Stop me before I fuck again!

I have to actually go home tonight.

Do you realize that I've been home a total of less than an hour since last Friday morning?

Well... I suppose now you do...

OK, you've probably tuned in for the rundown, so here it is. Friday after work, I was supposed to meet up with a guy from another building at work at the place I usually go for happy hour. He was supposedly off that afternoon, but after a couple of voicemail messages, I sort of gave up on him and was going to head out the door to see Penny. At the last minute, though, I ran into some guys from the part of New York I used to live in, and we hung out another hour, talking. I was over an hour late getting up to Penny's, but rather than asking me what had happened, she sort of went into pensive-silence mode and I sort of had to force the issue and tell her, look, sometimes things get distracting and I lose track of time. Call me or something.

Anyway, we eventually worked things out, had some really good crab imperial out on the floor of her deck on a humid, misty night, then went to sleep and did NOT fool around.

Saturday, we had an appointment with cows and goats at the Howard County Fair. Nancy and I used to go for years, and then one year I ended up going by myself because she was at the ocean with her relatives... this year is the first time I've gone with someone new. We had a good time... not too many people, lots of pleasant goats and cows and sheep to talk to. Much fair-food to eat, things to look at...

Saturday night was devoted to the end of the theatre season at the theatre company Mary works with. After the last performance, we all gathered together and stayed up most of the night, as theatre people do, drinking, dancing, eating, talking about stuff, and eventually, ambling home in pairs. Mary and I were the last ones to leave, so we ended up shutting off the lights and closing the doors. We got home well after 5:00am, almost too tired to fool around.

And Sunday, after Mary went in to work for a little while, we met for pizza and more talk, and then she knew I was supposed to meet someone down near DC. I set off for that.

You know, things get to sort of a period of semi-organized chaos... yes, I'm seeing two very nice women who like me a lot and who I adore, and then, sure enough, somebody drops a grenade into the works. This grenade came in the form of Ann, a 45-year-old, cute-but-quirky woman I'd been emailing for over a month. We finally met, and the sort of spark that flew between us was almost enough to reset my wireless phone.

We had a couple of drinks, then spent the rest of the evening walking around her neighborhood and talking about a lot of things. She's pretty admantly childfree, she's been married a couple of times, has a job she hates and a cat she loves, and is a weird mix of liberal and traditional attitudes, which seem to show up at random intervals.

And she kisses like nobody's business. Seriously. If she had been inclined -- and she was, but was cautious -- we'd have been all over each other within about ten minutes of "hello."

As it was, she showed up in my dreams last night. Vaguely, but she was there.

So now I have three women on my mind, if not more. I had a nice date late last week with a woman who's a bluegrass fan, and may yet still meet a woman from Olney who has a terrific voice.

I have got to stop this.

Stop me before I date again!