But first: a ”Baby Daddy” Update.  Exhaling deeply.  There has been a break in the persistent awfulness of this past week.   

I cringe when I read about the horror and devastation happening in Israel and Palestine.

Is it possible that there could be one less Jew and Arab fighting in the world?

Last night, I listened to somebody I trusted, put my ego aside, painful and icky as it was, and yes!  Emailed my ex a simple apology for my own unskillful actions. 

The result was amazing.  My ex completely shifted and was the most conciliatory he’s been since the divorce, when we both thought I might have breast cancer.  For the first time EVER, he admitted that abandoning Sami was a terrible mistake that he regretted, instead of making it all my fault.  He wrote this long and totally impressive email that answered a lot of questions I thought might never be reasonably answered.

Wow.  Just wow.

I still don’t know what to do exactly, in terms of this Saturday’s visitation, but I have some ideas.  I have composed an email which is in draft form and which I will not send until I sleep on it.  (I seem to be getting a hair better at this whole “refraining” thing!) I also made an appointment to talk to Sami’s school psychologist and I’m going to get her ideas as to how to make this transition easiest on Sami.  She knows my kid, as she has been working with him and a small group of other kids on a twice-weekly class that helps the kids to articulate their feelings.

Sometimes he comes home with a sticker (obviously from this class) that says, “I can stop my anger.”  Can he?  Can I?  I think I know what the sticker means: don’t act from that angry place, don’t hurt other people with your anger…hmm.  Good advice. 

OK, enough with the Baby Daddy Drama. 

I have something fun to post.

I have been working downtown for 3 months now and keep seeing this guy on the bus, both on the way to work and back. Very cute, well dressed, about my age.  We never talked or flirted or anything.  I just noticed him every time I saw him.  I liked his face, his dark features, the way he carried himself.

One day after work it is raining and the bus is just MIA. I see him get in a cab and then realize I had better do the same thing or I would be late to pick up Sami. I start to hail a cab and he opens the window and asks me if I’d like to share the cab with him.

Maybe I am obtuse but I didn’t know what to make of that move.  Was he interested, or just being nice, or trying to save money by splitting a cab? 

We chit chat a bit but he is not really giving off a flirty vibe. I think maybe he could be married or with someone, so I don’t flirt with him. He gives me practically the whole cab fare and gets out before me.  He doesn’t introduce himself, and neither do I.

So…fast forward 2 months, to this week. On a whim, I put another ad on Craig’s List, this time not mentioning my mama status, and get a whole slew of completely uninteresting or repulsive responses.  Then one of the last ones to come in before the ad “expires” and IT’S HIM!!

We talked on the phone tonight for a little while and I like him. He made me laugh often and well.  Then he heard my kid in the background and didn’t appear to be freaked out.  (I was going to tell him, just after we had actually met.) He’s wicked funny and smart, I can already tell. He does interesting work in the nonprofit field, just like me. We figured out that we work and live within 10 minutes of each other.  Talk about convenience. 

And get this: we are going out this Saturday night!

Who knows what will come of it, but it’s a crazy story, no?

Maybe life is completely random, maybe everything happens for a reason, maybe it’s both, but damn.  It hasn’t yet ceased to be interesting.