As usual in such matters, the commenters here probably offer more useful observations than Cary does. But, he gets paid and we don't so I suppose that gives him some kind of moral advantage.

On the off chance our lost-girlfriend is still reading this thread, my wood-nickle.

The moment you found out this guy was still married, but separated, you should have walked rapidly in the other direction. Unless you just wanted a temporary sexual fling. People on the way out of a marriage--in general--are not of sound mind, and, in fact, will not be of sound mind for a long, long time. For one thing, your guy needed to have a few relationships of short duration after his marriage ended just to figure out a few things (I say this based on the story you tell, and my experience, and that of many others)...or, maybe more to the point, he needed to learn some things, by whatever means, that he has not yet learned.

You're almost certainly one of his transitional relationships--in fact, I can just about guarantee that. So, whatever he does or does not do with his possible soon-to-be-ex, you're going to be out of the picture very soon, and if by some mis-chance you are actually silly enough to marry this guy, you will be one very sorry human being. I can just about guarantee THAT too.

I don't know why, but I"m always shocked to read these stories. They result from totally unaware behavior, and at age 30 unaware behavior can be really damaging. I know. I waited WAY too long to realize this simple fact.

So, for what it's worth, you need to walk away from this guy RIGHT NOW. Leave him to do whatever it is he has to do. And you need to do some reading..or get into some good psychotherapy, or both. Because, right now? You simply aren't aware enough to be playing around in the traffic of significant human relationships.

Don't feel too bad about this. Most of us have, or have had, the same problem.

Good luck.

actually, this is just prelude. I am really very interested to hear exactly how Blago plans to defend himself against clear audio evidence that he conspired to commit numerous felonies. If ever a dude was caught red-handed, it's ol' Blago.

I can just hear his lawyer now.. "dude. Listen to me. You are so busted. There is no way I can get you out of this except with a plea of mental defect..which I'm willing to go with if that's what you want. Say, have you been eating a lot of twinkies lately?"

Jeebus. I do wonder: how in the world does Blago expect to beat this? Seems to me he's just stalling at this point.

Serena is hardly the first female standing in for pure id in literature..but this review reminded me rather forcibly of a possibly even more frightening female, the evil force-of-nature in John D. MacDonald's brilliant noir picaresque *The Last One Left.* It's out of print now, but includes at its center a woman who'd be right at home in one of Kraft-Ebbing's tomes.

Worth your time to find and read, it's one of MacDonald's better efforts.

...again, I ask: can we just take the entire GOP membership and put them all on a melting ice-floe and send it out toward Greeland? Please?

Jim DeMint. One of the dumbest members of Congress.

South Carolina. Jeebus. I think we should let them secede, then conquer them, and rule them as a vassal-state, and then we won't have to feel vaguely nauseous every time Jim DeMint opens his pathetic pie-hole.

Jeebus. WHY GOD? WHY? Why did you curse us with The South?

The novelist John D. MacDonald nailed down the conspiracy-theorist type beautifully in his novel *Condominium.* I don't have any relevant quotes at hand, but, suffice it to say that the character in question decides that the gigantic hurricane bearing down on his little stretch of Florida coast is, in fact, the product of a conspiracy to kill him, because he knows too much. His last act in the novel is to start looking frantically through his voluminous files for "Weather, Control of." It's both very funny, and very, very melancholy. The book is worth a read just to discover this character.

MacDonald makes the point--no doubt made by others--that conspiracy-theory thinking is a derangement of our ordering process. The human mind loves to make order out of things. It evolved for this very purpose. Neuroses of various kinds can derange this ordering process, causing reality to simply disappear in the drive to create order out of chaos...no matter how completely deranged the resulting order may be, it feels good to the person who creates it, quieting the neuroses for some period of time.

It's probably fair to say that every conspiracy nut could do with a long season of psychotherapy. But, of course, that would spoil all the fun.