Dating Advice from My Wife and Other Weirdness

God my life is weird, anymore. Not just "Hey, my grilled cheese sandwich looks kinda like Jesus!" odd -- I'm talking full-blown P. T. Barnum sideshow. I've got the kind of stuff going on that nobody would believe as a short story, you know?

The thing that's outwardly the strangest is, to me, the most mundane of the lot. I take a somewhat skeptical, but not close-minded, view of the paranormal. On the one hand, nobody's come forward with anything like conclusive evidence of a haunting and there have been some famously-exposed frauds, but on the other hand, there's a mess of anecdotal evidence that spans a number of cultures. Ya know? So I've kept the door open a crack, but haven't gone outside looking.

Anyway, at some point over the winter, I came to the conclusion that I'd been seeing a ghost, or apparition, or whatever you want to call it, sitting on my staircase looking down. On at least 4-5 separate occasions now, I've been at the computer in the living room and thought that I saw my 4-yr-old daughter sitting there watching me. She does that sometimes -- just sits on the middle step without saying a word. So I didn't think much of seeing a pale, blonde girl in a white nightgown sitting there. But then I would say something, turn to look at her and find that there was nobody there. This has happened mostly around the twilight hours of morning or evening, and usually when I felt at peace and well-rested. If someone told me this, it would probably make me feel uneasy. But oddly enough, living it out doesn't have that effect. It feels perfectly fine.

Somewhat weirder was a long phone conversation I had last night with an old friend from college. By "friend", I mean a very beautiful someone who clearly had no romantic interest whatsoever in me at the time, but with whom I'd been so infatuated that I'd have walked in front of a bus if she'd suggested that doing so might be a cool thing to do. (That was a tough 6 months, let me tell you.) And what was really weird last night was coming to the realization that, even though it sounded like she hadn't changed at all, I didn't feel any of that attraction anymore. It was like talking to my sister. WTF?

But by far the weirdest has been the fact that my wife and I have been giving each other dating and relationship advice. We hang out together sometimes on breaks and lunches at work, talking and laughing (which really messes with the busybodies), but our conversations have mostly been about separating our assets (ok, debts is more like it) finalizing our separation and/or talking about who we think we might like to boink. It's probably really harming my chances of meeting anyone new at work, but I kinda don't want to meet anyone at work, so that's not necessarily a bad thing for me.

So that's my life these days. If things continue at this pace, I'll probably have a two-headed pet and the stigmata by end-of-year.