***

Last night, it was snowing, so someone had to go pick up Hans and bring him here. He offered to walk, but I was all, "No, outside sucks, one of us will come for you." Then, I said, "Whoever is Board next has to go get Hans." We were playing bridge, you see. If that still doesn't make sense to you, just let it go, because I don't feel like explaining bridge right now, let alone the unwritten rule that the Board is everyone's bitch slave monkey. Trust me on this one.

(I just realized, this is a very long winded and boring setup for a story that's only going to take about a sentence to deliver. And it's not even that good of a story. Some people would abandon the story at this point, but not me.)

(Some people might even go so far as to think, "Jeezus, we started out with the freakin weather report here, if that's not a sign that this is going to be an intrinsically boring entry then I don't what is. Face it. There is simply no saving this entry from absolute suckage. Really, Ana, your only hope now of leaving Diaryland with any dignity intact is to just erase all that crap about the weather, and not do an entry today. Accept the fact that sometimes people do actually let an entire week go by without writing when they have nothing in particular to say, and maybe you should seriously think about joining them.")

(I'm not that kind of girl, though. I have the time to write right now, so I will write. I don't even care if it's boring. Really, you should be grateful I'm writing anything at all.)

(What the hell was I talking about? Ah, yes. Now I remember.)

So, of course, I ended up being Board. You live by the "Let the Board do it!" rule, you die by the etc. I tried explaining that I had no car, but D. pointed out that I still had keys to the PurpleMobile.

So, I drove the purple car for the first time in two months. Dude. He's killing that car. I'd been noticing that I could hear it pulling into the driveway, but when you're inside the car, it sounds even worse. Maybe something went wrong in the last two months that would have happened even if I was driving it, but I know how he drives. Transmission? Bah! And what is this "oil change" of which you speak? My poor little purple car.

No, no, no. It's his poor little purple car now. I guess all I can do is hope he doesn't actually fry anything important until it's paid for.

I didn't even want to say anything to him about it. Our relationship right now is so strange. If other people are around, there's no problem. But if I'm home alone and he comes for a visit, ten minutes later he'll say he was just stopping by to get a video game, and he'll leave. It's like we went straight from dating to being strangers, and I hate it.

I know I shouldn't expect this breakup to be easy. We dated for too long, and there's too damn many people who are friends with both of us. But how can just hanging out with him seem so natural if there's even one other person around, and be revealed as such a mockery when we're alone?

One other thing, while I'm thinking like this. We can both still finish each others thoughts. While everyone else bridged, KC was building rooms for the MUSH last night, and was asking all of us for ideas.

KC:I need a name for a high-scale restaurant.

Him: Hey, what's the name of that place where Arthur took Dot?

Everyone else:(Blank stares)

Me:Bistro d'Burden.

KC:OK, I'll make a bistro too, but I want a restaurant.

Me: Duh. It has to be Dorsia.

Everyone else:(Blank stares)

Him:(cracks up) Yeah! It has to be.

See what I mean? That's nine whole years of living together in action. I wouldn't date him again with a ten-foot-pole. I see that now. But there must be some middle ground between knowing exactly what someone is trying to remember, and barely speaking to him.

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