I'm over being grumpy about the whole dating thing. At least for the moment! My dancing partner friend and I have decided to explore the mutual attraction we've been feeling lately, and we'll see how that goes. I'm not going to talk about it more than that here, because I haven't gotten permission from him yet. But it's making life interesting, anyway. The key is going to be paying attention to the things I need in my life and seeing if this relationship can provide them or not.

This weekend I'm headed to L.A. and then to Phoenix later in the week. Road trip! I'm going to see a bunch of my cousins and aunts and uncles that I didn't get to spend enough time with during the family reunion in February. I'm going to spend a few days with my cousin Steve and his wife Kelly and their two kids (a 5 yr old and a 9 month old), and do some other familial visiting in L.A., then my cousin Daniel and I are going to drive Lulu the Space Car to Phoenix, where his parents and one of his other brothers live. Daniel has agreed to do the driving on the Phoenix leg of my journey, for which I am extremely grateful -- just to get to L.A. is 6 and a half hours, and then from his firestation in Riverside it's another 4 and a half hours to Phoenix.

And I found out that one of my students and his family are going to be in Phoenix, too. What is it about my vacations from school where I end up in the same places as my students!? Jeez!