indiboi.com

I’m still totally drained of energy. Thursday was recovery from Wednesday’s trip to IKEA with Jon. It was also running around with Matthew to get the alcohol situation sorted for his wedding along with some semblance of a bachelor party, though it was mostly just dinner, beer, and cigars. Friday was a lot more running around doing wedding preperations. We had a bitch of a time printing the placecards for the reception, yay for the iMac… bah for Microsoft Word fucking up… it figures, right? The problematic part was the Microsoft supplied software. Anyway, after hours of battling with the evil that is Microsoft software, we got that taken care of and got back home/Scotland and made our way to the country club to get all the decoration sorted. Apart from nearly taking a swing at the preacher guy (argh!) the practice went just fine. The ring bearer boy seemed to be filled with Helium, but thankfully that seemed to leave him by the day of the wedding, lol.

Patrick arrived somewhere near 1AM Saturday morning and instead of sleeping, well… you know how it goes, so another night of maybe four hours of sleep for the week, I think it makes since Tuesday that I’ve been sleep deprived, haha. Anyway, he brought down his computer and I put his new 200GB drive in (whooo! 82 days of continous mp3 action baby).

Starting at 8:45 or so the brothers started pounding on the bedroom door… oi. I didn’t want to get up until 11AM and I was determined to not completely start my day until then… which didn’t work out too well considering the constant interruption. My favourite was when David knocked on the door and asked if we were “decent” — then proceeded into the room without waiting for an answer, lol. Don’t mind the naked boys under the duvet… pfft. That’s what I get for deciding that the best place for all the wine and such was the floor of my lounge… oops.

So, yes, I shrugged on my responsibility of getting Matthew to the wedding, I knew he’d make it fine with whomever took him, lol…

In my worry to make sure I had the marriage licenses and rings I rather forgot to grab my toast/speech, to which I didn’t realize until it was far too late to head back to Chambersburg to get it. *Sigh of horror* I managed to adlib something fairly decent, thankfully, and nobody could tell, from what I gathered, that I was making it all up on the spot… in front of a hundred plus people.

The maid of honor managed to get a …little… trashed, haha, which was pretty hilarious. I had a modicum of fun stealing kisses from Patrick while watching out for people watching us, hahaha… I did get one “WATCH IT!” from the woman… I’m still amazed that after all this time her family hasn’t quite put it together yet… My brother is getting married, my other brother is with his (mult-year) girlfriend and I’m with a guy, who at times was pleasantly attached to me at the hip, lol. Yay for being totally clueless, right?

The wedding was great… and amazingly went perfectly well with only minor glitches that nobody would have noticed if they hadn’t been part of the preparations.

I think I’ll just leave it with that due to my state of utter exhaustion and general full-body pain… heh… very uncomfortable rented shoes plus standing all day equals less than happy body. I had a lot of fun… :-)

Wednesday was Jon & my second ‘little’ trip to IKEA, the primary goal was for him to get his ’sheet set’ [though I think he meant the duvet cover] that would coordinate with the curtain he’d bought on our first trip.

Things never quite go exactly as planned, heh. The night before our first trip I went to bed earlyish like a good boy, and he stayed up until about 5AM prompting him to be quite drowsy and ready for bed by the time we’d left Philly, which meant that I’d be dropping him off on the way back home. This time it seems that both of us stayed up quite a bit too late, so our planned ‘after IKEA activities’ (for which the list kept growing) were postponed so both of us could actually get some sleep. I wasn’t too tired until after I left Jon’s place, the drive home on 81 was a bit… tiresome.

Our first trip, which you may recall, was to obtain the Keith Haring print of the dog, but they didn’t have any and we came to discover that they wouldn’t be getting any more of them either. Apparently between our two trips he’d also been to the Baltimore IKEA and asked about them also. After scanning around for one on display in Baltimore he’d mostly given up, but upon reaching Philly he told me his plan to get one on display if they had one. So we looked, and we looked, and then he sort of stopped in his tracks, with this glow coming across his face. He’d caught a glimpse of one in a mirror… so score! We rather rapidly started to get through the store, which is when I heard two IKEA people say to each other “Where are they going with that?!” rather loudly, heh. I pretended not to hear them, but expected to get stopped at any moment.

We got to the marketplace section and right away this guy stopped and asked us what was going on and promptly took the print from us… turns out he wasn’t actually taking it, but was calling to the recovery/security people so they knew that we were purchasing it… Jon actually got a pretty decent discount on it too, since it was now considered an “as-is” item, sweet.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so happy, though, realistically, I haven’t spent all that much time with him either, it was still a priceless moment. :-) So we purchased the print and then went back in to get the rest of the stuff, mostly my shopping.

