Been working my tuckus off around here (see, hanging out with my NY Jewish Goddess is rubbing off) and will be chillin’ this weekend. Headed to a barbeque at Legal Eagle’s just like last year. My Dangergirl will be off with her pups at an agility trial.

Last year, I had rented a house for this summer in Arcata, CA - up near Eureka. Decided to cancel the house and instead do a leisurely, unplanned drive through Oregon. Oh, and take Dangergirl. Have a lot of stuff I haven’t seen. Going to meet up with some blog mates up Astoria way and hopefully a couple others along the way.

It’s coming up quick. If you are in Oregon and might want to grab a coffee or something, let me know and we may just be able to swing by.

Six days away from work. I won’t be taking my Blackberry.

What do I do when I want to write about real stuff but can’t? I write about the Creation Museum and what happens? I immediately draw out the nutwings. One anyway. I’m sick of people, really.

You may have heard, I’m dating someone. Yeah, Dangergirl. We’ve been doing our thing for several months now. We’re at the part I have gotten to in the past and stalled out. That part where things are real and sometimes raw.

She’s been open to an experiment I’ve wanted to try. To ask questions. To look at what we think about really important things. Kids. Money. Future plans. Goals. Where we’d want to retire and how. We do it slowly and really think about those things. Hell, we’re middle-aged and been through the wars with others and don’t want to do it all again in the same way.

It sounds a little premeditated, but despite the fact the chemical reaction between us is beyond fabulous, I want to make sure in the future, should we decide to proceed with each other, that we are compatible or can adjust enough to operate independently and as a unit.

We hit a bumpy patch the past few weeks.

Then, we jumped over the bump somehow. Well, hell, not somehow. We worked on it.

This morning, I woke up to her lovely face and heard this going through my head.

I have to admit, the first thing that caught my attention was the sock/sandals guy in the photo. I thought for sure he must be some kind of nutwing fundamentalist—it had to be that or any white man over age 65 living in Florida, but noooo, he’s the actual scientist. They base things on science. You know, put together a compelling story based on a bunch of known facts based on other known facts to determine the Earth is like 4.55 billion years old.

So, this group of science dudes – geologists and paleontologists and the like – decided to converge on Petersburg, Kentucky, home of the Creation Museum. They were stunned by what they found. The Creation Museum sells tickets to people who believe the Earth wascreated, dinosaurs and all, 6,000 years ago, in six days. It opened its slippery slope faux-pseudo-scientific doors in 2007. They also believe dinosaurs and man lived at the same time. This time, by “they” I mean the Answers in Genesis Church and its founder, Ken Ham and his interesting little band of hoohoo fundamentalists that fired this puppy up just outside Cincinnati. Ham also likes to spout off on political matters. His latest, a press release denouncing the Godless Obama for his chit-chat with the GLBT community this week. Poor Obama, we’re pissed and the nutwings are pissed. He’s got a tough road ahead.

The absolutely amazing thing I learned? Despite the fact that most Christians do not believe in the young Earth theory of Creationism, thousands of people visited in its first year. What the hell, America? Disney Land would give you a better bang for your buck – and the weather’s better out here.

I love California. UC Davis, which sponsors the show, This Week in Science, created a parody of the Creation Museum that suits me much better than the scary bible museum itself, the Unicorn Museum.

I’m just totally shaking my head saying, WTF?

Photo by Mark Lyons, NY Times

I just can’t help but think if we invested even an iota of the concentrated energy we’ve invested in Michael Jackson this week on something else, we’d have already come up with a cure for cancer, figured out how to put a lid on Kim Jong-il, Robert Mugabe, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and made some kind of sense of Earring Magic Ken.

Lost in a fog lasting 24 hours. I had a sore throat and a stuffed nose. No big deal. But, it sent me on a trippy 24-hour excursion of sleep punctuated by strange dreams involving the Great Salt Lake, a really snappy Nikon camera, and people from my past like my 10^th grade history teacher, Mr. Walton.

I have a vague memory of my girlfriend ministering to my physical needs – like bringing me soup which I couldn’t eat. I remember at one point wondering why the front door was unlocked and open and trying to lock it (unsuccessfully) only to find the children were on the other side of the door, taking the garbage down to the street. Maybe that’s the ticket – be incoherent and delusional and they’ll do their chores without being reminded.

The phone rang some, but I couldn’t even muster the energy to figure out which phone, much less answer it.

This morning, I woke, still stuffy, but felt fairly confident the fugue had passed.