Tsk. Can't be having this, folks. Those silly referer logs; they tell me when you're linking to my site. Next thing you know I'll be thinking that the referers mean that someone's actually reading this site, and if I thought that, then I'd feel infinitely more guilty about not posting many updates.

Oh, wait. I already feel guilty.So, yes. I'll tell you a story, see, and you'll all (all three of you!) feel better, having gotten your fix for the day.

See, there was this woman, hiding out in a house outside of Huntsville, Alabama, and she was working with PHP. She had decided to write her own CMS, despite knowing that it would turn her into more of a half-crazed (three-quarter-crazed?) lunatic than she already was.

On a Monday afternoon, which was doing a rather rapid segue from sunny to stormy, due to some silly tropical storm, she was driving a friend to another part of town for dollar sushi night. They ate, and then they went shopping for silly house things, and on the way to shop for even more silly house things, the friend said,

"To tell you the truth, I haven't seen you very much in the past six months. Your code output terrifies me, you know."

…and the domesticat smiled and said, yes, well, obsession's like that, you know.

Sigh. It was fun, but it's not much of a story. Let's try again.

Attempt #2:

It's not that I don't like romantic movies. Quite the opposite, in fact; if you don't think I'm a softie at heart then you've not been paying much attention at all.

It's just that there was something about the plot of Notting Hill that required chocolate. Never mind that I'd already seen the movie twice before; the need for chocolate was as immediate as it was compelling.

Not only that, I knew just what I wanted. Not the tooth-rotting purity of a chocolate bar. Something which sacrificed a bit of sweetness for depth of taste. In a moment or two, I had it: the kind of trifling chocolate bits that one could obtain at a coffeeshop.

Ah, yes. Nearest bookstore. I hit Jeff up with the idea, and he agreed to tag along.

I slid into the driver's seat and flicked on the headlights, momentarily mesmerized by the deep blue and red of the Jetta's dash lights. I took the back roads to the bookstore as the lightest hints of rain began to spatter, lacelike, across the windshield. Their compatriots landed lightly on my hair as we walked in the store, ten minutes before it was scheduled to close.

While Jeff's coffee was being made, we looked around the little coffeeshop, and I noticed the square tables and the games stowed neatly in the corner. "This would be a neat place to play Settlers with friends," I said. "Show up early one evening and take over the shop for a few hours with a typical rousing game…"

…and get kicked out for yelling obscene sheep jokes, I added silently to myself.

Jeff looked around. Nodded. "Wouldn't be bad," he said in that noncommittal tone that meant either complete distraction (after all, the coffee did smell lovely) or total disinterest (true, he doesn't play Settlers). After a quick recon to score a straw for his coffee, we headed back to the Jetta.

Some things you become practiced at after a few years of living together; he balanced his snack and coffee in his lap while he buckled his seat belt, then took my purchases from me as I buckled my seat belt. Our selves safely stowed, we took the quick way home, wipers slowly gaining speed as the rain began to put itself together for the night.

We watched the rest of the movie between bites of chocolate, I a dark chocolate baby bundt cake and he a slice of Snickers pie.

Above us, it began to rain in earnest as I put my now-empty to-go box on the coffee table. We finished the movie to the sound of raindrops slamming themselves against the roof, making a mad dash to the gutters, and pouring themselves onto the sidewalk. Inside, we were dry and quiet, the cats sleeping soundly on their new couch, and the movie ran its course with the coffee finished and the chocolate nothing more than a lingering sweetness under my tongue.

As life goes, not bad. Not bad at all.