Again, Ruby Tuesday, yummy of course. A quick trip to B&N to pick up the 2001 & A Clockwork Orange DVD set, and we were on our way. He started nodding off in the car again and I knew the rest of the night would be spent with him sleeping at home, heh, as we say “maybe next time.”

I had fun, and didn’t get stuck on the ice. :-)

Quickly penciled in, 1AM trip to see Patrick (see, I told you I’d find time this week somewhere, hehe). We skulked about Harrisburg looking at this house he’s interested in, and hmm, it’s quite cool, definitely has the swank historical vibe, I like it.

I knew that something Today, as in tonight, Tuesday, would be a bit difficult when taking weather into account, especially considering that we’re supposed to be getting a wave of snow, then ice starting early morning, and as you can see it’s now just about six. I had faith that weather would behave until I would return home, but just in case it didn’t I went up there prepared, lol. Patrick got to see my scruffy-faced, heh, he apparently likes it even though I find it quite unappealing, though I guess that’s just another little benefit.

Returning just in time, when I started to round the corner of Franklin & Thirty, the snow started to fall. Crossing King it was snowing quite strongly, by the time I reached Hamilton it was a blizzard. Anyone that knows how to get to my house will understand that the distance between those points is less than a mile, heh, meaning it really is an onslaught of winter weather. Here is the current radar image which illustrates my ‘just in time’ sentiment quite well, provided of course that you know where on there I live… roughly sixty miles south of Harrisburg (where Patrick is). I definitely made it back at the right time, and I’m so glad that I went up there so randomly too. ;)

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

“No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.”

“Nothing can bring you happiness but yourself.”

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

Resulting from this moment I had lastnight where I realized for the first time in a while I actually have a set plan of things for a week, I found myself muttering on about it to Patrick and emailing Jon for a schedule matching.

The woman wants me to go with her Tonight (Monday) shopping, basically to find some stuff for the wedding on Saturday, and I assume to help her pick up the alcohol that Matt had requested. For some reason this feels a bit different than an ordinary ‘let’s go to such and such’ …I guess because she specifically asked me to keep Monday night clear, which is itself a little unusual.

Provided I have transporation on Wednesday Jon wants to go to ‘the big’ IKEA again, which will be cool. I’ll be able to pick up some of the stuff that I basically overlooked on the last trip we took. It’s a little ironic considering he’d emailed while at Patrick’s mentioning we can’t be taking any more trips to IKEA this month, lol, for money saving reasons. I definitely need to attempt to cut down on some of the ancillary expenses too, heh, because I really need to finish my lounge and the thing I need to get is, of course, the couch. I did managed to save an absolute ton of money with that last trip to IKEA with Jon, because I was able to find a black slipcover for only $10, versus the normal $50 pricetag. Yay for the as-is section! :-D Anyway, provided that works out as planned I think we’ll be coming back here to work on our art projects, his Haring print and my continuation of the minimal porn stuff. We also have a bit of a Stanley Kubrick night in the works for someday. I do have a bit of a… hmmm… vibe though, which I’m not terribly comfortable with, but I don’t really think that’s the reality either, just a side-effect of past relationships and friendships. I’m really hesitant to even imortalize that feeling in writing, because I have such little confidence in that being true, but it just sort of stuck out at me lastnight. Anyway, I’ll put that as a ‘we’ll see how it goes’ type of thing. I don’t think I care anyway, because it’s just nice to spend time with him, and, talking with him tonight I realized how I sort of miss it.

Thursday evening is ‘pick up the tuxes’ night, along with some semblance of a bachelor party apparently. I’m really not sure exactly what that’s going to be all about (of course I know what a bachelor party is!), but as my brother Matt said, usually the best man is straight, haha.

Of course, then, the wedding is Saturday at the country club. I’ve invited Patrick as my guest… I was hesitant to do so, not for any reason other than I just don’t know how all this is going to work… All of the weddings I’ve been to, well, I’ve not been part of the wedding party, nor have those weddings even really had them, because both weddings I’ve been to were of hippies, lol.

Tiffany had asked me a few weeks ago to make sure that Matt is ‘presentable’ — basically to make sure he’s gayed up in the metrosexual sort of fashion, heh… Mostly it’ll be just making sure that he gets rid of that wretched growth on his face he refers to as his goatee. You know, they’re supposed to be trimmed! You just don’t let that shit keep growing until you can weave a hat out of it! Hah! Since I was the one that lead picking out the tuxes, I’m sure we’ll all be looking quite fabulous anyway. They’re something like five or six button long coats, so they’re stylin’. I have an odd concern over making sure that mine won’t be too damned big, because even the pants I’d bought in the Autumn seem to be overly huge these days, heh.

I think I need to get a bit of a trim on the hair, perhaps another dye, though I’m not really sure.