Last night, I logged back into There for the first time in several weeks. That sabbatical hadn’t been intentional so much as just incidental, but it still lasted longer than I expected or even realized. Roger and Lee hadn’t been pressuring me to come join them, and I hadn’t heard from Matt at all, so I just didn’t really give it much thought. But yesterday There released a new beta version, so the process of downloading the new installer and reading the release notes put it back in my consciousness, and Roger did make a specific comment that he hoped he’d see me in There.

We had fun exploring some of the new functionality and some of the new areas. And when Matt showed up, I was flooded with warm feelings; until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed not seeing him regularly for several weeks. Later, near midnight, Roger went off to give a tour to a newbie–someone he knew from TSO–and that gave me an opportunity to suggest to Matt that I call him on the phone so that we could chat for “a few minutes” before I went to bed.

As usual when I’m on the phone with him, time flew by, and it was 63 minutes later before I looked at the clock again and realized that it was after 1 am and that I really did need to get to bed. Matt and I are so sympatico in many of our beliefs–particularly our political leanings and current frustrations. Emotionally, intellectually and philosophically, at least, we seem to fit so well. I keep suggesting that he plan a trip to DC, and he keeps agreeing that he’d like to, but we always fail to make specific plans. Perhaps there’s a level at which we’re afraid to move this relationship more concretely into the physical plane. Admittedly, I’d hate to jeopardize the easy, comfortable, non-judgmental, no-pressure friendship we currently have, but at the same time I wouldn’t mind exploring whether it might be possible to have that and more, inasmuch as might be possible in a long-distance context.