And I understand what it means to feel sorry that you won something that you really believe is worth having.

But as a man I have to tell you that what a woman once told me about other women has its analog in men: when a woman gets flowers from a man, it's because she wants them.

When a man gets attention from a woman it's because he wants it. He's asking for it and she's giving it.

I believe in clean breaks and giving people time to hate your guts. I believe in the basic goodness of the people I choose to share my intimate self with and so I know that good people always make amends and overlook whatever ugliness it took to get on with their lives.

I understand that allowing people to get angry and hurt because of a breakup may not be in vogue, but I believe it is a necessary evil. That your beau hasn't given this woman such clarity and closure suggests to me that he is using his ex as a tool to control your behavior. And your discomfort could well be your own subconscious alerting you to some vague sense of danger.

Fuck that.

Be really clear with your boyfriend and really honest with yourself. It's okay to be a neaderthal or medieval about offenses to your primal self. If he's a good guy he needs to understand that triangulation is the enemy of intimacy, not its friend.

As for her...I think you're feeling something important through her that you need to process yourself and move beyond. And I think it has to do with the position this ex is in. It's not about competition, although that is what the surface appears to depict.

It's really about power, control and fear of intimacy. What this boyfriend does to others he is more than capable of doing to you. Do you really want to trust your heart, soul, friendship and valuable time to someone who leaves such stinking wounds in people? Is it that much fun to live in fear of his narcissism? When do you suppose it's going to cut in the opposite direction?

She's not breaking you guys up, she's doing you the same favor that you did her, only she's too numb to see it. She wants back on the merry go round and you already know what dizzy feels like and aren't too thrilled by the idea of having a lifetime of it. Sure he's fun and exciting and interesting now. But decades of this shit? C'mon. Your gut is telling you what's real and it hasn't evolved to the stage of self doubt. Trust it and take appropriate action.

Clear the air and stick up for yourself with your boyfriend. His ex is just a foil, a victim of circumstances and is unremarkable because she is a role player. Your problems are with him so ever so-gently ask him to do the right thing. And then WATCH HIS FEET, accepting that how he does anything will be how he does everything. If he keeps stringing her along, you have a choice to make. He needs to give this poor lovesick woman closure in no uncertain terms. Fuck nice; she needs her heart back in a form useful in another relationship and that can't happen while she's pining over some narcissist who pretends to be clueless while he's stringing along another victim.

Cary's getting rusty in his old age. He used to pick up on stuff like this before. He might need a vacation from all this reading.

Writing from my new digs here at Boeing.

The answers we seek can't be found on the page to which we are consistently directed by this administration as being the source of the problem.

The *real* problem is global mobility, the spread of disease (natural and lab-created) and the containment of information and culture. The present regime disapproves of democracy and always has. They can not bamboozle us unless we are consistently getting "stunned," (as Randi Rhodes puts it, over and over again) into inaction.

The only way to get people to stare at you in disbelief is to act in ways which are beyond belief. Dogs yawn when they don't know what else to do, and people stare in disbelief when they can't believe what their eyes are showing them.

Perception REQUIRES that the perceiver believe what they are seeing. If they do not believe in the truth of what they are seeing, they will literally screen out the information, overlook it, or disagree with anyone who suggests that the world is pretty much a WYSIWYG proposition.

I know you want to focus on flight and flying as the issue, but it's really not just about flying. It's about freedom.

And we don't have any anymore.