She invited me to lunch, I said next week.

She said soon, I said, okay, Monday?

She showed up at my desk at 11:30, today.  Could I go now?

I try to limit my time with this person; she is toxic.  She is a flamethrower.  She takes people down with her.

She recently involved me ("I'd like your advice") in a relationship crash'n'burn with a co-worker.  At work.  ("I'll cc you on this e-mail telling her why she hurt me and we can't be friends anymore.")

I said please don't cc me.  I suggested not sending the e-mail.  (Are you sure?  At work?  From your work e-mail?  Are you sure you need to send it at all?)

She did not cc me, but IM'd me a day later:  "I'M FREE !!!"

A few weeks have passed.  I heard yesterday she was demoted.  So I knew why she wanted the lunch.

At lunch, I learned from her that she was asked to move to this job because the previous person (who was promoted to her old job) failed to perform.  Ah, it's going to be like that.

I congratulated her and she was happy.

The VP has other plans for her, she said.

That's wonderful, I said.

In conversation with her, I feel like she's a ravenous cannibal and I'm a human pretending to be a very supportive carrot.  If she finds out I'm human, she'll eat me too.

I have increasingly been on my guard with her since receiving one of these "you don't respect me" e-mails  -- at work -- myself, back in December.  And myself, I was mystified at what I had done.  I had not been drunk.  I had not said or done anything out of the ordinary.  I left when I'd said I had to, announcing that I was meeting Al at W&W (another bar).  She later accused me of openly flirting with and trying to "steal" the guy seated on her right (I'd been on her left).  She later went with the guy back to his hotel & spent the night.  We'd just met him, but fine, whatever.  Was she lashing out at me from some puritanical guilt she felt about that?  I mean, I'd been flirting with Al - - whom I was then seeing -- and had just said I was going to meet him.  ??  I got right away that it wasn't about me, this crazy rant ("and I could tell that your aura was aroused and aggressive and red")  I received.  AT WORK.  Okay I made up the part about auras.  She didn't say aura.  I don't even know if I'm spelling that right.

I want a story scene where something like this happens and aura / aerole (which I also can't spell) come into wordplay and something else entirely happens.  Still working on that.

So anyway.

I congratulated her on her new position yesterday when I ran into her.  It seemed appropriate, regardless of the fact that it's what's best called a "developmental move."  Today, she complained bitterly that no one else had congratulated her.

They probably haven't seen it yet, I said.

They probably don't want to walk the minefield, I thought.

As bettyc said, this friendship is not going to end well.

I think the same will be said of her career.  Surreal to watch the self-destruction.  I can't stop it.  I tried.  I guess I finally relate to a photojournalist who snaps away while a city burns.

My celebrity crushes seem perfectly reasonable.

Sean Connery.

Ed Harris.

Joe Montegna.

Mark Hamill.

The painted-face savage on horseback in The Mummy -- swooooon

The only weird thing is that three of them -- the first three -- appear to be really lousy kissers, based on my cinematic observations.  The same kind of lousy kisser:  that loose-lipped, sloppy, over-reaching kind, lips as tentacles, groping (or, at best, overly tentative), seeking purchase on solid form . . . .  I hate that kind of kissing.

All of them are mostly known for hero / savior type roles, although Harris does action-movie-bad guy, Montegna does duplicitous bastard, and Hamill does stalker/ serial killer so well it's genuinely creepy.

I don't know what else the Mummy guy's in (imdblah blah) and it's fine.  He can remain that mysterious horsed rider.  Mm-hmm, yep, I'm fine with that.

Frankly (pun intended), where men are concerned, I've had enough of reality for awhile.

Celebrity crush in effect.  Cue:  Mark Hamill.  I wonder if Netflix has "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia?"

With the past two years being a bikey chick -- Ride Every Day!  I forgot the pleasure I used to find in writing.  Reading through 2003 posts, full of Nanowrimo-word-count shared panic and triumph, I was reminded that I was part of a Xanga community -- part of a writing community -- part of a community of support.

I found that supportive community in biking too, and then lost it after (now 2) car accidents in 2010, 2013/ shoulder (now wrist) surgeries.

Losing daily biking shot me down.  Way down flat, some days fighting just to leave my bed.  I couldn't ride my bike to work? I didn't want to go.  Didn't want to drive, didn't want to pay for parking, also didn't want to gain the 20 pounds added since October's crash .... fat lot of good "not wanting" did.

I forgot that some of that writing I used to do was kinda good.  Not just good FOR me, but sometimes just plain good writing.  Sometimes really good.

I'm not supposed to be on a bike at all, but I can write.  I'm typing one-handed, because the other's in a cast, but I'm getting pretty speedy.  It's tiring, but I can DO IT.

I feel like I opened this extra door in my heart that was hidden, covered with scabby vines, hinges rusted almost solid.  Reading 2003 posts provided the oil for the hinges, dropping my brain into some familiar old Nano characters called forth some kind of hero sword, with which I hacked away (with mah one gud arm) at the stubborn vines.

Maybe my new bike will come today (it has a battery!)  Maybe I'll be able to ride without straining my wrist/shoulder/neck and be bikey chick again.  Until the next surgery, until things are healed up.  Maybe I'll soon be able to leave the vehicle in the driveway again and return to WINDINMYHAIR morning commutes, you know, the kind that make you laugh out loud as you beat the #2 bus on the downhill and share a grin with the driver as you meet, head to head, at the light on the top of the hill.

But if I can't ride, I can write.

Gotta keep this door open.

One thing should be abundantly clear by now:  I am not good at dating.

I didn't mean to let all the kids grow up without dads, I didn't!

Oh Frank is "around," doing the Monday eves and every other weekend non-custodial parent gig.  Yay for Norway.

But Jesus, I just looked away for a second and now there's Stan away in college and Ollie an inch taller than I . . . both accelerating rapidly past the point of finding any relevance at all in a father figure.

I always thought I'd meet someone.

I also always thought Stan/Ollie dads would return -- not for a relationship with me, but just to investigate this independently walking talking part of their DNA.

I do try.  Just last week, I asked Handsome Clever Bob to a university lecture.  (He was too busy with work.)

And my teacher friend (who only wants sex, and is neither handsome, nor clever) is almost always available, but . . . .

Really, what's called for here is a giant shout-out to my 20-year-old self:

HEY.  DON'T BE SO GADDAMNED PICKY.

OH AND, BTW, HORMONAL TYPES OF BIRTH CONTROL DON'T WORK FOR YOU.  JSYK.  (HAHA, YOU ARE THE 1%... THAT JOKE WILL BE FUNNY IN 2013)

OH, ONE MORE THING?  GO AHEAD AND BUY THAT BERKSHIRE STOCK.