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I was thinking, on the way home yesterday, after Patrick had called, that for the first time that I can remember in a long time I feel actually happy; moreso I believe it to be genuine, versus being resultant of some grand delusion. I feel at ease, that I’ve found a balance, and it feels good, Patrick is a big part of that. Having a friend I can adventure off with on a random weekday is also contributing quite a bit too.

Jon and I decided Wednesday night to just go ahead and take the Festiva to IKEA on Thursday (yesterday), turned out his schedule conflict wasn’t happening and he did have plans for Friday, and given that we both had plans for the weekend, seemed like the best thing to do… I know I both really wanted to go to IKEA and also spend time with him; likewise.

Like a good boy, I went to bed when I should have and woke up at a quarter ’till ten, noticed that Jon had been up until approximately five in the morning (silly boy, I told him to go to bed, lol), got ready and started my journey. Driving the Festiva up, down, and over to where Jon lives wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be, so that reassured me for the rest of the day.

I’d told him that I would call as I was leaving, but I decided to give him more time to sleep, and turns out that was for the best, as he was, from what I gathered, still sleeping when I called being about a half hour away. He’s like me, it seems, once I start a project I just need to keep working on it until I can no longer stay awake, heh.

I received a text message from Patrick as I neared where Jon lives, so I responded to that (letting him know I was going to IKEA mostly) as Jon met me at the car. It was amusing to see that he had a burger with him, as that was pretty much the only thing I’d seen him ever eat, lol… a burger at Denny’s Monday night, and likewise when we went to Hardee’s the next day. He couldn’t finish so he offered it to me, heh… I was kinda ‘errmm… sure, why not?’ hehe.

Cole also phoned while leaving from York, asking me if I was on the way to Ohio and then giving me a twenty questions deal about who I was with, to which I didn’t quite answer, lol. I meant to call him back, but by the time I had the time free it was rather late.

I’d never gone to Philly from the York area, so it was a bit of, hmm, a challenge of sorts, and with the construction and ‘new traffic patterns’ (that incidently seem to have changed between Tuesdays and yesterday) I did screw up twice, heh. I accidently get off of I-83 onto ‘Business 83′ so we had to turn around. Also, somewhere on either 30 or 222 we missed the exit so we had to turn around again, heh, but thankfully from that point on we were fairly well set. Once I was on the turnpike I knew where I needed to go and it was a pretty uneventful trip.

IKEA was quite fun, we kept running back and forth between stuff trying to make decisions about exactly what we wanted to get or not get, trying to find things, etc. I finally bought a duvet cover, they didn’t have the gray ones that I wanted most, but I figured I could always get that one later so I bought this green/blue block pattern one. I also bought a set of three of the spherical paper lamp shades and the corresponding lamp parts, bulbs. Most everything else was more of the random and small nature. We did find, in the as-is, section, a black slipcover for the couch I want to get, which was probably the best thing I bought, because for $10, versus $50, that was a steal! Jon bought a set of these cool little football shaped lamps with the curly cords and a curtain, along with some other misc stuff like I did. Oh, I also bought a cd case, since I had a few loose cds, so he put the cds in there for me, yay!

Upon leaving from IKEA getting food was the top priority and I knew that there were a few places nearby, though as I was driving I realized that I really didn’t know how to get to them. I had Jon call my brother Matt, but he just got voicemail. I put the phone back in my pocket and a moment later it vibrated to indicate I had a voicemail message… it was Matt. Third try was the charm and I got a hold of him to find out how to get to where we wanted to go. We stopped at Ruby Tuesday, I tried his ‘boneless chicken wings’… which were supposed to be mild, ha! We both seemed a little frightened over what the ‘hot’ ones would be like!

Since we hadn’t been able to find the Keith Haring print at IKEA we were thinking about just making it, and trying to figure out when a good time to do that would be. We were thinking of just going back to my place, but given his tiredness and the time we’d get back we later decided we should probably just do that another time.

