(((Aimee)))

Glad I didn't give birth to a dolphin [link] (for this and other reasons, obviously).

Burrell, Isaac is a doll! He looked really good on Day 1, and I loved the "Dude!" picture.

Much embassy stuff to do today - we're duty this week, and there are several Americans in various hospitals to check on, plus our sponsee is arriving so I need to go get his apartment into shape and get him some food.

Largest Arab population outside the Middle East and Africa.

I actually meant to say the third largest in the world, but my fingers got ahead of my brain and I forgot.

Anyway, the ep was really good and very very educational. At least, for me. There was so much about Islam that I didn't know.

Yeah! Why couldn't meara cut her hair and then all of us would be happy? Tell your roommate she's very selfish for not maximizing this haircut.

Well, fwiw I'd kept nagging her (it had grown out and out and out and eventually become a mullet, and she was maintaining it with a view to having it long again) to get it cut short again. And she brought me a selection of 3 pictures from the 'net and asked which one she should get, and I did go with the sortest short short one. It looks lovely. She's just gone back to Blighty, where she's promised to get the back seen to - it needs shaving at the nape, imho.

That help?

I am at work. This seems wrong. I want to be in my home and unpack unpack unpack!

Teppy, you are awesome, and many congratulations for coming to realizations to issues that many people don't even know exist. (to their detriment)

The Burrell sprog are mighty gorgeous.

I am about to call in sick to work again. I am doing a little better, but I'm not up to it. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be able to go in for at least a few hours, since it's my boss's last day.

I have an emergency appointment with my shrink this afternoon. Hopefully that will go well. So far I've managed to stay out of the hospital, so I think I'm going to be able to do that.

Steph, I'm so very, very proud of you. I hope one day I can be as cool as you :)

Good for you, vw. Take care of yourself.

Tep, you made me tear up thinking about how far you've come.

Damn, sorry, meant to say - Billytea, contact her, man! She sounds human!

My one non-negotiable condition! She must be mine!

Seriously, her profile states that she's looking for someone up to the age of 28 or so. Which I ain't. But there shall surely be headpats for her profile, and (if she isn't already aware) she shall learn that the shopping centre under my office currently has a replica skeleton of Giganotosaurus carolinii, largest carnivorous dinosaur known. (T. rex still could've taken it in a fight, I reckon.)

This really could be the tag line for my life, but instead of tattooing it on my forehead, I'll just use it here, if I may, Mr. BT?

But of course. For future reference, you really don't have to ask.

I'd be registering for board games and -- oh! -- a Playstation!

Emily, have you played Ticket to Ride? Puerto Rico?

I'm done with therapy. And I can tell a difference between current!Teppy and craxy!pre-therapy!Teppy of 2 years ago. In a big way.

Huzzah! Therapy-progress is of the good. Did I say good? I meant mole rats. (Mole rats!) Good on you. I too am happy to sing the praises of therapy, but I've also noticed that effective therapy requires a buttload of hard and sometimes painful work from one's own good self. So, in my own colourful idiolect, onya ya bonza sheila!

Sorry. Endorphins. (There was a sale!)

Seriously, her profile states that she's looking for someone up to the age of 28 or so. Which I ain't.

Sometimes a person thinks she knows exactly what she wants, but then the right person shows up, meeting very few of her original criteria, but he's just....the right person, you know?

I'm not saying dinosaur!girl is your right person, or that you are hers, but....

Just don't discount her b/c of her age stipulation or your desire to start a family relatively soon.

If you tell her "All my invisible friends on the other side of the world think your profile is awesome" and she doesn't run away, you may need to date her.

Not that I'm advocating that approach. Just a "What if"

Sometimes a person thinks she knows exactly what she wants, but then the right person shows up, meeting very few of her original criteria, but he's just....the right person, you know?

At least this is one person about whom I'm confident that her criteria are genuinely original.

Anyways, I have written to her. Text follows:

Hi EvilButterfly. I wanted to let you know, I've been looking around a few dating sites now, and I've seen a few interesting profiles, but yours is the first one that's truly impressed me. You really have a way with words, with the apparent exception of safe words. I would even say that I admired your moxie, if I knew what moxie meant, but I'm pretty sure it accounts for dinosaurs, "knife logic" and "narcissistic Jesus" appearing in the one profile.

Anyway, I'm 35 years old, so pretty distinctly outside your criteria. Plus, while I own a pretty large number of books (even larger when I count in binary), I'm not sure my dreams are that big. I vaguely recall that last night I concocted some sort of space opera plot, and I wound up in the filing room. But I couldn't let such a work go uncommented upon. Oh, and I don't know if you were aware of this already, but there's currently a replica skeleton of Giganotosaurus carolinii, the largest known carnivorous dinosaur, on display at Melbourne Central by the shot tower. They didn't make it animatronic, though, and thus far I've failed to bend it to my will. But I thought you might be interested.

(PS: Tep, I've edited my previous post to wax more lyrical about your therapy wins.)

If you tell her "All my invisible friends on the other side of the world think your profile is awesome" and she doesn't run away, you may need to date her.

Dammit! I forgot to let her know that the lurkers support me in email! Ah well.

Oh, hey, another amazing profile (which I'm not responding to): an 18-year old woman, listed sex as one of her hobbies, and stated that she makes $300,000 p.a. from her career as a prostitute and stripper. Granted, not what I expected to see on a dating site, but all power to her. The thing that fascinates me is that she's from Dubbo (home to the Western Plains Zoo). It seems they pay their hookers well out Dubbo way.