raybear | It's been a long time -- shouldn't have left you.

On Friday night, MelRo and I had similar dreams -- both involving mice, as in mice as pets. I've never had the same dream on the same night with someone I was sleeping with. Perhaps it's what induced me to finally out myself and propose marriage yesterday afternoon in the kitchen. I was on my knees and everything, though I'm not sure she believed me. I've gotten on my knees once before but it was in an Indiana rest stop over a year ago, purely for comedic purposes. Not that the romantic inclinations weren't there, but I obviously was not interested in renting a tux and a chapel.

In my last relationship we went through a phase of proposing marriage on a quasi-regular basis, mostly in the beginning honeymoon phase, of course -- the exact time when one shouldn't do such impulsive things as the drive-thru chapels in Vegas. We weren't terribly serious about it, though I felt there was always an undercurrent of expressing desire to have our relationship stay the same and in several years perhaps some sort of marriage would occur. We all know where that led.

Nowadays I have fewer romantic ideations. But just because I"m a realist doesn't mean I don't think very seriously about possibilities and futures. I just don't base such decisions on what I'm feeling at the moment. I come up with other complex equations that try to determine the emotional projection for the next 1, 5, 10 years. I've yet to find the perfect equation, obviously. Otherwise I'd be all of the talk show circuit, not sitting at home in bed on a rainy Sunday moment.

I suppose I'm more likely to have tentative notions. I prefer to say "let's see how this thing plays out" and if 1 year or 2 years later things are still going well, I'll re-evaluate. If I were to invest in a marriage license, I would make mine more like a driver's license that need renewal every 4-5 years, and perhaps need re-testing everytime I move to a different state.

Movies:
Friday night we saw Panic Room, which was an okay screenplay, but I LOVED the direction and cinematography, so I'm glad I saw it in the theater. Last night we watched Unbreakable, which I think suffered from the opposite problem. The story had great potential and interesting ideas, but in an effort to develop atmosphere, I got bored with some of the camerawork, especially since the plot development suffered because of it. I have a rule that no movie should ever provide it's ending with text unless it's a made-for-tv movie. I never want the last scene to be "Blankety-blank was later arrested......and blankety-blank went on to have a prosperous life" or whatever else nonsense they couldn't convey with one more day of shooting.

Dreams:
Aside from the mice dream previously mentioned, last night's saga included seeing a back in time performance of Notorious B.I.G. from when he was in high school (obviously not historically accurate), along with a play where I played air cello badly because the real air cello performer was so hungry that she got ill and had to leave the stage. Also, after the performace I was watching someone's newborn calf (which was much bigger than a real calf would be) and the calf was agitated and nearly violent because of it's hunger, so I ended up feed it it's afterbirth until the owner of the calf returned.

I have no idea what the fuck any of that means.

Summer Vacation:
I'm coming to your town. Possibly. I'm planning on flying into DC, taking the train up to NYC and hanging out there some, then returning to DC and hopefully, eventually, getting in a car with two wonderful femmes and driving down to Athens for the Southern Girls Conference (July 18th-July 21st). So, I'll probably fly out East sometime around July 10(ish) and go back to Chicago July 23(ish). I don't actually have a calender in front of me, so it's hard to pick exact dates. But this week I will be posting more concrete idea, and I want to hear from YOU, yes, YOU. I have a couple of college friends in DC and NYC, but I also want the trip to be filled with fabulous livejournal people. So think about whether I could possible sleep in your abode or dine with you or some other fun activity. Don't answer anything yet -- I'll hold you accountable later.

Conclusion:
I think that wraps up my long-ass Sunday morning post. Congratulations for making it this far.