We’d also stopped at B & N, looked around for a while in the music/dvd section, and I actually for the first time in practically forever bought a cd! Apparently Toad the Wet Sprocket released a sort of ‘best of’ type of cd, with remixes and new versions, and, well, I just had to get it. We also spent a lot of time looking in the art sections… there were rather a few books that I think both of us would want, heh. There was also a two DVD set of 2001 & A Clockwork Orange, two Kubrick classics of course… he’d not seen 2001, and commented on how I liked 2001 and he liked A Clockwork Orange. It just struck me as the apotheosis of how we like different things, but those different things come together as one package.

We stopped at one of the turnpike plazas and had dessert, heh… tcby shivers, of course they were far too big and it was absolutely arctic outside too. I did get to enjoy a Caramel Macchiatto (or however the hell that is spelled).

The trip home was relatively uneventful, Jon was visibly exhausted and even though I suggested he recline the seat, to which he declined, and rest he ended up nodding off anyway. Once we got back there to his place we started to unload the car, but of course as luck would have it another car came in right behind us. We got back in, moved further up that street and parked by the garage, unloaded the car, said our goodbyes, and in theory were to be on our way.

Of course, seemed fate didn’t quite want us to leave that way. As I started to turn around I immediately knew something wasn’t quite right and as I applied the gas I didn’t move — stuck on ice. I tried in vain for a few minutes, but called him and asked him to come back outside to give me a hand. Now, he doesn’t drive, and given that getting a car unstuck from the ice isn’t exactly the safest thing to do, I decided without doubt that I’d be the one to push, because I absolutely knew whomever was pushing would fall. Since he’d ‘fallen like an old man’ the other day, cosmicly it was my turn anyway, lol. I gave him the quickest crash course on how to make the car move as possible, lol… I could tell he was rather nervous about it, but I knew he’d do fine, and that he did. Apart from stalling it once while I was showing him what to do, he did an excellent job, and I did, of course, fall flat on my face, so to speak, heh, which I think only managed to add to his terror. Once I got back up, walked over to the car, laughing, he told me that he was really scared, understandable. I gave him another hug, thanked him for the help, and managed to get out of that icey area without any more difficulty. Really, I was impressed with his handling of the situation, and made sure to tell him once I returned home.

I had a thoroughly enjoyable time and look forward to more adventures with him.

Today was fun.

Well, the woman has nixed the idea of me borrowing the car tomorrow, so going to IKEA with Jon is out of the question… well, unless I take the Festiva, but that’d be quite a bit less than ideal considering Philly is roughly 2 hours away after leaving from where Jon lives; oddly, it’s only a half hour more if one would leave directly from here, though it takes a bit over an hour to get to Jon’s place, heh, I guess it’s all that travel south. She did give me the go ahead to borrow the car on Friday though, so I suppose providing that he’s going to be available, that’s an option… he did mention some concern over an unexpected schedule conflict, so, who knows, it might work out better this way anyhow, of course we might just need to go for next week instead. *Shrug*

So, right, this whole borrowing the car idea actually prompted a worthwhile discussion with the woman regarding me getting a car of my own (finally, again). Since, as I’ve lamented quite frequently, me being able to obtain an unsecured loan is hilariously impossible thanks to my “massive fuckups during youth” of course, she’s agreed to help me out, which is something I’ve been silently hoping for. It wouldn’t be a whole lot, but enough to get a decent vehicle that would facilitate travel to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, etc… or as the case may be more likely, Harrisburg & York areas. I actually mentioned to Patrick that I was considering asking her to allow me to borrow against the ‘family fund’ — aka the money market account, which I did back when I bought the Escher computer. I have that purchase nearly paid off now, so I figure it’s about time to borrow again, right? HA!

I do think I’ll just take the Festiva up to Harrisburg when I see Patrick Saturday, it’ll be a bit less comfortable than the ‘family car’ but it will allow quite a bit more freedom as to timing.

Sam received my Indi Care Package ^tm of which he seems delighted with, seems that the bar of Lavender Castille that I just sort of randomly threw in there is most appreciated, so I’m glad that worked out as well as it did. Zilla would have received his package, but unfortunately his flu has worsened quite severely and thus he managed to find himself in the hospital for afternoon, oy.

