Skate date and other stuff

Well, this weekend sure turned out well. It's got a nice little TV drama/happy ending story arch to it too. From my pathetic call to McKinley and stag one-hit-wonder outing on Friday to a real live date tonight. Not bad.

Saturday I slept way in and then fought the resulting headache for the rest of the day and night. It wasn't incapacitating, just enough to make me completely unmotivated to do anything productive around the house. I went out to breakfast at the Tin Shed with my roommate and she surprised me by picking up the tab. It was crowded as it usually is on weekend so Shannon and I sat at the bar. The same bar where N and I had our 'after breakup/exchanging stuff dinner. If I'd been trying to torture myself, I couldn't have done any better. First the Imbibe (site of our first date and many others) and then Tin Shed. But I was actually feeling pretty good and it didn't bother me too much.

After breakfast we went to the store to pick up some quick burning logs. We just got a cord of wood delivered last weekend and it's pretty much useless as it's wet all the way through. Basically, we got royally screwed and there's not much we can do about it. I haven't had the time or the energy to fight with trying to get fires going, so I've just been buying the cheater logs, as I call them. It sucks, cause I really don't have the money to be doing that! Oh well.

Anyway, we got our logs and went home and chilled out. Watched my Titanic documentary and then I took a nap on the couch when she went out for a while. Basically didn't get much done to speak of besides making some kick ass fried chicken and spaghetti squash.

When I was done feeding myself, I decided to spend the evening updating my profiles. As much as I hate online dating, the fact is it's winter and I just don't get out as much--nobody does--so it just makes practical sense. I figured as long as I avoid craigslist--the Jerry Springer Show of the personal ad world--I might avoid the urge to tear my hair out.

One of the main things I hate is trying to summarize yourself into these neat little paragraphs and categories---ugh! But I sucked it up and made myself sound halfway decent on MySpace, PlanetOut and the new Just Out personals page. On JO, I did a search and found a few promising looking ads. I wrote to pdxgirl--a 30 year old non-smoking Libra who likes cross country skiing, biking hiking--typical Oregon stuff. She wrote back the same night and we exchanged a few emails over the next 36 hours.

Tonight we met up at Gay Skate night at Oaks Park. Gay Skate has been going on for years, but I had never been. Just Out has just taken over sponsorship and the turn out was great. I went over to my friend Erica's and had dinner with her and her gf and then we all went to the rink together. Laura and Meredith, my former Kinkoid buddies showed up and I saw a bunch of other people I knew. It only took twice around the rink before I saw someone waving me down. I had correctly told her that I'd be much easier to spot, and she should find me. I rolled over to her and straight into a really good hug. A good beginning.

I took her over and introduced her to the gang and then we rolled off. We skated almost the whole time and chatted about first date type stuff while we rolled along. From time to time, I'd roll up to one of my friends to check in, or show of my one skate trick (shooting the duck) to Kimmie over on the sidelines. I skated backwards and we held hands for couples skate and sat out all-girl skate because of the crappy song (and pointed out that since it's gay skate night, they really should have trannie skate shouldn't they?). I had to take her over to the bumps of course and I gave her a short lesson in skating backwards that didn't have much effect.

During the course of the evening I learned that she:

is a nurse and has a major in geology.
grew up in Wisconsin, moved to PDX in August from D.C.
lost her mom to a stroke two years ago
has at least one sister
is much hotter than her online picture lead me to believe
gives great hugs.
is out to her supportive dad
loves Portland
ended a 7 year relationship one year ago
seems mature for her age
wants to buy a house soon
is a better skater than she lead me to believe
hates smoking as much as I do
likes kids but doesn't necessarily want to own one (hallelujah)

All in all it was a great evening and we mutually agreed to get together again. She works three 12 hour shifts a week at her hospital but her schedule is a bit wacky so I don't know when that will be. But I'm hoping she'll be able to go to the Anti-V-Day DM show at Doug Fir next month.

When we said goodbye, there was the slightly awkward goodnight-kiss-decision moment which I chose not to take advantage of--one because I desperately needed some gum after having soup at Erica's house and two, because I've learned my lesson about jumping in too fast. At any rate, hopefully there will be plenty of time for figuring that out on date two--with less of an audience.

I got a txt from Jess on the way home that said it was great to meet me and she had a good time.

I'm going to do my best not to get ahead of myself, but it's nice to feel optimistic about my dating life again.

I so don't want to go back to work tomorrow. But it's already started...Kara called me with some urgent request and I spent half an hour proofing a file at 11:30pm tonight. I fear the rest of this month is going to be crazy.