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I’ve somehow, which isn’t too surprising, failed to write about the past week as I usually do. The… whatever it was… prompted me to spend Monday through Wednesday with Patrick instead of doing what has become rather the norm for the beginning of the week. I went up there Monday night… kept the two of us awake until daylight as I tend to sometimes do, heh. He decided to take Tuesday off so we spent most of the day in bed… sleeping mostly, lol. Later on then I took him out to dinner at Lonestar and he took me to see “The Chronicles of Riddick” afterward. I spent Tuesday night up there with him too before venturing back home Wednesday afternoon. Really, it was all rather ordinary things that we were doing, but for some reason it was just so much fun… to put it simply I was just very happy I’d spent those days with him.

Wednesday evening was much the same as that previous Thursday… some sort of ridiculous fell upon friends again; to which I basically have called it quits, at least temporarily, because I just can’t take it anymore. It really does bother me, and I want to see and talk with him, but I just can’t right now, either he’ll see where I’m coming from or he won’t, but it hasn’t been long enough for either yet.

Much to my shock though, while I was staring blankly at this computer screen, Matthew showed up rather randomly. He said that, basically, he was halfway to my house because of errands and figured he’d just stop by… it was a very pleasant sort of random surprise, so we went off to Walmart together…. since that was his next little bit of errands for the evening. I was so relieved to see it was him at my door, I was almost scared to answer it given the conversations earlier in the day.

We sort of made plans for Thursday, but his schedule wasn’t really all that good for it, so we ended up rescheduling for Friday. I also realized that Patrick wasn’t working late Thursday so I decided to join him in Harrisburg for Karaoke. I’ve always kind of hated it, but this time it was a lot more fun than normal too. It’s like this trend… I’ve been doing stuff that could possibly be fun, but they hadn’t been as of yet, thankfully they are now. Anyway, I spent Thursday night up there, not too surprisingly.

Thursday before I went up to Harrisburg I had acquired SimCity4, thus I started playing it Friday. Matthew called and we ‘put our plans on layoway’ for Saturday. He wasn’t feeling particularly good, and since I was starting in on my SimCity4 addiction that was fine with me.

Saturday I started the process of trimming all of my herbs and making little bundles of them. I still don’t have the paper bags to put them into so I can hang them up to dry though, d’oh. While I was out there doing that he called and I made my way over to his place. We started watching a movie, but within about twenty minutes or so we decided a trip to the state store was in order. We each bought a bottle of wine, I suggested we get something to eat, and figured chinese food would work well, even if a little odd with wine, heh.

We finished watching “The Myth of Fingerprints” …it didn’t really seem to have any noticible plot, it was interesting though. I’d just finished watching “Shakespeare in Love” but he wanted to see it, so I figured why not see it again? When alone I tend to watch movies in bed and thus tend to fall asleep during them on regular occasion, which I did for that one twice, lol.

His wine choice was substantially better than mine, oops, but it didn’t particularly matter much to me by the point we got to my bottle, hehe.

I confirmed that my cellphone didn’t work at all while at his house, which is a little unsettling, because as soon as I neared the city limits it started beeping again, thankfully it wasn’t anything work related.

I got home and I just felt… I’m not sure how to describe it, but let’s just say reminiscent. I went downstairs and grabbed a cider, drank that, and found myself talking to Davey. Yeah, actually talking to him. I didn’t really have much to say to him, nor did he likewise, but we were able to just kinda see how each other was doing. He appologized to me pretty much immediately, which I didn’t expect, but I guess it was a nice thought anyway. The more I talked to him though the more I drank, heh, which was kind of a bad sign, but it seemed to work.

I was talking to Patrick and Adam at the same time, and in a sense it was kind of weird to be talking to all three of them at once, because they each somewhat represent a particular type of relationship… someone I’d been involved with, someone… and someone I’m currently involved with.

Patrick wasn’t thrilled with the idea of my talking with my exboyfriend, but… it was just something I did, it was random, I’m glad I talked to him, but it doesn’t change anything in regards to how I feel overall.

