After pissing down all yesterday, the sky has opened up. Time to take a last chance to visit with nature sans-rain slicker. Time to clean the gutters!

I spent a quiet evening at home, lounging in front of the fire and contemplating/introspecting. The Love question is getting bigger and bigger in my mind. I've started trying to date -- a truly atavistic endeavor for me -- with mixed results so far; really just getting back out there, as they say.

Still, it's more than enough to remind me what I miss about womanly companionship; enough to set me off on reminiscing, and wondering when and from whence the next big bolt of romantic electricity will come. Who knows. Who knows.

I've had a lucky and full life in love thus far, maybe more than my fair share -- though really I don't believe this is something in finite supply -- but I'm still hungry, dammit.

That's what it's all about, friends.

I haven't written too much about Laura and Frank's wedding last weekend, mainly because I've been running flat-out since and haven't composed thoughts yet. Anyway, I found some of my friends had posted about it:

Tresler!:

I ran all over creation assembling the 'costume' part. Someday I'll find that invitation to get the exact wording, but both Julie and I perused it and it was something to the effect of 'Come dressed in something you wouldn't wear everyday, Surprise your friends, change your haircolor'. Julie at first thought it was a joke so I verified with Frank and Laura that a modest 'costume' would be okay. They said it would be great.

Naturally we were the only cowboy and 'hussie'(her word not mine) there.

Ms. Rose!:

The whole event kind of redeemed weddings in my eyes. I've been resistant to the idea of a wedding for me and Jen lately, mainly because it makes me feel stupid to think of spending thousands and thousands of dollars on an event that is merely for show, not resulting in any increased protection for our union, and our family. But I saw on Saturday, that if your wedding is about who you really are, then its alot more than that - it really is an event that brings your union before your family and friends and says, hey, we're doing this, please honor and celebrate that and help us, today and through the rest of our lives.

And both of those folks have blogs worth reading, I might add... speaking of which, I need to get my blogroll back in action, GD-it.

So the other night I was writing in my paper journal, and I noticed that I was talking about my own life the way I do about work when I have my Project Manager hat on. My first reaction was that this was pathetic, but then I checked that and I remembered that actually this is natural, and I do the same thing when I'm in an "actor" or "activist" mode as well.

So I decided to embrace it, started an open-ended todo list that started with "California drivers license" and "medical insurance" and ended up at the bottom with: wife, land, kids.

Heady, brah. No doubt influenced by my thinking a lot about Frank and Laura's wedding this weekend.

But I'm embracing this exercise and so I start to try and build a timeline around these things, because that's what you do when you're a project manager. If I'm doing it, I gotta do it.

So the upshot is that I figure I should have met and started a relationship with my wife by 2009, after which I've got five years or so to wrangle the land and kids bit. Prior to that there's getting a car and a dog to consider.

All this is assuming I stay on a track to remain in California. This is far from certain, but it seems to be the direction I'm headed for the moment, so I figure why not take it as far as it can go.

Now that I've got a five year plan, all I need is to meet some of those college girls that would ask you about that sort of thing. With 2009 as a milestone, why, my wife could still be in High School. Ho ho ho.

Kidding aside, meeting the women is perhaps the greatest challenge/unknown up here. I'm single again after almost a year of relationshipping. At the moment I'm not quite ready to really get back out there and mix it up, but it's going to have to happen sooner or later.