Well, I'm doing as well as I did back in the 70's. I guess I didn't have much to write about anyway. Or the excuse that I was too busy. My job at Liberty keeps me very busy, then yesterday I had a Halloween party to go to immediately after work.

I made a major personal gaffe at work Saturday. There's a co-worker with whom I had been able to very freely joke with since she joined the company a few years ago. I even started up a Seinfeld/Newman slant to it in which all of the jokes started taking a personal/ranking twist. I took it too far yesterday. I had thought it was an understood thing between us that this was OK. When I dropped my last joke she quickly told me how hurt she was and to get as far away from her as possible. While she may have been able to avoid such a drastic moment by telling me this had been bothering for a while, I was devastated by how what I always saw as the fun side of my personality could have a dark side. I really like her, enjoy working and working so well with her, and treasure the friendship we have developed. I almost ran out of the building to get a plant and card to apologize. Within an hour it was over and forgiven; however the affect of it has lingered.

I had flashbacks to my second wife. We had met in the early 80's when I was a DJ at her favorite country radio station. She is younger than me and at that time was still a kid. I began the same kind of joking I had with my co-worker. Over the next 10 years we developed a strong friendship, went through some bad relationships, eventually found each other romantically, married, had a son and divorced. As my co-worker asked me to remove myself from the planet I could clearly hear the same sentiment, almost the same words, echo back from my ex-wife.

Growing up I had asthma, glasses and was generally considered a geek. Thanks to parents with a great sense of humor I learned to use comedy to defend myself. I am a huge Kennedy buff and learned that they, and many strong, and large families would use biting sarcasm and humor as a way of strengthening their character and proving dominance over each other; an early version of the rap battles as seen in the movie "8 Mile". So, as I grew I honed this skill and got pretty damned good at, if I do say so myself.

Looks as if I missed one very important lesson. When and how to use that skill. My ex-wife was supposed to be my life mate, not someone over whom I was supposed to prove dominance. My co-worker was supposed to be a team member not someone against whom I needed to defend myself.

I'm glad I finally learned the difference. Luckily, it was before irreparable damage had been done to my relationship with my friend. Damned shame I hadn't learned it the first time around. This time I hope it sticks as I face the possibility of a new relationship in my life. Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks.