Last week, I went to a great Indian place I’d never visited before and thought about telling Mark we should go there sometime for lunch. Then I realized there wasn’t much point since we won’t really be going to lunch anymore after next week. That was kind of a melodramatic moment. Now that he’s posted about the specifics, I figure I owe some of my longtime readers and friends a little explanation as to what’s going on here. I’ll make it quick and snappy:

• Yes, Mark and I will no longer be living together after the first of the year. He will be moving back to San Francisco. I will be staying put in the Triad. Unlike before, there is no specific timeline for when we might be living together in the future.
• No, we are not calling it quits, no matter how much it may sound like it. I love my boy very much (and I know it’s mutual) but we’re adjusting to the fact that our relationship will look rather different in the future than it has for the past nine years–in many ways.
• Yes, I want Mark to be happy. He’s not happy now, which is making us both unhappy. So we’re giving this bi-coastal thing another shot in the absence of other mutually acceptable options. Hopefully, this option will work. I realize that doing nothing will definitely not work.
• No, I will probably not be discussing this further in this space (1) because this part of my life is personal and not for public consumption, (2) because I want to avoid oversimplifications like this one, (3) because I want to avoid any temptation to communicate by website rather than “face to face”, and (4) because it’s just not what I want to be writing about here.

So that’s where we are. Please join me in wishing Mark well in San Francisco. And don’t worry too much about me either. I’m not in a very happy place right now (big understatement there), but I’ve proven over the years to be nothing if not resilient.  I’ve got a job I love and lots of new toys to occupy my mind until we have our first rendezvous in Minneapolis or Omaha or wherever. And I’m really trying to see the positives in all this, albeit with mixed success in certain Indian restaurants.

I’m having a hard time mustering up any real enthusiasm for the holidays this year. I thought this might help some. And it does. At least a little bit…

So it’s Thanksgiving Day, the traditional start of that period known as the “holiday season.”

For a variety of reasons, I’m having a hard time working up much enthusiasm for the holidays this year, but here we are just the same. Today brings lunch with my dad’s side of the family in Greensboro (in a suburb, actually, but it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference) and tomorrow we’re leaving for a few days at the beach. I make it a habit never to go to the beach during the summer; November through February is beach season for me.

A few extremely busy weeks of work follow. I’m on two search committees right now, and I’m also hiring a temp and several student workers in my department in a mad dash to spend as much money as possible before the state budget crisis comes crashing down around us. The next six months will be really hectic, which is actually a very good thing for me right now.

The week before Christmas brings ten-plus days in California visiting Mark‘s family in Fresno with side trips to Los Angeles and San Francisco. It will be my first trip west in two years, my first multi-day visit to the City of Doom™ in maybe four years, and my first time in Southern California since 2005. I wish the circumstances and timing of the trip were different but it will be good to see some old friends, some palm trees, and Clifton’s again. And lest I forget, there’s that whole exciting option of choosing cancerous death rays vs. getting felt up by a (probably ugly) complete stranger at the airport.

After my long flight home comes the new year and what I anticipate will be a very long and cold winter. But I’m not even going to think about that just yet…