Talking with Adam… we discussed some things that perhaps should have been discussed rather a long time ago, and given what has been happening in his life lately, I was able to just be a friend to him. I gave him a call then, he asked me why I was still up at five in the morning and my response was basically because he was awake too and I knew he needed someone to talk with. We’re just connected to each other in this really deep and unconventional, spiritual, sort of way… He’s usually the one to say it, but I agree with him. I tend to pop back up whenever something is happening and it turns out those periods of time usually match up with when something is happening in mine. There’s just a sort of comfort that we can give each other that most can’t, I understand him and he, actually, understands me.

After that though, I slept, then spent most of Sunday and Monday playing SimCity4 again, heh. It’s very addicting.

Unfortunately when I woke up Monday I wasn’t feeling very good, I have this coughing and stuffy nosed sneezing thing happening, blech. So, until next time…

I have this habit of living within my own mind sometimes, totally aware of everything happening around me, yet doing nothing about it… because I’m debating the next course of action.

Sometimes I can be sitting there mulling over something rather important, other times it’s something as inane as needing to go pee. I can’t really explain it, but it’s just sort of funny how I’ll debate with myself over something like that.

It used to be, and in some ways still is, a question of regret… not for something like wanting to know where the toilet is, but for other more important things… and I’ll ask myself, if I don’t do it, if I’ll regret it if not having the chance again. That usually motivates me to do it.

Sometimes though, it’s as if I’m no longer myself… It is as though I see myself through my own eyes, doing something, and I haven’t any control over it anymore.

There are instances of this for which I remember quite vividly, of course I feel no real cause to document them. It’s just interesting how sometimes I find myself just doing something, intellect loses control and I’m either blurting out something I’ve longed to say… but have always had some fear of saying it, or likewise where I found myself doing something I’ve been equally afraid to do.

Nothing has occured to really make me think of this, it just kind of came to mind as I sat down here, and, well, that is that as they say.

The thing about this friend of mine is that I really care for him. I don’t think that even if my life were on the line I could explain to you why I care for him so much, I just do. He’s always kind of been like a little brother to me, someone that can take care of himself, but that I can also take care of in small ways… just to make the day better for the two of us. He’s also been like a best friend too, for the most part it never really mattered to me what we’d be doing, as long as we’d be doing it together, because without regard to what we were doing it was always fun anyway. I’d always buy him lunch or dinner if he was here, the money wasn’t important to me, I just wanted to see him happy. I really would go out of my way for him, and I had no problem doing it, because I felt like he wanted to be with me.

I got the feeling sometimes though that he was just seeing me because I’d spend money on him or I’d be able to do things for him, or because I was willing to drive the hours required to spend time with him if he was bored or wanted to do something. I’ve basically always been the kind of person that gains happiness from bringing it to those whom I care for. I tried to not let this feeling of being used overwhelm me and I would chalk that over to just being insecure. I would talk to my boyfriend about it, along with some others whose opinions I find value in, and they’d tell me I was right, for the most part. I found myself defending this friend of mine anytime I mentioned him and I vehemently stated that they just didn’t understand him, they just needed to give him another chance. I wanted the other people I care for to be able to see those little things about him that make him worth all the effort I put into him. Oddly enough I think I was able to convince the one person I wanted to like him the most that he really was worth it… and then things started to change.

You see, I may not open up to people very easily, so they may not be able to learn all that much about me at first, because that’s at least something I can control. What I’ve never been able to control is how someone effects me, I might not be showing them how much I care for them, but my heart is there, it’s involved, and if I spend enough time with someone, they bring me to some level of happiness, whatever it happens to be, something clicks, and I find myself caring for them, usually a lot.

It hurts me very deeply for that sort of love to be misconstrued, for it to be taken as something carnal, for there to be an underlying lack of trust after so much time. It’s especially offensive for this to arise so suddenly after nothing more than a misunderstanding with someone known for a miniscule period of time by comparison.

I don’t lie. I am sometimes guilty of not completely telling the whole story, which in itself is a lie of omission, but the only reason that happens is because of self-defense mechanisms that are so engrained in me that they are virtually impossible to get around… those cases are the only times I’ll lie; if you ask me how I’m doing or if I’m okay, ninety-nine percent of the time I’ll tell you everything is perfectly fine, even if it is anything but.

