My brother emailed me to berate me for not journalling just when things were getting interesting. Unfortunately, I've discovered that when life gets interesting and fun, time for journalling is sparse.

Much has happened in the past few weeks. J and I are "officially" an Item. (I knew it was "official" when I had three people in one day come up to me and ask me if the rumor they'd heard was true. The grapevine works very quickly in law enforcement.) I'm having a wonderful time with him--he's smart, witty, cultured, and he's not afraid of my intelligence or accomplishments. We both admit to being completely smitten with the other. It's totally sappy!

He took me to Gulf Shores and Pansacola a couple of weeks ago. A friend of his owns a condo on the beach--the pic is the view from the balcony. We didn't really have any planned activities; we did a lot of driving around and general "quality time" stuff. We went to see Lord of the Rings--I'd already seen it but wanted to see it again, and he had not seen it yet. He's also never read the books and I think he was a bit unsure of what was going on in parts of it. To be honest, I'm not sure the movie works all that well for people who've never read the books in their lifetime. Oh, they can appreciate the general quality of the movie, but I think that finer plot points get lost.

So, we went through a spate of going out a lot, but have lately settled into a very comfortable pattern of staying in, eating in, and watching movies. I convinced him to buy a George Foreman grill, and have thus created a monster. (As loyal readers know, I am NOT a cook. I don't cook. I hate to cook. Fortunately, J likes to cook.) J now does all of his cooking on that grill. He's been going to the fish market and buying (much nicer stuff than I would ever buy) salmon, tuna steaks, trout, catfish... you name it. He loves trying to surprise me with something new.

Basically, he's spoiling me rotten. It's awfully cool.

In OTHER news, I took the three day basic motorcycle class offered by the state department of education this past weekend. I was very impressed with the class--they go from "This is a motorcycle" all the way to having us do serpentine weaves through cones, figure eights, and panic stops. I did have one rather spectacular crash on Saturday--I totally lost my concentration during a turn and tried very hard to go through a fence. I ended up with some amazing bruises on my left leg, and an extremely tender left wrist. Fortunately I did not break it, though I think I came scarily close to doing so. It swelled up quite impressively, but I was still able to open and close my hand with enough strength to operate the clutch on the bike. Therefore I told them I was fine and got back on the bike. (Actually, the handlebars of the bike I'd been on were somewhat askew after the crash, so I got on a different bike.) Fortunately the bikes (Honda Nighthawk 250s) belong to the state, and are insured. Even more fortunately, one of the instructors managed to straighten out the handlebars without too much difficulty. On Sunday, I got back on my original bike, just daring it to fuck with me again, and managed to come in second on the final skills test (and the guy who came in first already knew how to ride--he was just going through the class to brush up his skills.) Luckily I only had the one drop--one of the rules is that if a student drops a bike twice, they are asked to come back another time to try again. In other words: 2 drops and you fail. One other lady had a drop--and hers was a minor one compared to mine, all she did was lose her balance and topple over. However, one of the drills we did early Sunday was a lane changing exercise where two bikers start down the road and then have to swap lanes. It's designed to make you watch your spacing, pay attention to your surroundings, and know how to yield. The other lady with a drop and I were matched up next to each other on this drill, and I reminded her that we both had one drop, and if we ran into each other, we'd both flunk out!

But, I did pass, and after some thought (and an honest personal assessment of my skills) I decided to make an offer on a bike that one of my coworkers had advertised on the departmental e-bulletin board. 1985 Honda Nighthawk 700 with only 16k miles on it. I figured that a 700 would be big enough that I would have some room to grow into it, but not so big that it would get away from me before I got better at riding. The bike is in very nice condition except for a couple of small scrapes on the front. Scrapes don't bother me too much at this point through, since I may very well add a couple of my own in the next few months. I figure that once I get nice and comfortable on this one, I'll go ahead and buy something newer and nicer. So yesterday I went to the bank and asked for some money just on the strength of my winning personality. To my bemusement they gave it to me with nary a hitch. I then went to the DMV and got the motorcycle endorsement put on my driver's license. One cool thing about going through the state motorcycle class is that it exempts you from having to take the DMV motorcycle driving test. (Not that I was worried since I heard from many many people that the DMV test is a joke, while the skills test I took in the class was hard.) Today I met up with my coworker and traded cash for the title (had one of the administrators at the office notarize everything for it) and then after he got off of work, he delivered it to my house. I am now officially a Biker Chick! I think I got a fairly good deal on it--paid him $1800, which includes a helmet, saddlebags, tank bag, and a book that shows in detail how to take the bike apart and put it back together.

I really really really do intend to be better about updating more frequently.

Yes, I know I've said that before. I mean it this time.

I do!