World, meet Michelle

Okay, so remember how I said in my last post that it was going to be an interesting Labor Day weekend?  There was a little more behind that remark than I let on.  I now have permission to share the rest of the story.  Here's the skinny (as we say in Minnesota):  I've started dating someone.  I'm in Utah right now spending Labor Day weekend with her so that we can get to know each other better.

Michelle is a special education professor at BYU who's known my brother Ryan and his wife Jenny for many years.  We met at a dinner a few weeks ago while the kids and I were in Utah.  Due to some utterly devious behind-the-scenes machinations on the part of certain family members who shall remain nameless, Michelle and I knew a lot about each other before we'd ever met.  We spent some time talking at the dinner that night and then went our separate ways.

I had less than a week left in Utah and wasn't planning on coming back for another year, so the situation had sort of a now-or-never feeling to it.  I did something un-Ethanlike and asked her out.  Because I figured she should see me at my very worst right off the bat, I asked her to help me go shopping for clothes.  That's when I'm the grumpiest.  We went up to the outlet stores at Park City, shopped for shirts, went to dinner, and talked.  (I got five shirts for under $80.  The relationship was already paying dividends!)  There were some jitters on my part since it was my first date with someone new since 1987, but we enjoyed our time together.

To keep the story short, here's a summary of how things have gone up to now:  I told her about the divorce and the things that led to it.  That didn't scare her off.  Puzzled, I told her about my MS and its unpredictable nature.  She still stuck around.  Really flummoxed at this point, I told her about all the people I'd murdered and the struggles I've had controlling my homicidal rage.  She finally put her foot down and said, "Ethan, I realize that you're trying to protect yourself and that you're scared to get into a new relationship, but enough is enough.  I don't believe you've killed nearly as many people as you say you have.  Besides, no one's perfect, and I can live with a few personality quirks."

So there you have it.  I will NOT be blogging in detail about how things are going.  The kids know that I'm dating Michelle.  Lindsey struggled with that a bit because she still hopes that Stace and I will get back together, which is typical for kids her age whose parents have divorced.  Yesterday, though, Lindsey wanted to make sure that I told Michelle about a lost tooth, so I think Lindsey is getting there.

Life is interesting, isn't it?