Clarity is not my strong suit

After my last few posts, my email yielded a number of cautionary messages about how my flirting with Casey seemed to be getting out of hand, and that I had really crossed a line that I wouldn't be able to back away from, and that sort of thing.

"Wow," I thought to myself. "This is a bit more vehement that what I would have expected. Funny that I would get so many more warnings now than what I was getting when things were even more heated last year..."

Than it dawned on me. The "Smoky" post. The quotes. Not everyone has the psychotic recall of Aaron Sorkin sitcoms that I have.

I'm not that Dana Whitaker, not for real. I liked the character, that mix of take-charge attitude with just enough neurotic self-doubt to keep her from being too good to be true. And my Casey doesn't even know that he's "Casey," just like "Dan" and "Isaac" and "Natalie" don't match up with the characters who are their namesakes. I just liked using more names from the show.

Truth be told, the bulk of my interaction with my Casey in the past few weeks has consisted of passing each other in the hallway as one or both of us ran to a meeting. There's barely been eye contact, much less behavior that is damaging to my marriage. I think he patted me on the arm as he passed behind me when I was at the copy machine outside of his office, but I can't swear that for sure.

And, as I start gearing up for the fall conference, it seems quite apparent that neither of us intends to actually follow through with where we left off a year ago. That ship has long since passed.