I’ve been kind of reticent to talk about this here, but I guess enough time has passed that it wouldn’t seem like I’m just glossing over stuff.  And for some reason, since all I talk about here is my personal life (since I’ve made most of my work life verboten for blogging), it almost seems like it’s not entirely real unless I write about it.  Anyway — The Girlfriend and I broke up a couple of months ago.  A couple of people kind of already noticed because I stopped writing about her, and I got a couple of e-mails asking about it.  I’m not looking for sympathy or anything, I just wanted to get it off my chest.

Since then, I’ve been getting back to life as I know it, I suppose.  I guess the bigger thing is that I’m not afraid anymore to do things that remind me of “us,” like last night, when I went with Amandarin to see Eddie Izzard perform live… something I’d previously done with the Now-Ex Girlfriend since his material is something she introduced me to, and the show was even at the same theatre (Eddie uses the same venue to test out new material).  I’ve been dating again.  I seem to be heading into another one of those stretches where I’m so socially active that I don’t have a single night to myself.  I’m not reticent to flirt or hit on women when I’m out in public (much to the chagrin and/or amusement of my friends who happen to witness the spectacle).  And I’ve had some pretty incredible and interesting experiences over the past couple of months, like seeing the first show on the Van Halen reunion tour, seeing the Red Sox win a World Series and being in the live studio audience at Real Time With Bill Maher when people began disrupting the show — a few days later, I was out with a few people who randomly started talking about it, and when they asked me if I saw the episode, I was able to say, “I was there when it happened.”

That’s not to say I didn’t go through the usual grieving process.  And retail therapy is definitely not just for women.  I’ve always helped myself get over breakups by buying a shiny new toy to distract me from things — that’s how I actually got my first TiVo.  Well, my iPod blew up around the time of the breakup, so I went to get a new one as my self-distraction, but when I walked into the store, light was shining down on this gorgeous 42” flat-panel HDTV.  After texting for over half an hour with The Best Friend™ as I wandered the store, trying to get her to persuade me not to buy it (which she rather unhelpfully declined to do), I finally said “Screw it!” and bought the damn thing.  That’s when the adventure began.  I got it out the store’s door only 15 minutes before the place closed… only to find that it wouldn’t fit in my car.  I was slightly panicking, since I couldn’t really return it — I’d just bought it, and the place was closing for the night!  (It also didn’t help that while I was standing there, trying to figure out how I was going to get it home, some guy randomly passed by and said, “I just bought that model last month, it’s amazing and you’re going to love it!") I finally got the bright idea of unpacking it there in the parking lot and managed to get it into the back seat.  Fine.  Got the HDTV home, and realized that the furniture I have in my living room is too small to hold a TV of that size, which means that now I have to put this monster in the bedroom, despite the fact that I’d really wanted it in the living room.  Whatever.  Got the thing all set up in the bedroom and everything, even went down to the cable company’s offices the next day and got an HDTV box, so I’m all set with that.  Then I found out the issue with the box — I had to buy one of those in-room air conditioners over the summer because it was beastly hot here, and because my windows slide side-to-side, I couldn’t get an in-window unit, and the thing came with a remote control (which I never use) — the problem is now that because the remote for the new HD cable box apparently operates on the same frequencies as the A/C, every time I want to turn the TV on or change the channel, the air conditioner will start beeping or turn itself on.  Wheeeeee.