I tell this friend of mine that I do tell my boyfriend about everything I do. To me that implies that I also tell him about things that he might not want to know about, things that could potentially hurt him, but I’ve always wanted the people in my life to be honest with me, even if it is painful, thus I’ve always done my best to be honest, particularly with someone that I care for, because I want them to be honest with me. I know there are things that he’d rather not have known about, because he didn’t particularly need to know when it really comes down to it, but at the time I thought he did and I’m glad I told him, because, and maybe it’s selfish, but it makes me feel better that I’m not hiding anything. Communication and honesty, which lead directly to trust, are the pillars of a good relationship, are they not?

So this boyfriend of mine, he really is wonderful. I had started to take him for granted, lost sight of just why I wanted to be with him in the first place, and that week we spent apart, broken up, brought all of that back into view in a rather jarring fashion. For all of my intelligence, compassion, and experience, I do behave as though I don’t have a clue sometimes, I need to be smacked in the face with the nose I just cut off myself sometimes. I found this guy, by pure luck really, that makes me feel so comfortable with myself, makes me so comfortable with him, and allows me to be me… He’s someone that doesn’t want anything more from me than for me to be me, he’s treating me how I’ve always tried to treat others, and really, it’s amazing to me, I appreciate it so very much, but I really do have trouble conveying that to him sometimes.

I have this thing about trust… it’s extremely difficult for me to trust someone, they need to basically prove themselves to me over a lengthy period of time. I’m not talking about simple trust, what I’m referring to is quite a bit more major. As nearly impossibly difficult it is for me to open up, I know with him that I can. He trusts me enough to spend time with someone that could very well be threatening, because he knows that no matter how much I may like him, I’m not going to act upon it. My relationship with him is far too important to me to squander it on something so fleeting.

This friend of mine though, he has a boyfriend too. As I’ve been known to do on perhaps too many an occasion, his boyfriend lives rather far away. I know what it’s like, I know how painful it can be, how frustrating it can be, how it just eats you up inside when the only thing in the world you want is to be right there with them and you can’t, you just can’t be there. Just thinking about how I’ve felt when in that situation brings tears to my eyes… I told this friend of mine that if he ever wanted to talk about it, that he could with me, because I’ve been there too. He hasn’t, and that’s fine with me, but I still wanted him to know that he could. Relationships are difficult enough, when you throw a thousand miles between two people it is even more difficult. You want to be there to experience their everyday life, you want to be there to comfort them if they are sad, and you want them to be there with you for those very same reasons. I could not live with myself if, by my actions, I caused it to be even more difficult for them.

My friend and I are having problems. I don’t feel that he understands where I’m coming from when I say the things I do. I get the distinct impression that he’s concerned that I only pretend to care for him because I’m interested in him for something a lot more than the friendship we’ve had. I don’t really have any way of convincing him of my motives, I can only point to the past between us, I’ve not done anything that I would consider out of the boundaries of friendship. Maybe he feels differently, the problem is we’ve not been able to have any sort of true conversation about it. Lately any discussion between us ultimately ends with us fighting with each other. I am angry, but that’s because I’m hurt. When I wrote my entry entitled “The World Isn’t Catholic” I had him in mind, I feel the affection of friendship toward him. We hug each other when we leave each other’s company. Sometimes I give him a kiss on the cheek, not because I want to kiss him on the lips, but because to me it says “You are my dear friend, I care for you.” It is, simply, what it is.

To me affection between friends is essential. Caring for each other, and showing that you care, is a crucial difference between someone that you simply spend time with, an “activity partner,” and someone you consider a friend. I come from a family that routinely shows affection, hugs, kisses on the cheek, this is what I’m used to, we care for each other, we love each other. My friends are like family to me, to not show them the same affection is unthinkable and I cannot fathom why someone wouldn’t want a hug or to be shown they are cared for, particularly when it’s always been a part of the friendship. In a way it hurts too, because why would someone not want affection from me? Especially when they’re completely boyfriend-safe types of affection, and by that I mean, as I’ve said, hugs, kisses on the cheek, or just holding them for a bit. They’re the types of things I’d not hesitate at all to tell my boyfriend I’ve done with someone else, because there is nothing wrong with it. I also don’t hesitate to tell my boyfriend that I’ve had a friend sleep in my bed with me, because what we’re doing is actually sleeping. Maybe it’s a modernist point of view, if you want to call it that, but if neither of us in that bed intend on something more to happen, why should it matter? The only person I have intentions of rubbing up against naked is my boyfriend, he’s who I want.

