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" Jackson and I are safely back in my apartment \u2014 and if I never had to leave again, it would be too soon.  Only, I am about to have no choice. On Friday, I leave for a weekend photo shoot in Omaha, Nebraska. My assignment is a pretty cool one. It is a cover-story shoot of a new band for a music magazine, (apparently, a bunch of the hottest bands are relocating to Omaha), and the 72 hours I will be spending with this one will pay my mortgage for six months.  Not a bad gig.  Also, with all the confusion of the last few months, work has fallen by the wayside. It will feel great to work again.  So I called Doug this afternoon and asked him he would come to the apartment for the weekend and watch Jackson.  &amp;quot;There is nothing I&amp;#039;d like more,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;Except if you were going to be there too.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Doug\u2026&amp;quot; He laughed. &amp;quot;Okay, I&amp;#039;ll lay off.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Okay.&amp;quot;  He was trying hard to be sweet \u2014 maybe a little too hard \u2014 but I was still freaked out about our conversation from last week, and I wasn&amp;#039;t giving him too much of me. He kept assuring me I had nothing to worry about, but all of a sudden I knew that there was something. I just couldn&amp;#039;t figure it out: What on earth would Doug think he couldn&amp;#039;t tell me? What, after everything, was he worried I wouldn&amp;#039;t be able to hear?   I didn&amp;#039;t have an answer. Or, at least, I didn&amp;#039;t have a good one.  But before I headed home Monday morning, he agreed \u2014 we both agreed, in fact \u2014 not to see anyone else romantically until we figured out whether we were going to give things a real shot again. No accidental pregnancies this time around, no old husbands allowed back into the picture. And, just as importantly, we agreed to table the conversation of what a real shot between us would entail until I was back from Omaha and we had some semblance of reality for a couple of weeks.  Until I had an answer to my own hard questions.  So, last night, I spent in my apartment eating pepperoni pizza and watching movies with Jackson and Abby. They are very sweet together, I have to say. And Abby seems like a new person. I know it has everything to do with having her father back in a real way. And while we didn&amp;#039;t talk about him too much, she did tell me he was out of the hospital and home again. Which I was glad to hear.  Abby&amp;#039;s mom was the one who picked her up, though, and she just called up when she arrived. So there was no drama in terms of that stuff.  In fact, I was asleep by 10 o&amp;#039;clock, and totally refreshed for this morning \u2014 which I spent going for a long run. Okay, a run-walk! But still\u2026it felt good.  It had been awhile since I&amp;#039;d taken care of myself. And when I put on my spandex, I couldn&amp;#039;t help but notice that my always-slightly-too-big bum had made its way toward altogether-big bum.  (All that pepperoni!)  Still, by the time I walked back toward the apartment building, I was starting to feel like a person again.  Until I walked up to the front stoop and saw her sitting there.  My eyes almost fell out of my head, and all my newfound calm left me.  &amp;quot;What are you doing here?&amp;quot; I asked.  Leslie just looked at me for a minute. &amp;quot;We need to talk,&amp;quot; she said. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/a1961/diary-e-081407/>