly, and then couldn’t stand it after he called yet again, and did the deed. Wow, I feel relieved. Too bad; I think I would have liked him fine if he wasn’t creepy.

So I’m still seeing this biker guy, and he’s really rather sweet. I can see the potential for being on the receiving end of some obsession though, and we’re going to have to have a little talk about that. I am by no means ready to jump into a relationship, and I’m getting the vibe that he is. Going out and having fun is one thing; calling fourteen times a day is quite another. I didn’t answer the phone once yesterday because I was in the middle of a store with my hands full, and his voice mail sounded a little indignant.

But I did ask him out for next weekend, to the Nor Cal Ren Faire. I’ve only been to one before, and I had a fabulous time. This guy’s more into that sort of stuff than the other guy I went with long ago, so if nothing else, it will be fun. It’s pretty close, but I’m bringing the trailer up to the campground at the site so I can get liquored up and not have to drive home. And a date this long will certainly be telling; it will tell if I can stand all of that attention or not. I’m not used to a man that caters to your every whim, and I’m not sure that it’s something that I would like or not. I’m much more used to the strong silent type.

We’ll see. I’m much more comfortable with this relationship I seem to be developing with my cat. With a cat, following me from room to room is cute; with a man, not so much. Oh hell. I’ve become a crazy cat lady, haven’t I?