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Oh, and restoration of firearms rights.

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(hed fixed to 19)

The universe has a strange way of fucking with one. In my experience, long and frustrating lulls where nothing happens are punctuated with "oh, you didn't like that? Well, here's everything at once."

I should open with that I am not looking for advice; I've already made up my mind. I'm looking to commiserate and vent.

Requisite backstory: Through a series of events much like what I described with getting back into journalism not too long ago, we met. This required my former boss, the lesbian who was my first real girlfriend, my parents, friends of my parents having moved to Oregon and, oh yes, I-5 freezing the day after said boss was done with me couchsurfing and we disagreed over "by the weekend." She was on the coast and I needed to get to Tacoma two days later.

We'd been talking on OKCupid for at most two weeks. I looked at my options and determined nonfrozen roadway would be preferable, so I sent a very short message: "Fancy a visitor?"

This was 2009, and she felt it was safe because to her mind, there was no way I was straight (bleached hair at 30, amirite?). We've now been divorced for eight years. I'm not going to talk about what went right or wrong. It is firmly in the past, and we have worked in recent years to get back on speaking terms, which varies in efficacy, usually depending on her inebriation level, which is itself horrifically ironic.

So, after she offered to mail me an ounce in April and then went completely silent, with no ounce showing up, she finally popped up last night. She's about an hour away through the week before likely heading to Connecticut for an unknown period of time. No car -- she's going to figure out the transport down here -- but nonetheless, distilled, knowing that I live in a van with a bed too small for two people who aren't fucking: "Fancy a visitor?"

And the reality is I do. Said that once before ...

But wait, there's more! I'd already interacted with her in 2004, when she had a different account. Learned that one the day I moved into her house five days after meeting (which was a drive) and she showed me an old photo. Of her. Wearing what's in retrospect a rather pedestrian collar for something that actually has cone spikes.

I can only say this in retrospect, because I went full Paul Hogan for the wedding after commissioning two artists: That's not a collar ...

She fucking wears her wedding collar to this day (you want it to last, you want a blacksmith; also, be aware that a leather backing can cause cysts). And kept my name. So, you know, it's not entirely out of the blue that after all this time ...

It's the surprise of it all. Even though it really shouldn't be surprising. So, maybe it's just the timing.

I hate to go as cliche as "surprising absolutely no one," but really, this is not a surprise.

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I've never been a reporter.

You might think this is how one gets into journalism, but there are a few roads. Mine was columnist, copyed, opinion editor, running the fucking paper.

As I start my third week as a reporter, there's much that is just strange. My reporters never deigned to tell me I was wrong, but I frequently tell my editor as much.

"Look, we don't have a story here until DOE links what was in the press release" is apparently competence. Like, this is just obvious. No, I don't need praise for pointing out a glaring hole in a story.

I just wake up and am myself, and I'm somehow paid for this. Given all the bullshit surrounding corporate roles, I'm left agape at how this still exists and my ability to just slide into something I've never done.

Surely the clearest path to retaining only the best.

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So, this isn't news, nor is it science, per se. But I wanted to share here because I was one of those kids from about 2 to 4. As mentioned in the story, it of course all faded thereafter, but I could talk at length about my life in Texas even though I had never been. My parents found it odd but not entirely outside expectations.