The free Opera in the Gardens concert was really great yesterday. Now my only dilemma is which opera to see.

1. Rossini's "La Cenerentola" - operatic Cinderella
2. Verdi's "Il Trovatore"
3. Berlioz's "La Damnation de Faust".

I think I shall have to see Faust, if I had to just pick one to see. It's a great story, and I don't think the company has done it before. They always do Cinderella, so I can always see that another year. Il Trovatore is an opera classic, but they'll probably do it again in a few years. I'm still bummed I missed the operatic St. Francis of Assisi, because they won't be doing that opera for awhile. Everyone who saw it said it was terrific.

Definitely have to see Faust.

There's a free blues concert in Golden Gate Park today. The fog finally burned off, even in my neighbourhood and it's sunny. I was going to go to see "The Matrix Reloaded", but it's too nice of a day to be inside for a movie.

Here's the lineup for the blues concert, Bobbie "Spider" Webb and The Smooth Blues Band, J.C. Smith, Fillmore Slim (AKA Clarence Slim), Bird Legg and The Tight Fit Blues Band, Rene Solis & the Persuaders, Shane Dewight, Emit Powell & The Gospel Elites. I've never heard of any of these performers, but it's a free concert and it's fun to sit in the sun and listen to music.

The cute guy from church was there today at coffee hour, looking snazzy in a nice suit and tie. He is so cute, and I'm like so afraid to talk to him. I was really getting down on myself, but you know, if he was the one and we were meant to be together fate will find a way to put us together because it's obvious to me that I'm not going to be the one to do it.

He's just too cute and he looks so similar to "the one who got away", that every time I'm see I'm tongue tied. I had the same reaction with "the one who got away". He was so cute, he made me nervous. I would spend longer than normal figuring out what to wear and fixing my myself up whenever we had a date. The thought of seeing "the one who got away" was so nerve racking but very exciting.

The cute guy at church does have very good taste in clothes, which is a relief. Men who can't dress themselves is such a turn off. You'd think a guy would figure out over the years what to wear to make himself look attractive to women. If a guy is clueless about clothes, you gotta wonder what else is the guy clueless about.

I decided I'm not going to stress myself about meeting the cute guy at church. Love is suppsoed to easy and stress free, and all my relationships that were good while the lasted started out this way. If there's too much struggle to meet someone, it makes me wonder whether it's meant to be.

I mean for all I know, the cute guy at church doesn't even know I exist. I mean I didn't even know he existed for the longest time. I mean I saw him in the pews, but he never really caught my eye. It wasn't until the last three weeks that I even noticed him. I don't know why or how I even noticed him, but when I did, it was like a thunderbolt hit me and I said to myself "wow, that guy is so cute". It was a very mystifying too, since I know I've looked at him a bunch of times before. Why all of a sudden it hits that's he cute is still a big mystery to me.

I think I need to explore what I was going through the day I thought the church guy was cute. Something must have happened to me to trigger that reaction. He does have these huge pretty brown eyes, and then there's that strawberry blondie hair that for whatever reason I really, really like.

What really freaked out today was how much he reminds me of "the one who got away". I'm not sure that's a good thing either.

I went to free opera concert at Yerba Buena Gardens, which was the site of my first date with "the one who got away". We met online through one of those dating sites and were emailing each other, when "the one" decides we should just meet for five minutes to see if the physical thing clicked.

That's the downside of meeting someone online. You can have great email/instant message conversations, and even have great phone conversations but until you meet face to face you never really know if it's going to work. I've met so many great guys who sounded great in email chats and on the phone, and then when I finally physically met them there was absolutely no chemistry. Talk about a disappointing experience. Physical chemistry used to be something I never thought about until I started meeting guys online.

So "the one who got away" and I made plans to meet, and what was supposed to be a 5 minute meeting in front of SFMOMA, turned into three hour conversation at Yerba Buena Gardens. I felt bad because I didn't find out till afterwards that I made "the who got away" late for his golf outing with his buddies, which was his fault because he never mentioned it to me. And what was worse, "the one who got away" got sunburnt from sitting in the sun with me for that long, which was still not my fault because if he was getting sunburnt he should have said something.

I really need to release myself from "the who got away". I just deleted his yahoo messenger ID, and I think I need to write out why I'm glad we're not together. Although I've romantically dubbed "Ellis" as "the one who got away", I'm using his real name because I'm getting tired of typing out "the one who got away", I am glad it didn't work out between us.

We just weren't meant to be, and I know that. He would have been a very easy going person to be with, but I think that in time he would have bored me to death, and I would have hated him for it. There was some chemistry between us, but we both decided it just wasn't that red hot. As far as comfort level though, it was 110% between us, but physical chemistry, that was about about 50%.

But physical chemistry is such a mystery to me. I mean I had a 200% physical attraction to a guy who I didn't think was that cute. I mean he was okay, but he wasn't that cute to me. The comfort level was very high, and physical attraction was off the charts, but when I looked right at him, I was never struck by how attractive the guy was.

A friend thought he was really cute, but not me. Not that his lack of physical attractiveness stopped me from wanting to pounce on him 24/7, but it did kind of freak me out that I never found him all that cute. The attraction was definitely like an animal, primitive kind of thing, which I put down to the fact that he was most alpha male guy I'd ever come across who I liked as a person. I don't wish to give the impression that the guy wasn't attractive, because I knew alot of women who were after him, I just personally didn't think he was all that cute.

The guy was a 5th generation Texan, and I do think his brand of male species which is very 19th century in flavor, was so exotic and foreign to me and probably to many women who are used to a more gentler breed of man. The guy was just "so male". I don't even know how to describe it exactly, other than to say he just such a "guy-guy", and a total alpha male guy-guy, which I think is such a rarity in the San Francisco Bay Area. The man just oozed "maleness", if you could ooze it, which was so attractive in an odd way.

The guy was sophisticated and everything, but I could sense that underneath the expensive suit and tie, he was wild and untamed. I mean, maybe it helped that the guy used to one want to be a rodeo star and rode bulls for a short time. I don't know. Whatever it was, I just found myself being ensnared in his manliness and liking it. The guy is one of the most brightest I've met in my life, so I'm sure that helped in the attractiveness as well. The Texas guy is one of the few men I've met that I know for a fact is smarter than me, and I don't say that easily about any man.

Man of man, I hope the cute church guy is intelligent. A guy who's not the sharpest tool in the shed is a real turn off. I've tried to date those non-sharp tools from the shed, and it just never works. Some of those non-sharp tools have also happened to me the most attractive guys I've ever dated, but the lack of brain function totaly wore on me. I've definitely dated my share of "dumb blondes", and probably stayed in relationships longer than I should have because of a guy's appearance, but I've learned my lesson on that score. It's so not worth it, no matter how great a guy looks.

I thought I felt an earthquake last night. It was a very short one, but I felt and heard things in my room shake. Come to find out there was a 4.3 earthquake in Santa Rosa at 12:09 am Sunday morning, Saturday night for me. Santa Rosa is about an hour's drive north of San Francisco.

I wonder if other people in the city felt the quake as well.