Sunday: Great aikido class. We practiced randori (multi-person attacks) for most of it. My group tended to have the longest ones, because three of us are fairly senior and the fourth guy is pretty relaxed, so we were able to go longer without accelerating to the point of danger. (It's an adrenalized situation, and we tend to speed up and the teacher ends it when people start being slightly out of control, so no one gets hurt.) Exhausted.

Monday: Annual Meeting for the sangha. At my teacher's suggestion, I had volunteered to be on the Board; normally they have to draft people. But someone else volunteered too, and she won. That was a little disappointing, but not so bad. The cookies helped.

Tuesday: A date! With an Israeli girl I met through the Internet. The first really flowing, easy, hit-it-off date I've had since I met Kat in 2006, so that was nice. There was a gentle kiss good-night, and then she said "You're sweet", which still confuses the hell out of me: on a first or second date, men recognize "You're sweet" (usually correctly) as something in the realm of "I don't want to date you". You definitely don't want the girl to think "sweet". ("Adorable" is also out, though "cute", "sexy", and "funny" are all good things.) The truly irritating part is that it's just a guess, and you have to go out on some kind of second date to confirm that she's not interested, and allow for the possibility that she is interested and this is just one of the exceptions. In my case, I gather she'd like to see me again, but who knows.

I hate dating.

Wednesday: After ending work being ready to throttle one of my co-workers who resists change more than is sensible, a nice aikido class and taking Cyndy out to dinner for her birthday. And a little bit of sake...

*sleep*