When it comes down to it, I love them both, but in quite different ways. I love my friend as my friend, I love my boyfriend as my boyfriend, it is easy for me to understand, just perhaps not as easy to explain. There has been difficulty between my boyfriend and me, but we talked about it, we worked it out, we gave ourselves time. Right now I think my friend and I need time, I want for us to be able to talk about our difficulty, I want for us to be able to get this worked out, because I want for us to be able to go back to the friendship that has brought certainly me, and hopefully him, a considerable amount of happiness. I just don’t think we can do it right now, we’re too frustrated, possibly too angry, and I know that I am very hurt; we both need time.

There’s another interesting thing about Friday, in terms of unusual for me. I found myself sort of frozen when presented with multiple choice situations… kind of like “Oh my god… What is he doing? What am I supposed to do?!” lol. I didn’t really think about it after that moment, but it’s very interesting to sort of sit here and replay various bits of the evening, especially after now having a better idea why certain things were said and done. I guess that’s kind of a nice part, in a sense, of having ‘debrief’ time with people after events. That of course would lead me to a rather long tangent about how when we’re subtle the wrong impression is received sometimes… It was particularly interesting when Matthew took me into the bathroom, lol… and no, he didn’t slam me into the wall and start molesting me or anything, it just had the weird effect of starting a conversation that we’d continue while upstairs overlooking everybody. Especially because I was like… “uhmmm…” when he grabbed me and said “let’s go to the bathroom” …I’d generally expect someone, hmmm, like Patrick for example to do that, hehe.

I don’t remember for certain if he said the next words to me while still at the Velvet Rope or later at his friends’ house, but regardless it was a very interesting realization for me. He said something to the effect of “I think you missunderstood me when we were at Luke’s.” I don’t think I wrote in any detail about that night two weeks ago, or how I really felt about it in relationship to what we were about to talk about, but the point here is that there was a moment where things could have gone either way between us that night. I also think that he perhaps learned that saying “I want a friend” yet still expecting the boy on top of him to kiss him isn’t the best of ideas, lol. Pretty much instantly when he said that I stopped and backed way off… sort of like ‘alright, if you’re not interested, that’s fine.’ Yeah, it was a little disappointing though, and confusing.

Keep in mind, this was during that period where Patrick and I were NOT together, and he was out that weekend with someone whom I’d describe to be somewhat an equal with Matthew in regards to how we feel about them. Also, as the night and next day progressed, which is equally important, I found myself coming to the decision that I’d much rather attempt to fix the situation between Patrick and me anyway.

At Kate & Jill’s we were sitting outside on their balcony area when I saw him start going down the stairs. I asked him where he was going, to which he said he was going for a walk. I told him I would join him and I did. I didn’t really know what was going to happen, but I had this overwhelming urge to be with him, I just got that impression that he needed someone to talk with, otherwise I figure he would have asked to be alone.

Kate & Jill have this sort of carriage house behind their home, it has stairs that lead up to the roof, we went up those stairs and stopped on the landing. I found myself, for no apparent reason, gripping the railing quite strongly, but then we started talking.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want a relationship, that he wasn’t interested in me, but when he said that he wanted a friend, he meant that he wanted a friend more than a romantic relationship. Considering at this point Patrick and I had ‘reunited’ for lack of the ability to put it better, the issue really was rather moot. Regardless though, it was something that had weighed on my mind and obviously on his as well. I suppose it is especially important because when we had met, I did meet him with the intentions of having something more, but then I’d moved on to wanting just a friend… which is when I met Patrick, my “I don’t want a relationship” turned blissfully into me wanting one, it just took the right person.

