Don't you love it when I say I'm not going to talk about something and then I talk about it anyway? Yeah, this is one of those posts.

A few status updates...

License plate: Still sitting on my passenger seat, rather than affixed to my bumper.
Weather: Still in the balmy above-zero range.
Bush's term: Mere hours from over. HOURS! Wheeee!

I think that about covers all the important stuff. No? Oh. Right. You probably want to hear about The Buddhist.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much I want to say about that on-blog. If I know you in person, I will be happy to share my muddled jumble of thoughts on that evening, but I'm not so keen on trying to corral those thoughts into a logical post that will live on the Internet indefinitely. Fair enough? Maybe? I hope so.

I will tell you this, though. It turns out that a Buddhist center, in this case, is really just a house. A beautiful old brick house divided into two apartments, in which a combined total of seven people (specifically, seven urban Buddhists) live. Not only is it a lovely and cozy home, but it is furnished! With a multitude of chairs and tables and dressers and bookshelves that my ex-boyfriend the ex-pothead OWNS!

I'm sorry; have you met me? Then perhaps you're familiar with my tendency to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, no matter how strange or inappropriate that thing may be. Hence, as I walked into the Buddhist's home on Saturday, after the expected hellos and "Wow; it's been a long time"s and "You look good!"s, the first comment out of my mouth was, "You have FURNITURE!!" My ex-boyfriend the Buddhist just laughed at me. "I do! I have furniture," he said. He seemed confused by my surprise. Perhaps he forgot that when I knew him last, he slept on a twin-sized mattress on the floor and his dresser was a laundry basket. Ah, good times.

I don't suspect the decor is in particular what you are curious about, however, but the rest is the part I'm less willing to commit to print. In short, we had a lovely time. I don't know what it means or where (if anywhere) it will go, but regardless of whether or how often I see him again, I am glad we had the chance to cross paths once more. (Note: If he flakes on me and I never hear from him after this, despite his repeated claims that he wants to see me again, please remind me that I said that, OK?)

It doesn't seem possible that I should be able to get together with someone I haven't seen in eight years and fall instantly into the same comfortable rapport we had back then, and yet, we sort of did. He remembers more than I thought he would. I remember more than he thought I would. It may turn out to be no more than just a few hours of reminiscing with an old friend, but I almost don't even mind if that's the case. Above all else, I am happy I saw him again simply for the validation that I am not a clinging-to-the-past crazy person, that I actually was more than a long-forgotten blip in his storied history. Though we dated for only a few months, Jimmy has always been significant to me, but I had no idea if it was at all mutual. He's one I've wondered about often, thinking if we'd met at a different point in his life, things might have gone differently. Turns out I'm not alone. Jimmy told me on Saturday that when we broke up, he thought, "This is a girl I should meet five to ten years from now." He smirked when I admitted to Googling him over the years, not because he was surprised, but because he had Googled me as well. And when I said, "Your Facebook page is all locked down!" he quickly replied, "Yeah... yours is, too."

Essentially, it played out exactly like I imagined it on those rare occasions when I let my mind stir up silly little fantasies or daydreams, wondering "What would happen if I ever ran into Jimmy again?" He said everything I would have wanted him to say. It went just like I would have wanted it to go. It was one of those very rare times where life actually DOES work like it does in the movies, at least for a little while (which is the only part movies show you anyway before they cut to credits). So. It was nice. I don't know what will happen from here. But it's lovely to hold on to some good memories, at least for a bit, anyway.

In other news, I had a blind date tonight with a stranger from the Internet. Yes, yes, that is nothing new, but in this case it was with another Stefanie, a sometimes-commenter who found me while vanity Googling her name a long while back. She is in town helping her mother move, and we met for dinner this evening. As it turns out, Internet strangers who read my blog can be at least as charming and interesting as most of the men I've met on meMarmony and Catch dot Mom. Or maybe it's just a Stefanie thing. We're thinking of holding a reunion. Or rather, a union, as most of us Stefanies on the Internet haven't actually ever met. How many more of us are out there anyway? And how many of you are in?