For some randomness, I was just sitting here thinking about how so far this year I’ve felt fairly consistently happier, not quite happy, but… rather above flatline. It’s kind of odd how it has worked out though I think, and I mentioned this to Patrick this morning when we were talking; JayPea had me so incredibly pissed off and I guess I just felt that anything at all would be better than trying to deal with him, thus I agreed to meet Patrick, which was completely out of my general character of late. Of course, that particularl statement casts an unintentional negative tone on the idea, it wasn’t that being angry prompted me to meet someone that I’d not have otherwise, but to meet him under circumstances that would bring me far from my typical comfort zone. Regardless, that delightfully positive experience has been nudging me gently into the idea of getting back into the world, and I’ve taken hold of that. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, I feel as though I’m being appreciated for the person I really am, versus just what can be gained from acting friendly toward me.

Oh, and in a bit of domestic energy expenditure, I managed to actually find the bed up here in the office that had be buried underneath an amazingly large pile of junk… Hopefully I’ll have this room cleaned up sometime tomorrow if I can keep up with the energy required.

Monday night Jon and I met, almost precisely one week from when we originally started talking online. We were both bored and decided to the best way to quell that boredom was to spend time with each other, watch a few movies, have a few Heinekens, etc. I kind of had this ‘wow’ feeling most of the time, I’m incredibly drawn to him on what I call the ‘critical levels’ which is a bit unusual, and also very nice. He’s quite stunning, I like him rather a lot, and hopefully I’m not being premature when I say I feel as though we have potential for building friendship on a good foundation. We both seem to have fairly complicated lives at the moment, and it seems best to keep our time together as uncomplicated as we’re able to, so friendship is certainly the call. I have Patrick, and after talking with Jon about our ongoing relationships with others it rather helped me realize that I should solidify things in that regard and, likewise, Jon with his. It might seem a little strange, and I’m not quite sure how it really makes sense, but it does to me. I’m pretty sure that we’re both on the same page with each other, at least intellectually. Thus far we’re planning on going to IKEA tomorrow, so hopefully that works out as far as transporation goes, which can always be problematic. Summary though, I think he’s an amazing guy, beautiful, sweet, and thoughtful, and I definitely look forward to spending time with him whenever that may be. I think we’re looking for the same thing, at least from our discussions, so it should be good, and without conflicts of interest.

Patrick called while I was driving home after dropping Jon off, lastnight. I really look forward to those calls, and, well, I found myself wishing we would have more time than the quick 10 minutes we usually get around 21:00, so I asked him to call me when he finished up with work, which actually was around 3AM this time, since he’s been working 12 hour days this week.

I rather hate that emptiness that seems to accompany sleeping alone after those nights where the bed isn’t so empty, I guess that’s just random commentary, but I can’t overlook mentioning that it was just really nice to break that emptiness…. …with someone that seemed to be able to find every one of my buttons, err, so to speak. I like that sort of platonic intimacy very much, I miss it, it’s goodness to be able to just be loving (affectionate) with someone without there needing to be something complicated backing it up… to hold someone as they sleep, or hold their hand while driving somewhere. To me it’s innocent, but, in a way, more rewarding than those more ‘aggressive’ and carnal activities. I’m a romantic more than anything… and, really, there are very few people that turn that part of me on, make it active; and with that, even more rare when it’s something comfortable for all involved, so I hope that’s really the case here, it certainly seems like it, but sometimes it’s just being humoured.

So, in regards to solidification with Patrick… He and I had a rather lengthy conversation lastnight (technically this morning of course) about it all. Apparently I had been overthinking it a bit, which is typical, but I’m glad we were able to get everything out in the open regarding our relationship. In regards to the technical I don’t think I’m considering myself single anymore, but there won’t yet be any vows of exclusivity as of yet, because, honestly, things are still developing, basically though, I think it comes down to having started something that I’ve come to really enjoy and fully want to continue with it, within the realm of comfort and fully exploring my/our options for happiness. I very much look forward to seeing him Saturday, in a way it isn’t coming soon enough, heh… it’s been rather a while since we’ve seen each other.

That is it, unravelling the complication, hopefully. Lines may and probably will blur, continue to be established, and perhaps also crossed; provided that there is honesty, things should work out pleasantly for all involved, at least when it comes to my part.