Matthew and I had one of the worst starts to a friendship that I can ever remember having… We’d go months without talking, then we’d talk a lot, make plans, then we’d break them, repeat. We weren’t communicating with each other what we wanted, so he’s thinking I’m still interested in one thing, I’m thinking he’s interested in the other, it just wasn’t meshing up. In the middle of March I emailed him and invited him to the party Patrick was having, made it clear that Patrick was my boyfriend and that I just thought he’d have a good time if he came. He didn’t, but he did call and tell me he was interested in going… then something, as usual, came up, sadly it was his boyfriend basically flaking out on him. We sort of went through the same song and dance a little more, still not seeing each other, but calling randomly and talking occasionally.

Through all of this though, I still liked him. That one evening we’d spent together talking over martinis made an impression, and a good one. I saw something within him that I knew would be worthwhile, I can say that I didn’t give up on him, I wanted to be his friend. We live in the same town, have similar interests, and generally I’d say we get along tremendously well. Why wouldn’t I want someone like that in my life? …even if it was on such sporadic occasions? Friends are difficult to find, especially ones that live so nearby. Most of the people I consider my friends live a day’s driving away, or require airfare to see! It seems almost pointless to mention that both of us have had our share of awful people in our lives, we’ve been disrespected, hurt, and have had our efforts wasted. These experiences wear away at us.

So when he asked me, and at this point I believe we both had tears in our eyes, if I would be his friend, I put my arms around him, held him tightly, and told him most emphatically that I would.

I really appreciated the fact we were able to actually talk about that sort of… I’m not even sure how to describe it, it wasn’t so much a tension, but just something within us that had gone unfinished or otherwise unanswered. We were able to make things right between us, to agree in regards to what exactly our relationship was, and it felt good to discuss it.

Patrick was, at first, a little upset that I didn’t leave from York to spend the night up there with him, but I’m glad that he understood why I felt I needed to stay down there once I explained this to him. Two friends just needed to spend time with each other and truly talk with one another.

As I mentioned, I still wasn’t back from Philly. I’d taken such a circuitous route too. I took the turnpike from Horsham to the Lancaster Exit, took 222 down to Lancaster and then route 30 into York. I was now taking I-83 up to Harrisburg to see Patrick. I wasn’t sure if I should head home and then back up, or if I should just go see Patrick directly… seeing him directly seemed to be the most logical choice. I could tell that he was ever so slightly irked that I never showed up during the night, but I think he understands why, ultimately, I chose to stay… too drunk, still, to drive safely and talking with Matthew proved to be very important.

I got to Patrick’s somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00 in the afternoon, enough time for a little smooching and a ciggie, lol. We decided to go see “The Day After Tomorrow” together, even though it was one of the movies we could see later in the evening at the drive-in. Seems that Patrick didn’t understand that it was a double-feature, in that you pay once and see both, and I just figured we’d not want to sit in a (non-smoking) car through two movies and the visuals in “The Day After Tomorrow” would need to be seen on a proper screen. :) I’m glad we went to see it on our own though, while the movie itself was a bit formulaic… being done by the same guy that did “Independance Day” the plot line was virtually identical. It’s still worth seeing for the visuals and effects though because they are truly spectacular. It’s a very “scenic” film.

I was nearly starving by the time the movie ended though, lol, because I’d said before we even left that I needed to get something to eat first… I’d gone another day not eating for 24 hours… *Sigh* It was just one of those things, I ate with Jon in the afternoon Wednesday, ate in the car the afternoon of Thursday, ate at Wendy’s on the way from Philly to York, lol. I literally couldn’t find time to eat, shame on me!

Pete was apparently at the theatre when we were… because his vehicle was parked sort of near Patrick’s when we walked out. It’s kind of strange… I’m sometimes completely comfortable with Patrick seeing his ex-boyfriend, and other times it really sort of freaks me out, but the problem there is that I just don’t understand really why. It’s also just a little new to me because I haven’t lived in the same city as any ex of mine since highschool… we tend to move away thus negating any possibility of running into each other. It just brought a weird vibe into the car, to me at least, nothing terrible, but it’s just not a situation I can easily relate to. I don’t think it was a conscious decision to get out of thinking about it, but I decided to call Andrew back, since he’d called both of us during the movie. I couldn’t articulate myself at all while on the phone with him, but the fact that he answered the phone talking to me as if we’d been on the phone for a while already didn’t help the situation.

