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A Relationship TalkIt's been a whole week since I wrote, but in keeping with my intent to change how I keep this journal, I'm not going to recap everything I've been up to. Just a few things. The most significant thing that happened this week was that Debbi and I had our first relationship talk on Thursday. Although Debbi was the one who needed to talk, she felt really bad about it. The reason she felt bad is that she felt like I had been losing interest in her and/or was unhappy dating her, but as the day went on she realized that she wasn't really upset with me, but that she was having a "fear reaction" to our relationship having settled in and the potential for how serious it could get. It's not really for me to say much about her feelings in this forum, but suffice to say that she has her own personal issues regarding relationships to work through. I've got my issues, too, of course, and we also talked about those. I told her about my spotty and checkered dating history since Colleen and I broke up in November of 1995, and that I've become increasingly cautious in opening up in some ways due to these experiences. Partly I'm self-conscious about the fact that many of my interests are fairly solitary (reading, working on the computer, collecting things), but Debbi seems to actually like those things about me, and appreciates that we can just hang out together (which is something which I also highly value in a partner). But I'm also not really sure where I want our relationship to go, by which I mean that I can't really see very far ahead. I told her how I tend to get cold feet early when dating someone, and that I did indeed feel this way when we started dating, but that I decided that I was just getting my cold feet for the usual no-good-reason and decided that as long as I'm having fun, that I want to see how things develop. And that's still basically how I feel. But Debbi says she's also not sure where she wants things to go right now, so apparently we're both feeling similarly in this regard. I also did caution her that I have a tendency to get happy and comfortable with a given situation, and can remain in that state for quite a while, and that she might get to the point that she wants to see the relationship go somewhere (it doesn't really matter where) before I do. Something to keep in mind. Anyway, Debbi had sent me e-mail Thursday morning wanting to talk, and I asked her if we could hold off 'til the evening, since I don't like to discuss relationship issues through e-mail. I think e-mail is just a really bad place to have serious emotional discussions. And I think it's both more effective and more respectful of the other person to talk face-to-face. This has been a "rule" of mine for years, and it's worked for me so far. So everything worked out pretty well, I think, and we spent the weekend together, shopping, hanging out, and watching football with her friends today. So far, so good...
 I've spent much of the last week working on a new project: I ordered a roll of dustjacket covers for my hardcover books, and have been covering the dustjackets of many of my comic book collections and SF books. It's actually rather fun, as it's the sort of craft which doesn't take a lot of effort, but which leaves me with a bunch of nice-looking books I can be proud of afterwards. If you're interested, I ordered the covers (and a plastic scoring "folder") from Demco; a roll of 300 feet is about $53.00 including shipping. You'll also want an X-Acto knife and a cutting board. (I'm nearly done with covering everything I want to cover, by the way! It's not a long-term project, and I'll have plenty of roll left over for new acquisitions.)
Miracleman has been gaining interest recently, and the original Eclipse comics (of which there were 24, I think) are now running for $20.00 a copy and up, and the three paperback collections have skyrocketed in value as well. (These prices might all be inflated, though, and obviously there's no guarantee that the market for them won't crash tomorrow.) Apparently they were all reprinted in hardcover as well as paperback, which I didn't know; I'd love to get them in hardcover (I have the paperbacks), but don't want to pay premium prices. Well, if all goes well, the various copyright owners will eventually resolve their differences, and someone will reprint them again. We can only hope...
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