OK, I'm back

All right, I want to thank you hardcores for sticking with me. I'm back.

First off, things with Suzanne are just fine. Quite good, really. It's like someone opened a large window and a lot of cat whiff blew out into the world and fresh air replaced it. We spent this past weekend together demolishing turkey products, after spending last weekend in Kansas City at her parents'. All in all, it was an excellent thing to do.

What led up to that was not all that pleasant.

Late that Friday before we were supposed to take off to go to Missouri, something cracked. I'm not entirely sure what, but it was as if we both lost patience with each other at the same time, and by Friday night on the way home we were both shooting from the hip, saying whatever we'd had on our minds without much concern for how the words would land when they hit their target. I think I've mentioned before that I can aim a word with astonishing precision and know what effect it'll have on impact. Well, Suzanne has a similar talent, and eventually, we wore each other out.

At 4:30am, when she woke up, I was absolutely dead set that I was not going to Kansas City, and that she could just go on her own. At the last minute, though, and without much fanfare, I decided that if she was serious enough to want to ask me to come with her anyway, I was serious enough to take her up on it. I threw some stuff in a suitcase, fed the cats, topped up their water, put the iBook on my shoulder, and we went to the airport to catch an early flight.

I was quite impressed overall. Her parents are good people, and probably as far opposite from Nancy's parents as possible. Where, with them, I sensed a constant judging going on, as if they were evaluating me every minute, Suzanne's parents were quite calm and genial the entire weekend. We went to dinner with them Saturday night, and then her 78-year-old mother decided she wanted to go downtown to hear a jazz pianist. Her father didn't want to go, so we went with her and heard a terrific Dutch stride pianist named Bram Widjnans, who you should see and hear if you're ever in Kansas City on a Friday or Saturday night. He plays at the Majestic Steakhouse on Broadway near 9th. Go early. Anyway, we stayed till closing, and Suzanne's mom was great. Her driving on the way home was something of an adventure... the combination of a small, somewhat-easily-confused septuagenarian woman, Saturday night traffic, and a large Cadillac that wanted to drive itself made for quite an adventure.

We did end up getting to wander around quite a bit. We drove by the house Suzanne had grown up in, and I think the guy who lived there was really excited for a while because he was in the yard raking leaves or something, and here we are, taking pictures of the house, which was for sale. Imagine his disappointment when he figured out we were just tourists. The siding had been painted a horrible butterscotch color.

The trip overall was a very good thing to do. I am a much more assured traveler than Suzanne, but that's OK, since I am willing to lead. She gets easily cowed by know-nothing TSA types at the airport, where I do not. I am also better at finding bathrooms and reading departure boards. My own personal thanks to the BWI and KCI airports, which offer free no-hassle wireless internet access, and a big fuck-you to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, which offers about five different no-name paid wi-fi vendors, but not T-Mobile.

After Thanksgiving, the day of which I spent lounging at home and watching football, I went up to her house and we make a proper turkey-and-everything dinner. I also finally got to use my apple peeler/corer thing, which amazed Suzanne no end. Nothing like getting a $20 device to demolish an apple in ten seconds instead of three or four minutes, which is how long it took the last time I had to try to disassemble apples at her house.

I am trying, and actually cannot remember what the hell I was making that required apples. Oh, wait... we wanted to make dried apples in the food dehydrator. This peeler/corer would have rocked the house.

We also talked a lot, and not the sort of airy noise-talk we had been falling into in October and early November, where we just talked about a lot of nothing. There were no appreciable bands of awkward silence this weekend, and that was good. The rabbits seemed more friendly, as well. That was probably due to the presence of apples. Suckups.

So, we're back on course. I am pleased. I was not at all looking forward to the idea of going out there and dating again, and if things really had broken, I was not looking forward to spending eight or ten years wondering what might have been.