My neighbor, Judy picked me up at the airport in Newport News, Virginia, on March 2, after being away for 2 1/2 months in Europe. My first impression after returning was that Virginia was warm, sunny, and when I opened my garage door, a red car! No more grey/black German cars, and the neighbors were warm and welcomed me back. My $2500 bicycle had been lost by the Postal Service, so I immediately filed a claim. After ten days of organizing and scanning 500 photos from Europe, and working on a new bicycle, I went back to work at Langley AFB.

I'd been moved to a different section away from my friends. I was back in the same office as in 2000, working 12-15 hour shifts, six on, three off, the same one that put so much strain on my relationship with Cathy. It was brutal. I had to supervise and put up with angry bosses and subordinates. My first day at work, 5:30am, I was rubbing my eyes as my boss had a shouting match with one of the Staff Sergeants. I thought to myself,"Shoot me--I just know I'm going to end up in the middle of this soon". I had a little more than 2 1/2 years and I could retire!

My church singles group had disbanded, no one answered a single email from me while I was in Europe, and so I had no more friends at Seaford Baptist Church. Danny Reagan was the only one who went out of his way to say hi, but he had moved on and was no longer with my group. I had trouble motivating myself to go anymore since no one remembered me, or the ones who did, didn't bother to ask me where I'd been, how I'd been doing, or more importantly, did I want to do something with someone sometime?! Miimii (ex wife) was gone to Dalton, Georgia with the cats, Lunch and Moo, and I was on my own again. My brutal schedule made it difficult to talk to neighbors. Judy and I were closer after I returned, talking and visiting often. Sometimes it seemed she was the only the only pretty smile I could count on.

Angie (from Malaysia) and I began talking again. We'd had a little fight (over email) just before I left Germany, but quickly made up and were buds again. And as seemed to happen a lot with us, once we started talking a lot we became very close, and after a month of this we started fighting again. Angie wanted to visit me in the states (she was still living in Jakarta, Indonesia) but couldn't give me a time window. Work was pretty rough, and I had to forecast leave a long time ahead. After weeks of this, and her not being able to answer questions about her ex-boyfriend (sounded like they were still together) I felt like I felt the year before--tired and uninterested. I felt Angie was just jerking me around, like she wanted me to sit and wait for her 7000 miles away while life passed me by. If she told me she had feelings for me, then talked about her boyfriend, the two ends didn't connect.

I'd resorted to chatting on Yahoo after I returned from Germany, and one night, a familiar name popped up. It was Seko, that woman who'd emailed me the previous October 5th. I chatted with her for the first time. I thought she'd fallen off the face of the earth, yet, here she was. I'd been on the singles websites the previous year and received over 100 responses to my profile, but hers was the only response that I felt was a real person.

We chatted again on a later night, and since she just lived 40 miles down the road, I asked if I could phone her. I wanted to hear a human voice. I was so tired of doing geek chat. We hit it off immediately, to my surprise--she laughed at all my jokes (not fake laughs), sounded very intelligent and charming. We talked about our love of Sushi, and about how we had no one to eat it with. I also found out she was Japanese, which was not a good thing, but she sounded nothing like my ex-wife, which was a great thing. She was Budhist, and that took her off limits as far as a girlfriend. Yet, without much thought, I asked her out for Sushi. I didn't want to be her boyfriend, but I'd been home from Europe for almost two months and the long hours, angry co-workers, cold-shoulders at church, and empty house made my lonliness so deep, I just wanted someone to eat sushi with who was pleasant and cheerful. She said,"Sure".