If I were to have a really great date ever again, I'd want it to go the way my night went last night with Edmondson.
We met at 7:30 and stayed out until 2 a.m. It was great.
First we went to dinner at our usual place, the American Cafe at Phipps Plaza, and we had steaks. The service, because the restaurant was busy, wasn't as good as it usually is. (We never did get our salads.) But our conversation, whether we were on the topic of Edmondson's ex-girlfriend or not, was lively, fueled by my margarita and his Long Island iced tea.
Then we went to a nearby bookstore, where I get a discount, and he browsed some book on digital photography while I read through The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, inspired by the Susanna Clarke signing and a children's books conversation I'd had with Miss Gibson earlier that day.
We went to a 9:40 showing of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" at the Hollywood 24. And I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED that movie. It reminded me of that old series of "Batman" cliffhangers from the '40s that my dad once bought me. Every 10 minutes or so, the movie placed its characters in an impossible, life-or-death situation that they had to escape somehow.
After the film, Edmondson and I ended up at Krispy Kreme, where I treated him to his first piping-hot, fresh glazed donut. And though he was impressed by it, he only had one, saying too much more would cause him sugar overload. (I, on the other hand, finished off about four of them without shame. Thank God it wasn't a date.)
Then, he drove me back to my car, then pulled his laptop out of the trunk and quickly burned some Ben Folds tracks onto a CD for me. Edmondson, thus, is the best.
I'm thankful for what I have. It's as close to great - in those moments - as it ever needs to be.