My poor, poor, neglected blog. Holy crap.

Let's see, a brief summary of what's been going on in my life... just won't work. So bear with me as I try to fill in the gaps of the last few weeks, 'cause that's when most of the cooler shit has happened.

First, I had a birthday and turned old. I'm now 25, and this is when things are supposed to start happening. I think. 'Cause, see, I think sometime soon I'm going to have to start being a grown-up or some other shit. I don't know, how old is a grown-up? I have friends that are grown-ups, but at what age did they get there?

Anyhow, second, in order to combat the pending doom of grown-upedness, I bought a motorcycle. That finally came into my possession for real a few days after my birthday. I still have to get my little ass over to the DMV to upgrade my M1 to an M2, which will give me legal ability to ride any road at any time of day or night, but I got the registration and other details taken care of. Second-hand vehicle ownership is full of details that must be looked after, but at least in this case, is worth it. I saved the equivalent of a year's insurance, and I got a really nice bike that I'm not likely to outgrow.

I finally have also taken some rides on it. Well, aside from the one trip up and down the street that I did the day my dad and I took the bike back to their place (I'm still waiting to get my stupid parking spot lined up). My first trip on the bike was Thursday, and it went fairly well, with a few exceptions. I did stall the bike once or twice, but whatever. I got passed by a car that I hadn't realized was there, so that was a bit scary, but has had the pleasant side effect of causing me to check my mirrors more regularly. I also at one point fell over on the bike. I was tired, hungry, and slightly lost, and coming up to a stop sign. As I stopped, I bobbled things a little, and down we went. Fortunately, I was able to lift the bike on my own, so that was encouraging. Finally, I panicked a little heading into a turn; at this point, the bike can seriously outperform me, and I don't have the confidence to go zooming around just yet. But I did get a motorcycle wave from someone, so that was cool. :)

My folks are getting my sister established for school, and taking their vacation right now, so they have a friend looking after the kitties. That friend wanted to go get her daughter set up, so she asked me to mind the kitties over the long weekend, which I did. It gave me a perfect opportunity to let them out for a run, spend some time cuddling them (Digger was *very* pleasured to get some snuggling in on Saturday – he eventually completely collapsed in my lap, all curled up), and get some riding time in. On Saturday I did a quick trip out to the Home Depot and drugstore, where two people snagged the parking spots I was going for. *grr* I had to drop off my purchases, and as I was in the driveway, it started to rain. I wasn’t feeling very confident, so I figured it was as good a reason as any to pack the bike up. Finally, I did another circuit on Sunday, where I wanted to practice some of my turns and so on. Unfortunately, there were a fair number of cars on the road, so I felt a bit rattled by that – I felt a bit as if I couldn’t slow down the way I might’ve liked, and it made me too nervous heading into turns (panicked in one again). I realized that I feel comfortable doing slower speed turns, so I’ll just work up to the higher-speed ones, and I’m treating recommended speeds as being gospel, the same as I did when I was first learning how to drive. I’m already treating speed limits as fairly gospel, ‘cause regardless of how safe I feel speeding in a car, doing 80 km/h on a bike can be scary!

The last time out, some lady tried to snag my spot at an intersection (we both went at the same time), and then I stalled the stupid bike three times trying to get across the damn intersection. I’d already stalled it earlier that afternoon at the opposite side of the intersection, and the bike wobbled on me – I had to fight to keep it upright. I think I’m pushing myself a bit too much, and it’s undermining my confidence a bit, so for now I’m going to work on scaling back a little, and trying to settle the nerves. Driving after 6:30 p.m. or so seems to be a good time of night; it’s still light, and fewer people are out on the roads.

So that’s the rundown on the bike. What else has been going on?

Well, the week of my birthday, I booked the week off of work. I figured I was due a vacation, and my week off was capped with my trip to Toronto to go and see James Marsters, as you knew.

In conjunction with my week off, I was booking plans all over the place. See, I signed up on a website, plentyoffish.com, awhile ago after I heard of it from a friend. It’s similar to lavalife or capital.cupid, in that it’s a dating site of sorts, but they also have resources for those who only want to meet friends or chat online. In addition, it’s completely free; chatting, emailing, etc., which is a nice change of pace.

I’d met a few nice guys through there, some of whom I’d even met in person and gone out on dates with, and a few others I’d made tentative plans to meet. One of them was someone who’d originally contacted me to ask questions about the motorcycle licensing process and the course, and who I’d suckered into conversations on other subjects (what can I say? He was cute, and you all know the alternate title for this site). We exchanged a series of rambling emails on all sorts of stupid topics, switched to real email accounts, and then discussed the possibility of meeting.

He gave me his number and times when it would be safe/kind to call, so one day before my lunch break, I did. We talked for an hour and a half, only briefly touching on the subject of finalizing the tentative plans we’d made (picked a day and that was about it), and then he had to be off. We spoke again the next day, though not as long, and there were several other phone and MSN conversations that took place, some until the wee hours of the evening.

We made plans for Monday of my vacation, and planned for the entire day. Normally, when I meet someone for the first time, it’s a coffee or maybe a meal; I’ve had plenty of experiences where online chemistry didn’t translate. In this case, however, neither of us seemed particularly worried about that not panning out. I had to push the plans back a bit in order to accomodate a coffee with D that never actually took place, but in the end it all worked out. We met that afternoon, and long story short, our first date ended two and a half days later.

And no, not for the reasons you’re all thinking. Perverts, the lot of you; I’m a lady.

Stop laughing. I hate you.

Anyhow, he went home Wednesday morning when I went for my gym appointment, after braving my birthday potluck dinner with friends, and thereby beginning his new addiction to Katamari Damancy. He came back Wednesday night after his shift was over, and aside from my weekend in Toronto, we’ve spent every night together since.

I know,we’re one of those couples who everyone is going to say is moving way too fast, but it feels okay and seems to be working so far. We’ve recently hit a few minor bumps, but we talk it out and it seems to be working out okay. We’re both jumping in with both feet but at the same time being somewhat cautious, because we’ve both been hurt many times in the past. I’ve vetted him past a few of my friends, and so far the approval ratings seem to be pretty good. :)

Needless to say, I ended things with Mr. Three Dates (yeah, you guys hadn’t heard of him), and allowed things with the other two people to more or less lapse. Apparently he was also dating three people when he met me; for a *huge* geek, he seems to do okay for himself. :)

We’ve also taken to making good meals together. The first real mutual meal was the night he made chicken kiev and I made an experimental pasta salad and (bad) brownies; a few nights ago was beef stroganoff and then last night was a pizza from scratch. Very thick dough, due to the dish and the recipe, but very tasty, too. :) Of course, soon it’s going to be my turn to helm the preparations, but not for awhile, as his next night off isn’t for some time yet. I’ll have to resort to feeding myself, it would seem.

Finally, even the kitties seem to like him. Venus is a bit slower at coming around, but she seems to be getting into a shy frame of mind, whereas Thena’s been pretty comfortable around him from the start. Some nights they’ve even taken to picking on him and leaving me alone, which is a nice change of pace. :)

Oh yeah, and carrying on my theory that this city is Too Damn Small, I work at the same building as one of his roommates; we even took a course together about six weeks ago. In fact, we're working on the same issue, from different ends.

Anyhow, I’ll save my Toronto story for another time. I’m starving and I still have some reading to do for school on Thursday. Stupid horrible professor. *sigh*