On the way back to Patrick’s he stopped at this Chinese resturant, but it was just somehow jarring, lol, I guess because he just did it, and then said “is this okay?” or something like that, hehe, I didn’t care, I just needed to eat. :) Over lunch, which was more like dinner at that point, we had our debrief, basically. I again dug myself a nice little hole to sit in while explaining all that had happened the night before, the reason I didn’t get up to Harrisburg until the afternoon. I tend to tell him things that perhaps I shouldn’t, which is why I describe it as digging myself a little hole to sit in, heh. Along with the importance of being honest, I think a lot of these things are important enough for him to deserve to know… even if they are a little uncomfortable to both talk about and to hear. Maybe ultimately it isn’t such a good idea, but I still think it is, because I don’t want to keep anything from him. Maybe it’s endearing, lol, he’s getting to know about all the stupid situations I get myself into and all the moments where any concept of proper judgement seem to have evaporated leading me into those situations.

By the time we’d finished our dinner it was getting pretty close to when we’d need to meet Andrew for the other movie. Patrick called him and got this crap about how there was going to be a line at the drive-in and we’d need to meet him at some place near it instead of his house which was only a couple of miles away in the same town because otherwise we’d be too late to beat the line or whatever. I was a little irked about that to the point I was thinking we ought to say ’screw it’ but then Patrick called him back and was delightfully resolute about it, lol, and we met him at his house.

Since I knew where Andrew lived I was to lead the way, both of us taking separate cars because I was gradually moving mine back to Chambersburg. I was going about 75MPH I guess and he sent me a text message indicating “pick it up weenie boy” hahah… so I did, then he passed me and pointed at his watch. I had no concept of what time it was because I had didn’t have my watch on, oops. It didn’t matter anyway because as a nice ironic slap we got to Andrew’s house before Andrew did!

Andrew hasn’t had his new car for all that long, I guess about a month, but he’s already managed to fill it with “stuff” to the point it would have probably taken him a good hour just to clear room for us to sit. We went in the Mini. ;)

“Hey Mister, I like your hat…. and your purse!” Oh, how I love redneck children… enough to want to squish them with my thumb. It started out as a compliment, so we thought, because really, what is so gay about a Kangol hat? …well… I mean, lots of straight guys where them too, lol. In the painfully long period before darkness actually fell and the movie “Dodgeball” actually started, the little redneck children skipped up and down the gravel holding hands saying that they were proud. It was so silly, but still the first incident of anti-gay sentiment I can remember encountering since that night I took Davey to Outback Steakhouse and the redneck boys were all “ewww!” when they saw the two of us kissing. Needless to say, I’ll NEVER go to that drive-in again… I’d resisted going every other time and that’s a really good reason to not.

I kept saying that the drive-in experience would be so much better if we had booze, lol. Before the movie started I gave into a little desire of mine to pop a vicodin, ermmm…. yeah, I really did have a headache though, unfortunately I didn’t start feeling woozy until toward the end of the movie and I still had a headache. I swear, they just don’t make narcotics like they used to, hah.

The movie was funny though, I think, though Patrick did say something to the effect of ‘You mean you were laughing and NOT on something?’ when I mentioned I didn’t really feel the ‘kick’ of the pill I’d taken until toward the end, but since everybody was laughing it had to be funny, right? ;)

Once the movie was over we left, instead of staying for the second one since Patrick and I had seen it earlier that day. We dropped Andrew off, I tried to persuade Patrick to come back to my house, but that wasn’t working… hmmm… I should have positioned his hand in a certain way during the movie, haha! I, not so oddly, wasn’t very comfortable touching Patrick in the middle of redneck land or with Andrew directly behind us in the car.

It was also a little strange following Patrick’s car and the two of us going different directions at the interstate, heh. I guess the drive-in thing was fun, but it would have been much more fun under the influence. Patrick texted me that we should go with Andrew mini-golfing, my response was basically only if I’m provided with heavy drugs beforehand. I meant it too!

You see, most of us like a really good chocolate cake… or Tiramisu even, and while I personally can eat a lot of Tiramisu before feeling ill, more than Patrick, but I can’t eat a lot of mushrooms before I just need to stop; the texture, flavour, overall experience just needs to come to an end quicker than that of having dessert. ;-)