I see that this Diaryland site has a new feature where you can password protect your diary and only allow certain users to read it. I'm vain enough and enough of an exhibitionist to not feel the need to password protect my stuff. Tell your friends! Pass the word! Pecan wants to be known known known!!! John Grisham, move over!

My computer is making a funny groaning "my-fan-is-on-its-last-turn" sound and I hope it survives. I guess even if the fan goes I'll still have a little bit of time (and peace and quiet) to finish this and post it before the Pentium chip fries like a pork rind.

Can you tell I'm feeling good? The coffee is hot, the sun is shining and I'm awake and doing stuff before Mark is--and before I usually am. Write this date down! Mark is feeling much better but it has been a tough week. I think he could have done alright with the nose surgery but the flu really knocked him cold. He seems to be over that and now just back to a stuffy nose and lots of facial pain.

We rented movies last night since he was home on a Saturday night (a real rarity). We watched Southpark (his favorite TV show gone to the big screen) and Hands on a Hard Body. Both were great. We laughed and laughed and he stayed awake through them both. We will probably watch them both again tonight.

I also bought the movie Sliding Doors. Wouldn't have even thought about it but the girl next to me at the checkout counter asked where it was because she knew it was on sale for $2.99 (less than a rental!). I said, "Get me one too!" I saw Sliding Doors (with Gwyneth Paltrow) at the theater with my sister and loved it. I've wanted Mark to see it but since we so rarely rent movies it is one of those we'd probably never see (since it is, granted, a "chick flick"). I have always loved the idea of "what would have happened if..."

The other path in my life that I often go back and re-examine was a policeman I dated for a long time in Amarillo. Or, as my mother once said with mock exasperation, "Pecan, I don't think three dates over two years counts as dating!" He would have agreed with me though that we had a pretty serious thing for a long time. It was frequently interrupted by him living undercover for months at a time (or so he told me ???).

He was one of those that was immediately charismatic and we were drawn to one another in a big way when we first met (at a charity function). He was very "grown up" to me and it was frightening to enter into a relationship on that level. I was about 23 I think and he was five years older (which seemed OLD at the time).

I haven't seen him in probably 13 years and the last I heard of him he had remarried and was unhappy in his marriage. I hope that isn't the case. I would love for him to be as happy as me. He was such a neat guy, so sincere and so honest and so wonderfully sweet, that I tried so hard to be in love with him. Trouble was, I just didn't feel "that way" about him.

One of our troubles was those long separations. We would have a few wonderful days around each other and I would get comfortable and relaxed with him and then not see him for three months. When we got back together I would be back at square one, having to get to know him again. He never understood that. I told him many times that I just didn't have "comfortableness" with him. He never understood. When I met my husband-to-be we had that "comfortableness" on the very first night. I'm very glad I waited for that indescribable thing.

I could have married the cop. He asked me many times, but usually in the joking manner that protects all concerned. I think he and I would still be married and probably be reasonably happy together if we had. We'd probably have kids. If I had taken that different path life would have been drastically different and probably pleasant but not equal to the happiness I have now.

I wish I could have married him to make his life happier. He really needs a "good woman" like me (how's that for ego?) to help him find the happiness that had eluded him through childhood, but I knew I wasn't the one to do that.

Looking back, I'm sure some of my decision to move to Dallas was prompted by that relationship. I knew I couldn't break it off and still live where I was bound to run into him sometime. We still saw each other many times after I moved to Dallas but we didn't maintain a long distance relationship.

He's one of those guys you want to get in touch with when you are happily married just to see if they are happy. Not the guy that you stick your tongue out at and say, "Ha! See how happy I am? This could have all been yours buddy!" and not the one that you call and hope they will come rescue you from your misery. He's the one I just wish I could look in on his world and make sure he's okay.

Well, hubby, wonderful sweet hubby that I am comfortable with and deeply in love with just stumbled through the living room on his way for pain killers. Yes, that rumpled, stubbled man in the baggy sweatsuit is the love of my life. I'll go see if I can make him happy.