Okay, as seems to now be the norm, this post is the result of some slight intoxication on my part. (Although the photo of traffic posted earlier this evening was done stone cold sober. This would be traffic at 9:30 at night caused by a SUV-involved accident. Bastards. Because, of course, it's all meant to personally inconvenience me. Anyway, the picture was taken and emailed to the blog as I was stopped completely, so no driving hazards there. Lets you know how traffic was flowing, doesn't it?)

So, aside from the car-repair/insurance frustration that is ongoing (still don't have my freaking car back), today was irritating for a couple of reasons. For one, I still don't have this week's 2000AD. Thank you, US Postal Service, where getting mail actually fucking delivered is apparently just a bonus. And normally, I would have had the Judge Dredd Megazine to hold me over, just in case. But this month's Meg had the second half of a story that started in last week's 2000 AD, so I've already read through it. Bastards. (Of course, I'm about four issues behind on the 2000 AD Extreme Edition, but that's old stuff, so it doesn't exactly count.)

More directly the cause of tonight's drinking safari (more like a drive-by, really; two beers and a raspberry kamikaze) would be the sudden appearance at the library of The Girl in the Cafe. Because I had actually deliberately avoided going to see her at the Cafe for going on two weeks now, and then, a block away from the library, I received a text message from a coworker that she and her son were at the library.

Some background: while we had talked about going out, and exchanged phone numbers and the like, it hadn't actually happened yet, because she's all busy being a full-time mom, full-time student, and full-time cafe manager or owner or whatever. So I was continuing to talk to her every Tuesday and Wednesday morning, like I always had been doing. But the weekend before last, we had some editors and artists from Tokyopop visit our libraries. Including a particularly cool female editor, who I found myself developing a crush on. If that's the right phrase. (Not enough alcohol to put this out of my mind, but enough that I don't care about my writing.) Then Monday, I managed to find myself encountering just about every woman in the library district that I had an unrequited crush on, none of which could be acted upon for a variety of reasons (married, doesn't date people, etc.). That, plus my crush on the editor, pretty much made me feel like there wasn't much different from my interaction with the Girl in the Cafe. Yes, we had acknowledged that we wanted to spend time together, but beyond that, I felt like I was trying to contrive to see her just the same way I contrived to see these other women. And I was getting as far with her as I was the others.

So, something had to change, I decided. And since I wasn't going to insist that she carve time out of her schedule for me, the only thing I could do was back off. So I did. I started getting my breakfast from Bob's East Side Deli, and figured I'd give her a chance to miss me.

So today, she turns up at the library to work on her homework while her son plays on the computer. And it's just weird, because it's almost never that she tries to get in touch with me (doesn't call, nothing). And we talk like we always have, and don't mention how I've been not seeing her. But it's weird, because for the first time, she's on my turf. And the control that I had taken, by deciding to step away, has been somewhat taken away by her coming into my arena, if that makes any sense. And part of me wants to think that she showed up in my place of work because I stopped showing up in hers, but that way lies madness, so I'm trying not to think about that.

But, the really frustrating bit, out of the many frustrating bits, is that I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I wouldn't be seeing her for a while. And I was okay with that, and not actually missing her, and then I saw her again.

And I think I need more to drink, but that's not an option, unless I go back to Timbers, which just seems lame at this point. So I'm going to stop writing now.