I had a good birthday

The Republican.

Christi Underdown had planned to come visit me for my birthday weekend, and oh, the fun we were going to have. I was so excited. Then Christi got rear-ended at the intersection of Murfreesboro and Waldron Road (accursed intersection, you have thwarted my plans for the last time! I moved away and still you haunt me!). Remind me to tell you a story some time about that intersection, my dad's heart attack, Scribbling Mob and cock fighting. It's a good story.

Christi couldn't come visit; her back is ripped up and her transmission isn't doing well. So The Republican came instead, bringing with him a weekend of movie watching and my favorite cookies.

I'm not seeing The Republican. Of course, I'm not not seeing him, either. It's complicated, as these things tend to be. We live some hours distance from each other, and he hates Hillary Clinton. He's also an anglophile, a product of sexually segregated schools and he wears loafers. He builds roads, which I hate, and he listens to godrock, which makes me want to hurl.

He's also really, really nice to me. He has worn me down with his niceness and compliments. He's a source of interesting conversation; he's classically schooled, and can discuss history and mythology in depth. He's well traveled, impeccably mannered, and open-minded. He's an active pagan, and has a great deal of verse memorized (although most of it is Victorian, and I dislike Victorian verse). He's a friend of many other good friends, and so is recommended by his company.

But there's that Republican thing...

"I want to hang out with him", said Dinan. "We never debate politics around here; we all agree with each other. You should have him in the living room more often; I want to talk with him for a bit. I want to know why he thinks the way he does."

I groan at this. "Dinan. He's hopelessly outnumbered here. It's 3 to 1. And Ron gets going about the godless English, and it's all over with."

She sighed. "You're right."

I talked to Dust about it. About how ambivalent I am. I could hear his breathing on the other end of the telephone line; Dust's slow intake and exhalation of thoughts, the way his brain moved around the idea of me taking long walks through the park with a Republican of exclusively English descent, and worse, a member of the oppressive class.

"Well, it's like this: I'd rather see you with a Republican who is nice to you and treats you well than with a guy who works at DC comics, dresses great, is artistically brilliant but treats you like shit. I'd rather see you with the guy who wears loafers and is good to you than with a guy who is mean."

I paused, but only for a minute. "ARE YOU CRAZY!?! If I was dating a guy who worked for DC comics, we'd get preview issues, Dustin! That's comics a whole month early! We'd know who Power Girl's parents are right now! I'd totally rather date the guy who was mean to me!"

Well, said Dustin, that's your issue.

Indeed it is. We spent the next half hour discussing Power Girl's possible origin.

And The Republican is nice to me; I had the best birthday, where we went to the museum and looked at the Etruscan exhibit - he was actually more excited to see the Etruscans than I was! That was lovely. We also went to see a good 'ol monster movie where vampires beat up werewolves. He enjoyed that too. Do you know how hard it is to find a guy who understands my love of bad monster movies and who likes special effects and the Pelopenissian wars? Those are darn rare qualities to find in the same person.

I'm converting him to comic fandom, I think. He's already read the Sandman series, just recently, and that's the best hook anyone can sink into him. I sent him home with Kingdom Come, which may not really do it for him (but I can hope). We'll see. We'll see. We'll see if I can put up with someone who is incredibly nice to me.

And he is, really. He's good to me in this way that I really need. So we're communicating a bit, feeling things out. But he is entirely different in type than any other buy I've dated before. Probably this is not a bad thing.